The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne (manga ereader txt) 📕

To see whether it’s worth telling the police about.”

“Y-yes,” said Bill, wrinkling his forehead. “Of course, the trouble with water is that one bit of it looks pretty much like the next bit. I don’t know if that had occurred to you.”

“It had,” smiled Antony. “Let’s come and have a look at it.”

They walked to the edge of the copse, and lay down there in silence, looking at the pond beneath them.

“See anything?” said Antony at last.

“What?”

“The fence on the other side.”

“What about it?”

“Well, it’s rather useful, that’s all.”

“Said Sherlock Holmes enigmatically,” added Bill. “A moment later, his friend Watson had hurled him into the pond.”

Antony laughed.

“I love being Sherlocky,” he said. “It’s very unfair of you not to play up to me.”

“Why is that fence useful, my dear Holmes?” said Bill obediently.

“Because you can take a bearing on it. You see⁠—”

“Yes, you needn’t stop to explain to me what a bearing is.”

“I wasn’t going to. But you’re lying here”⁠—he looked up⁠—“underneath this pine-tree. Cayley comes out in the old boat and drops his parcel in. You take a line from here on to the boat, and mark it off on the fence there. Say it’s the fifth post from the end. Well, then I take a line from my tree⁠—we’ll find one for me directly⁠—and it comes on to the twentieth post, say. And where the two lines meet, there shall the eagles be gathered together. Q.E.D. And there, I almost forgot to remark, will the taller eagle, Beverley by name, do his famous diving act. As performed nightly at the Hippodrome.”

Bill looked at him uneasily.

“I say, really? It’s beastly dirty water, you know.”

“I’m afraid so, Bill. So it is written in the book of Jasher.”

“Of course I knew that one of us would have to, but I hoped⁠—oh, well, it’s a warm night.”

“Just the night for a bathe,” agreed Antony, getting up. “Well now, let’s have a look for my tree.”

They walked down to the margin of the pond and then looked back. Bill’s tree stood up and took the evening, tall and unmistakable, fifty feet nearer to heaven than its neighbours. But it had its fellow at the other end of the copse, not quite so tall, perhaps, but equally conspicuous.

“That’s where I shall be,” said Antony, pointing to it. “Now, for the Lord’s sake, count your posts accurately.”

“Thanks very much, but I shall do it for my own sake,” said Bill with feeling. “I don’t want to spend the whole night diving.”

“Fix on the post in a straight line with you and the splash, and then count backwards to the beginning of the fence.”

“Right, old boy. Leave it to me. I can do this on my head.”

“Well, that’s how you will have to do the last part of it,” said Antony with a smile.

He looked at his watch. It was nearly time to change for dinner. They started to walk back to the house together.

“There’s one thing which worries me rather,” said Antony. “Where does Cayley sleep?”

“Next door to me. Why?”

“Well, it’s just possible that he might have another look at you after he’s come back from the pond. I don’t think he’d bother about it in the ordinary way, but if he is actually passing your door, I think he might glance in.”

“I shan’t be there. I shall be at the bottom of the pond, sucking up mud.”

“Yes.⁠ ⁠… Do you think you could leave something in your bed that looked vaguely like you in the dark? A bolster with a pyjama-coat round it, and one arm outside the blanket, and a pair of socks or something for the head. You know the kind of thing. I think it would please him to feel that you were still sleeping peacefully.”

Bill chuckled to himself.

“Rather. I’m awfully good at that. I’ll make him up something really good. But what about you?”

“I’m at the other end of the house; he’s hardly likely to bother about me a second time. And I shall be so very fast asleep at his first visit. Still, I may as well⁠—to be on the safe side.”

They went into the house. Cayley was in the hall as they came in. He nodded, and took out his watch.

“Time to change?” he said.

“Just about,” said Bill.

“You didn’t forget my letter?”

“I did not. In fact, we had tea there.”

“Ah!” He looked away and said carelessly, “How were they all?”

“They sent all sorts of sympathetic messages to you, and⁠—and all that sort of thing.”

“Oh, yes.”

Bill waited for him to say something more, and then, as nothing was coming, he turned round, said, “Come on, Tony,” and led the way upstairs.

“Got all you want?” he said at the top of the stairs.

“I think so. Come and see me before you go down.”

“Righto.”

Antony shut his bedroom door behind him and walked over to the window. He pushed open a casement and looked out. His bedroom was just over the door at the back of the house. The side wall of the office, which projected out into the lawn beyond the rest of the house, was on his left. He could step out on to the top of the door, and from there drop easily to the ground. Getting back would be little more difficult. There was a convenient water-pipe which would help.

He had just finished his dressing when Bill came in. “Final instructions?” he asked, sitting down on the bed. “By the way, how are we amusing ourselves after dinner? I mean immediately after dinner.”

“Billiards?”

“Righto. Anything you like.”

“Don’t talk too loud,” said Antony in a lower voice. “We’re more or less over the hall, and Cayley may be there.” He led the way to the window. “We’ll go out this way tonight. Going downstairs is too risky. It’s easy enough; better put on tennis-shoes.”

“Right. I say, in case I don’t get another chance alone with you⁠—what do I do when Cayley comes to tuck me up?”

“It’s difficult to say. Be as natural as you can. I mean, if he