The Red House Mystery
last noise you expect to hear in a country-house; very natural, then,
that for the moment he would hardly realize what it was. He listens—and
hears nothing more. Perhaps it wasn’t a pistol-shot after all. After a
moment or two he goes to the library door again. The profound silence
makes him uneasy now. _Was_ it a pistol-shot? Absurd! Still—no harm in
going into the office on some excuse, just to reassure himself. So he
tries the door—and finds it locked!
What are his emotions now? Alarm, uncertainty. Something is happening.
Incredible though it seems, it must have been a pistol-shot. He is
banging at the door and calling out to Mark, and there is no answer.
Alarm—yes. But alarm for whose safety? Mark’s, obviously. Robert is a
stranger; Mark is an intimate friend. Robert has written a letter that
morning, the letter of a man in a dangerous temper. Robert is the tough
customer; Mark the highly civilized gentleman. If there has been a
quarrel, it is Robert who has shot Mark. He bangs at the door again.
Of course, to Antony, coming suddenly upon this scene, Cayley’s conduct
had seemed rather absurd, but then, just for the moment, Cayley had
lost his head. Anybody else might have done the same. But, as soon as
Antony suggested trying the windows, Cayley saw that that was the
obvious thing to do. So he leads the way to the windows—the longest
way.
Why? To give the murderer time to escape? If he had thought then that
Mark was the murderer, perhaps, yes. But he thinks that Robert is the
murderer. If he is not hiding anything, he _must_ think so. Indeed he
says so, when he sees the body; “I was afraid it was Mark,” he says,
when he finds that it is Robert who is killed. No reason, then, for
wishing to gain time. On the contrary, every instinct would urge him to
get into the room as quickly as possible, and seize the wicked Robert.
Yet he goes the longest way round. Why? And then, why _run?_
“That’s the question,” said Antony to himself, as he filled his pipe,
“and bless me if I know the answer. It may be, of course, that Cayley
is just a coward. He was in no hurry to get close to Robert’s revolver,
and yet wanted me to think that he was bursting with eagerness. That
would explain it, but then that makes Cayley out a coward. Is he? At
any rate he pushed his face up against the window bravely enough. No, I
want a better answer than that.”
He sat there with his unlit pipe in his hand, thinking. There were one
or two other things in the back of his brain, waiting to be taken out
and looked at. For the moment he left them undisturbed. They would come
back to him later when he wanted them.
He laughed suddenly, and lit his pipe.
“I was wanting a new profession,” he thought, “and now I’ve found it.
Antony Gillingham, our own private sleuthhound. I shall begin to-day.”
Whatever Antony Gillingham’s other qualifications for his new
profession, he had at any rate a brain which worked clearly and
quickly. And this clear brain of his had already told him that he was
the only person in the house at that moment who was unhandicapped in
the search for truth. The inspector had arrived in it to find a man
dead and a man missing. It was extremely probable, no doubt, that the
missing man had shot the dead man. But it was more than extremely
probable, it was almost certain that the Inspector would start with the
idea that this extremely probable solution was the one true solution,
and that, in consequence, he would be less disposed to consider without
prejudice any other solution. As regards all the rest of them—Cayley,
the guests, the servants—they also were prejudiced; in favour of Mark
(or possibly, for all he knew, against Mark); in favour of, or against,
each other; they had formed some previous opinion, from what had been
said that morning, of the sort of man Robert was. No one of them could
consider the matter with an unbiased mind.
But Antony could. He knew nothing about Mark; he knew nothing about
Robert. He had seen the dead man before he was told who the dead man
was. He knew that a tragedy had happened before he knew that anybody
was missing. Those first impressions, which are so vitally important,
had been received solely on the merits of the case; they were founded
on the evidence of his senses, not on the evidence of his emotions or
of other people’s senses. He was in a much better position for getting
at the truth than was the Inspector.
It is possible that, in thinking this, Antony was doing Inspector Birch
a slight injustice. Birch was certainly prepared to believe that Mark
had shot his brother. Robert had been shown into the office (witness
Audrey); Mark had gone in to Robert (witness Cayley); Mark and Robert
had been heard talking (witness Elsie); there was a shot (witness
everybody); the room had been entered and Robert’s body had been found
(witness Cayley and Gillingham). And Mark was missing. Obviously, then,
Mark had killed his brother: accidentally, as Cayley believed, or
deliberately, as Elsie’s evidence seemed to suggest. There was no point
in looking for a difficult solution to a problem, when the easy
solution had no flaw in it. But at the same time Birch would have
preferred the difficult solution, simply because there was more credit
attached to it. A “sensational” arrest of somebody in the house would
have given him more pleasure than a commonplace pursuit of Mark Ablett
across country. Mark must be found, guilty or not guilty. But there
were other possibilities. It would have interested Antony to know that,
just at the time when he was feeling rather superior to the prejudiced
inspector, the Inspector himself was letting his mind dwell lovingly
upon the possibilities in connection with Mr. Gillingham. Was it only a
coincidence that Mr. Gillingham had turned up just when he did? And Mr.
Beverley’s curious answers when asked for some account of his friend.
An assistant in a tobacconist’s, a waiter! An odd man, Mr. Gillingham,
evidently. It might be as well to keep an eye on him.
CHAPTER VI.
Outside Or Inside?
The guests had said good-bye to Cayley, according to their different
manner. The Major, gruff and simple: “If you want me, command me.
Anything I can do—Good-bye”; Betty, silently sympathetic, with
everything in her large eyes which she was too much overawed to tell;
Mrs. Calladine, protesting that she did not know _what_ to say, but
apparently finding plenty; and Miss Norris, crowding so much into one
despairing gesture that Cayley’s unvarying “Thank you very much” might
have been taken this time as gratitude for an artistic entertainment.
Bill had seen them into the car, had taken his own farewells (with a
special squeeze of the hand for Betty), and had wandered out to join
Antony on his garden seat.
“Well, this is a rum show,” said Bill as he sat down.
“Very rum, William.”
“And you actually walked right into it?”
“Right into it,” said Antony.
“Then you’re the man I want. There are all sorts of rumours and
mysteries about, and that inspector fellow simply wouldn’t keep to the
point when I wanted to ask him about the murder, or whatever it is, but
kept asking me questions about where I’d met you first, and all sorts
of dull things like that. Now, what really happened?”
Antony told him as concisely as he could all that he had already told
the Inspector, Bill interrupting him here and there with appropriate
“Good Lords” and whistles.
“I say, it’s a bit of a business, isn’t it? Where do _I_ come in,
exactly?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, everybody else is bundled off except me, and I get put through
it by that inspector as if I knew all about it—what’s the idea?”
Antony smiled at him.
“Well, there’s nothing to worry about, you know. Naturally Birch wanted
to see one of you so as to know what you’d all been doing all day. And
Cayley was nice enough to think that you’d be company for me, as I knew
you already. And—well, that’s all.”
“You’re staying here, in the house?” said Bill eagerly. “Good man.
That’s splendid.”
“It reconciles you to the departure of—some of the others?”
Bill blushed.
“Oh, well, I shall see her again next week, anyway,” he murmured.
“I congratulate you. I liked her looks. And that grey dress. A nice
comfortable sort of woman——”
“You fool, that’s her mother.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. But anyhow, Bill, I want you more than she does
just now. So try and put up with me.”
“I say, do you really?” said Bill, rather flattered. He had a great
admiration for Antony, and was very proud to be liked by him.
“Yes. You see, things are going to happen here soon.”
“Inquests and that sort of thing?”
“Well, perhaps something before that. Hallo, here comes Cayley.”
Cayley was walking across the lawn towards them, a big,
heavy-shouldered man, with one of those strong, clean-shaven, ugly
faces which can never quite be called plain. “Bad luck on Cayley,” said
Bill. “I say, ought I to tell him how sorry I am and all that sort of
thing? It seems so dashed inadequate.”
“I shouldn’t bother,” said Antony.
Cayley nodded as he came to them, and stood there for a moment.
“We can make room for you,” said Bill, getting up.
“Oh, don’t bother, thanks. I just came to say,” he went on to Antony,
“that naturally they’ve rather lost their heads in the kitchen, and
dinner won’t be till half-past eight. Do just as you like about
dressing, of course. And what about your luggage?”
“I thought Bill and I would walk over to the inn directly, and see
about it.”
“The car can go and fetch it as soon as it comes back from the
station.”
“It’s very good of you, but I shall have to go over myself, anyhow, to
pack up and pay my bill. Besides, it’s a good evening for a walk. If
you wouldn’t mind it, Bill?”
“I should love it.”
“Well, then, if you leave the bag there, I’ll send the car round for it
later.”
“Thanks very much.”
Having said what he wanted to say, Cayley remained there a little
awkwardly, as if not sure whether to go or to stay. Antony wondered
whether he wanted to talk about the afternoon’s happenings, or whether
it was the one subject he wished to avoid. To break the silence he
asked carelessly if the Inspector had gone.
Cayley nodded. Then he said abruptly, “He’s getting a warrant for
Mark’s arrest.”
Bill made a suitably sympathetic noise, and Antony said with a shrug of
the shoulders, “Well, he was bound to do that, wasn’t he? It doesn’t
follow that—well, it doesn’t mean anything. They naturally want to get
hold of your cousin, innocent or guilty.”
“Which do you think he is, Mr. Gillingham?” said Cayley, looking at him
steadily.
“Mark? It’s absurd,” said Bill impetuously.
“Bill’s loyal, you see, Mr. Cayley.”
“And you owe no loyalty to anyone concerned?”
“Exactly. So perhaps I might be too frank.”
Bill had dropped down on the grass, and Cayley took his place on the
seat, and sat there heavily, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his
hands, gazing at the ground.
“I want you to be quite frank,” he said at last. “Naturally I am
prejudiced where Mark is concerned. So I want to know how my suggestion
strikes you—who have no prejudices either way.”
“Your suggestion?”
“My theory that, if Mark killed his brother, it was purely
accidental—as I told the Inspector.”
Bill looked up with interest.
“You mean that Robert did the hold-up business,” he said, “and there
was a bit of a struggle, and the revolver went off, and then Mark lost
his head and bolted? That sort of idea?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, that seems all right.” He turned to Antony. “There’s nothing
wrong with that, is there? It’s the most natural explanation to anyone
who knows Mark.”
Antony pulled at his pipe.
“I suppose it is,” he said slowly. “But there’s one thing that worries
me rather.”