The Red House Mystery

by A. A. Milne

  C for Cayley. Would Antony understand? Probably not, but it was just worth trying. What was C? Long, short, long, short. Umpty-iddy-umpty-iddy. Was that right? C yes, that was C. He was sure of that. C. Umpty-iddy-umpty-iddy.

  Hands in pockets, he got up and wandered across the room, humming vaguely to himself, the picture of a man waiting for another man (as it might be his friend Gillingham) to come in and take him away for a walk or something. He wandered across to the books at the back of Cayley, and began to tap absent-mindedly on the shelves, as he looked at the titles. Umpty-iddy-umpty-iddy. Not that it was much like that at first; he couldn't get the rhythm of it.... Umpt-y-iddy-umpt-y-iddy. That was better. He was back at Samuel Taylor Coleridge now. Antony would begin to hear him soon. Umpt-y-iddy-umpt-y-iddy; just the aimless tapping of a man who is wondering what book he will take out with him to read on the lawn. Would Antony hear? One always heard the man in the next flat knocking out his pipe. Would Antony understand? Umpt-y-iddy-umpt-y-iddy. C. for Cayley, Antony. Cayley's here. For God's sake, wait.

  "Good Lord! Sermons!" said Bill, with a loud laugh. (Umpt-y-iddy-umpt-y-iddy) "Ever read 'em, Cayley?"

  "What?" Cayley looked up suddenly. Bill's back moved slowly along, his fingers beating a tattoo on the shelves as he walked.

  "Er no," said Cayley, with a little laugh. An awkward, uncomfortable little laugh, it seemed to Bill.

  "Nor do I." He was past the sermons now past the secret door but still tapping in the same aimless way.

  "Oh, for God's sake sit down," burst out Cayley. "Or go outside if you want to walk about."

  Bill turned round in astonishment.

  "Hallo, what's the matter?"

  Cayley was slightly ashamed of his outburst.

  "Sorry, Bill," he apologized. "My nerves are on edge. Your constant tapping and fidgeting about—"

  "Tapping?" said Bill with an air of complete surprise.

  "Tapping on the shelves, and humming. Sorry. It got on my nerves."

  "My dear old chap, I'm awfully sorry. I'll go out in the hall."

  "It's all right," said Cayley, and went on with his letter. Bill sat down in his chair again. Had Antony understood? Well, anyhow, there was nothing to do now but wait for Cayley to go. "And if you ask me," said Bill to himself, much pleased, "I ought to be on the stage. That's where I ought to be. The complete actor."

  A minute, two minutes, three minutes.... five minutes. It was safe now. Antony had guessed.

  "Is the car there?" asked Cayley, as he sealed up his letter.

  Bill strolled into the hall, called back "Yes," and went out to talk to the chauffeur. Cayley joined him, and they stood there for a moment.

  "Hallo," said a pleasant voice behind them. They turned round and saw Antony.

  "Sorry to keep you waiting, Bill."

  With a tremendous effort Bill restrained his feelings, and said casually enough that it was all right.

  "Well, I must be off," said Cayley. "You're going down to the village?"

  "That's the idea."

  "I wonder if you'd take this letter to Jallands for me?"

  "Of course."

  "Thanks very much. Well, I shall see you later."

  He nodded and got into the car.

  As soon as they were alone Bill turned eagerly to his friend.

  "Well?" he said excitedly.

  "Come into the library."

  They went in, and Tony sank down into a chair.

  "You must give me a moment," he panted. "I've been running."

  "Running?"

  "Well, of course. How do you think I got back here?"

  "You don't mean you went out at the other end?"

  Antony nodded.

  "I say, did you hear me tapping?"

  "I did, indeed. Bill, you're a genius."

  Bill blushed.

  "I knew you'd understand," he said. "You guessed that I meant Cayley?"

  "I did. It was the least I could do after you had been so brilliant. You must have had rather an exciting time."

  "Exciting? Good Lord, I should think it was."

  "Tell me about it."

  As modestly as possible, Mr. Beverley explained his qualifications for a life on the stage.

  "Good man," said Antony at the end of it. "You are the most perfect Watson that ever lived. Bill, my lad," he went on dramatically, rising and taking Bill's hand in both of his, "There is nothing that you and I could not accomplish together, if we gave our minds to it."

  "Silly old ass."

  "That's what you always say when I'm being serious. Well, anyway, thanks awfully. You really saved us this time."

  "Were you coming back?"

  "Yes. At least I think I was. I was just wondering when I heard you tapping. The fact of the door being shut was rather surprising. Of course the whole idea was to see if it could be opened easily from the other side, but I felt somehow that you wouldn't shut it until the last possible moment—until you saw me coming back. Well, then I heard the taps, and I knew it must mean something, so I sat tight. Then when C began to come along I said, 'Cayley, b'Jove'—bright, aren't I?—and I simply hared to the other end of the passage for all I was worth. And hared back again. Because I thought you might be getting rather involved in explanations—about where I was, and so on."

  "You didn't see Mark, then?"

  "No. Nor his—No, I didn't see anything."

  "Nor what?"

  Antony was silent for a moment.

  "I didn't see anything, Bill. Or rather, I did see something; I saw a door in the wall, a cupboard. And it's locked. So if there's anything we want to find, that's where it is."

  "Could Mark be hiding there?"

  "I called through the keyhole in a whisper 'Mark, are you there?' he would have thought it was Cayley. There was no answer.

  "Well, let's go down and try again. We might be able to get the door open."

  Antony shook his head.

  "Aren't I going at all?" said Bill in great disappointment.

  When Antony spoke, it was to ask another question:

  "Can Cayley drive a car?"

  "Yes, of course. Why?"

  "Then he might easily drop the chauffeur at his lodge and go off to Stanton, or wherever he wanted to, on his own?"

  "I suppose so if he wanted to."

  "Yes." Antony got up. "Well, look here, as we said we were going into the village, and as we promised to leave that letter, I almost think we'd better do it."

  "Oh!.... Oh, very well."

  "Jallands. What were you telling me about that? Oh, yes; the Widow Norbury."

  "That's right. Cayley used to be rather keen on the daughter. The letter's for her."

  "Yes; well, let's take it. Just to be on the safe side."

  "Am I going to be done out of that secret passage altogether?" asked Bill fretfully.

  "There's nothing to see, really, I promise you."

  "You're very mysterious. What's upset you? You did see something down there, I'm certain of it."

  "I did and I've told you about it."

  "No, you haven't. You only told me about the door in the wall."

  "That's it, Bill. And it's locked. And I'm frightened of what's behind it."

  "But then we shall never know what's there if we aren't going to look."

  "We shall know to-night," said Antony, taking Bill's arm and leading him to the hall, "when we watch our dear friend Cayley dropping it into the pond."

  Chapter XV - Mrs. Norbury Confides in Dear Mr. Gillingham

  *

  They left the road, and took the path across the fields which sloped gently downwards towards Jallands. Antony was silent, and since it is difficult to keep up a conversation with a silent man for any length of time, Bill had dropped into silence too. Or rather, he hummed to himself, hit at thistles in the grass with his stick and made uncomfortable noises with his pipe. But he noticed that his companion kept looking back over his shoulder, almost as if he wanted to remember for a future occasion the way by wh
ich they were coming. Yet there was no difficulty about it, for they remained all the time in view of the road, and the belt of trees above the long park wall which bordered its further side stood out clearly against the sky.

  Antony, who had just looked round again, turned back with a smile.

  "What's the joke?" said Bill, glad of the more social atmosphere.

  "Cayley. Didn't you see?"

  "See what?"

  "The car. Going past on the road there."

  "So that's what you were looking for. You've got jolly good eyes, my boy, if you recognize the car at this distance after only seeing it twice."

  "Well, I have got jolly good eyes."

  "I thought he was going to Stanton."

  "He hoped you'd think so obviously."

  "Then where is he going?"

  "The library, probably. To consult our friend Ussher. After making quite sure that his friends Beverley and Gillingham really were going to Jallands, as they said."

  Bill stopped suddenly in the middle of the path.

  "I say, do you think so?"

  Antony shrugged his shoulders.

  "I shouldn't be surprised. We must be devilishly inconvenient for him, hanging about the house. Any moment he can get, when we're definitely somewhere else, must be very useful to him."

  "Useful for what?"

  "Well, useful for his nerves, if for nothing else. We know he's mixed up in this business; we know he's hiding a secret or two. Even if he doesn't suspect that we're on his tracks, he must feel that at any moment we might stumble on something."

  Bill gave a grunt of assent, and they went slowly on again.

  "What about to-night?" he said, after a lengthy blow at his pipe.

  "Try a piece of grass," said Antony, offering it to him. Bill pushed it through the mouthpiece, blew again, said, "That's better," and returned the pipe to his pocket.

  "How are we going to get out without Cayley knowing?"

  "Well, that wants thinking over. It's going to be difficult. I wish we were sleeping at the inn.... Is this Miss Norbury, by any chance?"

  Bill looked up quickly. They were close to Jallands now, an old thatched farmhouse which, after centuries of sleep, had woken up to a new world, and had forthwith sprouted wings; wings, however, of so discreet a growth that they had not brought with them any obvious change of character, and Jallands even with a bathroom was still Jallands. To the outward view, at any rate. Inside, it was more clearly Mrs. Norbury's.

  "Yes Angela Norbury," murmured Bill. "Not bad-looking, is she?"

  The girl who stood by the little white gate of Jallands was something more than "not bad-looking," but in this matter Bill was keeping his superlatives for another. In Bill's eyes she must be judged, and condemned, by all that distinguished her from Betty Calladine. To Antony, unhampered by these standards of comparison, she seemed, quite simply, beautiful.

  "Cayley asked us to bring a letter along," explained Bill, when the necessary handshakings and introductions were over. "Here you are."

  "You will tell him, won't you, how dreadfully sorry I am about what has happened? It seems so hopeless to say anything; so hopeless even to believe it. If it is true what we've heard."

  Bill repeated the outline of events of yesterday.

  "Yes.... And Mr. Ablett hasn't been found yet?" She shook her head in distress. "It still seems to have happened to somebody else; somebody we didn't know at all." Then, with a sudden grave smile which included both of them, "But you must come and have some tea."

  "It's awfully decent of you," said Bill awkwardly, "but we—er—"

  "You will, won't you?" she said to Antony.

  "Thank you very much."

  Mrs. Norbury was delighted to see them, as she always was to see any man in her house who came up to the necessary standard of eligibility. When her life-work was completed, and summed up in those beautiful words: "A marriage has been arranged, and will shortly take place, between Angela, daughter of the late John Norbury...." then she would utter a grateful Nunc dimittis and depart in peace to a better world, if Heaven insisted, but preferably to her new son-in-law's more dignified establishment. For there was no doubt that eligibility meant not only eligibility as a husband.

  But it was not as "eligibles" that the visitors from the Red House were received with such eagerness to-day, and even if her special smile for "possibles" was there, it was instinctive rather than reasoned. All that she wanted at this moment was news—news of Mark. For she was bringing it off at last; and, if the engagement columns of the "Morning Post" were preceded, as in the case of its obituary columns, by a premonitory bulletin, the announcement of yesterday would have cried triumphantly to the world, or to such part of the world as mattered: "A marriage has very nearly been arranged (by Mrs. Norbury), and will certainly take place, between Angela, only daughter of the late John Norbury, and—Mark Ablett of the Red House." And, coming across it on his way to the sporting page, Bill would have been surprised. For he had thought that, if anybody, it was Cayley.

  To the girl it was neither. She was often amused by her mother's ways; sometimes ashamed of them; sometimes distressed by them. The Mark Ablett affair had seemed to her particularly distressing, for Mark was so obviously in league with her mother against her. Other suitors, upon whom her mother had smiled, had been embarrassed by that championship; Mark appeared to depend on it as much as on his own attractions; great though he thought these to be. They went a-wooing together. It was a pleasure to turn to Cayley, that hopeless ineligible.

  But alas! Cayley had misunderstood her. She could not imagine Cayley in love until she saw it, and tried, too late, to stop it. That was four days ago. She had not seen him since, and now here was this letter. She dreaded opening it. It was a relief to feel that at least she had an excuse for not doing so while her guests were in the house.

  Mrs. Norbury recognized at once that Antony was likely to be the more sympathetic listener; and when tea was over, and Bill and Angela had been dispatched to the garden with the promptness and efficiency of the expert, dear Mr. Gillingham found himself on the sofa beside her, listening to many things which were of even greater interest to him than she could possibly have hoped.

  "It is terrible, terrible," she said. "And to suggest that dear Mr. Ablett—"

  Antony made suitable noises.

  "You've seen Mr. Ablett for yourself. A kinder, more warmhearted man—"

  Antony explained that he had not seen Mr. Ablett.

  "Of course, yes, I was forgetting. But, believe me, Mr. Gillingham, you can trust a woman's intuition in these matters."

  Antony said that he was sure of this.

  "Think of my feelings as a mother."

  Antony was thinking of Miss Norbury's feelings as a daughter, and wondering if she guessed that her affairs were now being discussed with a stranger. Yet what could he do? What, indeed, did he want to do except listen, in the hope of learning? Mark engaged, or about to be engaged! Had that any bearing on the events of yesterday? What, for instance, would Mrs. Norbury have thought of brother Robert, that family skeleton? Was this another reason for wanting brother Robert out of the way?

  "I never liked him, never!"

  "Never liked?" said Antony, bewildered.

  "That cousin of his Mr. Cayley."

  "Oh!"

  "I ask you, Mr. Gillingham, am I the sort of woman to trust my little girl to a man who would go about shooting his only brother?"

  "I'm sure you wouldn't, Mrs. Norbury."

  "If there has been any shooting done, it has been done by somebody else."

  Antony looked at her inquiringly.

  "I never liked him," said Mrs. Norbury firmly. "Never." However, thought Antony to himself, that didn't quite prove that Cayley was a murderer.

  "How did Miss Norbury get on with him?" he asked cautiously.

  "There was nothing in that at all," said Miss Norbury's mother emphatically. "Nothing. I would say so to anybody."

  "Oh, I beg your pardon.
I never meant—"

  "Nothing. I can say that for dear Angela with perfect confidence. Whether he made advances—" She broke off with a shrug of her plump shoulders.

  Antony waited eagerly.

  "Naturally they met. Possibly he might have—I don't know. But my duty as a mother was clear, Mr. Gillingham."

  Mr. Gillingham made an encouraging noise.

  "I told him quite frankly that—how shall I put it?—that he was trespassing. Tactfully, of course. But frankly."

  "You mean," said Antony, trying to speak calmly, "that you told him that—er—Mr. Ablett and your daughter—?"

  Mrs. Norbury nodded several times.

  "Exactly, Mr. Gillingham. I had my duty as a mother."

  "I am sure, Mrs. Norbury, that nothing would keep you from doing your duty. But it must have been disagreeable. Particularly if you weren't quite sure—"

  "He was attracted, Mr. Gillingham. Obviously attracted."

  "Who would not be?" said Antony, with a charming smile. "It must have been something of a shock to him to—"

  "It was just that which made me so glad that I had spoken. I saw at once that I had not spoken a moment too soon."

  "There must have been a certain awkwardness about the next meeting," suggested Antony.

  "Naturally, he has not been here since. No doubt they would have been bound to meet up at the Red House sooner or later."

  "Oh,—this was only quite lately?"

  "Last week, Mr. Gillingham. I spoke just in time."

  "Ah!" said Antony, under his breath. He had been waiting for it.

  He would have liked now to have gone away, so that he might have thought over the new situation by himself; or, perhaps preferably, to have changed partners for a little while with Bill. Miss Norbury would hardly be ready to confide in a stranger with the readiness of a mother, but he might have learnt something by listening to her. For which of them had she the greater feeling, Cayley or Mark? Was she really prepared to marry Mark? Did she love him or the other—or neither? Mrs. Norbury was only a trustworthy witness in regard to her own actions and thoughts; he had learnt all that was necessary of those, and only the daughter now had anything left to tell him. But Mrs. Norbury was still talking.