The Red House Mystery (6 page)

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
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.

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.