The Red House Mystery

  "But why not have kept them in the passage?"

  "He was frightened of the passage. Miss Norris knew about it."

  "Well, then, in his own bedroom, or even, in Mark's. For all you or I or anybody knew, Mark might have had two brown suits. He probably had, I should think."

  "Probably. But I doubt if that would reassure Cayley. The brown suit hid a secret, and therefore the brown suit had to be hidden. We all know that in theory the safest hiding-place is the most obvious, but in practice very few people have the nerve to risk it."

  Bill looked rather disappointed.

  "Then we just come back to where we were," he complained. "Mark killed his brother, and Cayley helped him to escape through the passage; either in order to compromise him, or because there was no other way out of it. And he helped him by telling a lie about his brown suit."

  Antony smiled at him in genuine amusement.

  "Bad luck, Bill," he said sympathetically. "There's only one murder, after all. I'm awfully sorry about it. It was my fault for—"

  "Shut up, you ass. You know I didn't mean that."

  "Well, you seemed awfully disappointed."

  Bill said nothing for a little, and then with a sudden laugh confessed.

  "It was so exciting yesterday," he said apologetically, "and we seemed to be just getting there, and discovering the most wonderful things, and now—"

  "And now?"

  "Well, it's so much more ordinary."

  Antony gave a shout of laughter.

  "Ordinary!" he cried. "Ordinary! Well, I'm dashed! Ordinary! If only one thing would happen in an ordinary way, we might do something, but everything is ridiculous." Bill brightened up again.

  "Ridiculous? How?"

  "Every way. Take those ridiculous clothes we found last night. You can explain the brown suit, but why the under clothes. You can explain the underclothes in some absurd way, if you like—you can say that Mark always changed his underclothes whenever he interviewed anybody from Australia—but why, in that case, my dear Watson, why didn't he change his collar?"

  "His collar?" said Bill in amazement.

  "His collar, Watson."

  "I don't understand."

  "And it's all so ordinary," scoffed Antony.

  "Sorry, Tony, I didn't mean that. Tell me about the collar."

  "Well, that's all. There was no collar in the bag last night. Shirt, socks, tie—everything except a collar. Why?"

  "Was that what you were looking for in the cupboard?" said Bill eagerly.

  "Of course. 'Why no collar?' I, said. For some reason Cayley considered it necessary to hide all Mark's clothes; not just the suit, but everything which he was wearing, or supposed to be wearing, at the time of the murder. But he hadn't hidden the collar. Why? Had he left it out by mistake? So I looked in the cupboard. It wasn't there. Had he left it out on purpose? If so, why?—and where was it? Naturally I began to say to myself, 'Where have I seen a collar lately? A collar all by itself?' And I remembered—what, Bill?"

  Bill frowned heavily to himself, and shook his head.

  "Don't ask me, Tony. I can't—By Jove!" He threw up his head, "In the basket in the office bedroom!"

  "Exactly."

  "But is that the one?"

  "The one that goes with the rest of the clothes? I don't know. Where else can it be? But if so, why send the collar quite casually to the wash in the ordinary way, and take immense trouble to hide everything else? Why, why, why?"

  Bill bit hard at his pipe, but could think of nothing to say.

  "Anyhow," said Antony, getting up restlessly, "I'm certain of one thing. Mark knew on the Monday that Robert was coming here."

  Chapter XIX - The Inquest

  *

  The Coroner, having made a few commonplace remarks as to the terrible nature of the tragedy which they had come to investigate that afternoon, proceeded to outline the case to the jury. Witnesses would be called to identify the deceased as Robert Ablett, the brother of the owner of the Red House, Mark Ablett. It would be shown that he was something of a ne'er-do-well, who had spent most of his life in Australia, and that he had announced, in what might almost be called a threatening letter, his intention of visiting his brother that afternoon. There would be evidence of his arrival, of his being shown into the scene of the tragedy—a room in the Red House, commonly called "the office"—and of his brother's entrance into that room. The jury would have to form their own opinion as to what happened there. But whatever happened, happened almost instantaneously. Within two minutes of Mark Ablett's entrance, as would be shown in the evidence, a shot was heard, and when—perhaps five minutes later—the room was forced open, the dead body of Robert Ablett was found stretched upon the floor. As regards Mark Ablett, nobody had seen him from the moment of his going into the room, but evidence would be called to show that he had enough money on him at the time to take him to any other part of the country, and that a man answering to his description had been observed on the platform of Stanton station, apparently waiting to catch the 3.55 up train to London. As the jury would realize, such evidence of identity was not always reliable. Missing men had a way of being seen in a dozen different places at once. In any case, there was no doubt that for the moment Mark Ablett had disappeared.

  "Seems a sound man," whispered Antony to Bill. "Doesn't talk too much."

  Antony did not expect to learn much from the evidence—he knew the facts of the case so well by now—but he wondered if Inspector Birch had developed any new theories. If so, they would appear in the Coroner's examination, for the Coroner would certainly have been coached by the police as to the important facts to be extracted from each witness. Bill was the first to be put through it.

  "Now, about this letter, Mr. Beverley?" he was asked when his chief evidence was over. "Did you see it at all?"

  "I didn't see the actual writing. I saw the back of it. Mark was holding it up when he told us about his brother."

  "You don't know what was in it, then?"

  Bill had a sudden shock. He had read the letter only that morning. He knew quite well what was in it. But it wouldn't do to admit this. And then, just as he was about to perjure himself, he remembered: Antony had heard Cayley telling the Inspector.

  "I knew afterwards. I was told. But Mark didn't read it out at breakfast."

  "You gathered, however, that it was an unwelcome letter?"

  "Oh, yes!"

  "Would you say that Mark was frightened by it?"

  "Not frightened. Sort of bitter—and resigned. Sort of 'Oh, Lord, here we are again!'"

  There was a titter here and there. The Coroner smiled, and tried to pretend that he hadn't.

  "Thank you, Mr. Beverley."

  The next witness was summoned by the name of Andrew Amos, and Antony looked up with interest, wondering who he was.

  "He lives at the inner lodge," whispered Bill to him.

  All that Amos had to say was that a stranger had passed by his lodge at a little before three that afternoon, and had spoken to him. He had seen the body and recognized it as the man.

  "What did he say?"

  "'Is this right for the Red House?' or something like that, sir."

  "What did you say?"

  "I said, 'This is the Red House. Who do you want to see?' He was a bit rough-looking, you know, sir, and I didn't know what he was doing there."

  "Well?"

  "Well, sir, he said, 'Is Mister Mark Ablett at home?' It doesn't sound much put like that, sir, but I didn't care about the way he said it. So I got in front of him like, and said, 'What do you want, eh?' and he gave a sort of chuckle and said, 'I want to see my dear brother Mark.' Well, then I took a closer look at him, and I see that p'raps he might be his brother, so I said, 'If you'll follow the drive, sir, you'll come to the house. Of course I can't say if Mr. Ablett's at home.' And he gave a sort of nasty laugh again, and said, 'Fine place Mister Mark Ablett's got here. Plenty of money to spend, eh?' Well, then I had another look at him, sir, because gentlemen don'
t talk like that, and if he was Mr. Ablett's brother—but before I could make up my mind, he laughed and went on. That's all I can tell you, sir."

  Andrew Amos stepped down and moved away to the back of the room, nor did Antony take his eyes off him until he was assured that Amos intended to remain there until the inquest was over.

  "Who's Amos talking to now?" he whispered to Bill.

  "Parsons. One of the gardeners. He's at the outside lodge on the Stanton road. They're all here to-day. Sort of holiday for 'em.

  "I wonder if he's giving evidence too," thought Antony. He was. He followed Amos. He had been at work on the lawn in front of the house, and had seen Robert Ablett arrive. He didn't hear the shot—not to notice. He was a little hard of hearing. He had seen a gentleman arrive about five minutes after Mr. Robert.

  "Can you see him in court now?" asked the Coroner. Parsons looked round slowly. Antony caught his eye and smiled.

  "That's him," said Parsons, pointing.

  Everybody looked at Antony.

  "That was about five minutes afterwards?"

  "About that, sir."

  "Did anybody come out of the house before this gentleman's arrival?"

  "No, sir. That is to say I didn't see 'em."

  Stevens followed. She gave her evidence much as she had given it to the Inspector. Nothing new was brought out by her examination. Then came Elsie. As the reporters scribbled down what she had overheard, they added in brackets "Sensation" for the first time that afternoon.

  "How soon after you had heard this did the shot come?" asked the Coroner.

  "Almost at once, sir."

  "A minute?"

  "I couldn't really say, sir. It was so quick."

  "Were you still in the hall?"

  "Oh, no, sir. I was just outside Mrs. Stevens' room. The housekeeper, sir."

  "You didn't think of going back to the hall to see what had happened?"

  "Oh, no, sir. I just went in to Mrs. Stevens, and she said, 'Oh, what was that?' frightened-like. And I said, 'That was in the house, Mrs. Stevens, that was.' Just like something going off, it was."

  "Thank you," said the Coroner.

  There was another emotional disturbance in the room as Cayley went into the witness-box; not "Sensation" this time, but an eager and, as it seemed to Antony, sympathetic interest. Now they were getting to grips with the drama.

  He gave his evidence carefully, unemotionally—the lies with the same slow deliberation as the truth. Antony watched him intently, wondering what it was about him which had this odd sort of attractiveness. For Antony, who knew that he was lying, and lying (as he believed) not for Mark's sake but his own, yet could not help sharing some of that general sympathy with him.

  "Was Mark ever in possession of a revolver?" asked the Coroner.

  "Not to my knowledge. I think I should have known if he had been."

  "You were alone with him all that morning. Did he talk about this visit of Robert's at all?"

  "I didn't see very much of him in the morning. I was at work in my room, and outside, and so on. We lunched together and he talked of it then a little."

  "In what terms?"

  "Well—" he hesitated, and then went on. "I can't think of a better word than 'peevishly.' Occasionally he said, 'What do you think he wants?' or 'Why couldn't he have stayed where he was?' or 'I don't like the tone of his letter. Do you think he means trouble?' He talked rather in that kind of way."

  "Did he express his surprise that his brother should be in England?"

  "I think he was always afraid that he would turn up one day."

  "Yes.... You didn't hear any conversation between the brothers when they were in the office together?"

  "No. I happened to go into the library just after Mark had gone in, and I was there all the time."

  "Was the library door open?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "Did you see or hear the last witness at all?"

  "No."

  "If anybody had come out of the office while you were in the library, would you have heard it?"

  "I think so. Unless they had come out very quietly on purpose."

  "Would you call Mark a hasty-tempered man?"

  Cayley considered this carefully before answering.

  "Hasty-tempered, yes," he said. "But not violent-tempered."

  "Was he fairly athletic? Active and quick?"

  "Active and quick, yes. Not particularly strong."

  "Yes.... One question more. Was Mark in the habit of carrying any considerable sum of money about with him?"

  "Yes. He always had one 100 pound note on him, and perhaps ten or twenty pounds as well."

  "Thank you, Mr. Cayley."

  Cayley went back heavily to his seat. "Damn it," said Antony to himself, "why do I like the fellow?"

  "Antony Gillingham!"

  Again the eager interest of the room could be felt. Who was this stranger who had got mixed up in the business so mysteriously?

  Antony smiled at Bill and stepped up to give his evidence.

  He explained how he came to be staying at 'the George' at Waldheim, how he had heard that the Red House was in the neighbourhood, how he had walked over to see his friend Beverley, and had arrived just after the tragedy. Thinking it over afterwards he was fairly certain that he had heard the shot, but it had not made any impression on him at the time. He had come to the house from the Waldheim end and consequently had seen nothing of Robert Ablett, who had been a few minutes in front of him. From this point his evidence coincided with Cayley's.

  "You and the last witness reached the French windows together and found them shut?"

  "Yes."

  "You pushed them in and came to the body. Of course you had no idea whose body it was?"

  "No."

  "Did Mr. Cayley say anything?"

  "He turned the body over, just so as to see the face, and when he saw it, he said, 'Thank God.'"

  Again the reporters wrote "Sensation."

  "Did you understand what he meant by that?"

  "I asked him who it was, and he said that it was Robert Ablett. Then he explained that he was afraid at first it was the cousin with whom he lived—Mark."

  "Yes. Did he seem upset?"

  "Very much so at first. Less when he found that it wasn't Mark."

  There was a sudden snigger from a nervous gentleman in the crowd at the back of the room, and the Coroner put on his glasses and stared sternly in the direction from which it came. The nervous gentleman hastily decided that the time had come to do up his bootlace. The Coroner put down his glasses and continued.

  "Did anybody come out of the house while you were coming up the drive?"

  "No."

  "Thank you, Mr. Gillingham."

  He was followed by Inspector Birch. The Inspector, realizing that this was his afternoon, and that the eyes of the world were upon him, produced a plan of the house and explained the situation of the different rooms. The plan was then handed to the jury.

  Inspector Birch, so he told the world, had arrived at the Red House at 4.42 p.m. on the afternoon in question. He had been received by Mr. Matthew Cayley, who had made a short statement to him, and he had then proceeded to examine the scene of the crime. The French windows had been forced from outside. The door leading into the hall was locked; he had searched the room thoroughly and had found no trace of a key. In the bedroom leading out of the office he had found an open window. There were no marks on the window, but it was a low one, and, as he found from experiment, quite easy to step out of without touching it with the boots. A few yards outside the window a shrubbery began. There were no recent footmarks outside the window, but the ground was in a very hard condition owing to the absence of rain. In the shrubbery, however, he found several twigs on the ground, recently broken off, together with other evidence that some body had been forcing its way through. He had questioned everybody connected with the estate, and none of them had been into the shrubbery recently. By forcing a way through the shrubbery it was p
ossible for a person to make a detour of the house and get to the Stanton end of the park without ever being in sight of the house itself.

  He had made inquiries about the deceased. Deceased had left for Australia some fifteen years ago, owing to some financial trouble at home. Deceased was not well spoken of in the village from which he and his brother had come. Deceased and his brother had never been on good terms, and the fact that Mark Ablett had come into money had been a cause of great bitterness between them. It was shortly after this that Robert had left for Australia.

  He had made inquiries at Stanton station. It had been market-day at Stanton and the station had been more full of arrivals than usual. Nobody had particularly noticed the arrival of Robert Ablett; there had been a good many passengers by the 2.10 train that afternoon, the train by which Robert had undoubtedly come from London. A witness, however, would state that he noticed a man resembling Mark Ablett at the station at 3.53 p.m. that afternoon, and this man caught the 3.55 up train to town.

  There was a pond in the grounds of the Red House. He had dragged this, but without result....

  Antony listened to him carelessly, thinking his own thoughts all the time. Medical evidence followed, but there was nothing to be got from that. He felt so close to the truth; at any moment something might give his brain the one little hint which it wanted. Inspector Birch was just pursuing the ordinary. Whatever else this case was, it was not ordinary. There was something uncanny about it.

  John Borden was giving evidence. He was on the up platform seeing a friend off by the 3.55 on Tuesday afternoon. He had noticed a man on the platform with coat collar turned up and a scarf round his chin. He had wondered why the man should do this on such a hot day. The man seemed to be trying to escape observation. Directly the train came in, he hurried into a carriage. And so on.

  "There's always a John Borden at every murder case," said Antony to himself.

  "Have you ever seen Mark Ablett?"

  "Once or twice, sir."

  "Was it he?"

  "I never really got a good look at him, sir, what with his collar turned up and the scarf and all. But directly I heard of the sad affair, and that Mr. Ablett was missing, I said to Mrs. Borden, 'Now I wonder if that was Mr. Ablett I saw at the station?' So then we talked it over and decided that I ought to come and tell Inspector Birch. It was just Mr. Ablett's height, sir."