The Red House Mystery
“Then I should say that Robert came here meaning trouble, and bringing
a revolver with him. He produced it almost at once, Mark tried to get
it from him, there was a little struggle perhaps, and it went off. Mark
lost his head, finding himself there with a revolver in his hand and a
dead man at his feet. His one idea was to escape. He locked the door
almost instinctively, and then, when he heard me hammering at it, went
out of the window.”
“Y-yes. Well, that sounds reasonable enough. What do you say, Mr.
Gillingham?”
“I should hardly call it ‘reasonable’ to lose your head,” said Antony,
getting up from his chair and coming towards them.
“Well, you know what I mean. It explains things.”
“Oh, yes. Any other explanation would make them much more complicated.”
“_Have_ you any other explanation?”
“Not I.”
“Are there any points on which you would like to correct Mr.
Cayley?—anything that he left out after you arrived here?”
“No, thanks. He described it all very accurately.”
“Ah! Well now, about yourself. You’re not staying in the house, I
gather?”
Antony explained his previous movements.
“Yes. Did you hear the shot?”
Antony put his head on one side, as if listening. “Yes. Just as I came
in sight of the house. It didn’t make any impression at the time, but I
remember it now.”
“Where were you then?”
“Coming up the drive. I was just in sight of the house.”
“Nobody left the house by the front door after the shot?”
Antony closed his eyes and considered.
“Nobody,” he said. “No.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Absolutely,” said Antony, as though rather surprised that he could be
suspected of a mistake.
“Thank you. You’re at ‘The George,’ if I want you?”
“Mr. Gillingham is staying here until after the inquest,” explained
Cayley.
“Good. Well now, about these servants?”
CHAPTER V.
Mr. Gillingham Chooses a New Profession
As Cayley went over to the bell, Antony got up and moved to the door.
“Well, you won’t want me, I suppose, inspector,” he said.
“No, thank you, Mr. Gillingham. You’ll be about, of course?”
“Oh, yes.”
The inspector hesitated.
“I think, Mr. Cayley, it would be better if I saw the servants alone.
You know what they are; the more people about, the more they get
alarmed. I expect I can get at the truth better by myself.”
“Oh, quite so. In fact, I was going to ask you to excuse me. I feel
rather responsible towards these guests of ours. Although Mr.
Gillingham very kindly—” He smiled at Antony, who was waiting at the
door, and left his sentence unfinished.
“Ah, that reminds me,” said the Inspector. “Didn’t you say that one of
your guests—Mr. Beverley was it?—a friend of Mr. Gillingham’s, was
staying on?”
“Yes; would you like to see him?”
“Afterwards, if I may.”
“I’ll warn him. I shall be up in my room, if you want me. I have a room
upstairs where I work—any of the servants will show you. Ah, Stevens,
Inspector Birch would like to ask you a few questions.”
“Yes, sir,” said Audrey primly, but inwardly fluttering.
The housekeeper’s room had heard something of the news by this time,
and Audrey had had a busy time explaining to other members of the staff
exactly what _he_ had said, and what _she_ had said. The details were
not quite established yet, but this much at least was certain: that Mr.
Mark’s brother had shot himself and spirited Mr. Mark away, and that
Audrey had seen at once that he was that sort of man when she opened
the door to him. She had passed the remark to Mrs. Stevens. And Mrs.
Stevens—if you remember, Audrey—had always said that people didn’t go
away to Australia except for very good reasons. Elsie agreed with both
of them, but she had a contribution of her own to make. She had
actually heard Mr. Mark in the office, threatening his brother.
“You mean Mr. Robert,” said the second parlour-maid. She had been
having a little nap in her room, but she had heard the bang. In fact,
it had woken her up—just like something going off, it was.
“It was Mr. Mark’s voice,” said Elsie firmly.
“Pleading for mercy,” said an eager-eyed kitchen-maid hopefully from
the door, and was hurried out again by the others, wishing that she had
not given her presence away. But it was hard to listen in silence when
she knew so well from her novelettes just what happened on these
occasions.
“I shall have to give that girl a piece of my mind,” said Mrs. Stevens.
“Well, Elsie?”
“He said, I heard him say it with my own ears, ‘It’s my turn now,’ he
said, triumphant-like.”
“Well, if you think that’s a threat, dear, you’re very particular, I
must say.”
But Audrey remembered Elsie’s words when she was in front of Inspector
Birch. She gave her own evidence with the readiness of one who had
already repeated it several times, and was examined and cross-examined
by the Inspector with considerable skill. The temptation to say, “Never
mind about what _you_ said to _him_,” was strong, but he resisted it,
knowing that in this way he would discover best what _he_ said to
_her_. By this time both his words and the looks he gave her were
getting their full value from Audrey, but the general meaning of them
seemed to be well-established.
“Then you didn’t see Mr. Mark at all.”
“No, sir; he must have come in before and gone up to his room. Or come
in by the front door, likely enough, while I was going out by the
back.”
“Yes. Well, I think that’s all that I want to know, thank you very
much. Now what about the other servants?”
“Elsie heard the master and Mr. Robert talking together,” said Audrey
eagerly. “He was saying—Mr. Mark, I mean—”
“Ah! Well, I think Elsie had better tell me that herself. Who is Elsie,
by the way?”
“One of the housemaids. Shall I send her to you, sir?”
“Please.”
Elsie was not sorry to get the message. It interrupted a few remarks
from Mrs. Stevens about Elsie’s conduct that afternoon which were
(Elsie thought) much better interrupted. In Mrs. Stevens’ opinion any
crime committed that afternoon in the office was as nothing to the
double crime committed by the unhappy Elsie.
For Elsie realized too late that she would have done better to have
said nothing about her presence in the hall that afternoon. She was bad
at concealing the truth and Mrs. Stevens was good at discovering it.
Elsie knew perfectly well that she had no business to come down the
front stairs, and it was no excuse to say that she happened to come out
of Miss Norris’ room just at the head of the stairs, and didn’t think
it would matter, as there was nobody in the hall, and what was she
doing anyhow in Miss Norris’ room at that time? Returning a magazine?
Lent by Miss Norris, might she ask? Well, not exactly lent. Really,
Elsie!—and this in a respectable house! In vain for poor Elsie to plead
that a story by her favourite author was advertised on the cover, with
a picture of the villain falling over the cliff. “That’s where _you’ll_
go to, my girl, if you aren’t careful,” said Mrs. Stevens firmly.
But, of course, there was no need to confess all these crimes to
Inspector Birch. All that interested him was that she was passing
through the hall, and heard voices in the office.
“And stopped to listen?”
“Certainly not,” said Elsie with dignity, feeling that nobody really
understood her. “I was just passing through the hall, just as you might
have been yourself, and not supposing they was talking secrets, didn’t
think to stop my ears, as no doubt I ought to have done.” And she
sniffed slightly.
“Come, come,” said the Inspector soothingly, “I didn’t mean to
suggest—”
“Everyone is very unkind to me,” said Elsie between sniffs, “and
there’s that poor man lying dead there, and sorry they’d have been, if
it had been me, to have spoken to me as they have done this day.”
“Nonsense, we’re going to be very proud of you. I shouldn’t be
surprised if your evidence were of very great importance. Now then,
what was it you heard? Try to remember the exact words.”
Something about working in a passage, thought Elsie.
“Yes, but who said it?”
“Mr. Robert.”
“How do you know it was Mr. Robert? Had you heard his voice before?”
“I don’t take it upon myself to say that I had had any acquaintance
with Mr. Robert, but seeing that it wasn’t Mr. Mark, nor yet Mr.
Cayley, nor any other of the gentlemen, and Miss Stevens had shown Mr.
Robert into the office not five minutes before—”
“Quite so,” said the Inspector hurriedly. “Mr. Robert, undoubtedly.
Working in a passage?”
“That was what it sounded like, sir.”
“H’m. Working a passage over—could that have been it?”
“That’s right, sir,” said Elsie eagerly. “He’d worked his passage
over.”
“Well?”
“And then Mr. Mark said loudly—sort of triumphant-like—‘It’s _my_ turn
now. You wait.’”
“Triumphantly?”
“As much as to say his chance had come.”
“And that’s all you heard?”
“That’s all, sir—not standing there listening, but just passing through
the hall, as it might be any time.”
“Yes. Well, that’s really very important, Elsie. Thank you.”
Elsie gave him a smile, and returned eagerly to the kitchen. She was
ready for Mrs. Stevens or anybody now.
Meanwhile Antony had been exploring a little on his own. There was a
point which was puzzling him. He went through the hall to the front of
the house and stood at the open door, looking out on to the drive. He
and Cayley had run round the house to the left. Surely it would have
been quicker to have run round to the right? The front door was not in
the middle of the house, it was to the end. Undoubtedly they went the
longest way round. But perhaps there was something in the way, if one
went to the right—a wall, say. He strolled off in that direction,
followed a path round the house and came in sight of the office
windows. Quite simple, and about half the distance of the other way. He
went on a little farther, and came to a door, just beyond the broken-in
windows. It opened easily, and he found himself in a passage. At the
end of the passage was another door. He opened it and found himself in
the hall again.
“And, of course, that’s the quickest way of the three,” he said to
himself. “Through the hall, and out at the back; turn to the left and
there you are. Instead of which, we ran the longest way round the
house. Why? Was it to give Mark more time in which to escape? Only, in
that case—why _run?_ Also, how did Cayley know then that it was Mark
who was trying to escape? If he had guessed—well, not guessed, but been
afraid—that one had shot the other, it was much more likely that Robert
had shot Mark. Indeed, he had admitted that this was what he thought.
The first thing he had said when he turned the body over was, ‘Thank
God! I was afraid it was Mark.’ But why should he want to give _Robert_
time in which to get away? And again—why _run,_ if he did want to give
him time?”
Antony went out of the house again to the lawns at the back, and sat
down on a bench in view of the office windows.
“Now then,” he said, “let’s go through Cayley’s mind carefully, and see
what we get.”
Cayley had been in the hall when Robert was shown into the office. The
servant goes off to look for Mark, and Cayley goes on with his book.
Mark comes down the stairs, warns Cayley to stand by in case he is
wanted, and goes to meet his brother. What does Cayley expect? Possibly
that he won’t be wanted at all; possibly that his advice may be wanted
in the matter, say, of paying Robert’s debts, or getting him a passage
back to Australia; possibly that his physical assistance may be wanted
to get an obstreperous Robert out of the house. Well, he sits there for
a moment, and then goes into the library. Why not? He is still within
reach, if wanted. Suddenly he hears a pistol-shot. A pistol-shot is the