The Red House MysteryMilne, A. A. (Alan Alexander)
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The Red House Mystery
Milne, A. A. (Alan Alexander)
Detective and mystery stories; England -- Fiction
“I suppose I’d better read them,” he said. “I mean, just to see—” He
looked inquiringly at Bill, who nodded. Antony turned on his torch and
glanced at them. Bill waited anxiously.
“Yes. Mark.... Hallo!”
“What is it?”
“The letter that Cayley was telling the Inspector about. From Robert.
‘Mark, your loving brother is coming to see you—’ Yes, I suppose I had
better keep this. Well, that’s his coat. Let’s have out the rest of
it.” He took the remaining clothes from the bag and spread them out.
“They’re all here,” said Bill. “Shirt, tie, socks, underclothes,
shoes—yes, all of them.”
“All that he was wearing yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“What do you make of it?”
Bill shook his head, and asked another question.
“Is it what you expected?”
Antony laughed suddenly.
“It’s too absurd,” he said. “I expected—well, you know what I expected.
A body. A body in a suit of clothes. Well, perhaps it would be safer to
hide them separately. The body here, and the clothes in the passage,
where they would never betray themselves. And now he takes a great deal
of trouble to hide the clothes here, and doesn’t bother about the body
at all.” He shook his head. “I’m a bit lost for the moment, Bill, and
that’s the fact.”
“Anything else there?”
Antony felt in the bag.
“Stones and—yes, there’s something else.” He took it out and held it
up. “There we are, Bill.”
It was the office key.
“By Jove, you were right.”
Antony felt in the bag again, and then turned it gently upside down on
the grass. A dozen large stones fell out—and something else. He flashed
down his torch.
“Another key,” he said.
He put the two keys in his pocket, and sat there for a long time in
silence, thinking. Bill was silent, too, not liking to interrupt his
thoughts, but at last he said:
“Shall I put these things back?”
Antony looked up with a start.
“What? Oh, yes. No, I’ll put them back. You give me a light, will you?”
Very slowly and carefully he put the clothes back in the bag, pausing
as he took up each garment, in the certainty, as it seemed to Bill,
that it had something to tell him if only he could read it. When the
last of them was inside, he still waited there on his knees, thinking.
“That’s the lot,” said Bill.
Antony nodded at him.
“Yes, that’s the lot,” he said; “and that’s the funny thing about it.
You’re sure it is the lot?”
“What do you mean?”
“Give me the torch a moment.” He took it and flashed it over the ground
between them. “Yes, that’s the lot. It’s funny.” He stood up, the bag
in his hands. “Now let’s find a hiding-place for these, and then—” He
said no more, but stepped off through the trees, Bill following him
meekly.
As soon as they had got the bag off their hands and were clear of the
copse, Antony became more communicative. He took the two keys out of
his pocket.
“One of them is the office key, I suppose, and the other is the key of
the passage cupboard. So I thought that perhaps we might have a look at
the cupboard.”
“I say, do you really think it is?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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