<h2><SPAN name="chap06"></SPAN>CHAPTER VI.<br/> Outside Or Inside?</h2>
<p>The guests had said good-bye to Cayley, according to their different manner.
The Major, gruff and simple: “If you want me, command me. Anything I can
do—Good-bye”; Betty, silently sympathetic, with everything in her
large eyes which she was too much overawed to tell; Mrs. Calladine, protesting
that she did not know <i>what</i> to say, but apparently finding plenty; and
Miss Norris, crowding so much into one despairing gesture that Cayley’s
unvarying “Thank you very much” might have been taken this time as
gratitude for an artistic entertainment.</p>
<p>Bill had seen them into the car, had taken his own farewells (with a special
squeeze of the hand for Betty), and had wandered out to join Antony on his
garden seat.</p>
<p>“Well, this is a rum show,” said Bill as he sat down.</p>
<p>“Very rum, William.”</p>
<p>“And you actually walked right into it?”</p>
<p>“Right into it,” said Antony.</p>
<p>“Then you’re the man I want. There are all sorts of rumours and
mysteries about, and that inspector fellow simply wouldn’t keep to the
point when I wanted to ask him about the murder, or whatever it is, but kept
asking me questions about where I’d met you first, and all sorts of dull
things like that. Now, what really happened?”</p>
<p>Antony told him as concisely as he could all that he had already told the
Inspector, Bill interrupting him here and there with appropriate “Good
Lords” and whistles.</p>
<p>“I say, it’s a bit of a business, isn’t it? Where do <i>I</i>
come in, exactly?”</p>
<p>“How do you mean?”</p>
<p>“Well, everybody else is bundled off except me, and I get put through it
by that inspector as if I knew all about it—what’s the idea?”</p>
<p>Antony smiled at him.</p>
<p>“Well, there’s nothing to worry about, you know. Naturally Birch
wanted to see one of you so as to know what you’d all been doing all day.
And Cayley was nice enough to think that you’d be company for me, as I
knew you already. And—well, that’s all.”</p>
<p>“You’re staying here, in the house?” said Bill eagerly.
“Good man. That’s splendid.”</p>
<p>“It reconciles you to the departure of—some of the others?”</p>
<p>Bill blushed.</p>
<p>“Oh, well, I shall see her again next week, anyway,” he murmured.</p>
<p>“I congratulate you. I liked her looks. And that grey dress. A nice
comfortable sort of woman——”</p>
<p>“You fool, that’s her mother.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I beg your pardon. But anyhow, Bill, I want you more than she does
just now. So try and put up with me.”</p>
<p>“I say, do you really?” said Bill, rather flattered. He had a great
admiration for Antony, and was very proud to be liked by him.</p>
<p>“Yes. You see, things are going to happen here soon.”</p>
<p>“Inquests and that sort of thing?”</p>
<p>“Well, perhaps something before that. Hallo, here comes Cayley.”</p>
<p>Cayley was walking across the lawn towards them, a big, heavy-shouldered man,
with one of those strong, clean-shaven, ugly faces which can never quite be
called plain. “Bad luck on Cayley,” said Bill. “I say, ought
I to tell him how sorry I am and all that sort of thing? It seems so dashed
inadequate.”</p>
<p>“I shouldn’t bother,” said Antony.</p>
<p>Cayley nodded as he came to them, and stood there for a moment.</p>
<p>“We can make room for you,” said Bill, getting up.</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t bother, thanks. I just came to say,” he went on to
Antony, “that naturally they’ve rather lost their heads in the
kitchen, and dinner won’t be till half-past eight. Do just as you like
about dressing, of course. And what about your luggage?”</p>
<p>“I thought Bill and I would walk over to the inn directly, and see about
it.”</p>
<p>“The car can go and fetch it as soon as it comes back from the
station.”</p>
<p>“It’s very good of you, but I shall have to go over myself, anyhow,
to pack up and pay my bill. Besides, it’s a good evening for a walk. If
you wouldn’t mind it, Bill?”</p>
<p>“I should love it.”</p>
<p>“Well, then, if you leave the bag there, I’ll send the car round
for it later.”</p>
<p>“Thanks very much.”</p>
<p>Having said what he wanted to say, Cayley remained there a little awkwardly, as
if not sure whether to go or to stay. Antony wondered whether he wanted to talk
about the afternoon’s happenings, or whether it was the one subject he
wished to avoid. To break the silence he asked carelessly if the Inspector had
gone.</p>
<p>Cayley nodded. Then he said abruptly, “He’s getting a warrant for
Mark’s arrest.”</p>
<p>Bill made a suitably sympathetic noise, and Antony said with a shrug of the
shoulders, “Well, he was bound to do that, wasn’t he? It
doesn’t follow that—well, it doesn’t mean anything. They
naturally want to get hold of your cousin, innocent or guilty.”</p>
<p>“Which do you think he is, Mr. Gillingham?” said Cayley, looking at
him steadily.</p>
<p>“Mark? It’s absurd,” said Bill impetuously.</p>
<p>“Bill’s loyal, you see, Mr. Cayley.”</p>
<p>“And you owe no loyalty to anyone concerned?”</p>
<p>“Exactly. So perhaps I might be too frank.”</p>
<p>Bill had dropped down on the grass, and Cayley took his place on the seat, and
sat there heavily, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hands, gazing at
the ground.</p>
<p>“I want you to be quite frank,” he said at last. “Naturally I
am prejudiced where Mark is concerned. So I want to know how my suggestion
strikes you—who have no prejudices either way.”</p>
<p>“Your suggestion?”</p>
<p>“My theory that, if Mark killed his brother, it was purely
accidental—as I told the Inspector.”</p>
<p>Bill looked up with interest.</p>
<p>“You mean that Robert did the hold-up business,” he said,
“and there was a bit of a struggle, and the revolver went off, and then
Mark lost his head and bolted? That sort of idea?”</p>
<p>“Exactly.”</p>
<p>“Well, that seems all right.” He turned to Antony.
“There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? It’s the most
natural explanation to anyone who knows Mark.”</p>
<p>Antony pulled at his pipe.</p>
<p>“I suppose it is,” he said slowly. “But there’s one
thing that worries me rather.”</p>
<p>“What’s that?” Bill and Cayley asked the question
simultaneously.</p>
<p>“The key.”</p>
<p>“The key?” said Bill.</p>
<p>Cayley lifted his head and looked at Antony. “What about the key?”
he asked.</p>
<p>“Well, there may be nothing in it; I just wondered. Suppose Robert was
killed as you say, and suppose Mark lost his head and thought of nothing but
getting away before anyone could see him. Well, very likely he’d lock the
door and put the key in his pocket. He’d do it without thinking, just to
gain a moment’s time.”</p>
<p>“Yes, that’s what I suggest.”</p>
<p>“It seems sound enough,” said Bill. “Sort of thing
you’d do without thinking. Besides, if you are going to run away, it
gives you more of a chance.”</p>
<p>“Yes, that’s all right if the key is there. But suppose it
isn’t there?”</p>
<p>The suggestion, made as if it were already an established fact, startled them
both. They looked at him wonderingly.</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” said Cayley.</p>
<p>“Well, it’s just a question of where people happen to keep their
keys. You go up to your bedroom, and perhaps you like to lock your door in case
anybody comes wandering in when you’ve only got one sock and a pair of
braces on. Well, that’s natural enough. And if you look round the
bedrooms of almost any house, you’ll find the keys all ready, so that you
can lock yourself in at a moment’s notice. But downstairs people
don’t lock themselves in. It’s really never done at all. Bill, for
instance, has never locked himself into the dining-room in order to be alone
with the sherry. On the other hand, all women, and particularly servants, have
a horror of burglars. And if a burglar gets in by the window, they like to
limit his activities to that particular room. So they keep the keys on the
<i>out</i>side of the doors, and lock the doors when they go to bed.” He
knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and added, “At least, my mother always
used to.”</p>
<p>“You mean,” said Bill excitedly, “that the key was on the
outside of the door when Mark went into the room?”</p>
<p>“Well, I was just wondering.”</p>
<p>“Have you noticed the other rooms—the billiard-room, and library,
and so on?” said Cayley.</p>
<p>“I’ve only just thought about it while I’ve been sitting out
here. You live here—haven’t you ever noticed them?”</p>
<p>Cayley sat considering, with his head on one side.</p>
<p>“It seems rather absurd, you know, but I can’t say that I
have.” He turned to Bill. “Have you?”</p>
<p>“Good Lord, no. I should never worry about a thing like that.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” laughed Antony. “Well,
we can have a look when we go in. If the other keys are outside, then this one
was probably outside too, and in that case—well, it makes it more
interesting.”</p>
<p>Cayley said nothing. Bill chewed a piece of grass, and then said, “Does
it make much difference?”</p>
<p>“It makes it more hard to understand what happened in there. Take your
accidental theory and see where you get to. No instinctive turning of the key
now, is there? He’s got to open the door to get it, and opening the door
means showing his head to anybody in the hall—his cousin, for instance,
whom he left there two minutes ago. Is a man in Mark’s state of mind,
frightened to death lest he should be found with the body, going to do anything
so foolhardy as that?”</p>
<p>“He needn’t have been afraid of <i>me</i>,” said Cayley.</p>
<p>“Then why didn’t he call for you? He knew you were about. You could
have advised him; Heaven knows he wanted advice. But the whole theory of
Mark’s escape is that he was afraid of you and of everybody else, and
that he had no other idea but to get out of the room himself, and prevent you
or the servants from coming into it. If the key had been on the inside, he
would probably have locked the door. If it were on the outside, he almost
certainly wouldn’t.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I expect you’re right,” said Bill thoughtfully.
“Unless he took the key in with him, and locked the door at once.”</p>
<p>“Exactly. But in that case you have to build up a new theory
entirely.”</p>
<p>“You mean that it makes it seem more deliberate?”</p>
<p>“Yes; that, certainly. But it also seems to make Mark out an absolute
idiot. Just suppose for a moment that, for urgent reasons which neither of you
know anything about, he had wished to get rid of his brother. Would he have
done it like that? Just killed him and then run away? Why, that’s
practically suicide—suicide whilst of unsound mind. No. If you really
wanted to remove an undesirable brother, you would do it a little bit more
cleverly than that. You’d begin by treating him as a friend, so as to
avoid suspicion, and when you did kill him at last, you would try to make it
look like an accident, or suicide, or the work of some other man.
Wouldn’t you?”</p>
<p>“You mean you’d give yourself a bit of a run for your money?”</p>
<p>“Yes, that’s what I mean. If you were going to do it deliberately,
that is to say—and lock yourself in before you began.”</p>
<p>Cayley had been silent, apparently thinking over this new idea. With his eyes
still on the ground, he said now: “I hold to my opinion that it was
purely accidental, and that Mark lost his head and ran away.”</p>
<p>“But what about the key?” asked Bill.</p>
<p>“We don’t know yet that the keys were outside. I don’t at all
agree with Mr. Gillingham that the keys of the down-stairs rooms are always
outside the doors. Sometimes they are, no doubt; but I think we shall probably
find that these are inside.”</p>
<p>“Oh, well, of course, if they are inside, then your original theory is
probably the correct one. Having often seen them outside, I just
wondered—that’s all. You asked me to be quite frank, you know, and
tell you what I thought. But no doubt you’re right, and we shall find
them inside, as you say.</p>
<p>“Even if the key was outside,” went on Cayley stubbornly, “I
still think it might have been accidental. He might have taken it in with him,
knowing that the interview would be an unpleasant one, and not wishing to be
interrupted.”</p>
<p>“But he had just told you to stand by in case he wanted you; so why
should he lock you out? Besides, I should think that if a man were going to
have an unpleasant interview with a threatening relation, the last thing he
would do would be to barricade himself in with him. He would want to open all
the doors and say, ‘Get out of it!’”</p>
<p>Cayley was silent, but his mouth looked obstinate. Antony gave a little
apologetic laugh and stood up.</p>
<p>“Well, come on, Bill,” he said; “we ought to be
stepping.” He held out a hand and pulled his friend up. Then, turning to
Cayley, he went on, “You must forgive me if I have let my thoughts run on
rather. Of course, I was considering the matter purely as an outsider; just as
a problem, I mean, which didn’t concern the happiness of any of my
friends.”</p>
<p>“That’s all right, Mr. Gillingham,” said Cayley, standing up
too. “It is for you to make allowances for <i>me</i>. I’m sure you
will. You say that you’re going up to the inn now about your bag?”</p>
<p>“Yes.” He looked up at the sun and then round the parkland
stretching about the house. “Let me see; it’s over in <i>that</i>
direction, isn’t it?” He pointed southwards. “Can we get to
the village that way, or must we go by the road?”</p>
<p>“I’ll show you, my boy,” said Bill.</p>
<p>“Bill will show you. The park reaches almost as far as the village. Then
I’ll send the car round in about half an hour.”</p>
<p>“Thanks very much.”</p>
<p>Cayley nodded and turned to go into the house. Antony took hold of Bill’s
arm and walked off with him in the opposite direction.</p>
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