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

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 redbrick 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.

III 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