The Toff on The Farm t-39

by John Creasey

  “Miss Selby.”

  “No one else?”

  “No one else whom I know about.”

  “Fair enough,” Keen said, but he gave the impression that the shock was no

  Then the telephone bell rang.

  Keen looked up, as if in surprise, then stepped out towards the head of the stairs, a pace ahead of Rollison. They heard Gillian say ‘Hallo’. They hurried down the stairs, and at the foot Keen turned left, into the living-room. Rollison could see over his shoulder. Gillian was standing by the table with the telephone at her ear. She looked round at them. It was as if death was talking to her, and he had never seen a woman with less colour in her cheeks.

  She said: “Yes, goodbye.”

  Keen was sweeping across towards her, hand outstretched as if he would like to take the receiver before she replaced it; but he hadn’t a chance. It seemed to Rollison that Gillian made sure of that, and then stood almost defensively in front of the telephone.

  “Who was that?” demanded Keen, roughly.

  “A friend of mine.”

  “What friend?”

  “Just a friend,” said Gillian, and turned away. Keen stood in his new-found arrogance, but he could not find the right thing to say. Rollison moved past him towards the girl, and before Keen spoke, he said :

  “Have you any close friends near here, Gillian?”

  “No,” answered Gillian, drably.

  “No one who could come and stay with you for a bit, or with whom you could stay?”

  “No.”

  “Where have you some friends?”

  “Only in London.”

  “Who would come and stay with you?”

  She said as if with an effort: “Monty’s sister might. I don’t know. Who would want to, after this?” She looked drearily out of the window, and all the life had been drained out of her, partly by the succession of shocks—and partly by what had been said on the telephone, Rollison imagined. “I don’t even know if I can stay here.” She began to shiver, and that didn’t surprise Rollison. “Why don’t you find Alan? Everything will be all right if you’d only find Alan.”

  “We’re doing everything we can,” Rollison said, and was all too aware of the futility of the words.

  “Well,” Gillian retorted, “it isn’t much.”

  Keen came across, took up the telephone, and called his headquarters; once routine was needed, he was a man again. He was never likely to be good enough to take responsibility, Rollison thought. Keen didn’t greatly matter, except that he would probably be fairly easy to handle.

  He put the receiver down.

  “They’ll be out within forty minutes,” he said, “and a patrol car will be here before then. You’re asked to stay here, Mr. Rollison. And you. Miss.” He looked dubiously at Gillian.

  “Where else would I go?” asked Gillian, in that new, helpless way.

  “We’ll stay close by,” promised Rollison. “Miss Selby ought to get some air, sergeant. We’ll stroll across to the farm, if that’s all right with you.”

  Keen obviously wished they wouldn’t, but decided not to stop them. Perhaps he thought it better to let them go, and have them followed. Gillian was prepared to do whatever Rollison wanted. They went out the back way. It was beautiful in the garden, with the meadows and the woods beyond, and much warmer than it had been during the morning. The sky was clear, and the birds were busy and noisy, and insects were humming and hovering. Half way down the garden was a fork, dug into the freshly turned earth. Rollison saw Gillian’s eyes flood with tears.

  “Alan’s?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did he often leave a fork in the ground overnight?”

  “Yes, I was always telling him about it.”

  “Very fond of him, Gillian ?”

  “He’s been mother and father and brother to me,” she said, heavily. “He’s fifteen years older than I am, you see. Oh, God, I can’t stand it if anything happens to him !”

  It was useless to say: “It won’t,” for more empty comfort now would make real comfort impossible later; and it might be desperately needed.

  They went towards the end of the garden and to a small gate which opened onto a field; beyond was the farm itself. It looked as if it had been standing there for four hundred years, and would stay for another four hundred. It was low and snug and picturesque, with its mullioned windows, its gables, its lichen-covered tiles and its red brick with the great oak beams in it. Here was a little of England’s past, with the smoke of the present curling lazily out of a squat round chimney.

  “Gillian,” Rollison asked, “who was on the telephone?”

  “A friend.”

  “You needn’t lie to me.” She didn’t look at him. “I’m not lying to you.”

  “It wasn’t a friend. It was another threat to Alan, wasn’t it?”

  “It was a friend.”

  “If you don’t tell me everything, how can I help?”

  “How can you help?” she echoed, and turned to glare at him, her eyes flashing, colour storming back in her cheeks, as if anger was the stimulant that she needed. “You’ve let two men be murdered, you haven’t done a thing to find Alan, you haven’t done anything at all. Why, Tex Brandt did twice as much as you in half the time !”

  “Did he telephone?”

  “No!”

  “Who was it, Gillian?”

  “It was a friend from the village, she wanted me to go and sit in for her tonight, I told her I couldn’t.” The he, if it was a he, came out very pat: but Rollison felt sure that it was untrue. “Now don’t keep pestering me, you might just as well go home.”

  “Soon,” he said. “I want to see Tex, too. Who telephoned you, and what did he say?”

  “I’ve told you, it’s no use pestering me,” Gillian cried. “I’m not going to tell you another thing !”

  She turned and half ran back to the house. Detective Sergeant Keen stood by the window, giving Rollison the impression that he was glad she was on the way back, and probably maliciously pleased that Rollison had obviously not got far with the girl. Rollison watched her disappear into the kitchen, and then he walked on, briskly. The girl was worked up to the highest possible pitch of tension and hardly responsible for what she said; but he wasn’t any more pleased with himself than she was. It was not that he had done so little, for he had not been here more than three and a half hours; it was because he could not be sure that he had done any of the right things. He had allowed Charlie to stay here unguarded, and so was indirectly responsible for the man’s death; that was the most unpleasant thought. True, Charlie hadn’t been one of the most lovable of men, but he did not necessarily deserve to die.

  He might have been very informative, too.

  And Rollison was not sure that he had been right to allow the Texan to leave. Brandt might go to the Mayfair flat, but he could be roaming around. He might even be near here. He could have killed Charlie, and if it came to that, he could have killed Lodwin, for he had been upstairs in the Brighton house first, and Lodwin certainly hadn’t been dead very long.

  Rollison reached some wooden outhouses.

  Here was the smell of the farmyard, rich, ripe and earthy. Here was a muddled, unkempt farm, with a dirty yard, a few dry-looking heaps of manure, only one of them steaming slightly, a dozen fowls, pecking and scratching, a pig roaming. The walls of the barn and other outbuildings wanted renewing, repairing wouldn’t do much good; and the whole place had an appearance of decay. Even the farmhouse itself lost much of its picturesqueness because he was too close; the walls wanted painting, the oak beams looked as if they were rotting, too many of the little leaded panes of glass were cracked, too many tiles were broken. Hens clucked, flies were already swarming. In a nearby field a heifer plodded past.

  Then Rollison stood to one side and peered through a window into a low-ceilinged room. He saw several wrapped hams hanging from rafters, and the bright fire in the huge fireplace. But for that brightness the room looked dark and
dingy, but it was not the appearance of the room which caught and held Rollison’s interest.

  A man who looked very old indeed was standing by the fireplace, fingers clasped round a poker much as Gillian’s had been, and shaking the poker in a kind of threat at a man whom Rollison could not see.

  Rollison moved his position, to see better.

  It was Montagu Montmorency Morne.

  10

  QUICK MOVES

  The window was open, so that Rollison could hear M.M.M.’s heavy breathing, as well as the frail voice of the old man.

  “. . . . and don’t you come here trying to threaten me, or I’ll set about you, whether you have one leg or two. Now get out of my house, while I’ve a mind to let you.”

  Seen from the right perspective, this was funny. Rollison duly smiled. M.M.M. obviously saw it from a different perspective, because he did not look at all like laughing. He was getting up from a high chair, and Rollison noticed how quickly he moved. He was pale and angry as he said :

  “I’ll have you thrown out on your neck, you stubborn old fool.”

  “Don’t you abuse me or you’ll get this poker across the head,” old Smith threatened shrilly. “No-one’s going to turn me out of my house and home, now or at any time. You can go back and tell your precious friends that. And keep your money, money’s no use to me.”

  He swung the poker, and knocked a wad of notes flying off a small table; Rollison hadn’t seen them before. M.M.M. limped towards them, and picked them up. For a moment, Rollison thought that the old man would strike him as he bent down. But Smith didn’t. Clutching the wad of notes, M.M.M. turned towards the door, the old man glowered at him but did not move.

  M.M.M. disappeared.

  Then there was a remarkable transformation on the face of Old Smith. The rage vanished, obviously pretended. Instead of scowling, he grinned with a mixture of delight and cunning; it would not take a great deal to make him cackle. He let the poker drop with a clatter in the hearth, and then turned and went, remarkably sprightly, tothe door. His shoulders were bowed and bent, but he was nothing like a has-been.

  A car engine sounded on the other side of the farmhouse. Rollison stood by the wall, as M.M.M. appeared, in a taxi. He had recovered from his leg hurt very quickly, unless he was another instance of mind omatter. He driven towards a farm track which went to the main road; there was no way of driving straight from the farm to the cottage, one had to go to the road and back again, a mile or more, instead of four hundred yards.

  Rollison went to the back. The door was open, as farmhouse doors were likely to be. A huge pile of logs was quite close to it, all old and weathered. The lawns in front were overgrovm, and a few years ago there had been flowerbeds, but these had become a small wilderness. Everything carried the look and the smell of decay, and yet men had offered a fortune for this place.

  Did Old Smith know why?

  He was pottering about somewhere in the kitchen. Rollison went in, and saw him at a big dresser, cutting bread from a huge loaf. The stone-flagged floor had been brushed in the middle, but dust and dirt and debris was gathered round the sides, and on a draining-board just in sight was a pile of dirty crockery, old tin cans, old packages and table peelings. This was a slum in the middle of the country; no-one should be allowed to live in such conditions.

  Rollison went softly up a flight of twisting stairs, each tread of which was worn low, and some of were cracked. He had to lower his head to avoid banging it. The floor erf a large bedroom was concave, and a huge four-poster bed sloped down towards the middle. Unexpectedly, the bed and the linen on it looked clean. There were three

  Other rooms, all used for junk, such junk as Rollison had never seen before. Old dressing-tables, old chairs, old sofas, all in varying stages of dilapidation, stood by big packing-cases, boxes, suit-cases, piles of books, greater piles of newspapers, old brooms, old crockery, anything that might be found in a household. It was little more than a junk-house, and if anyone ever dropped a lighted cigarette in here, it would bum like tinder.

  So would the farmhouse.

  “Fifteen thousand pounds,” Rollison murmured.

  He went downstairs. The old man was sitting at the kitchen table, eating bread and butter with jam piled thick on it, and drinking tea out of a cup which looked as if it hadn’t been washed for weeks. He appeared to hear nothing. Rollison looked through the big room where M.M.M. had been, and another, smaller room opposite, which meant that he had seen every room at Selby Farm.

  Fifteen thousand pounds; two dead bodies; and a kidnapping ; and all of these still needed explanation.

  Rollison went outside, and then turned back and knocked sharply on the door. Nothing happened. He banged again, more loudly, and at last Old Smith came hobbling with his unexpected speed. He had a mahogany-coloured face with deep etched lines, a sunken mouth because he had no teeth, but he also had as clear a pair of grey eyes Rollison had seen in a man, young or old.

  He barred the door.

  “What do you want ?” he demanded, and gave no doubt that whatever the visitor desired, he couldn’t have it.

  “I want to buy the farm,” announced Rollison, in the mildest of voices, “and I thought you might be able to help me find a way of persuading Miss Selby to let me have it.” He smiled, as if taking it for granted that he would get what he wanted. ‘“Perhaps we could have a chat, Mr. Smith.”

  “We can’t have a chat, now or any time,” Old Smith crackled, “I haven’t any time for talk with you or with anyone.”

  “It might be worth your while.”

  “It’ll be worth your while to turn round and get off quicker than you came here.” This was the tone Smith had used for M.M.M. “Now don’t waste my time any longer.”

  “Mr. Smith,” murmured Rollison, “I don’t really want to buy the house at all, I just want to buy a story. It would be worth five hundred pounds.”

  The old man demanded sharply : “What story?”

  “Your story, and that of Selby Farm.”

  “You must be daft!”

  “You must have a good reason for refusing to sell the property, Mr. Smith, and “

  “I’ve lived here man and boy for seventy-two years and if that isn’t reason enough I’d like to know what is,” roared Old Smith, “and you can go back and tell your editor felly that he can’t have my story for five hundred or five thousand pounds. I live a private life and I don’t want my name in any scandal-mongering newspaper. Now get out. I’m in the middle of my tea.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being hard on Gillian Selby and her brother, by refusing “

  “Hard be damned to them! They’re young, they’ve got their lives ahead of them, don’t say I’m being hard. All they want is easy money, like all the young fools these days. Something for nothing, that’s what they’re after. But I’ve a right to this farm while I pay my rent, it’s in the old man’s will. Ask the wench, if you don’t believe me. Her father made sure no-one could turn me out. Now good-day to you.”

  “What will happen if they get a court order compelling you to leave?” asked Rollison, still mildly.

  “I’d tear it up and throw it in their faces,” said Old Smith, and then broke into a cackle of laughter. “But they’ll never get a court order, they’ll never even have the guts to try. You go back and tell your editor man that, and if you meet the Selby’s, tell them it’s time they stopped wasting their breath and mine.”

  He turned round and hobbled off; cackling.

  He was very sure of himself. Why?

  Detective Inspector Bishop and a murder team were at the cottage when Rollison got back. There were eight men in all, including a police-surgeon, who had formally pronounced that Charlie’s life was extinct. Rollison was in time to see the body carried into a small ambulance, and to see the ambulance move off. In and about the cottage, men were taking photographs, noting footprints, barricading anything of interest, drawing lines, making sketches, taking measurements; all the paraphernalia o
f routine which made the difference between the professional and the amateur at work.

  Gillian was in the downstairs room, still very pale, with M.M.M. Bishop saw Rollison arrive, and came to meet him.

  “Did you know about the money Lodwin was supposed to have left ?” he asked.

  “Yes,” answered Rollison. “Has Miss Selby turned it in?”

  “Yes,” Bishop said, and then took Rollison’s arm. “I don’t know how well you know Miss Selby, but our medic says that she is suffering very badly from shock, and that she ought to get away from here, and have some rest. She won’t go to a nursing home, but says she’s going to stay here until her brother gets back. Do you think you can persuade her that it won’t do any good ?”

  “We’d persuade her more easily if we could find her brother,” Rollison said. “Any news?”

  “Give us a chance, man !”

  “I feel the same way,” Rollison said, dryly. “I’ll try to get her away, but the only place I can take her to is London.”

  “That’s all right,” said Bishop, and added slyly : “We’ve been in touch with the Yard, and they’re sending a man here. We didn’t want to take any chances, especially as the man killed at Brighton was known to the Yard.”

  “What as?”

  “You’d better ask your friend Grice,” said Bishop, “but take it from me, the important thing is to get the girl away from here.”

  “Have you finished questioning her?”

  “She won’t say a word: just sits and stares and looks at me as if I were a lunatic.”

  “I see what she means,” said Rollison gravely, and enjoyed the smile which leapt into Bishop’s eyes. “How about this friend of hers, Monty Morne ?”

  “No reason why he shouldn’t go if you want him to,” said Bishop.

  He was being very obliging; in fact, almost too obliging. When the police made everything easy, there was always a good reason, Rollison tried to guess what it was, and felt reasonably sure of one factor. They would prefer to have the run of the cottage and the farm without the benefit of his presence. That fitted in well with what he wanted to do: first see William Brandt, known as Tex, then make Gillian tell him who had been on the telephone.