The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne (most popular ebook readers txt) 📕
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- Author: A. A. Milne
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So far, so good. But here was Cayley still in the library, and there was Antony, all unsuspecting, in the passage. When Antony came back he would not be surprised to find the door closed, because the whole object of his going had been to see if he could open it easily from the inside. At any moment, then, the bookshelf might swing back and show Antony’s head in the gap. A nice surprise for Cayley!
“Come with us?” he said casually, as he struck a match. He pulled vigorously at the flame as he waited for the answer, hoping to hide his anxiety, for if Cayley assented, he was done.
“I’ve got to go into Stanton.”
Bill blew out a great cloud of smoke with an expiration which covered also a heartfelt sigh of relief.
“Oh, a pity. You’re driving, I suppose?”
“Yes. The car will be here directly. There’s a letter I must write first.” He sat down at a writing table, and took out a sheet of notepaper.
He was facing the secret door; if it opened he would see it. At any moment now it might open.
Bill dropped into a chair and thought. Antony must be warned. Obviously. But how? How did one signal to anybody? By code. Morse code. Did Antony know it? Did Bill know it himself, if it came to that? He had picked up a bit in the Army—not enough to send a message, of course. But a message was impossible, anyhow; Cayley would hear him tapping it out. It wouldn’t do to send more than a single letter. What letters did he know? And what letter would convey anything to Antony?.... He pulled at his pipe, his eyes wandering from Cayley at his desk to the Reverend Theodore Ussher in his shelf. What letter?
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.”
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 which 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—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
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