CHAPTER VI.

Outside Or Inside?

The guests had said good-bye to Cayley, according to their different

manner. The Major, gruff and simple: “If you want me, command me.

Anything I can do—Good-bye”; Betty, silently sympathetic, with

everything in her large eyes which she was too much overawed to tell;

Mrs. Calladine, protesting that she did not know _what_ to say, but

apparently finding plenty; and Miss Norris, crowding so much into one

despairing gesture that Cayley’s unvarying “Thank you very much” might

have been taken this time as gratitude for an artistic entertainment.

Bill had seen them into the car, had taken his own farewells (with a

special squeeze of the hand for Betty), and had wandered out to join

Antony on his garden seat.

“Well, this is a rum show,” said Bill as he sat down.

“Very rum, William.”

“And you actually walked right into it?”

“Right into it,” said Antony.

“Then you’re the man I want. There are all sorts of rumours and

mysteries about, and that inspector fellow simply wouldn’t keep to the

point when I wanted to ask him about the murder, or whatever it is, but

kept asking me questions about where I’d met you first, and all sorts

of dull things like that. Now, what really happened?”

Antony told him as concisely as he could all that he had already told

the Inspector, Bill interrupting him here and there with appropriate

“Good Lords” and whistles.

“I say, it’s a bit of a business, isn’t it? Where do _I_ come in,

exactly?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, everybody else is bundled off except me, and I get put through

it by that inspector as if I knew all about it—what’s the idea?”

Antony smiled at him.

“Well, there’s nothing to worry about, you know. Naturally Birch wanted

to see one of you so as to know what you’d all been doing all day. And

Cayley was nice enough to think that you’d be company for me, as I knew

you already. And—well, that’s all.”

“You’re staying here, in the house?” said Bill eagerly. “Good man.

That’s splendid.”

“It reconciles you to the departure of—some of the others?”

Bill blushed.

“Oh, well, I shall see her again next week, anyway,” he murmured.

“I congratulate you. I liked her looks. And that grey dress. A nice

comfortable sort of woman——”

“You fool, that’s her mother.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon. But anyhow, Bill, I want you more than she does

just now. So try and put up with me.”

“I say, do you really?” said Bill, rather flattered. He had a great

admiration for Antony, and was very proud to be liked by him.

“Yes. You see, things are going to happen here soon.”

“Inquests and that sort of thing?”

“Well, perhaps something before that. Hallo, here comes Cayley.”

Cayley was walking across the lawn towards them, a big,

heavy-shouldered man, with one of those strong, clean-shaven, ugly

faces which can never quite be called plain. “Bad luck on Cayley,” said

Bill. “I say, ought I to tell him how sorry I am and all that sort of

thing? It seems so dashed inadequate.”

“I shouldn’t bother,” said Antony.

Cayley nodded as he came to them, and stood there for a moment.

“We can make room for you,” said Bill, getting up.

“Oh, don’t bother, thanks. I just came to say,” he went on to Antony,

“that naturally they’ve rather lost their heads in the kitchen, and

dinner won’t be till half-past eight. Do just as you like about

dressing, of course. And what about your luggage?”

“I thought Bill and I would walk over to the inn directly, and see

about it.”

“The car can go and fetch it as soon as it comes back from the

station.”

“It’s very good of you, but I shall have to go over myself, anyhow, to

pack up and pay my bill. Besides, it’s a good evening for a walk. If

you wouldn’t mind it, Bill?”

“I should love it.”

“Well, then, if you leave the bag there, I’ll send the car round for it

later.”

“Thanks very much.”

Having said what he wanted to say, Cayley remained there a little

awkwardly, as if not sure whether to go or to stay. Antony wondered

whether he wanted to talk about the afternoon’s happenings, or whether

it was the one subject he wished to avoid. To break the silence he

asked carelessly if the Inspector had gone.

Cayley nodded. Then he said abruptly, “He’s getting a warrant for

Mark’s arrest.”

Bill made a suitably sympathetic noise, and Antony said with a shrug of

the shoulders, “Well, he was bound to do that, wasn’t he? It doesn’t

follow that—well, it doesn’t mean anything. They naturally want to get

hold of your cousin, innocent or guilty.”

“Which do you think he is, Mr. Gillingham?” said Cayley, looking at him

steadily.

“Mark? It’s absurd,” said Bill impetuously.

“Bill’s loyal, you see, Mr. Cayley.”

“And you owe no loyalty to anyone concerned?”

“Exactly. So perhaps I might be too frank.”

Bill had dropped down on the grass, and Cayley took his place on the

seat, and sat there heavily, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his

hands, gazing at the ground.

“I want you to be quite frank,” he said at last. “Naturally I am

prejudiced where Mark is concerned. So I want to know how my suggestion

strikes you—who have no prejudices either way.”

“Your suggestion?”

“My theory that, if Mark killed his brother, it was purely

accidental—as I told the Inspector.”

Bill looked up with interest.

“You mean that Robert did the hold-up business,” he said, “and there

was a bit of a struggle, and the revolver went off, and then Mark lost

his head and bolted? That sort of idea?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, that seems all right.” He turned to Antony. “There’s nothing

wrong with that, is there? It’s the most natural explanation to anyone

who knows Mark.”

Antony pulled at his pipe.

“I suppose it is,” he said slowly. “But there’s one thing that worries

me rather.”

“What’s that?” Bill and Cayley asked the question simultaneously.

“The key.”

“The key?” said Bill.

Cayley lifted his head and looked at Antony. “What about the key?” he

asked.

“Well, there may be nothing in it; I just wondered. Suppose Robert was

killed as you say, and suppose Mark lost his head and thought of

nothing but getting away before anyone could see him. Well, very likely

he’d lock the door and put the key in his pocket. He’d do it without

thinking, just to gain a moment’s time.”

“Yes, that’s what I suggest.”

“It seems sound enough,” said Bill. “Sort of thing you’d do without

thinking. Besides, if you are going to run away, it gives you more of a

chance.”

“Yes, that’s all right if the key is there. But suppose it isn’t

there?”

The suggestion, made as if it were already an established fact,

startled them both. They looked at him wonderingly.

“What do you mean?” said Cayley.

“Well, it’s just a question of where people happen to keep their keys.

You go up to your bedroom, and perhaps you like to lock your door in

case anybody comes wandering in when you’ve only got one sock and a

pair of braces on. Well, that’s natural enough. And if you look round

the bedrooms of almost any house, you’ll find the keys all ready, so

that you can lock yourself in at a moment’s notice. But downstairs

people don’t lock themselves in. It’s really never done at all. Bill,

for instance, has never locked himself into the dining-room in order to

be alone with the sherry. On the other hand, all women, and

particularly servants, have a horror of burglars. And if a burglar gets

in by the window, they like to limit his activities to that particular

room. So they keep the keys on the _out_side of the doors, and lock the

doors when they go to bed.” He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and

added, “At least, my mother always used to.”

“You mean,” said Bill excitedly, “that the key was on the outside of

the door when Mark went into the room?”

“Well, I was just wondering.”

“Have you noticed the other rooms—the billiard-room, and library, and

so on?” said Cayley.

“I’ve only just thought about it while I’ve been sitting out here. You

live here—haven’t you ever noticed them?”

Cayley sat considering, with his head on one side.

“It seems rather absurd, you know, but I can’t say that I have.” He

turned to Bill. “Have you?”

“Good Lord, no. I should never worry about a thing like that.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” laughed Antony. “Well, we can have a look when

we go in. If the other keys are outside, then this one was probably

outside too, and in that case—well, it makes it more interesting.”

Cayley said nothing. Bill chewed a piece of grass, and then said, “Does

it make much difference?”

“It makes it more hard to understand what happened in there. Take your

accidental theory and see where you get to. No instinctive turning of

the key now, is there? He’s got to open the door to get it, and opening

the door means showing his head to anybody in the hall—his cousin, for

instance, whom he left there two minutes ago. Is a man in Mark’s state

of mind, frightened to death lest he should be found with the body,

going to do anything so foolhardy as that?”

“He needn’t have been afraid of _me_,” said Cayley.

“Then why didn’t he call for you? He knew you were about. You could

have advised him; Heaven knows he wanted advice. But the whole theory

of Mark’s escape is that he was afraid of you and of everybody else,

and that he had no other idea but to get out of the room himself, and

prevent you or the servants from coming into it. If the key had been on

the inside, he would probably have locked the door. If it were on the

outside, he almost certainly wouldn’t.”

“Yes, I expect you’re right,” said Bill thoughtfully. “Unless he took

the key in with him, and locked the door at once.”

“Exactly. But in that case you have to build up a new theory entirely.”

“You mean that it makes it seem more deliberate?”

“Yes; that, certainly. But it also seems to make Mark out an absolute

idiot. Just suppose for a moment that, for urgent reasons which neither

of you know anything about, he had wished to get rid of his brother.

Would he have done it like that? Just killed him and then run away?

Why, that’s practically suicide—suicide whilst of unsound mind. No. If

you really wanted to remove an undesirable brother, you would do it a

little bit more cleverly than that. You’d begin by treating him as a

friend, so as to avoid suspicion, and when you did kill him at last,

you would try to make it look like an accident, or suicide, or the work

of some other man. Wouldn’t you?”

“You mean you’d give yourself a bit of a run for your money?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. If you were going to do it deliberately, that

is to say—and lock yourself in before you began.”

Cayley had been silent, apparently thinking over this new idea. With

his eyes still on the ground, he said now: “I hold to my opinion that

it was purely accidental, and that Mark lost his head and ran away.”

“But what about the key?” asked Bill.

“We don’t know yet that the keys were outside. I don’t at all agree

with Mr. Gillingham that the keys of the down-stairs rooms are always

outside the doors. Sometimes they are, no doubt; but I think we shall

probably find that these are inside.”

“Oh, well, of course, if they are inside, then your original theory is

probably the correct one. Having often seen them outside, I just

wondered—that’s all. You asked me to be quite frank, you know, and tell

you what I thought. But no doubt you’re right, and we shall find them

inside, as you say.

“Even if the key was outside,” went on Cayley stubbornly, “I still

think it might have been accidental. He might have taken it in with

him, knowing that the interview would be an unpleasant one, and not

wishing to be interrupted.”

“But he had just told you to stand by in case he wanted you; so why

should he lock you out? Besides, I should think that if a man were

going to have an unpleasant interview with a threatening relation, the

last thing he would do would be to barricade himself in with him. He

would want to open all the doors and say, ‘Get out of it!’”

Cayley was silent, but his mouth looked obstinate. Antony gave a little

apologetic laugh and stood up.

“Well, come on, Bill,” he said; “we ought to be stepping.” He held out

a hand and pulled his friend up. Then, turning to Cayley, he went on,

“You must forgive me if I have let my thoughts run on rather. Of

course, I was considering the matter purely as an outsider; just as a

problem, I mean, which didn’t concern the happiness of any of my

friends.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Gillingham,” said Cayley, standing up too. “It

is for you to make allowances for _me_. I’m sure you will. You say that

you’re going up to the inn now about your bag?”

“Yes.” He looked up at the sun and then round the parkland stretching

about the house. “Let me see; it’s over in _that_ direction, isn’t it?”

He pointed southwards. “Can we get to the village that way, or must we

go by the road?”

“I’ll show you, my boy,” said Bill.

“Bill will show you. The park reaches almost as far as the village.

Then I’ll send the car round in about half an hour.”

“Thanks very much.”

Cayley nodded and turned to go into the house. Antony took hold of

Bill’s arm and walked off with him in the opposite direction.