The Red House Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

of things. Why, for
instance, did we run all the way round the house in order to get to the
windows? Surely there's a back way out through the hall. I must have a
look later on."
    Antony, it will be observed, had by no means lost his head.
    There was a step in the passage outside, and he turned round, to see
Cayley in the doorway. He remained looking at him for a moment, asking
himself a question. It was rather a curious question. He was asking
himself why the door was open.
    Well, not exactly why the door was open; that could be explained easily
enough. But why had he expected the door to be shut? He did not remember
shutting it, but somehow he was surprised to see it open now, to see
Cayley through the doorway, just coming into the room. Something working
sub-consciously in his brain had told him that it was surprising. Why?
    He tucked the matter away in a corner of his mind for the moment; the
answer would come to him later on. He had a wonderfully retentive
mind. Everything which he saw or heard seemed to make its corresponding
impression somewhere in his brain; often without his being conscious of
it; and these photographic impressions were always there ready for him
when he wished to develop them.
    Cayley joined him at the window.
    "I've telephoned," he said. "They're sending an inspector or some one
from Middleston, and the local police and doctor from Stanton." He
shrugged his shoulders. "We're in for it now."
    "How far away is Middleston?" It was the town for which Antony had taken
a ticket that morning—only six hours ago. How absurd it seemed.
    "About twenty miles. These people will be coming back soon."
    "Beverley, and the others?"
    "Yes. I expect they'll want to go away at once."
    "Much better that they should."
    "Yes." Cayley was silent for a little. Then he said, "You're staying
near here?"
    "I'm at 'The George,' at Waldheim."
    "If you're by yourself, I wish you'd put up here. You see," he went on
awkwardly, "you'll have to be here—for the—the inquest and—and so
on. If I may offer you my cousin's hospitality in his—I mean if he
doesn't—if he really has—"
    Antony broke in hastily with his thanks and acceptance.
    "That's good. Perhaps Beverley will stay on, if he's a friend of yours.
He's a good fellow."
    Antony felt quite sure, from what Cayley had said and had hesitated to
say, that Mark had been the last to see his brother alive. It didn't
follow that Mark Ablett was a murderer. Revolvers go off 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