The Red House MysteryMilne, A. A. (Alan Alexander)
General
The Red House Mystery
Milne, A. A. (Alan Alexander)
Detective and mystery stories; England -- Fiction
They left the road, and took the path across the fields which sloped
gently downwards towards Jallands. Antony was silent, and since it is
difficult to keep up a conversation with a silent man for any length of
time, Bill had dropped into silence too. Or rather, he hummed to
himself, hit at thistles in the grass with his stick and made
uncomfortable noises with his pipe. But he noticed that his companion
kept looking back over his shoulder, almost as if he wanted to remember
for a future occasion the way by which they were coming. Yet there was
no difficulty about it, for they remained all the time in view of the
road, and the belt of trees above the long park wall which bordered its
further side stood out clearly against the sky.
Antony, who had just looked round again, turned back with a smile.
“What’s the joke?” said Bill, glad of the more social atmosphere.
“Cayley. Didn’t you see?”
“See what?”
“The car. Going past on the road there.”
“So _that’s_ what you were looking for. You’ve got jolly good eyes, my
boy, if you recognize the car at this distance after only seeing it
twice.”
“Well, I _have_ got jolly good eyes.”
“I thought he was going to Stanton.”
“He hoped you’d think so—obviously.”
“Then where is he going?”
“The library, probably. To consult our friend Ussher. After making
quite sure that his friends Beverley and Gillingham really _were_ going
to Jallands, as they said.”
Bill stopped suddenly in the middle of the path.
“I say, do you think so?”
Antony shrugged his shoulders.
“I shouldn’t be surprised. We must be devilishly inconvenient for him,
hanging about the house. Any moment he can get, when we’re definitely
somewhere else, must be very useful to him.”
“Useful for what?”
“Well, useful for his nerves, if for nothing else. We know he’s mixed
up in this business; we know he’s hiding a secret or two. Even if he
doesn’t suspect that we’re on his tracks, he must feel that at any
moment we might stumble on something.”
Bill gave a grunt of assent, and they went slowly on again.
“What about to-night?” he said, after a lengthy blow at his pipe.
“Try a piece of grass,” said Antony, offering it to him. Bill pushed it
through the mouthpiece, blew again, said, “That’s better,” and returned
the pipe to his pocket.
“How are we going to get out without Cayley knowing?”
“Well, that wants thinking over. It’s going to be difficult. I wish we
were sleeping at the inn.... Is this Miss Norbury, by any chance?”
Bill looked up quickly. They were close to Jallands now, an old
thatched farmhouse which, after centuries of sleep, had woken up to a
new world, and had forthwith sprouted wings; wings, however, of so
discreet a growth that they had not brought with them any obvious
change of character, and Jallands even with a bathroom was still
Jallands. To the outward view, at any rate. Inside, it was more clearly
Mrs. Norbury’s.
“Yes—Angela Norbury,” murmured Bill. “Not bad-looking, is she?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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