The Red House Mystery (24 page)

"It strikes you as childish, Mr. Gillingham? Ah, you never knew Mark
Ablett.

"'How, Cay, how?' he said eagerly.

"'Well, I haven't really thought it out,' I protested. 'It was just an
idea.'

"He began to think it out for himself.

"'I might pretend to be a manager, come down to see her—but I suppose
she knows them all. What about an interviewer?'

"'It's going to be difficult,' I said thoughtfully. 'You've got rather a
characteristic face, you know. And your beard—'

"'I'd shave it off,' he snapped.

"'My dear Mark!'

"He looked away, and mumbled, 'I've been thinking of taking it off,
anyhow. And besides, if I'm going to do the thing, I'm going to do it
properly.'

"'Yes, you always were an artist,' I said, looking at him admiringly.

"He purred. To be called an artist was what he longed for most. Now I
knew that I had him.

"'All the same,' I went on, 'even without your beard and moustache you
might be recognizable. Unless, of course—' I broke off.

"'Unless what?'

"'You pretend to be Robert.' I began to laugh to myself again. 'By
Jove!' I said, 'that's not a bad idea. Pretend to be Robert, the wastrel
brother, and make yourself objectionable to Miss Norris. Borrow money
from her, and that sort of thing.'

"He looked at me, with his bright little eyes, nodding eagerly.

"'Robert,' he said. 'Yes. How shall we work it?'

"There was really a Robert, Mr. Gillingham, as I have no doubt you
and the Inspector both discovered. And he was a wastrel and he went to
Australia. But he never came to the Red House on Tuesday afternoon. He
couldn't have, because he died (unlamented) three years ago. But there
was nobody who knew this, save Mark and myself, for Mark was the only
one of the family left, his sister having died last year. Though I
doubt, anyhow, if she knew whether Robert was alive or dead. He was not
talked about.

"For the next two days Mark and I worked out our plans. You understand
by now that our aims were not identical. Mark's endeavour was that his
deception should last for, say, a couple of hours; mine that it should
go to the grave with him. He had only to deceive Miss Norris and the
other guests; I had to deceive the world. When he was dressed up as
Robert, I was going to kill him. Robert would then be dead, Mark (of
course) missing. What could anybody think but that Mark had killed
Robert? But you see how important it was for Mark to enter fully into
his latest (and last) impersonation. Half-measures would be fatal.

"You will say that it was impossible so do the thing thoroughly enough.
I answer again that you never knew Mark. He was being what he wished
most to be—an artist. No Othello ever blacked himself all over with
such enthusiasm as did Mark. His beard was going anyhow—possible a
chance remark of Miss Norbury's helped here. She did not like beards.
But it was important for me that the dead man's hands should not be the
hands of a manicured gentleman. Five minutes playing upon the vanity of
the artist settled his hands. He let the nails grow and then cut them
raggedly. 'Miss Norris would notice your hands at once,' I had said.
'Besides, as an artist—'

"So with his underclothes. It was hardly necessary to warn him that
his pants might show above the edge of his socks; as an artist he had
already decided upon Robertian pants. I bought them, and other things,
in London for him. Even if I had not cut out all trace of the maker's
name, he would instinctively have done it. As an Australian and an
artist, he could not have an East London address on his underclothes.
Yes, we were doing the thing thoroughly, both of us; he as an artist, I
as a—well, you may say murderer, if you like. I shall not mind now.

"Our plans were settled. I went to London on the Monday and wrote him
a letter from Robert. (The artistic touch again.) I also bought a
revolver. On the Tuesday morning he announced the arrival of Robert
at the breakfast-table. Robert was now alive—we had six witnesses to
prove it; six witnesses who knew that he was coming that afternoon. Our
private plan was that Robert should present himself at three o'clock,
in readiness for the return of the golfing-party shortly afterwards. The
maid would go to look for Mark, and having failed to find him, come back
to the office to find me entertaining Robert in Mark's absence. I
would explain that Mark must have gone out somewhere, and would myself
introduce the wastrel brother to the tea-table. Mark's absence would not
excite any comment, for it would be generally felt—indeed Robert would
suggest it—that he had been afraid of meeting his brother. Then Robert
would make himself amusingly offensive to the guests, particularly, of
course, Miss Norris, until he thought that the joke had gone far enough.

"That was our private plan. Perhaps I should say that it was Mark's
private plan. My own was different.

"The announcement at breakfast went well. After the golfing-party had
gone off, we had the morning in which to complete our arrangements. What
I was chiefly concerned about was to establish as completely as possible
the identity of Robert. For this reason I suggested to Mark that, when
dressed, he should go out by the secret passage to the bowling-green,
and come back by the drive, taking care to enter into conversation
with the lodge-keeper. In this way I would have two more witnesses
of Robert's arrival—first the lodge-keeper, and secondly one of the
gardeners whom I would have working on the front lawn. Mark, of course,
was willing enough. He could practise his Australian accent on the
lodge-keeper. It was really amusing to see how readily he fell into
every suggestion which I made. Never was a killing more carefully
planned by its victim.

"He changed into Robert's clothes in the office bedroom. This was the
safest way—for both of us. When he was ready, he called me in, and
I inspected him. It was extraordinary how well he looked the part. I
suppose that the signs of his dissipation had already marked themselves
on, his face, but had been concealed hitherto by his moustache and
beard; for now that he was clean-shaven they lay open to the world from
which we had so carefully hidden them, and he was indeed the wastrel
which he was pretending to be.

"'By Jove, you're wonderful,' I said.

"He smirked, and called my attention to the various artistic touches
which I might have missed.

"'Wonderful,' I said to myself again. 'Nobody could possibly guess.'

"I peered into the hall. It was empty. We hurried across to the library;
he got into the passage and made off. I went back to the bedroom,
collected all his discarded clothes, did them up in a bundle and
returned with them to the passage. Then I sat down in the hall and
waited.

"You heard the evidence of Stevens, the maid. As soon as she was on her
way to the Temple in search of Mark, I stepped into the office. My hand
was in my side-pocket, and in my hand was the revolver.

"He began at once in his character of Robert—some rigmarole about
working his passage over from Australia; a little private performance
for my edification. Then in his natural voice, gloating over his
well-planned retaliation on Miss Norris, he burst out, 'It's my turn
now. You wait.' It was this which Elsie heard. She had no business to be
there and she might have ruined everything, but as it turned out it was
the luckiest thing which could have happened. For it was the one piece
of evidence which I wanted; evidence, other than my own, that Mark and
Robert were in the room together.

"I said nothing. I was not going to take the risk of being heard to
speak in that room. I just smiled at the poor little fool, and took
out my revolver, and shot him. Then I went back into the library and
waited—just as I said in my evidence.

"Can you imagine, Mr. Gillingham, the shock which your sudden appearance
gave me? Can you imagine the feelings of a 'murderer' who has (as he
thinks) planned for every possibility, and is then confronted suddenly
with an utterly new problem? What difference would your coming make? I
didn't know. Perhaps none; perhaps all. And I had forgotten to open the
window!

"I don't know whether you will think my plan for killing Mark a clever
one. Perhaps not. But if I do deserve any praise in the matter, I think
I deserve it for the way I pulled myself together in the face of the
unexpected catastrophe of your arrival. Yes, I got a window open, Mr.
Gillingham, under your very nose; the right window too, you were kind
enough to say. And the keys—yes, that was clever of you, but I think I
was cleverer. I deceived you over the keys, Mr. Gillingham, as I
learnt when I took the liberty of listening to a conversation on the
bowling-green between you and your friend Beverley. Where was I? Ah, you
must have a look for that secret passage, Mr. Gillingham.

"But what am I saying? Did I deceive you at all? You have found out the
secret—that Robert was Mark—and that is all that matters. How have
you found out? I shall never know now. Where did I go wrong? Perhaps you
have been deceiving me all the time. Perhaps you knew about the keys,
about the window, even about the secret passage. You are a clever man,
Mr. Gillingham.

"I had Mark's clothes on my hands. I might have left them in the
passage, but the secret of the passage was now out. Miss Norris knew
it. That was the weak point of my plan, perhaps, that Miss Norris had
to know it. So I hid them in the pond, the Inspector having obligingly
dragged it for me first. A couple of keys joined them, but I kept the
revolver. Fortunate, wasn't it, Mr. Gillingham?

"I don't think that there is any more to tell you. This is a long
letter, but then it is the last which I shall write. There was a time
when I hoped that there might be a happy future for me, not at the Red
House, not alone. Perhaps it was never more than an idle day-dream,
for I am no more worthy of her than Mark was. But I could have made her
happy, Mr. Gillingham. God, how I would have worked to make her happy!
But now that is impossible. To offer her the hand of a murderer would be
as bad as to offer her the hand of a drunkard. And Mark died for that.
I saw her this morning. She was very sweet. It is a difficult world to
understand.

"Well, well, we are all gone now—the Abletts and the Cayleys. I wonder
what old Grandfather Cayley thinks of it all. Perhaps it is as well that
we have died out. Not that there was anything wrong with Sarah—except
her temper. And she had the Ablett nose—you can't do much with that.
I'm glad she left no children.

"Good-bye, Mr. Gillingham. I'm sorry that your stay with us was not of
a pleasanter nature, but you understand the difficulties in which I was
placed. Don't let Bill think too badly of me. He is a good fellow; look
after him. He will be surprised. The young are always surprised. And
thank you for letting me end my own way. I expect you did sympathize a
little, you know. We might have been friends in another world—you and
I, and I and she. Tell her what you like. Everything or nothing. You
will know what is best. Good-bye, Mr. Gillingham.

"MATTHEW CAYLEY.

"I am lonely to-night without Mark. That's funny, isn't it?"

"Good Lord!" said Bill, as he put down the letter.

"I thought you'd say that," murmured Antony.

"Tony, do you mean to say that you knew all this?"

"I guessed some of it. I didn't quite know all of it, of course."

"Good Lord!" said Bill again, and returned to the letter. In a moment he
was looking up again. "What did you write to him? Was that last night?
After I'd gone into Stanton?"

"Yes."

"What did you say? That you'd discovered that Mark was Robert?"

"Yes. At least I said that this morning I should probably telegraph to
Mr. Cartwright of Wimpole Street, and ask him to—"

Bill burst in eagerly on the top of the sentence. "Yes, now what was all
that about? You were so damn Sherlocky yesterday all of a sudden. We'd
been doing the thing together all the time, and you'd been telling me
everything, and then suddenly you become very mysterious and private and
talk enigmatically—is that the word?—about dentists and swimming and
the 'Plough and Horses,' and—well, what was it all about? You simply
vanished out of sight; I didn't know what on earth we were talking
about."

Antony laughed and apologized.

"Sorry, Bill. I felt like that suddenly. Just for the last half-hour;
just to end up with. I'll tell you everything now. Not that there's
anything to tell, really. It seems so easy when you know it—so obvious.
About Mr. Cartwright of Wimpole Street. Of course he was just to
identify the body."

"But whatever made you think of a dentist for that?"

"Who could do it better? Could you have done it? How could you? You'd
never gone bathing with Mark; you'd never seen him stripped. He didn't
swim. Could his doctor do it? Not unless he'd had some particular
operation, and perhaps not then. But his dentists could—at any time,
always—if he had been to his dentist fairly often. Hence Mr. Cartwright
of Wimpole Street."

Bill nodded thoughtfully and went back again to the letter.

"I see. And you told Cayley that you were telegraphing to Cartwright to
identify the body?"

"Yes. And then of course it was all up for him. Once we knew that Robert
was Mark we knew everything."

"How did you know?"

Antony got up from the breakfast table and began to fill his pipe.

"I'm not sure that I can say, Bill. You know those problems in Algebra
where you say, 'Let x be the answer,' and then you work it out and find
what x is. Well, that's one way; and another way, which they never give
you any marks for at school, is to guess the answer. Pretend the answer
is 4—well, will that satisfy the conditions of the problem? No. Then
try 6; and if 6 doesn't either, then what about 5?—and so on. Well, the
Inspector and the Coroner and all that lot had guessed their answer, and
it seemed to fit, but you and I knew it didn't really fit; there were
several conditions in the problem which it didn't fit at all. So we knew
that their answer was wrong, and we had to think of another—an answer
which explained all the things which were puzzling us. Well, I happened
to guess the right one. Got a match?"