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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The first thing we realize is that he is doing more of the looking than we are. Above a clean-cut, clean-shaven face, of the type usually associated with the Navy, he carries a pair of grey eyes which seem to be absorbing every detail of our person. To strangers this look is almost alarming at first, until they discover that his mind is very often elsewhere; that he has, so to speak, left his eyes on guard, while he himself follows a train of thought in another direction. Many people do this, of course; when, for instance, they are talking to one person and trying to listen to another; but their eyes betray them. Antony’s never did.
He had seen a good deal of the world with those eyes, though never as a sailor. When at the age of twenty-one he came into his mother’s money, £400 a year, old Gillingham looked up from the “Stockbreeders’ Gazette” to ask what he was going to do.
“See the world,” said Antony.
“Well, send me a line from America, or wherever you get to.”
“Right,” said Antony.
Old Gillingham returned to his paper. Antony was a younger son, and, on the whole, not so interesting to his father as the cadets of certain other families; Champion Birket’s, for instance. But, then, Champion Birket was the best Hereford bull he had ever bred.
Antony, however, had no intention of going further away than London. His idea of seeing the world was to see, not countries, but people; and to see them from as many angles as possible. There are all sorts in London if you know how to look at them. So Antony looked at them—from various strange corners; from the view-point of the valet, the newspaper-reporter, the waiter, the shop-assistant. With the independence of £400 a year behind him, he enjoyed it immensely. He never stayed long in one job, and generally closed his connection with it by telling his employer (contrary to all etiquette as understood between master and servant) exactly what he thought of him. He had no difficulty in finding a new profession. Instead of experience and testimonials he offered his personality and a sporting bet. He would take no wages the first month, and—if he satisfied his employer—double wages the second. He always got his double wages.
He was now thirty. He had come to Woodham for a holiday, because he liked the look of the station. His ticket entitled him to travel further, but he had always intended to please himself in the matter. Woodham attracted him, and he had a suit-case in the carriage with him and money in his pocket. Why not get out?
The landlady of ‘The George’ was only too glad to put him up, and promised that her husband would drive over that afternoon for his luggage.
“And you would like some lunch, I expect, sir.”
“Yes, but don’t give yourself any trouble about it. Cold anything-you’ve-got.”
“What about beef, sir?” she asked, as if she had a hundred varieties of meat to select from, and was offering him her best.
“That will do splendidly. And a pint of beer.”
While he was finishing his lunch, the landlord came in to ask about the luggage. Antony ordered another pint, and soon had him talking.
“It must be rather fun to keep a country inn,” he said, thinking that it was about time he started another profession.
“I don’t know about fun, sir. It gives us a living, and a bit over.”
“You ought to take a holiday,” said Antony, looking at him thoughtfully.
“Funny thing your saying that,” said the landlord, with a smile. “Another gentleman, over from the Red House, was saying that only yesterday. Offered to take my place an all.” He laughed rumblingly.
“The Red House? Not the Red House, Stanton?”
“That’s right, sir. Stanton’s the next station to Woodham. The Red House is about a mile from here—Mr. Ablett’s.”
Antony took a letter from his pocket. It was addressed from “The Red House, Stanton,” and signed “Bill.”
“Good old Bill,” he murmured to himself. “He’s getting on.”
Antony had met Bill Beverley two years before in a tobacconist’s shop. Gillingham was on one side of the counter and Mr. Beverley on the other. Something about Bill, his youth and freshness, perhaps, attracted Antony; and when cigarettes had been ordered, and an address given to which they were to be sent, he remembered that he had come across an aunt of Beverley’s once at a country-house. Beverley and he met again a little later at a restaurant. Both of them were in evening-dress, but they did different things with their napkins, and Antony was the more polite of the two. However, he still liked Bill. So on one of his holidays, when he was unemployed, he arranged an introduction through a mutual friend. Beverley was a little inclined to be shocked when he was reminded of their previous meetings, but his uncomfortable feeling soon wore off, and he and Antony quickly became intimate. But Bill generally addressed him as “Dear Madman” when he happened to write.
Antony decided to stroll over to the Red House after lunch and call upon his friend. Having inspected his bedroom which was not quite the lavender-smelling country-inn bedroom of fiction, but sufficiently clean and comfortable, he set out over the fields.
As he came down the drive and approached the old red-brick front of the house, there was a lazy murmur of bees in the flower-borders, a gentle cooing of pigeons in the tops of the elms, and from distant lawns the whir of a mowing-machine, that most restful of all country sounds....
And in the hall a man was banging at a locked door, and shouting, “Open the door, I say; open the door!”
“Hallo!” said Antony in amazement.
Two Men and a Body
Cayley looked round suddenly at the voice.
“Can I help?” said Antony politely.
“Something’s happened,” said Cayley. He was breathing quickly. “I heard a shot—it sounded like a shot—I was in the library. A loud bang—I didn’t know what it was. And the door’s locked.” He rattled the handle again, and shook it. “Open the door!” he cried. “I say, Mark, what is it? Open the door!”
“But he must have locked the door on purpose,” said Antony. “So why should he open it just because you ask him to?”
Cayley looked at him in a bewildered way. Then he turned to the door again. “We must break it in,” he said, putting his shoulder to it. “Help me.”
“Isn’t there a window?”
Cayley turned to him stupidly.
“Window? Window?”
“So much easier to break in a window,” said Antony with a smile. He looked very cool and collected, as he stood just inside the hall, leaning on his stick, and thinking, no doubt, that a great deal of fuss was being made about nothing. But then, he had not heard the shot.
“Window—of course! What an idiot I am.”
He pushed past Antony, and began running out into the drive. Antony followed him. They ran along the front of the house, down a path to the left, and then to the left again over the grass, Cayley in front, the other close behind him. Suddenly Cayley looked over his shoulder and pulled up short.
“Here,” he said.
They had come to the windows of the locked room, French windows which opened on to the lawns at the back of the house. But now they were closed. Antony couldn’t help feeling a thrill of excitement as he followed Cayley’s example, and put his face close up to the glass. For the first time he wondered if there really had been a revolver shot in this mysterious room. It had all seemed so absurd and melodramatic from the other side of the door. But if there had been one shot, why should there not be two more?—at the careless fools who were pressing their noses against the panes, and asking for it.
“My God, can you see it?” said Cayley in a shaking voice. “Down there. Look!”
The next moment Antony saw it. A man was lying on the floor at the far end of the room, his back towards them. A man? Or the body of a man?
“Who is it?” said Antony.
“I don’t know,” the other whispered.
“Well, we’d better go and see.” He considered the windows for a moment. “I should think, if you put your weight into it, just where they join, they’ll give all right. Otherwise, we can kick the glass in.”
Without saying anything, Cayley put his weight into it. The window gave, and they went into the room. Cayley walked quickly to the body, and dropped on his knees by it. For the moment he seemed to hesitate; then with an effort he put a hand on to its shoulder and pulled it over.
“Thank God!” he murmured, and let the body go again.
“Who is it?” said Antony.
“Robert Ablett.”
“Oh!” said Antony. “I thought his name was Mark,” he added, more to himself than to the other.
“Yes, Mark Ablett lives here. Robert is his brother.” He shuddered, and said, “I was afraid it was Mark.”
“Was Mark in the room too?”
“Yes,” said Cayley absently. Then, as if resenting suddenly these questions from a stranger, “Who are you?”
But Antony had gone to the locked door, and was turning the handle. “I suppose he put the key in his pocket,” he said, as he came back to the body again.
“Who?”
Antony shrugged his shoulders.
“Whoever did this,” he said, pointing to the man on the floor. “Is he dead?”
“Help me,” said Cayley simply.
They turned the body on to its back, nerving themselves to look at it. Robert Ablett had been shot between the eyes. It was not a pleasant sight, and with his horror Antony felt a sudden pity for the man beside him, and a sudden remorse for the careless, easy way in which he had treated the affair. But then one always went about imagining that these things didn’t happen—except to other people. It was difficult to believe in them just at first, when they happened to yourself.
“Did you know him well?” said Antony quietly. He meant, “Were you fond of him?”
“Hardly at all. Mark is my cousin. I mean, Mark is the brother I know best.”
“Your cousin?”
“Yes.” He hesitated, and then said, “Is he dead? I suppose he is. Will you—do you know anything about—about that sort of thing? Perhaps I’d better get some water.”
There was another door opposite to the locked one, which led, as Antony was to discover for himself directly, into a passage from which opened two more rooms. Cayley stepped into the passage, and opened the door on the right. The door from the office, through which he had gone, remained open. The door, at the end of the short passage was shut. Antony, kneeling by the body, followed Cayley with his eyes, and, after he had disappeared, kept his eyes on the blank wall of the passage, but he was not conscious of that at which he was looking, for his mind was with the other man, sympathizing with him.
“Not that water is any use to a dead body,” he said to himself, “but the feeling that you’re doing something, when there’s obviously nothing to be done, is a great comfort.”
Cayley came into the room again. He had a sponge in one hand, a handkerchief in the other. He looked at Antony. Antony nodded. Cayley murmured something, and knelt down to bathe the dead man’s face. Then he placed the handkerchief over it. A little sigh escaped Antony, a sigh of relief.
They stood up and looked at each other.
“If I can be of any help to you,” said Antony, “please let me.”
“That’s very kind of you. There will be things to do. Police, doctors—I don’t know. But you mustn’t let me trespass on your kindness. Indeed, I should apologise for having trespassed so much already.”
“I came to see Beverley. He is an old friend of mine.”
“He’s out playing golf. He will be back directly.” Then, as if he had only just realized it, “They will all be back directly.”
“I will stay if I can be of any help.”
“Please do. You see, there are women. It will be rather painful. If you would—” He hesitated, and gave Antony a timid little smile, pathetic in so big
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