CHAPTER IV.

The Brother from Australia

Guests at the Red House were allowed to do what they liked within

reason—the reasonableness or otherwise of it being decided by Mark. But

when once they (or Mark) had made up their minds as to what they wanted

to do, the plan had to be kept. Mrs. Calladine, who knew this little

weakness of their host’s, resisted, therefore, the suggestion of Bill

that they should have a second round in the afternoon, and drive home

comfortably after tea. The other golfers were willing enough, but Mrs.

Calladine, without actually saying that Mr. Ablett wouldn’t like it,

was firm on the point that, having arranged to be back by four, they

should be back by four.

“I really don’t think Mark wants us, you know,” said the Major. Having

played badly in the morning, he wanted to prove to himself in the

afternoon that he was really better than that. “With this brother of

his coming, he’ll be only too glad to have us out of the way.”

“Of course he will, Major.” This from Bill. “You’d like to play,

wouldn’t you, Miss Norris?”

Miss Norris looked doubtfully at the hostess.

“Of course, if you want to get back, dear, we mustn’t keep you here.

Besides, it’s so dull for you, not playing.”

“Just nine holes, mother,” pleaded Betty.

“The car could take you back, and you could tell them that we were

having another round, and then it could come back for us,” said Bill

brilliantly.

“It’s certainly much cooler here than I expected,” put in the Major.

Mrs. Calladine fell. It was very pleasantly cool outside the

golf-house, and of course Mark _would_ be rather glad to have them out

of the way. So she consented to nine holes; and the match having ended

all-square, and everybody having played much better than in the

morning, they drove back to the Red House, very well pleased with

themselves.

“Hallo,” said Bill to himself, as they approached the house, “isn’t

that old Tony?”

Antony was standing in front of the house, waiting for them. Bill

waved, and he waved back. Then as the car drew up, Bill, who was in

front with the chauffeur, jumped down and greeted him eagerly.

“Hallo, you madman, have you come to stay, or what?” He had a sudden

idea. “_Don’t_ say you’re Mark Ablett’s long-lost brother from

Australia, though I could quite believe it of you.” He laughed

boyishly.

“Hallo, Bill,” said Antony quietly. “Will you introduce me? I’m afraid

I’ve got some bad news.”

Bill, rather sobered by this, introduced him. The Major and Mrs.

Calladine were on the near side of the car, and Antony spoke to them in

a low voice.

“I’m afraid I’m going to give you rather a shock,” he said. “Robert

Ablett, Mr. Mark Ablett’s brother, has been killed.” He jerked a thumb

over his shoulder. “In the house.”

“Good God!” said the Major.

“Do you mean that he has killed himself?” asked Mrs. Calladine. “Just

now?”

“It was about two hours ago. I happened to come here,”—he half-turned

to Beverley and explained—“I was coming to see _you_, Bill, and I

arrived just after the—the death. Mr. Cayley and I found the body. Mr.

Cayley being busy just now—there are police and doctors and so on in

the house—he asked me to tell you. He says that no doubt you would

prefer, the house-party having been broken up in this tragic way, to

leave as soon as possible.” He gave a pleasant apologetic little smile

and went on, “I am putting it badly, but what he means, of course, is

that you must consult your own feelings in the matter entirely, and

please make your own arrangements about ordering the car for whatever

train you wish to catch. There is one this evening, I understand, which

you could go by if you wished it.”

Bill gazed with open mouth at Antony. He had no words in his vocabulary

to express what he wanted to say, other than those the Major had

already used. Betty was leaning across to Miss Norris and saying,

“_Who’s_ killed?” in an awe-struck voice, and Miss Norris, who was

instinctively looking as tragic as she looked on the stage when a

messenger announced the death of one of the cast, stopped for a moment

in order to explain. Mrs. Calladine was quietly mistress of herself.

“We shall be in the way, yes, I quite understand,” she said; “but we

can’t just shake the dust of the place off our shoes because something

terrible has happened there. I must see Mark, and we can arrange later

what to do. He must know how very deeply we feel for him. Perhaps we—”

she hesitated.

“The Major and I might be useful anyway,” said Bill. “Isn’t that what

you mean, Mrs. Calladine?”

“Where is Mark?” said the Major suddenly, looking hard at Antony.

Antony looked back unwaveringly—and said nothing.

“I think,” said the Major gently, leaning over to Mrs. Calladine, “that

it would be better if you took Betty back to London to-night.”

“Very well,” she agreed quietly. “You will come with us, Ruth?”

“I’ll see you safely there,” said Bill in a meek voice. He didn’t quite

know what was happening, and, having expected to stay at the Red House

for another week, he had nowhere to go to in London, but London seemed

to be the place that everyone was going to, and when he could get Tony

alone for a moment, Tony no doubt would explain.

“Cayley wants you to stay, Bill. You have to go anyhow, to-morrow,

Major Rumbold?”

“Yes. I’ll come with you, Mrs. Calladine.”

“Mr. Cayley would wish me to say again that you will please not

hesitate to give your own orders, both as regard the car and as regard

any telephoning or telegraphing that you want done.” He smiled again

and added, “Please forgive me if I seem to have taken a good deal upon

myself, but I just happened to be handy as a mouthpiece for Cayley.” He

bowed to them and went into the house.

“Well!” said Miss Norris dramatically.

As Antony re-entered the hall, the Inspector from Middleston was just

crossing into the library with Cayley. The latter stopped and nodded to

Antony.

“Wait a moment, Inspector. Here’s Mr. Gillingham. He’d better come with

us.” And then to Antony, “This is Inspector Birch.”

Birch looked inquiringly from one to the other.

“Mr. Gillingham and I found the body together,” explained Cayley.

“Oh! Well, come along, and let’s get the facts sorted out a bit. I like

to know where I am, Mr. Gillingham.”

“We all do.”

“Oh!” He looked at Antony with interest. “D’you know where you are in

this case?”

“I know where I’m going to be.”

“Where’s that?”

“Put through it by Inspector Birch,” said Antony with a smile.

The inspector laughed genially.

“Well, I’ll spare you as much as I can. Come along.”

They went into the library. The inspector seated himself at a

writing-table, and Cayley sat in a chair by the side of it. Antony made

himself comfortable in an armchair and prepared to be interested.

“We’ll start with the dead man,” said the Inspector. “Robert Ablett,

didn’t you say?” He took out his notebook.

“Yes. Brother of Mark Ablett, who lives here.”

“Ah!” He began to sharpen a pencil. “Staying in the house?”

“Oh, no!”

Antony listened attentively while Cayley explained all that he knew

about Robert. This was news to him. “I see. Sent out of the country in

disgrace. What had he done?”

“I hardly know. I was only about twelve at the time. The sort of age

when you’re told not to ask questions.”

“Inconvenient questions?”

“Exactly.”

“So you don’t really know whether he had been merely wild or—or

wicked?”

“No. Old Mr. Ablett was a clergyman,” added Cayley. “Perhaps what might

seem wicked to a clergyman might seem only wild to a man of the world.”

“I daresay, Mr. Cayley,” smiled the Inspector. “Anyhow, it was more

convenient to have him in Australia?”

“Yes.”

“Mark Ablett never talked about him?”

“Hardly ever. He was very much ashamed of him, and—well, very glad he

was in Australia.”

“Did he write Mark sometimes?”

“Occasionally. Perhaps three or four times in the last five years.”

“Asking for money?”

“Something of the sort. I don’t think Mark always answered them. As far

as I know, he never sent any money.”

“Now your own private opinion, Mr. Cayley. Do you think that Mark was

unfair to his brother? Unduly hard on him?”

“They’d never liked each other as boys. There was never any affection

between them. I don’t know whose fault it was in the first place—if

anybody’s.”

“Still, Mark might have given him a hand?”

“I understand,” said Cayley, “that Robert spent his whole life asking

for hands.”

The inspector nodded.

“I know that sort. Well, now, we’ll go on to this morning. This letter

that Mark got—did you see it?”

“Not at the time. He showed it to me afterwards.”

“Any address?”

“No. A half-sheet of rather dirty paper.”

“Where is it now?”

“I don’t know. In Mark’s pocket, I expect.”

“Ah!” He pulled at his beard. “Well, we’ll come to that. Can you

remember what it said?”

“As far as I remember, something like this: ‘Mark, your loving brother

is coming to see you to-morrow, all the way from Australia. I give you

warning so that you will be able to conceal your surprise, but not I

hope, your pleasure. Expect him at three, or thereabouts.’”

“Ah!” The inspector copied it down carefully. “Did you notice the

postmark?”

“London.”

“And what was Mark’s attitude?”

“Annoyance, disgust—” Cayley hesitated.

“Apprehension?”

“N-no, not exactly. Or, rather, apprehension of an unpleasant

interview, not of any unpleasant outcome for himself.”

“You mean that he wasn’t afraid of violence, or blackmail, or anything

of that sort?”

“He didn’t appear to be.”

“Right.... Now then, he arrived, you say, about three o’clock?”

“Yes, about that.”

“Who was in the house then?”

“Mark and myself, and some of the servants. I don’t know which. Of

course, you will ask them directly, no doubt.”

“With your permission. No guests?”

“They were out all day playing golf,” explained Cayley. “Oh, by the

way,” he put in, “if I may interrupt a moment, will you want to see

them at all? It isn’t very pleasant for them now, naturally, and I

suggested—” he turned to Antony, who nodded back to him. “I understand

that they want to go back to London this evening. There’s no objection

to that, I suppose?”

“You will let me have their names and addresses in case I want to

communicate with them?”

“Of course. One of them is staying on, if you would like to see him

later, but they only came back from their golf as we crossed the hall.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Cayley. Well, now then, let’s go back to three

o’clock. Where were you when Robert arrived?”

Cayley explained how he had been sitting in the hall, how Audrey had

asked him where the master was, and how he had said that he had last

seen him going up to the Temple.

“She went away, and I went on with my book. There was a step on the

stairs, and I looked up to see Mark coming down. He went into the

office, and I went on with my book again. I went into the library for a

moment, to refer to another book, and when I was in there I heard a

shot. At least, it was a loud bang, I wasn’t sure if it was a shot. I

stood and listened. Then I came slowly to the door and looked out. Then

I went back again, hesitated a bit, you know, and finally decided to go

across to the office, and make sure that it was all right. I turned the

handle of the door and found it was locked. Then I got frightened, and

I banged at the door, and shouted, and—well, that was when Mr.

Gillingham arrived.” He went on to explain how they had found the body.

The inspector looked at him with a smile.

“Yes, well, we shall have to go over some of that again, Mr. Cayley.

Mr. Mark, now. You thought he was in the Temple. Could he have come in,

and gone up to his room, without your seeing him?”

“There are back stairs. He wouldn’t have used them in the ordinary way,

of course. But I wasn’t in the hall all the afternoon. He might easily

have gone upstairs without my knowing anything about it.”

“So that you weren’t surprised when you saw him coming down?”

“Oh, not a bit.”

“Well, did he say anything?”

“He said, ‘Robert’s here?’ or something of the sort. I suppose he’d

heard the bell, or the voices in the hall.”

“Which way does his bedroom face? Could he have seen him coming down

the drive?”

“He might have, yes.”

“Well?”

“Well, then, I said ‘Yes,’ and he gave a sort of shrug, and said,

‘Don’t go too far away, I might want you’; and then went in.”

“What did you think he meant by that?”

“Well, he consults me a good deal, you know. I’m his sort of unofficial

solicitor in a kind of way.”

“This was a business meeting rather than a brotherly one?”

“Oh, yes. That’s how he regarded it, I’m sure.”

“Yes. How long was it before you heard the shot?”

“Very soon. Two minutes, perhaps.”

The inspector finished his writing, and then regarded Cayley

thoughtfully. Suddenly he said:

“What is your theory of Robert’s death?”

Cayley shrugged his shoulders.

“You’ve probably seen more than I’ve seen,” he answered. “It’s your

job. I can only speak as a layman—and Mark’s friend.”

“Well?”

“Then I should say that Robert came here meaning trouble, and bringing

a revolver with him. He produced it almost at once, Mark tried to get

it from him, there was a little struggle perhaps, and it went off. Mark

lost his head, finding himself there with a revolver in his hand and a

dead man at his feet. His one idea was to escape. He locked the door

almost instinctively, and then, when he heard me hammering at it, went

out of the window.”

“Y-yes. Well, that sounds reasonable enough. What do you say, Mr.

Gillingham?”

“I should hardly call it ‘reasonable’ to lose your head,” said Antony,

getting up from his chair and coming towards them.

“Well, you know what I mean. It explains things.”

“Oh, yes. Any other explanation would make them much more complicated.”

“_Have_ you any other explanation?”

“Not I.”

“Are there any points on which you would like to correct Mr.

Cayley?—anything that he left out after you arrived here?”

“No, thanks. He described it all very accurately.”

“Ah! Well now, about yourself. You’re not staying in the house, I

gather?”

Antony explained his previous movements.

“Yes. Did you hear the shot?”

Antony put his head on one side, as if listening. “Yes. Just as I came

in sight of the house. It didn’t make any impression at the time, but I

remember it now.”

“Where were you then?”

“Coming up the drive. I was just in sight of the house.”

“Nobody left the house by the front door after the shot?”

Antony closed his eyes and considered.

“Nobody,” he said. “No.”

“You’re certain of that?”

“Absolutely,” said Antony, as though rather surprised that he could be

suspected of a mistake.

“Thank you. You’re at ‘The George,’ if I want you?”

“Mr. Gillingham is staying here until after the inquest,” explained

Cayley.

“Good. Well now, about these servants?”