The Red House Mystery (9 page)

They came out of the front door and followed the drive to the left.
Coming from Waldheim, Antony had approached the house that afternoon
from the other side. The way they were going now would take them out
at the opposite end of the park, on the high road to Stanton, a country
town some three miles away. They passed by a gate and a gardener's
lodge, which marked the limit of what auctioneers like to call "the
ornamental grounds of the estate," and then the open park was before
them.

"Sure we haven't missed it?" said Antony. The park lay quietly in the
moonlight on either side of the drive, wearing a little way ahead
of them a deceptive air of smoothness which retreated always as they
advanced.

"Rum, isn't it?" said Bill. "An absurd place for a bowling green, but I
suppose it was always here."

"Yes, but always where? It's short enough for golf, perhaps,
but—Hallo!"

They had come to the place. The road bent round to the right, but they
kept straight on over a broad grass path for twenty yards, and there
in front of them was the green. A dry ditch, ten feet wide and six
feet deep, surrounded it, except in the one place where the path went
forward. Two or three grass steps led down to the green, on which there
was a long wooden beach for the benefit of spectators.

"Yes, it hides itself very nicely," said Antony. "Where do you keep the
bowls?"

"In a sort of summer house place. Round here."

They walked along the edge of the green until they came to it a low
wooden bunk which had been built into one wall of the ditch.

"H'm. Jolly view."

Bill laughed.

"Nobody sits there. It's just for keeping things out of the rain."

They finished their circuit of the green "Just in case anybody's in the
ditch," said Antony and then sat down on the bench.

"Now then," said Bill, "We are alone. Fire ahead."

Antony smoked thoughtfully for a little. Then he took his pipe out of
his mouth and turned to his friend.

"Are you prepared to be the complete Watson?" he asked.

"Watson?"

"Do-you-follow-me-Watson; that one. Are you prepared to have quite
obvious things explained to you, to ask futile questions, to give me
chances of scoring off you, to make brilliant discoveries of your own
two or three days after I have made them myself all that kind of thing?
Because it all helps."

"My dear Tony," said Bill delightedly, "need you ask?" Antony said
nothing, and Bill went on happily to himself, "I perceive from the
strawberry-mark on your shirt-front that you had strawberries for
dessert. Holmes, you astonish me. Tut, tut, you know my methods. Where
is the tobacco? The tobacco is in the Persian slipper. Can I leave my
practice for a week? I can."

Antony smiled and went on smoking. After waiting hopefully for a minute
or two, Bill said in a firm voice:

"Well then, Holmes, I feel bound to ask you if you have deduced
anything. Also whom do you suspect?"

Antony began to talk.

"Do you remember," he said, "one of Holmes's little scores over Watson
about the number of steps up to the Baker Street lodging? Poor old
Watson had been up and down them a thousand times, but he had never
thought of counting them, whereas Holmes had counted them as a matter of
course, and knew that there were seventeen. And that was supposed to
be the difference between observation and non-observation. Watson was
crushed again, and Holmes appeared to him more amazing than ever. Now,
it always seemed to me that in that matter Holmes was the ass, and
Watson the sensible person. What on earth is the point of keeping in
your head an unnecessary fact like that? If you really want to know
at any time the number of steps to your lodging, you can ring up your
landlady and ask her. I've been up and down the steps of the club a
thousand times, but if you asked me to tell you at this moment how many
steps there are I couldn't do it. Could you?"

"I certainly couldn't," said Bill.

"But if you really wanted to know," said Antony casually, with a sudden
change of voice, "I could find out for you without even bothering to
ring up the hall-porter."

Bill was puzzled as to why they were talking about the club steps, but
he felt it his duty to say that he did want to know how many they were.

"Right," said Antony. "I'll find out."

He closed his eyes.

"I'm walking up St James' Street," he said slowly. "Now I've come to the
club and I'm going past the smoking-room—windows-one-two three
four. Now I'm at the steps. I turn in and begin going up them.
One-two-three-four-five-six, then a broad step; six-seven-eight-nine,
another broad step; nine-ten-eleven. Eleven I'm inside. Good morning,
Rogers. Fine day again." With a little start he opened his eyes and came
back again to his present surroundings. He turned to Bill with a smile.
"Eleven," he said. "Count them the next time you're there. Eleven and
now I hope I shall forget it again."

Bill was distinctly interested.

"That's rather hot," he said. "Expound."

"Well, I can't explain it, whether it's something in the actual eye, or
something in the brain, or what, but I have got rather an uncanny habit
of recording things unconsciously. You know that game where you look at
a tray full of small objects for three minutes, and then turn away and
try to make a list of them. It means a devil of a lot of concentration
for the ordinary person, if he wants to get his list complete, but in
some odd way I manage to do it without concentration at all. I mean that
my eyes seem to do it without the brain consciously taking any part. I
could look at the tray, for instance, and talk to you about golf at the
same time, and still get my list right."

"I should think that's rather a useful gift for an amateur detective.
You ought to have gone into the profession before."

"Well, it is rather useful. It's rather surprising, you know, to a
stranger. Let's surprise Cayley with it, shall we?"

"How?"

"Well, let's ask him—" Antony stopped and looked at Bill comically,
"let's ask him what he's going to do with the key of the office."

For a moment Bill did not understand.

"Key of the office?" he said vaguely. "You don't mean—Tony! What do you
mean? Good God! do you mean that Cayley—But what about Mark?"

"I don't know where Mark is—that's another thing I want to know—but
I'm quite certain that he hasn't got the key of the office with him.
Because Cayley's got it."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite."

Bill looked at him wonderingly.

"I say," he said, almost pleadingly, "don't tell me that you can see
into people's pockets and all that sort of thing as well."

Antony laughed and denied it cheerfully.

"Then how do you know?"

"You're the perfect Watson, Bill. You take to it quite naturally.
Properly speaking, I oughtn't to explain till the last chapter, but I
always think that that's so unfair. So here goes. Of course, I don't
really know that he's got it, but I do know that he had it. I know that
when I came on him this afternoon, he had just locked the door and put
the key in his pocket."

"You mean you saw him at the time, but that you've only just remembered
it—reconstructed it in the way you were explaining just now?"

"No. I didn't see him. But I did see something. I saw the key of the
billiard-room."

"Where?

"Outside the billiard-room door."

"Outside? But it was inside when we looked just now."

"Exactly."

"Who put it there?"

"Obviously Cayley."

"But—"

"Let's go back to this afternoon. I don't remember noticing the
billiard-room key at the time; I must have done so without knowing.
Probably when I saw Cayley banging at the door I may have wondered
subconsciously whether the key of the room next to it would fit.
Something like that, I daresay. Well, when I was sitting out by myself
on that seat just before you came along, I went over the whole scene in
my mind, and I suddenly saw the billiard-room key there outside. And I
began to wonder if the office-key had been outside too. When Cayley came
up, I told you my idea and you were both interested. But Cayley was just
a shade too interested. I daresay you didn't notice it, but he was."

"By Jove!"

"Well, of course that proved nothing; and the key business didn't really
prove anything, because whatever side of the door the other keys were,
Mark might have locked his own private room from the inside sometimes.
But I piled it on, and pretended that it was enormously important, and
quite altered the case altogether, and having got Cayley thoroughly
anxious about it, I told him that we should be well out of the way for
the next hour or so, and that he would be alone in the house to do what
he liked about it. And, as I expected, he couldn't resist it. He altered
the keys and gave himself away entirely."

"But the library key was still outside. Why didn't he alter that?"

"Because he's a clever devil. For one thing, the Inspector had been
in the library, and might possibly have noticed it already. And for
another—" Antony hesitated.

"What?" said Bill, after waiting for him to go on.

"It's only guesswork. But I fancy that Cayley was thoroughly upset about
the key business. He suddenly realized that he had been careless, and
he hadn't got time to think it all over. So he didn't want to commit
himself definitely to the statement that the key was either outside or
inside. He wanted to leave it vague. It was safest that way."

"I see," said Bill slowly.

But his mind was elsewhere. He was wondering suddenly about Cayley.
Cayley was just an ordinary man—like himself. Bill had had little jokes
with him sometimes; not that Cayley was much of a hand at joking.
Bill had helped him to sausages, played tennis with him, borrowed his
tobacco, lent him a putter.... and here was Antony saying that he was
what? Well, not an ordinary man, anyway. A man with a secret. Perhaps
a murderer. No, not a murderer; not Cayley. That was rot, anyway. Why,
they had played tennis together.

"Now then, Watson," said Antony suddenly. "It's time you said
something."

"I say, Tony, do you really mean it?"

"Mean what?"

"About Cayley."

"I mean what I said, Bill. No more."

"Well, what does it amount to?"

"Simply that Robert Ablett died in the office this afternoon, and that
Cayley knows exactly how he died. That's all. It doesn't follow that
Cayley killed him."

"No. No, of course it doesn't." Bill gave a sigh of relief. "He's just
shielding Mark, what?"

"I wonder."

"Well, isn't that the simplest explanation?"

"It's the simplest if you're a friend of Cayley and want to let him down
lightly. But then I'm not, you see."

"Why isn't it simple, anyhow?"

"Well, let's have the explanation then, and I'll undertake to give you
a simpler one afterwards. Go on. Only remember the key is on the outside
of the door to start with."

"Yes; well, I don't mind that. Mark goes in to see his brother, and they
quarrel and all the rest of it, just as Cayley was saying. Cayley hears
the shot, and in order to give Mark time to get away, locks the door,
puts the key in his pocket and pretends that Mark has locked the door,
and that he can't get in. How's that?"

"Hopeless, Watson, hopeless."

"Why?"

"How does Cayley know that it is Mark who has shot Robert, and not the
other way round?"

"Oh!" said Bill, rather upset. "Yes." He thought for a moment, "All
right. Say that Cayley has gone into the room first, and seen Robert on
the ground."

"Well?"

"Well, there you are."

"And what does he say to Mark? That it's a fine afternoon; and could he
lend him a pocket-handkerchief? Or does he ask him what's happened?"

"Well, of course, I suppose he asks what happened," said Bill
reluctantly.

"And what does Mark say?"

"Explains that the revolver went off accidentally during a struggle."

"Whereupon Cayley shields him by doing what, Bill? Encouraging him to do
the damn silliest thing that any man could possibly do confess his guilt
by running away!"

"No, that's rather hopeless, isn't it?" Bill thought again. "Well,"
he said reluctantly, "suppose Mark confessed that he'd murdered his
brother?"

"That's better, Bill. Don't be afraid of getting away from the accident
idea. Well then, your new theory is this. Mark confesses to Cayley
that he shot Robert on purpose, and Cayley decides, even at the risk of
committing perjury, and getting into trouble himself, to help Mark to
escape. Is that right?"

Bill nodded.

"Well then, I want to ask you two questions. First, is it possible, as I
said before dinner, that any man would commit such an idiotic murder—a
murder that puts the rope so very tightly round his neck? Secondly, if
Cayley is prepared to perjure himself for Mark (as he has to, anyway,
now), wouldn't it be simpler for him to say that he was in the office
all the time, and that Robert's death was accidental?"

Bill considered this carefully, and then nodded slowly again.

"Yes, my simple explanation is a wash-out," he said. "Now let's have
yours."

Antony did not answer him. He had begun to think about something quite
different.

"What's the matter?" said Bill sharply.

Antony looked round at him with raised eyebrows.

"You've thought of something suddenly," said Bill. "What is it?"

Antony laughed.

"My dear Watson," he said, "you aren't supposed to be as clever as
this."

"Oh, you can't take me in!"

"No.... Well, I was wondering about this ghost of yours, Bill. It seems
to me—"

"Oh, that!" Bill was profoundly disappointed. "What on earth has the
ghost got to do with it?"