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The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne
TO
JOHN VINE MILNE
MY DEAR FATHER,
Like all really nice people, you have a weakness for detective stories, and feel that there are not enough of them. So, after all that you have done for me, the least that I can do for you is to write you one. Here it is: with more gratitude and affection than I can well put down here.
A.A.M.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. MRS. STEVENS IS FRIGHTENED
II. MR. GILLINGHAM GETS OUT AT THE WRONG STATION
III. TWO MEN AND A BODY
IV. THE BROTHER FROM AUSTRALIA
V. MR. GILLINGHAM CHOOSES A NEW PROFESSION
VI. OUTSIDE OR INSIDE?
VII. PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN
VIII. "DO YOU FOLLOW ME, WATSON?"
IX. POSSIBILITIES OF A CROQUET SET
X. MR. GILLINGHAM TALKS NONSENSE
XI. THE REVEREND THEODORE USSHER
XII. A SHADOW ON THE WALL
XIII. THE OPEN WINDOW
XIV. MR. BEVERLEY QUALIFIES FOR THE STAGE
XV. MRS. NORBURY CONFIDES IN DEAR MR. GILLINGHAM
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XVI. GETTING READY FOR THE NIGHT
XVII. MR. BEVERLEY TAKES THE WATER
XVIII. GUESS-WORK
XIX. THE INQUEST
XX. MR. BEVERLEY IS TACTFUL
XXI. CAYLEY'S APOLOGY
XXII. MR. BEVERLEY MOVES ON
CHAPTER I
Mrs. Stevens is Frightened
In the drowsy heat of the summer afternoon the Red House was taking its siesta. There was a lazy murmur of bees in the flower-borders, a gentle cooing of pigeons in the tops of the elms. From distant lawns came the whir of a mowing-machine, that most restful of all country sounds; making ease the sweeter in that it is taken while others are working.
It was the hour when even those whose business it is to attend to the wants of others have a moment or two for themselves. In the housekeeper's room Audrey Stevens, the pretty parlour- maid, re-trimmed her best hat, and talked idly to her aunt, the cook-housekeeper of Mr. Mark Ablett's bachelor home.
"For Joe?" said Mrs. Stevens placidly, her eye on the hat. Audrey nodded. She took a pin from her mouth, found a place in the hat for it, and said, "He likes a bit of pink."
"I don't say I mind a bit of pink myself," said her aunt. "Joe Turner isn't the only one."
"It isn't everybody's colour," said Audrey, holding the hat out at arm's length, and regarding it thoughtfully. "Stylish, isn't it?"
"Oh, it'll suit you all right, and it would have suited me at your age. A bit too dressy for me now, though wearing better than some other people, I daresay. I was never the one to pretend to be what I wasn't. If I'm fifty-five, I'm fifty-five --that's what I say."
"Fifty-eight, isn't it, auntie?"
"I was just giving that as an example," said Mrs. Stevens with great dignity.
Audrey threaded a needle, held her hand out and looked at her nails critically for a moment, and then began to sew.
"Funny thing that about Mr. Mark's brother. Fancy not seeing your brother for fifteen years." She gave a self-conscious laugh and went on, "Wonder what I should do if I didn't see Joe for fifteen
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"Now, now, get on, Audrey."
"Just going, darling." She went out.
To anyone who had just walked down the drive in the August sun, the open door of the Red House revealed a delightfully inviting hall, of which even the mere sight was cooling. It was a big low-roofed, oak-beamed place, with cream-washed walls and diamond-paned windows, blue- curtained. On the right and left were doors leading into other living-rooms, but on the side which faced you as you came in were windows again, looking on to a small grass court, and from open windows to open windows such air as there was played gently. The staircase went up in broad, low steps along the right-hand wall, and, turning to the left, led you along a gallery, which ran across the width of the hail, to your bedroom. That is, if you were going to stay the night. Mr. Robert Ablett's intentions in this matter were as yet unknown.
As Audrey came across the hall she gave a little start as she saw Mr. Cayley suddenly, sitting unobtrusively in a seat beneath one of the front windows, reading. No reason why he shouldn't be there; certainly a much cooler place than the golf-links on such a day; but somehow there was a deserted air about the house that afternoon, as if all the guests were outside, or--perhaps the wisest place of all--up in their bedrooms, sleeping. Mr. Cayley, the master's cousin, was a surprise; and, having given a little exclamation as she came suddenly upon him, she blushed, and said, "Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, I didn't see you at first," and he looked up from his book and smiled at her. An attractive smile it was on that big ugly face. "Such a gentleman, Mr. Cayley," she thought to herself as she went on, and wondered what the master would do without him. If this brother, for instance, had to be bundled back to Australia, it was Mr. Cayley who would do most of the bundling.
"So this is Mr. Robert," said Audrey to herself, as she came in sight of the visitor.
She told her aunt afterwards that she would have known him anywhere for Mr. Mark's brother, but she would have said that in any event. Actually she was surprised. Dapper little Mark, with his neat pointed beard and his carefully curled moustache; with his quick-darting eyes, always moving from one to the other of any company he was in, to register one more smile to his credit when he had said a good thing, one more expectant look when he was only waiting his turn to say it; he was a very different man from this rough-looking, ill-dressed colonial, staring at her so loweringly.
"I want to see Mr. Mark Ablett," he growled. It sounded almost like a threat.
Audrey recovered herself and smiled reassuringly at him. She had a smile for everybody.
"Yes, sir. He is expecting you, if you will come this way."
"Oh! So you know who I am, eh?"
"Mr. Robert Ablett?"
"Ay, that's right. So he's expecting me, eh? He'll be glad to see me, eh?"
"If you will come this way, sir," said Audrey primly.
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She went to the second door on the left, and opened it.
"Mr. Robert Ab--she began, and then broke off. The room was empty. She turned to the man behind her. "If you will sit down, sir, I will find the master. I know he's in, because he told me that you were coming this afternoon."
"Oh!" He looked round the room. "What d'you call this place, eh?"
"The office, sir."
"The office?"
"The room where the master works, sir."
"Works, eh? That's new. Didn't know he'd ever done a stroke of work in his life."
"Where he writes, sir," said Audrey, with dignity. The fact that Mr. Mark "wrote," though nobody knew what, was a matter of pride in the housekeeper's room.
"Not well-dressed enough for the drawing-room, eh?"
"I will tell the master you are here, sir," said Audrey decisively.
She closed the door and left him there.
Well! Here was something to tell auntie! Her mind was busy at once, going over all the things which he had said to her and she had said to him--quiet-like. "Directly I saw him I said to myself--" Why, you could have knocked her over with a feather. Feathers, indeed, were a perpetual menace to Audrey.
However, the immediate business was to find the master. She walked across the hall to the library, glanced in, came back a little uncertainly, and stood in front of Cayley.
"If you please, sir," she said in a low, respectful voice, "can you tell me where the master is? It's Mr. Robert called."
"What?" said Cayley, looking up from his book. "Who?"
Audrey repeated her question.
"I don't know. Isn't he in the office? He went up to the Temple after lunch. I don't think I've seen him since."
"Thank you, sir. I will go up to the Temple."
Cayley returned to his book.
The "Temple" was a brick summer-house, in the gardens at the back of the house, about three hundred yards away. Here Mark meditated sometimes before retiring to the "office" to put his
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"Who?" said Elsie excitedly.
"That brother of his. From Australia. I said as soon as I set eyes on him, 'You're a bad lot, my man!' That's what I said, Elsie. Even before he spoke to me. Rude!" She turned to her aunt. "Well, I give you my word."
"If you remember, Audrey, I always said there was no saying with anyone from Australia." Mrs. Stevens lay back in her chair, breathing rather rapidly. "I wouldn't go out of this room now, not if you paid me a hundred thousand pounds."
"Oh, Mrs. Stevens!" said Elsie, who badly wanted five shillings for a new pair of shoes, "I wouldn't go as far as that, not myself, but--"
"There!" cried Mrs. Stevens, sitting up with a start. They listened anxiously, the two girls instinctively coming closer to the older woman's chair.
A door was being shaken, kicked, rattled.
"Listen!"
Audrey and Elsie looked at each other with frightened eyes.
They heard a man's voice, loud, angry.
"Open the door!" it was shouting. "Open the door! I say, open the door!"
"Don't open the door!" cried Mrs. Stevens in a panic, as if it was her door which was threatened. "Audrey! Elsie! Don't let him in!"
"Damn it, open the door!" came the voice again.
"We're all going to be murdered in our beds," she quavered. Terrified, the two girls huddled closer, and with an arm round each, Mrs. Stevens sat there, waiting.
CHAPTER II
Mr. Gillingham Gets Out at the Wrong Station
Whether Mark Ablett was a bore or not depended on the point of view, but it may be said at once that he never bored his company on the subject of his early life. However, stories get about. There is always somebody who knows. It was understood--and this, anyhow, on Mark's own authority--that his father had been a country clergyman. It was said that, as a boy, Mark had attracted the notice, and patronage, of some rich old spinster of the neighbourhood, who had paid for his education, both at school and university. At about the time when he was coming down from Cambridge, his father had died; leaving behind him a few debts, as a warning to his family, and a reputation for short sermons, as an example to his successor. Neither warning nor example seems to have been effective. Mark went to London, with an allowance from his patron, and (it is generally agreed) made acquaintance with the money-lenders. He was supposed, by his patron and any others who inquired, to be "writing"; but what he wrote, other
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than letters asking for more time to pay, has never been discovered. However, he attended the theatres and music halls very regularly--no doubt with a view to some serious articles in the "Spectator" on the decadence of the English stage.
Fortunately (from Mark's point of view) his patron died during his third year in London, and left him all the money he wanted. From that moment his life loses its legendary character, and becomes more a matter of history. He settled accounts with the money-lenders, abandoned his crop of wild oats to the harvesting of others, and became in his turn a patron. He patronized the Arts. It was not only usurers who discovered that Mark Ablett no longer wrote for money; editors were now offered free contributions as well as free lunches; publishers were given agreements for an occasional slender volume, in which the author paid all expenses and waived all royalties; promising young painters and poets dined with him; and he even took a theatrical company on tour, playing host and "lead" with equal lavishness.
He was not what most people call a snob. A snob has been defined carelessly as a man who loves a lord; and, more carefully, as a mean lover of mean things--which would be a little unkind to the peerage if the first definition were true. Mark had his vanities undoubtedly, but he would sooner have met an actor-manager than an earl; he would have spoken of his friendship with Dante--had that been possible--more glibly than of his friendship with the Duke. Call him a snob if you like, but not the worst kind of snob; a hanger-on, but to the skirts of Art, not Society; a climber, but in the neighbourhood of Parnassus, not Hay Hill.
His patronage did not stop at the Arts. It also included Matthew Cayley, a small cousin of thirteen, whose circumstances were as limited as had been Mark's own before his patron had rescued him. He sent the Cayley cousin to school and Cambridge. His motives, no doubt, were unworldly enough at first; a mere repaying to his account in the Recording Angel's book of the generosity which had been lavished on himself; a laying-up of treasure in heaven. But it is probable that, as the boy grew up, Mark's designs for his future were based on his own interests as much as those of his cousin, and that a suitably educated Matthew Cayley of twenty-three was felt by him to be a useful property for a man in his position; a man, that is to say, whose vanities left him so little time for his affairs.
Cayley, then, at twenty-three, looked after his cousin's affairs. By this time Mark had bought The Red House and the considerable amount of land which went with it. Cayley superintended the necessary staff. His duties, indeed, were many. He was not quite secretary, not quite land- agent, not quite business-adviser, not quite companion, but something of all four. Mark leant upon him and called him "Cay," objecting quite rightly in the circumstances to the name of Matthew. Cay, he felt was, above all, dependable; a big, heavy-jawed, solid fellow, who didn't bother you with unnecessary talk--a boon to a man who liked to do most of the talking himself.
Cayley was now twenty-eight, but had all the appearance of forty, which was his patron's age. Spasmodically they entertained a good deal at The Red House, and Mark's preference--call it kindliness or vanity, as you please--was for guests who were not in a position to repay his hospitality. Let us have a look at them as they came down to that breakfast, of which Stevens, the parlour-maid, has already given us a glimpse.
The first to appear was Major Rumbold, a tall, grey-haired, grey-moustached, silent man, wearing a Norfolk coat and grey flannel trousers, who lived on his retired pay and wrote natural history articles for the papers. He inspected the dishes on the side-table, decided carefully on
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"Good God!" said Mark suddenly.
There was an instinctive turning of heads towards him. "I beg your pardon, Miss Norris. Sorry, Betty."
Miss Norris smiled her forgiveness. She often wanted to say it herself, particularly at rehearsals.
"I say, Cay!" He was frowning to himself--annoyed, puzzled. He held up a letter and shook it. "Who do you think this is from?"
Cayley, at the other end of the table, shrugged his shoulders. How could he possibly guess?
"Robert," said Mark.
"Robert?" It was difficult to surprise Cayley. "Well?"
"It's all very well to say 'well?' like that," said Mark peevishly. "He's coming here this afternoon."
"I thought he was in Australia, or somewhere."
"Of course. So did I." He looked across at Rumbold. "Got any brothers, Major?"
"No."
"Well, take my advice, and don't have any."
"Not likely to now," said the Major.
Bill laughed. Miss Norris said politely: "But you haven't any brothers, Mr. Ablett?"
"One," said Mark grimly. "If you're back in time you'll see him this afternoon. He'll probably ask you to lend him five pounds. Don't."
Everybody felt a little uncomfortable.
"I've got a brother," said Bill helpfully, "but I always borrow from him."
"Like Robert," said Mark.
"When was he in England last?" asked Cayley.
"About fifteen years ago, wasn't it? You'd have been a boy, of course."
"Yes, I remember seeing him once about then, but I didn't know if he had been back since."
"No. Not to my knowledge." Mark, still obviously upset, returned to his letter.
"Personally," said Bill, "I think relations are a great mistake."
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"All the same," said Betty a little daringly, "it must be rather fun having a skeleton in the cupboard."
Mark looked up, frowning.
"If you think it's fun, I'll hand him over to you, Betty. If he's anything like he used to be, and like his few letters have been--well, Cay knows."
Cayley grunted.
"All I knew was that one didn't ask questions about him."
It may have been meant as a hint to any too curious guest not to ask more questions, or a reminder to his host not to talk too freely in front of strangers, although he gave it the sound of a mere statement of fact. But the subject dropped, to be succeeded by the more fascinating one of the coming foursome. Mrs. Calladine was driving over with the players in order to lunch with an old friend who lived near the links, and Mark and Cayley were remaining at home--on affairs. Apparently "affairs" were now to include a prodigal brother. But that need not make the foursome less enjoyable.
At about the time when the Major (for whatever reasons) was fluffing his tee-shot at the sixteenth, and Mark and his cousin were at their business at The Red House, an attractive gentleman of the name of Antony Gillingham was handing up his ticket at Woodham station and asking the way to the village. Having received directions, he left his bag with the station-master and walked off leisurely. He is an important person to this story, so that it is as well we should know something about him before letting him loose in it. Let us stop him at the top of the hill on some excuse, and have a good look at him.
The first thing we realize is that he is doing more of the looking than we are. Above a clean-cut, clean-shaven face, of the type usually associated with the Navy, he carries a pair of grey eyes which seem to be absorbing every detail of our person. To strangers this look is almost alarming at first, until they discover that his mind is very often elsewhere; that he has, so to speak, left his eyes on guard, while he himself follows a train of thought in another direction. Many people do this, of course; when, for instance, they are talking to one person and trying to listen to another; but their eyes betray them. Antony's never did.
He had seen a good deal of the world with those eyes, though never as a sailor. When at the age of twenty-one he came into his mother's money, 400 pounds a year, old Gillingham looked up from the "Stockbreeders' Gazette" to ask what he was going to do.
"See the world," said Antony.
"Well, send me a line from America, or wherever you get to."
"Right," said Antony.
Old Gillingham returned to his paper. Antony was a younger son, and, on the whole, not so interesting to his father as the cadets of certain other families; Champion Birket's, for instance. But, then, Champion Birket was the best Hereford bull he had ever bred.
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signed "Bill."
"Good old Bill," he murmured to himself. "He's getting on."
Antony had met Bill Beverley two years before in a tobacconist's shop. Gillingham was on one side of the counter and Mr. Beverley on the other. Something about Bill, his youth and freshness, perhaps, attracted Antony; and when cigarettes had been ordered, and an address given to which they were to be sent, he remembered that he had come across an aunt of Beverley's once at a country-house. Beverley and he met again a little later at a restaurant. Both of them were in evening-dress, but they did different things with their napkins, and Antony was the more polite of the two. However, he still liked Bill. So on one of his holidays, when he was unemployed, he arranged an introduction through a mutual friend. Beverley was a little inclined to be shocked when he was reminded of their previous meetings, but his uncomfortable feeling soon wore off, and he and Antony quickly became intimate. But Bill generally addressed him as "Dear Madman" when he happened to write.
Antony decided to stroll over to The Red House after lunch and call upon his friend. Having inspected his bedroom which was not quite the lavender-smelling country-inn bedroom of fiction, but sufficiently clean and comfortable, he set out over the fields.
As he came down the drive and approached the old red-brick front of the house, there was a lazy murmur of bees in the flower-borders, a gentle cooing of pigeons in the tops of the elms, and from distant lawns the whir of a mowing-machine, that most restful of all country sounds ....
And in the hall a man was banging at a locked door, and shouting, "Open the door, I say; open the door!"
"Hallo!" said Antony in amazement.
CHAPTER III
Two Men and a Body
Cayley looked round suddenly at the voice.
"Can I help?" said Antony politely.
"Something's happened," said Cayley. He was breathing quickly. "I heard a shot--it sounded like a shot--I was in the library. A loud bang--I didn't know what it was. And the door's locked." He rattled the handle again, and shook it. "Open the door!" he cried. "I say, Mark, what is it? Open the door!"
"But he must have locked the door on purpose," said Antony. "So why should he open it just because you ask him to?"
Cayley looked at him in a bewildered way. Then he turned to the door again. "We must break it in," he said, putting his shoulder to it. "Help me."
"Isn't there a window?"
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Cayley turned to him stupidly.
"Window? Window?"
"So much easier to break in a window," said Antony with a smile. He looked very cool and collected, as he stood just inside the hall, leaning on his stick, and thinking, no doubt, that a great deal of fuss was being made about nothing. But then, he had not heard the shot.
"Window--of course! What an idiot I am."
He pushed past Antony, and began running out into the drive. Antony followed him. They ran along the front of the house, down a path to the left, and then to the left again over the grass, Cayley in front, the other close behind him. Suddenly Cayley looked over his shoulder and pulled up short.
"Here," he said.
They had come to the windows of the locked room, French windows which opened on to the lawns at the back of the house. But now they were closed. Antony couldn't help feeling a thrill of excitement as he followed Cayley's example, and put his face close up to the glass. For the first time he wondered if there really had been a revolver shot in this mysterious room. It had all seemed so absurd and melodramatic from the other side of the door. But if there had been one shot, why should there not be two more?--at the careless fools who were pressing their noses against the panes, and asking for it.
"My God, can you see it?" said Cayley in a shaking voice. "Down there. Look!"
The next moment Antony saw it. A man was lying on the floor at the far end of the room, his back towards them. A man? Or the body of a man?
"Who is it?" said Antony.
"I don't know," the other whispered.
"Well, we'd better go and see." He considered the windows for a moment. "I should think, if you put your weight into it, just where they join, they'll give all right. Otherwise, we can kick the glass in."
Without saying anything, Cayley put his weight into it. The window gave, and they went into the room. Cayley walked quickly to the body, and dropped on his knees by it. For the moment he seemed to hesitate; then with an effort he put a hand on to its shoulder and pulled it over.
"Thank God!" he murmured, and let the body go again.
"Who is it?" said Antony.
"Robert Ablett."
"Oh!" said Antony. "I thought his name was Mark," he added, more to himself than to the other.
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of relief.
They stood up and looked at each other.
"If I can be of any help to you," said Antony, "please let me."
"That's very kind of you. There will be things to do. Police, doctors--I don't know. But you mustn't let me trespass on your kindness. Indeed, I should apologise for having trespassed so much already."
"I came to see Beverley. He is an old friend of mine."
"He's out playing golf. He will be back directly." Then, as if he had only just realized it, "They will all be back directly."
"I will stay if I can be of any help."
"Please do. You see, there are women. It will be rather painful. If you would--" He hesitated, and gave Antony a timid little smile, pathetic in so big and self-reliant a man. "Just your moral support, you know. It would be something."
"Of course." Antony smiled back at him, and said cheerfully, "Well, then, I'll begin by suggesting that you should ring up the police."
"The police? Y-yes." He looked doubtfully at the other. "I suppose--"
Antony spoke frankly.
"Now, look here, Mr--er--"
"Cayley. I'm Mark Ablett's cousin. I live with him."
"My name's Gillingham. I'm sorry, I ought to have told you before. Well now, Mr. Cayley, we shan't do any good by pretending. Here's a man been shot--well, somebody shot him."
"He might have shot himself," mumbled Cayley.
"Yes, he might have, but he didn't. Or if he did, somebody was in the room at the time, and that somebody isn't here now. And that somebody took a revolver away with him. Well, the police will want to say a word about that, won't they?"
Cayley was silent, looking on the ground.
"Oh, I know what you're thinking, and believe me I do sympathize with you, but we can't be children about it. If your cousin Mark Ablett was in the room with this"--he indicated the body--"this man, then--"
"Who said he was?" said Cayley, jerking his head up suddenly at Antony.
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"You did."
"I was in the library. Mark went in--he may have come out again --I know nothing. Somebody else may have gone in--"
"Yes, yes," said Antony patiently, as if to a little child. "You know your cousin; I don't. Let's agree that he had nothing to do with it. But somebody was in the room when this man was shot, and--well, the police will have to know. Don't you think--" He looked at the telephone. "Or would you rather I did it?"
Cayley shrugged his shoulders and went to the telephone.
"May I--er--look round a bit?" Antony nodded towards the open door.
"Oh, do. Yes." He sat down and drew the telephone towards him. "You must make allowances for me, Mr. Gillingham. You see, I've known Mark for a very long time. But, of course, you're quite right, and I'm merely being stupid." He took off the receiver.
Let us suppose that, for the purpose of making a first acquaintance with this "office," we are coming into it from the hall, through the door which is now locked, but which, for our special convenience, has been magically unlocked for us. As we stand just inside the door, the length of the room runs right and left; or, more accurately, to the right only, for the left-hand wall is almost within our reach. Immediately opposite to us, across the breadth of the room (some fifteen feet), is that other door, by which Cayley went out and returned a few minutes ago. In the right-hand wall, thirty feet away from us, are the French windows. Crossing the room and going out by the opposite door, we come into a passage, from which two rooms lead. The one on the right, into which Cayley went, is less than half the length of the office, a small, square room, which has evidently been used some time or other as a bedroom. The bed is no longer there, but there is a basin, with hot and cold taps, in a corner; chairs; a cupboard or two, and a chest of drawers. The window faces the same way as the French windows in the next room; but anybody looking out of the bedroom window has his view on the immediate right shut off by the outer wall of the office, which projects, by reason of its greater length, fifteen feet further into the lawn.
The room on the other side of the bedroom is a bathroom. The three rooms together, in fact, form a sort of private suite; used, perhaps, during the occupation of the previous owner, by some invalid, who could not manage the stairs, but allowed by Mark to fall into disuse, save for the living-room. At any rate, he never slept downstairs.
Antony glanced at the bathroom, and then wandered into the bedroom, the room into which Cayley had been. The window was open, and he looked out at the well-kept grass beneath him, and the peaceful stretch of park beyond; and he felt very sorry for the owner of it all, who was now mixed up in so grim a business.
"Cayley thinks he did it," said Antony to himself. "That's obvious. It explains why he wasted so much time banging on the door. Why should he try to break a lock when it's so much easier to break a window? Of course he might just have lost his head; on the other hand, he might--well, he might have wanted to give his cousin a chance of getting away. The same about the police, and--oh, lots of things. Why, for instance, did we run all the way round the house in order to get
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accidentally; and when they have gone off, people lose their heads and run away, fearing that their story will not be believed. Nevertheless, when people run away, whether innocently or guiltily, one can't help wondering which way they went.
"I suppose this way," said Antony aloud, looking out of the window.
"Who?" said Cayley stubbornly.
"Well, whoever it was," said Antony, smiling to himself. "The murderer. Or, let us say, the man who locked the door after Robert Ablett was killed."
"I wonder."
"Well, how else could he have got away? He didn't go by the windows in the next room, because they were shut."
"Isn't that rather odd?"
"Well, I thought so at first, but--" He pointed to the wall jutting out on the right. "You see, you're protected from the rest of the house if you get out here, and you're quite close to the shrubbery. If you go out at the French windows, I imagine you're much more visible. All that part of the house--" he waved his right hand--"the west, well, north-west almost, where the kitchen parts are--you see, you're hidden from them here. Oh, yes! he knew the house, whoever it was, and he was quite right to come out of this window. He'd be into the shrubbery at once."
Cayley looked at him thoughtfully.
"It seems to me, Mr. Gillingham, that you know the house pretty well, considering that this is the first time you've been to it."
Antony laughed.
"Oh, well, I notice things, you know. I was born noticing. But I'm right, aren't I, about why he went out this way?"
"Yes, I think you are." Cayley looked away--towards the shrubbery. "Do you want to go noticing in there now?" He nodded at it.
"I think we might leave that to the police," said Antony gently. "It's--well, there's no hurry."
Cayley gave a little sigh, as if he had been holding his breath for the answer, and could now breathe again.
"Thank you, Mr. Gillingham," he said.
CHAPTER IV
The Brother from Australia
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Guests at the Red House were allowed to do what they liked within reason--the reasonableness or otherwise of it being decided by Mark. But when once they (or Mark) had made up their minds as to what they wanted to do, the plan had to be kept. Mrs. Calladine, who knew this little weakness of their host's, resisted, therefore, the suggestion of Bill that they should have a second round in the afternoon, and drive home comfortably after tea. The other golfers were willing enough, but Mrs. Calladine, without actually saying that Mr. Ablett wouldn't like it, was firm on the point that, having arranged to be back by four, they should be back by four.
"I really don't think Mark wants us, you know," said the Major. Having played badly in the morning, he wanted to prove to himself in the afternoon that he was really better than that. "With this brother of his coming, he'll be only too glad to have us out of the way."
"Of course he will, Major." This from Bill. "You'd like to play, wouldn't you, Miss Norris?"
Miss Norris looked doubtfully at the hostess.
"Of course, if you want to get back, dear, we mustn't keep you here. Besides, it's so dull for you, not playing."
"Just nine holes, mother," pleaded Betty.
"The car could take you back, and you could tell them that we were having another round, and then it could come back for us," said Bill brilliantly.
"It's certainly much cooler here than I expected," put in the Major.
Mrs. Calladine fell. It was very pleasantly cool outside the golf-house, and of course Mark would be rather glad to have them out of the way. So she consented to nine holes; and the match having ended all-square, and everybody having played much better than in the morning, they drove back to The Red House, very well pleased with themselves.
"Halo," said Bill to himself, as they approached the house, "isn't that old Tony?"
Antony was standing in front of the house, waiting for them. Bill waved, and he waved back. Then as the car drew up, Bill, who was in front with the chauffeur, jumped down and greeted him eagerly.
"Hallo, you madman, have you come to stay, or what?" He had a sudden idea. "Don't say you're Mark Ablett's long-lost brother from Australia, though I could quite believe it of you." He laughed boyishly.
"Hallo, Bill," said Antony quietly. "Will you introduce me? I'm afraid I've got some bad news."
Bill, rather sobered by this, introduced him. The Major and Mrs. Calladine were on the near side of the car, and Antony spoke to them in a low voice.
"I'm afraid I'm going to give you rather a shock," he said. "Robert Ablett, Mr. Mark Ablett's brother, has been killed." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, "In the house."
