The Red House Mystery - A. A. Milne (best books to read for self development txt) 📗

about anything. Mark gives himself away.⁠ ⁠… Ugly, black-jawed devil, isn’t he?”

“Some women like that type of ugliness.”

“Yes, that’s true. Between ourselves, I think there’s one here who does. Rather a pretty girl at Jallands”⁠—he waved his left hand⁠—“down that way.”

“What’s Jallands?”

“Well, I suppose it used to be a farm, belonging to a bloke called Jalland, but now it’s a country cottage belonging to a widow called Norbury. Mark and Cayley used to go there a good deal together. Miss Norbury⁠—the girl⁠—has been here once or twice for tennis; seemed to prefer Cayley to the rest of us. But of course he hadn’t much time for that sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Walking about with a pretty girl and asking her if she’s been to any theatres lately. He nearly always had something to do.”

“Mark kept him busy?”

“Yes. Mark never seemed quite happy unless he had Cayley doing something for him. He was quite lost and helpless without him. And, funnily enough, Cayley seemed lost without Mark.”

“He was fond of him?”

“Yes, I should say so. In a protective kind of way. He’d sized Mark up, of course⁠—his vanity, his self-importance, his amateurishness and all the rest of it⁠—but he liked looking after him. And he knew how to manage him.”

“Yes.⁠ ⁠… What sort of terms was he on with the guests⁠—you and Miss Norris and all of them?”

“Just polite and rather silent, you know. Keeping himself to himself. We didn’t see so very much of him, except at meals. We were here to enjoy ourselves, and⁠—well, he wasn’t.”

“He wasn’t there when the ghost walked?”

“No. I heard Mark calling for him when he went back to the house. I expect Cayley stroked down his feathers a bit, and told him that girls will be girls.⁠ ⁠… —Hallo, here we are.”

They went into the inn, and while Bill made himself pleasant to the landlady, Antony went upstairs to his room. It appeared that he had not very much packing to do, after all. He returned his brushes to his bag, glanced round to see that nothing else had been taken out, and went down again to settle his bill. He had decided to keep on his room for a few days; partly to save the landlord and his wife the disappointment of losing a guest so suddenly, partly in case he found it undesirable later on to remain at the Red House. For he was taking himself seriously as a detective; indeed, he took himself seriously (while getting all the fun out of it which was possible) at every new profession he adopted; and he felt that there might come a time⁠—after the inquest⁠—say when he could not decently remain at the Red House as a guest, a friend of Bill’s, enjoying the hospitality of Mark or Cayley, whichever was to be regarded as his host, without forfeiting his independent attitude towards the events of that afternoon. At present he was staying in the house merely as a necessary witness, and, since he was there, Cayley could not object to him using his eyes; but if, after the inquest, it appeared that there was still work for a pair of independent and very keen eyes to do, then he must investigate, either with his host’s approval or from beneath the roof of some other host; the landlord of The George, for instance, who had no feelings in the matter.

For of one thing Antony was certain. Cayley knew more than he professed to know. That is to say, he knew more than he wanted other people to know he knew. Antony was one of the “other people”; if, therefore, he was for trying to find out what it was that Cayley knew, he could hardly expect Cayley’s approval of his labours. It would be The George, then, for Antony after the inquest.

What was the truth? Not necessarily discreditable to Cayley, even though he were hiding something. All that could be said against him at the moment was that he had gone the longest way round to get into the locked office⁠—and that this did not fit in with what he had told the Inspector. But it did fit in with the theory that he had been an accessory after the event, and that he wanted (while appearing to be in a hurry) to give his cousin as much time as possible in which to escape. That might not be the true solution, but it was at least a workable one. The theory which he had suggested to the Inspector was not.

However, there would be a day or two before the inquest, in which Antony could consider all these matters from within The Red House. The car was at the door. He got in with Bill, the landlord put his bag on the front seat next to the chauffeur, and they drove back.

VIII “Do You Follow Me, Watson?”

Antony’s bedroom looked over the park at the back of the house. The blinds were not yet drawn while he was changing his clothes for dinner, and at various stages of undress he would pause and gaze out of the window, sometimes smiling to himself, sometimes frowning, as he turned over in his mind all the strange things that he had seen that day. He was sitting on his bed, in shirt and trousers, absently smoothing down his thick black hair with his brushes, when Bill shouted an “Hallo!” through the door, and came in.

“I say, buck up, old boy, I’m hungry,” he said.

Antony stopped smoothing himself and looked up at him thoughtfully.

“Where’s Mark?” he said.

“Mark? You mean Cayley.”

Antony corrected himself with a little laugh. “Yes, I mean Cayley. Is he down? I say, I shan’t be a moment, Bill.” He got up from the bed and went on briskly with his dressing. “Oh, by the way,” said Bill, taking his place on the bed, “your idea about the keys is a washout.”

“Why, how do you mean?”

“I went down just now and had a