The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne Page B

mouth.
    "I—I don't know," he stammered. "We never thought of that."
    "You would have seen her long before, wouldn't you, if she had come the
way we came?"
    "Of course we should."
    "And that would have spoilt it rather. You would have had time to
recognize her walk."
    Bill was interested now.
    "That's rather funny, you know, Tony. We none of us thought of that."
    "You're sure she didn't come across the park when none of you were
looking?"
    "Quite. Because, you see, Betty and I were expecting her, and we kept
looking round in case we saw her, so that we should all be playing with
our backs to her."
    "You and Miss Calladine were playing together?"
    "I say, however do you know that?"
    "Brilliant deductive reasoning. Well, then you suddenly saw her?"
    "Yes, she walked across that side of the lawn." He indicated the
opposite side, nearer to the house.
    "She couldn't have been hiding in the ditch? Do you call it the moat, by
the way?"
    "Mark does. We don't among ourselves. No, she couldn't. Betty and I
were here before the others, and walked round a bit. We should have seen
her."
    "Then she must have been hiding in the shed. Or do you call it the
summer-house?"
    "We had to go there for the bowls, of course. She couldn't have been
there."
    "Oh!"
    "It's dashed funny," said Bill, after an interval for thought. "But it
doesn't matter, does it? It has nothing to do with Robert."
    "Hasn't it?"
    "I say, has it?" said Bill, getting excited again.
    "I don't know. We don't know what has, or what hasn't. But it has
got something to do with Miss Norris. And Miss Norris—" He broke off
suddenly.
    "What about her?"
    "Well, you're all in it in a kind of way. And if something unaccountable
happens to one of you a day or two before something unaccountable
happens to the whole house, one is well, interested." It was a good
enough reason, but it wasn't the reason he had been on the point of
giving.
    "I see. Well?"
    Antony knocked out his pipe and got up slowly.
    "Well then, let's find the way from the house by which Miss Norris
came."
    Bill jumped up eagerly.
    "By Jove! Do you mean there's a secret passage?"
    "A secluded passage, anyway. There must be."
    "I say, what fun! I love secret passages. Good Lord, and this afternoon
I was playing golf just like an ordinary merchant! What a life! Secret
passages!"
    They made their way down into the ditch. If an opening was to be found
which led to the house, it would probably be on the house side of the
green, and on the outside of the ditch. The most obvious place at which
to begin the search was the shed where the bowls were kept. It was a
tidy place as anything in Mark's establishment would be. There were two
boxes of croquet things, one of them with the lid open, as if the
balls and mallets and, hoops (neatly enough put away, though) had been
recently used; a box of bowls, a small lawn-mower, a roller and so
forth. A seat ran along the back of it, whereon the bowls-players could
sit when it rained.
    Antony tapped the wall at the back.
    "This is where the passage ought to begin. It doesn't sound very hollow,
does it?"
    "It needn't begin here at all, need it?" said Bill, walking round with
bent head, and tapping the other walls. He was just too tall to stand
upright in the shed.
    "There's only one reason why it should, and that is that it would save
us the trouble of looking anywhere else for it. Surely Mark didn't
let you play croquet on his bowling-green?" He pointed to the croquet
things.
    "He didn't encourage it at one time, but this year he got rather keen
about it. There's really nowhere else to play. Personally I hate the
game. He wasn't very keen on bowls, you know, but he liked calling it
the bowling-green, and surprising his visitors with it."
    Antony laughed.
    "I love you on Mark," he said. "You're priceless."
    He began to feel in his pockets for his pipe and tobacco, and then
suddenly stopped and stiffened to attention. For a moment he stood
listening, with his head on one side, holding up a