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Page 23
Cayley had been in the hall when Robert was shown into the
office. The servant goes off to look for Mark, and Cayley goes
on with his book. Mark comes down the stairs, warns Cayley to
stand by in case he is wanted, and goes to meet his brother.
What does Cayley expect? Possibly that he won't be wanted at
all; possibly that his advice may be wanted in the matter, say,
of paying Robert's debts, or getting him a passage back to
Australia; possibly that his physical assistance may be wanted to
get an obstreperous Robert out of the house. Well, he sits there
for a moment, and then goes into the library. Why not? He is
still within reach, if wanted. Suddenly he hears a pistol-shot.
A pistol-shot is the last noise you expect to hear in a
country-house; very natural, then, that for the moment he would
hardly realize what it was. He listens--and hears nothing more.
Perhaps it wasn't a pistol-shot after all. After a moment or two
he goes to the library door again. The profound silence makes
him uneasy now. Was it a pistol-shot? Absurd! Still--no harm
in going into the office on some excuse, just to reassure
himself. So he tries the door--and finds it locked!
What are his emotions now? Alarm, uncertainty. Something is
happening. Incredible though it seems, it must have been a
pistol-shot. He is banging at the door and calling out to Mark,
and there is no answer. Alarm--yes. But alarm for whose safety?
Mark's, obviously. Robert is a stranger; Mark is an intimate
friend. Robert has written a letter that morning, the letter of
a man in a dangerous temper. Robert is the tough customer; Mark
the highly civilized gentleman. If there has been a quarrel, it
is Robert who has shot Mark. He bangs at the door again.
Of course, to Antony, coming suddenly upon this scene, Cayley's
conduct had seemed rather absurd, but then, just for the moment,
Cayley had lost his head. Anybody else might have done the same.
But, as soon as Antony suggested trying the windows, Cayley saw
that that was the obvious thing to do. So he leads the way to
the windows--the longest way.
Why? To give the murderer time to escape? If he had thought
then that Mark was the murderer, perhaps, yes. But he thinks
that Robert is the murderer. If he is not hiding anything, he
must think so. Indeed he says so, when he sees the body; "I was
afraid it was Mark," he says, when he finds that it is Robert who
is killed. No reason, then, for wishing to gain time. On the
contrary, every instinct would urge him to get into the room as
quickly as possible, and seize the wicked Robert. Yet he goes
the longest way round. Why? And then, why run?
"That's the question," said Antony to himself, as he filled his
pipe, "and bless me if I know the answer. It may be, of course,
that Cayley is just a coward. He was in no hurry to get close to
Robert's revolver, and yet wanted me to think that he was
bursting with eagerness. That would explain it, but then that
makes Cayley out a coward. Is he? At any rate he pushed his
face up against the window bravely enough. No, I want a better
answer than that."
He sat there with his unlit pipe in his hand, thinking. There
were one or two other things in the back of his brain, waiting to
be taken out and looked at. For the moment he left them
undisturbed. They would come back to him later when he wanted
them.
He laughed suddenly, and lit his pipe.
"I was wanting a new profession," he thought, "and now I've found
it. Antony Gillingham, our own private sleuthhound. I shall
begin to-day."
Whatever Antony Gillingham's other qualifications for his new
profession, he had at any rate a brain which worked clearly and
quickly. And this clear brain of his had already told him that
he was the only person in the house at that moment who was
unhandicapped in the search for truth. The inspector had arrived
in it to find a man dead and a man missing. It was extremely
probable, no doubt, that the missing man had shot the dead man.
But it was more than extremely probable, it was almost certain
that the Inspector would start with the idea that this extremely
probable solution was the one true solution, and that, in
consequence, he would be less disposed to consider without
prejudice any other solution. As regards all the rest of them
--Cayley, the guests, the servants--they also were prejudiced; in
favour of Mark (or possibly, for all he knew, against Mark); in
favour of, or against, each other; they had formed some previous
opinion, from what had been said that morning, of the sort of man
Robert was. No one of them could consider the matter with an
unbiased mind.
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