The Red House Mystery Read Online Free Page B

name's Gillingham. I'm sorry, I ought to have told you before. Well
now, Mr. Cayley, we shan't do any good by pretending. Here's a man been
shot—well, somebody shot him."
    "He might have shot himself," mumbled Cayley.
    "Yes, he might have, but he didn't. Or if he did, somebody was in the
room at the time, and that somebody isn't here now. And that somebody
took a revolver away with him. Well, the police will want to say a word
about that, won't they?"
    Cayley was silent, looking on the ground.
    "Oh, I know what you're thinking, and believe me I do sympathize with
you, but we can't be children about it. If your cousin Mark Ablett was
in the room with this"—he indicated the body—"this man, then—"
    "Who said he was?" said Cayley, jerking his head up suddenly at Antony.
    "You did."
    "I was in the library. Mark went in—he may have come out again—I know
nothing. Somebody else may have gone in—"
    "Yes, yes," said Antony patiently, as if to a little child. "You know
your cousin; I don't. Let's agree that he had nothing to do with it. But
somebody was in the room when this man was shot, and—well, the police
will have to know. Don't you think—" He looked at the telephone. "Or
would you rather I did it?"
    Cayley shrugged his shoulders and went to the telephone.
    "May I—er—look round a bit?" Antony nodded towards the open door.
    "Oh, do. Yes." He sat down and drew the telephone towards him. "You must
make allowances for me, Mr. Gillingham. You see, I've known Mark for a
very long time. But, of course, you're quite right, and I'm merely being
stupid." He took off the receiver.
    Let us suppose that, for the purpose of making a first acquaintance with
this "office," we are coming into it from the hall, through the door
which is now locked, but which, for our special convenience, has been
magically unlocked for us. As we stand just inside the door, the length
of the room runs right and left; or, more accurately, to the right only,
for the left-hand wall is almost within our reach. Immediately opposite
to us, across the breadth of the room (some fifteen feet), is that other
door, by which Cayley went out and returned a few minutes ago. In the
right-hand wall, thirty feet away from us, are the French windows.
Crossing the room and going out by the opposite door, we come into a
passage, from which two rooms lead. The one on the right, into which
Cayley went, is less than half the length of the office, a small, square
room, which has evidently been used some time or other as a bedroom. The
bed is no longer there, but there is a basin, with hot and cold taps, in
a corner; chairs; a cupboard or two, and a chest of drawers. The window
faces the same way as the French windows in the next room; but anybody
looking out of the bedroom window has his view on the immediate right
shut off by the outer wall of the office, which projects, by reason of
its greater length, fifteen feet further into the lawn.
    The room on the other side of the bedroom is a bathroom. The three rooms
together, in fact, form a sort of private suite; used, perhaps, during
the occupation of the previous owner, by some invalid, who could not
manage the stairs, but allowed by Mark to fall into disuse, save for the
living-room. At any rate, he never slept downstairs.
    Antony glanced at the bathroom, and then wandered into the bedroom, the
room into which Cayley had been. The window was open, and he looked out
at the well-kept grass beneath him, and the peaceful stretch of park
beyond; and he felt very sorry for the owner of it all, who was now
mixed up in so grim a business.
    "Cayley thinks he did it," said Antony to himself. "That's obvious. It
explains why he wasted so much time banging on the door. Why should
he try to break a lock when it's so much easier to break a window?
Of course he might just have lost his head; on the other hand, he
might—well, he might have wanted to give his cousin a chance of getting
away. The same about the police, and—oh, lots