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Page 90
"Ridiculous? How?"
"Every way. Take those ridiculous clothes we found last night.
You can explain the brown suit, but why the under clothes. You
can explain the underclothes in some absurd way, if you like--you
can say that Mark always changed his underclothes whenever he
interviewed anybody from Australia--but why, in that case, my
dear Watson, why didn't he change his collar?"
"His collar?" said Bill in amazement.
"His collar, Watson."
"I don't understand."
"And it's all so ordinary," scoffed Antony.
"Sorry, Tony, I didn't mean that. Tell me about the collar."
"Well, that's all. There was no collar in the bag last night.
Shirt, socks, tie--everything except a collar. Why?"
"Was that what you were looking for in the cupboard?" said Bill
eagerly.
"Of course. 'Why no collar?' I, said. For some reason Cayley
considered it necessary to hide all Mark's clothes; not just the
suit, but everything which he was wearing, or supposed to be
wearing, at the time of the murder. But he hadn't hidden the
collar. Why? Had he left it out by mistake? So I looked in the
cupboard. It wasn't there. Had he left it out on purpose? If
so, why?--and where was it? Naturally I began to say to myself,
'Where have I seen a collar lately? A collar all by itself?'
And I remembered--what, Bill?"
Bill frowned heavily to himself, and shook his head.
"Don't ask me, Tony. I can't--By Jove!" He threw up his head,
"In the basket in the office bedroom!"
"Exactly."
"But is that the one?"
"The one that goes with the rest of the clothes? I don't know.
Where else can it be? But if so, why send the collar quite
casually to the wash in the ordinary way, and take immense
trouble to hide everything else? Why, why, why?"
Bill bit hard at his pipe, but could think of nothing to say.
"Anyhow," said Antony, getting up restlessly, "I'm certain of one
thing. Mark knew on the Monday that Robert was coming here."
CHAPTER XIX
The Inquest
The Coroner, having made a few commonplace remarks as to the
terrible nature of the tragedy which they had come to investigate
that afternoon, proceeded to outline the case to the jury.
Witnesses would be called to identify the deceased as Robert
Ablett, the brother of the owner of the Red House, Mark Ablett.
It would be shown that he was something of a ne'er-do-well, who
had spent most of his life in Australia, and that he had
announced, in what might almost be called a threatening letter,
his intention of visiting his brother that afternoon. There
would be evidence of his arrival, of his being shown into the
scene of the tragedy--a room in the Red House, commonly called
"the office"--and of his brother's entrance into that room. The
jury would have to form their own opinion as to what happened
there. But whatever happened, happened almost instantaneously.
Within two minutes of Mark Ablett's entrance, as would be shown in
the evidence, a shot was heard, and when--perhaps five minutes
later--the room was forced open, the dead body of Robert Ablett
was found stretched upon the floor. As regards Mark Ablett,
nobody had seen him from the moment of his going into the room,
but evidence would be called to show that he had enough money on
him at the time to take him to any other part of the country, and
that a man answering to his description had been observed on the
platform of Stanton station, apparently waiting to catch the 3.55
up train to London. As the jury would realize, such evidence of
identity was not always reliable. Missing men had a way of being
seen in a dozen different places at once. In any case, there was
no doubt that for the moment Mark Ablett had disappeared.
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