|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 73
Had Mark been in the office at all that afternoon? The only
evidence (other than Cayley's, which obviously did not count) was
Elsie's. Elsie was quite certain that she had heard his voice.
But then Bill had said that it was a very characteristic voice
--an easy voice, therefore, to imitate. If Bill could imitate it
so successfully, why not Cayley?
But perhaps it had not been such a cold-blooded killing, after
all. Suppose Cayley had had a quarrel with his cousin that
afternoon over the girl whom they were both wooing. Suppose
Cayley had killed Mark, either purposely, in sudden passion, or
accidentally, meaning only to knock him down. Suppose that this
had happened in the passage, say about two o'clock, either
because Cayley had deliberately led him there, or because Mark
had casually suggested a visit to it. (One could imagine Mark
continually gloating over that secret passage.) Suppose Cayley
there, with the body at his feet, feeling already the rope round
his neck; his mind darting this way and that in frantic search
for a way of escape; and suppose that suddenly and irrelevantly
he remembers that Robert is coming to the house at three o'clock
that afternoon--automatically he looks at his watch--in half an
hour's time .... In half an hour's time. He must think of
something quickly, quickly. Shall he bury the body in the
passage and let it be thought that Mark ran away, frightened at
the mere thought of his brother's arrival? But there was the
evidence of the breakfast table. Mark had seemed annoyed at this
resurrection of the black sheep, but certainly not frightened.
No; that was much too thin a story. But suppose Mark had
actually seen his brother and had a quarrel with him; suppose it
could be made to look as if Robert had killed Mark--
Antony pictured to himself Cayley in the passage, standing over
the dead body of his cousin, and working it out. How could
Robert be made to seem the murderer, if Robert were alive to deny
it? But suppose Robert were dead, too?
He looks at his watch again. (Only twenty-five minutes now.)
Suppose Robert were dead, too? Robert dead in the office, and
Mark dead in the passage how does that help? Madness! But if
the bodies were brought together somehow and Robert's death
looked like suicide? .... Was it possible?
Madness again. Too difficult. (Only twenty minutes now.) Too
difficult to arrange in twenty minutes. Can't arrange a suicide.
Too difficult .... Only nineteen minutes ....
And then the sudden inspiration! Robert dead in the office,
Mark's body hidden in the passage--impossible to make Robert seem
the murderer, but how easy to make Mark! Robert dead and Mark
missing; why, it jumped to the eye at once. Mark had killed
Robert--accidentally; yes, that would be more likely--and then
had run away. Sudden panic .... (He looks at his watch again.
Fifteen minutes, but plenty of time now. The thing arranges
itself.)
Was that the solution, Antony wondered. It seemed to fit in with
the facts as they knew them; but then, so did that other theory
which he had suggested to Bill in the morning.
"Which one?" said Bill.
They had come back from Jallands through the park and were
sitting in the copse above the pond, from which the Inspector and
his fishermen had now withdrawn. Bill had listened with open
mouth to Antony's theory, and save for an occasional "By Jove!"
had listened in silence. "Smart man, Cayley," had been his only
comment at the end.
"Which other theory?"
"That Mark had killed Robert accidentally and had gone to Cayley
for help, and that Cayley, having hidden him in the passage,
locked the office door from the outside and hammered on it."
"Yes, but you were so dashed mysterious about that. I asked you
what the point of it was, and you wouldn't say anything." He
thought for a little, and then went on, "I suppose you meant that
Cayley deliberately betrayed Mark, and tried to make him look
like a murderer?"
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|