The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [4418]
"So this is Mr. Robert," said Audrey to herself, as she came in sight of the visitor.
She told her aunt afterwards that she would have known him anywhere for Mr. Mark's brother, but she would have said that in any event. Actually she was surprised. Dapper little Mark, with his neat pointed beard and his carefully curled moustache; with his quick-darting eyes, always moving from one to the other of any company he was in, to register one more smile to his credit when he had said a good thing, one more expectant look when he was only waiting his turn to say it; he was a very different man from this rough-looking, ill-dressed colonial, staring at her so loweringly.
"I want to see Mr. Mark Ablett," he growled. It sounded almost like a threat.
Audrey recovered herself and smiled reassuringly at him. She had a smile for everybody.
"Yes, sir. He is expecting you, if you will come this way."
"Oh! So you know who I am, eh?"
"Mr. Robert Ablett?"
"Ay, that's right. So he's expecting me, eh? He'll be glad to see me, eh?"
"If you will come this way, sir," said Audrey primly.
She went to the second door on the left, and opened it.
"Mr. Robert Ab--" she began, and then broke off. The room was empty. She turned to the man behind her. "If you will sit down, sir, I will find the master. I know he's in, because he told me that you were coming this afternoon."
"Oh!" He looked round the room. "What d'you call this place, eh?"
"The office, sir."
"The office?"
"The room where the master works, sir."
"Works, eh? That's new. Didn't know he'd ever done a stroke of work in his life."
"Where he writes, sir," said Audrey, with dignity. The fact that Mr. Mark "wrote," though nobody knew what, was a matter of pride in the housekeeper's room.
"Not well-dressed enough for the drawing-room, eh?"
"I will tell the master you are here, sir," said Audrey decisively.
She closed the door and left him there.
Well! Here was something to tell auntie! Her mind was busy at once, going over all the things which he had said to her and she had said to him--quiet-like. "Directly I saw him I said to myself--" Why, you could have knocked her over with a feather. Feathers, indeed, were a perpetual menace to Audrey.
However, the immediate business was to find the master. She walked across the hall to the library, glanced in, came back a little uncertainly, and stood in front of Cayley.
"If you please, sir," she said in a low, respectful voice, "can you tell me where the master is? It's Mr. Robert called."
"What?" said Cayley, looking up from his book. "Who?"
Audrey repeated her question.
"I don't know. Isn't he in the office? He went up to the Temple after lunch. I don't think I've seen him since."
"Thank you, sir. I will go up to the Temple."
Cayley returned to his book.
The "Temple" was a brick summer-house, in the gardens at the back of the house, about three hundred yards away. Here Mark meditated sometimes before retiring to the "office" to put his thoughts upon paper. The thoughts were not of any great value; moreover, they were given off at the dinner-table more often than they got on to paper, and got on to paper more often than they got into print. But that did not prevent the master of The Red House from being a little pained when a visitor treated the Temple carelessly, as if it had been erected for the ordinary purposes of flirtation and cigarette-smoking. There had been an occasion when two of his guests had been found playing fives in it. Mark had said nothing at the time, save to ask with a little less than his usual point--whether they couldn't find anywhere else for their game, but the offenders were never asked to The Red House again.
Audrey walked slowly up to the Temple, looked in and walked slowly back. All that walk for nothing. Perhaps the master was upstairs in his room. "Not well-dressed enough for the drawing-room." Well, now, Auntie, would you like anyone in your drawing-room with a red