The Red House Mystery (10 page)

"I don't know," said Antony apologetically. "I don't know what anything
has got to do with it. I was just wondering. You shouldn't have brought
me here if you hadn't wanted me to think about the ghost. This is where
she appeared, isn't it?"

"Yes." Bill was distinctly short about it.

"How?"

"What?"

"I said, 'How?'"

"How? How do ghosts appear? I don't know. They just appear."

"Over four or five hundred yards of open park?"

"Well, but she had to appear here, because this is where the original
one—Lady Anne, you know—was supposed to walk."

"Oh, never mind Lady Anne! A real ghost can do anything. But how did
Miss Norris appear suddenly over five hundred yards of bare park?"

Bill looked at Antony with open mouth.

"I—I don't know," he stammered. "We never thought of that."

"You would have seen her long before, wouldn't you, if she had come the
way we came?"

"Of course we should."

"And that would have spoilt it rather. You would have had time to
recognize her walk."

Bill was interested now.

"That's rather funny, you know, Tony. We none of us thought of that."

"You're sure she didn't come across the park when none of you were
looking?"

"Quite. Because, you see, Betty and I were expecting her, and we kept
looking round in case we saw her, so that we should all be playing with
our backs to her."

"You and Miss Calladine were playing together?"

"I say, however do you know that?"

"Brilliant deductive reasoning. Well, then you suddenly saw her?"

"Yes, she walked across that side of the lawn." He indicated the
opposite side, nearer to the house.

"She couldn't have been hiding in the ditch? Do you call it the moat, by
the way?"

"Mark does. We don't among ourselves. No, she couldn't. Betty and I
were here before the others, and walked round a bit. We should have seen
her."

"Then she must have been hiding in the shed. Or do you call it the
summer-house?"

"We had to go there for the bowls, of course. She couldn't have been
there."

"Oh!"

"It's dashed funny," said Bill, after an interval for thought. "But it
doesn't matter, does it? It has nothing to do with Robert."

"Hasn't it?"

"I say, has it?" said Bill, getting excited again.

"I don't know. We don't know what has, or what hasn't. But it has
got something to do with Miss Norris. And Miss Norris—" He broke off
suddenly.

"What about her?"

"Well, you're all in it in a kind of way. And if something unaccountable
happens to one of you a day or two before something unaccountable
happens to the whole house, one is well, interested." It was a good
enough reason, but it wasn't the reason he had been on the point of
giving.

"I see. Well?"

Antony knocked out his pipe and got up slowly.

"Well then, let's find the way from the house by which Miss Norris
came."

Bill jumped up eagerly.

"By Jove! Do you mean there's a secret passage?"

"A secluded passage, anyway. There must be."

"I say, what fun! I love secret passages. Good Lord, and this afternoon
I was playing golf just like an ordinary merchant! What a life! Secret
passages!"

They made their way down into the ditch. If an opening was to be found
which led to the house, it would probably be on the house side of the
green, and on the outside of the ditch. The most obvious place at which
to begin the search was the shed where the bowls were kept. It was a
tidy place as anything in Mark's establishment would be. There were two
boxes of croquet things, one of them with the lid open, as if the
balls and mallets and, hoops (neatly enough put away, though) had been
recently used; a box of bowls, a small lawn-mower, a roller and so
forth. A seat ran along the back of it, whereon the bowls-players could
sit when it rained.

Antony tapped the wall at the back.

"This is where the passage ought to begin. It doesn't sound very hollow,
does it?"

"It needn't begin here at all, need it?" said Bill, walking round with
bent head, and tapping the other walls. He was just too tall to stand
upright in the shed.

"There's only one reason why it should, and that is that it would save
us the trouble of looking anywhere else for it. Surely Mark didn't
let you play croquet on his bowling-green?" He pointed to the croquet
things.

"He didn't encourage it at one time, but this year he got rather keen
about it. There's really nowhere else to play. Personally I hate the
game. He wasn't very keen on bowls, you know, but he liked calling it
the bowling-green, and surprising his visitors with it."

Antony laughed.

"I love you on Mark," he said. "You're priceless."

He began to feel in his pockets for his pipe and tobacco, and then
suddenly stopped and stiffened to attention. For a moment he stood
listening, with his head on one side, holding up a finger to bid Bill
listen too.

"What is it?" whispered Bill.

Antony waved him to silence, and remained listening. Very quietly he
went down on his knees, and listened again. Then he put his ear to the
floor. He got up and dusted himself quickly, walked across to Bill and
whispered in his ear:

"Footsteps. Somebody coming. When I begin to talk, back me up."

Bill nodded. Antony gave him an encouraging pat on the back, and stepped
firmly across to the box of bowls, whistling loudly to himself. He took
the bowls out, dropped one with a loud bang on the floor, said, "Oh,
Lord!" and went on:

"I say, Bill, I don't think I want to play bowls, after all."

"Well, why did you say you did?" grumbled Bill.

Antony flashed a smile of appreciation at him.

"Well, I wanted to when I said I did, and now I don't want to."

"Then what do you want to do?"

"Talk."

"Oh, right-o!" said Bill eagerly.

"There's a seat on the lawn I saw it. Let's bring these things along in
case we want to play, after all."

"Right-o!" said Bill again. He felt safe with that, not wishing to
commit himself until he knew what he was wanted to say.

As they went across the lawn, Antony dropped the bowls and took out his
pipe.

"Got a match?" he said loudly.

As he bent his head over the match, he whispered, "There'll be somebody
listening to us. You take the Cayley view," and then went on in his
ordinary voice, "I don't think much of your matches, Bill," and struck
another. They walked over to the seat and sat down.

"What a heavenly night!" said Antony.

"Ripping."

"I wonder where that poor devil Mark is now."

"It's a rum business."

"You agree with Cayley that it was an accident?"

"Yes. You see, I know Mark."

"H'm." Antony produced a pencil and a piece of paper and began to write
on his knee, but while he wrote, he talked. He said that he thought Mark
had shot his brother in a fit of anger, and that Cayley knew, or anyhow
guessed, this and had tried to give his cousin a chance of getting away.

"Mind you, I think he's right. I think it's what any of us would do. I
shan't give it away, of course, but somehow there are one or two little
things which make me think that Mark really did shoot his brother I mean
other than accidentally."

"Murdered him?"

"Well, manslaughtered him, anyway. I may be wrong. Anyway, it's not my
business."

"But why do you think so? Because of the keys?"

"Oh, the keys are a wash-out. Still, it was a brilliant idea of mine,
Wasn't it? And it would have been rather a score for me if they had all
been outside."

He had finished his writing, and now passed the paper over to Bill. In
the clear moonlight the carefully printed letters could easily be read:

"GO ON TALKING AS IF I WERE HERE. AFTER A MINUTE OR TWO, TURN ROUND AS
IF I WERE SITTING ON THE GRASS BEHIND YOU, BUT GO ON TALKING."

"I know you don't agree with me," Antony went on as Bill read, "but
you'll see that I'm right."

Bill looked up and nodded eagerly. He had forgotten golf and Betty and
all the other things which had made up his world lately. This was the
real thing. This was life. "Well," he began deliberately, "the whole
point is that I know Mark. Now, Mark—"

But Antony was off the seat and letting himself gently down into the
ditch. His intention was to crawl round it until the shed came in sight.
The footsteps which he had heard seemed to be underneath the shed;
probably there was a trap-door of some kind in the floor. Whoever it was
would have heard their voices, and would probably think it worth while
to listen to what they were saying. He might do this merely by opening
the door a little without showing himself, in which case Antony would
have found the entrance to the passage without any trouble to himself.
But when Bill turned his head and talked over the back of the seat, it
was probable that the listener would find it necessary to put his head
outside in order to hear, and then Antony would be able to discover
who it was. Moreover, if he should venture out of his hiding-place
altogether and peep at them over the top of the bank, the fact that Bill
was talking over the back of the seat would mislead the watcher into
thinking that Antony was still there, sitting on the grass, no doubt,
behind the seat, swinging his legs over the side of the ditch.

He walked quickly but very silently along the half-length of the
bowling-green to the first corner, passed cautiously round, and then
went even more carefully along the width of it to the second corner.
He could hear Bill hard at it, arguing from his knowledge of Mark's
character that this, that and the other must have happened, and he
smiled appreciatively to himself. Bill was a great conspirator worth a
hundred Watsons. As he approached the second corner he slowed down, and
did the last few yards on hands and knees. Then, lying at full length,
inch by inch his head went round the corner.

The shed was two or three yards to his left, on the opposite side of
the ditch. From where he lay he could see almost entirely inside it.
Everything seemed to be as they left it. The bowls-box, the lawn-mower,
the roller, the open croquet-box, the—

"By Jove!" said Antony to himself, "that's neat."

The lid of the other croquet-box was open, too. Bill was turning round
now; his voice became more difficult to hear. "You see what I mean," he
was saying. "If Cayley—"

And out of the second croquet-box came Cayley's black head.

Antony wanted to shout his applause. It was neat, devilish neat. For a
moment he gazed, fascinated, at that wonderful new kind of croquet-ball
which had appeared so dramatically out of the box, and then reluctantly
wriggled himself back. There was nothing to be gained by staying there,
and a good deal to be lost, for Bill showed signs of running down. As
quickly as he could Antony hurried round the ditch and took up his place
at the back of the seat. Then he stood up with a yawn, stretched himself
and said carelessly, "Well, don't worry yourself about it, Bill, old
man. I daresay you're right. You know Mark, and I don't; and that's the
difference. Shall we have a game or shall we go to bed?"

Bill looked at him for inspiration, and, receiving it, said, "Oh, just
let's have one game, shall we?"

"Right you are," said Antony.

But Bill was much too excited to take the game which followed very
seriously. Antony, on the other hand, seemed to be thinking of nothing
but bowls. He played with great deliberation for ten minutes, and then
announced that he was going to bed. Bill looked at him anxiously.

"It's all right," laughed Antony. "You can talk if you want to. Just
let's put 'em away first, though."

They made their way down to the shed, and while Bill was putting the
bowls away, Antony tried the lid of the closed croquet-box. As he
expected, it was locked.

"Now then," said Bill, as they were walking back to the house again,
"I'm simply bursting to know. Who was it?"

"Cayley."

"Good Lord! Where?"

"Inside one of the croquet-boxes."

"Don't be an ass."

"It's quite true, Bill." He told the other what he had seen.

"But aren't we going to have a look at it?" asked Bill, in great
disappointment. "I'm longing to explore. Aren't you?"

"To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow. We shall see Cayley coming along
this way directly. Besides, I want to get in from the other end, if I
can. I doubt very much if we can do it this end without giving ourselves
away. Look, there's Cayley."

They could see him coming along the drive towards them. When they were a
little closer, they waved to him and he waved back.

"I wondered where you were," he said, as he got up to them. "I rather
thought you might be along this way. What about bed?"

"Bed it is," said Antony.

"We've been playing bowls," added Bill, "and talking, and—and playing
bowls. Ripping night, isn't it?"

But he left the rest of the conversation, as they wandered back to the
house, to Antony. He wanted to think. There seemed to be no doubt now
that Cayley was a villain. Bill had never been familiar with a villain
before. It didn't seem quite fair of Cayley, somehow; he was taking
rather a mean advantage of his friends. Lot of funny people there were
in the world funny people with secrets. Look at Tony, that first time he
had met him in a tobacconist's shop. Anybody would have thought he was
a tobacconist's assistant. And Cayley. Anybody would have thought that
Cayley was an ordinary decent sort of person. And Mark. Dash it! one
could never be sure of anybody. Now, Robert was different. Everybody had
always said that Robert was a shady fellow.

But what on earth had Miss Norris got to do with it? What had Miss
Norris got to do with it? This was a question which Antony had already
asked himself that afternoon, and it seemed to him now that he had found
the answer. As he lay in bed that night he reassembled his ideas, and
looked at them in the new light which the events of the evening threw
upon the dark corners in his brain.