John Creasey - The Toff on The Farm

“‘Morn’n,” Rollison grunted, without looking up. He shuffled across to the hen coops and unfastened them, and was on his way back when the first hen was sprawling about the muddy yard. The policeman who had spoken came no nearer. Rollison went back into the kitchen and closed the door. Out of the line of vision of anyone at the window, he straightened up, and raided the larder. There were plenty of eggs, a piece of bacon, bread, butter, everything he wanted. He found the frying slow on the oil stove, but eggs and bacon as succulent as Jolly’s at his best. The bread was stale and chawy, and he missed toast. He brewed strong tea, pondering the mystery all the time, and wondered how long it would be before someone called.

He couldn’t face the scrutiny of anyone who knew Smith, or even of anyone who knew that he was old, but the half-drawn blinds made it so gloomy in here that he might get away with a brief encounter.

One question was on his mind all the time. If the value of Selby Farm wasn’t in the farmhouse, where was it?

He was fooling himself, of course; there was no way of being sure that he’d searched everywhere. The roof might hold the secret. If he took up the floorboards in any room he might find what he wanted. That was like asking for the moon.

He wondered where Brandt was : who was the American who had telephoned the previous night: what Grice was thinking, and more important, what he was planning to do ? He wondered how well Gillian had slept, and where she was now : and whether she was with her brother and M.M.M.

Peculiar character, Montagu Montmorency Mome.

Rollison was picturing M.M.M. telling him that he wasn’t wanted, when he heard the sound of a car engine. He hurried to the front room to peer out, and saw Morne’s car. Getting out of it was Gillian, and at the wheel was M.M.M. himself.

The police wouldn’t be far behind.

18

FORLORN HOPE?

ROLLISON would not be able to fool Mome, and dare not let the girl come face to face with him. He saw Gillian’s pale face, and guessed from the brightness of her eyes that she hadn’t slept much. M.M.M. looked pale and tired, too. He was getting out of the car clumsily, and Rollison thought back to the accident, and wondered whether the change in him had started from the time of that dread happening.

Gillian had come on ahead, and was at the door and out of Rollison’s sight. She knocked. Odd; one would have expected her to go to the back entrance for she knew Smith well enough. She knocked again, as M.M.M. called out:

“The old devil will pretend he can’t hear. Go round to the back.”

“He won’t talk to me if I do, he’s always ordered me to knock at the front door.”

‘‘Ordered you,” choked M.M.M.

“It isn’t any use getting bad tempered or blinking at facts,” said Gillian, in a voice which suggested that she would easily get out of patience. She knocked again, and this time Rollison stepped towards the door, banging against a chair to make sure that Gillian knew he was coming. This door was bolted. He opened it a fraction, but left it on the chain. He could just see the girl, as he stood on one side. She seemed to expect to be kept waiting there, and said quite patiently:

“Mr. Smith, please open the door. I want to talk to you.”

Rollison said in a harsh, sour voice : “Well, he can’t.”

“Please open the door,” said Gillian, with a pleading note in her tone. “I’ve got to talk to you.”

“I’ve told you I’ll never step outside this house while I’m alive, when I’m dead he can carry me out,” Rollison said, mumbling, and hoping that it sounded like Old Smith talking ; certainly the girl seemed to suspect nothing amiss.

“You’ve got to be reasonable,” she said, and it was even more obvious that desperation and fear had driven her here. “My brother’s in grave danger, and “

“It’s naught to do with me.”

“Mr. Smith, please listen to me !”

“I’ve listened to the nonsense from you and your good-for-nothing brother for too long already, why don’t you go and talk to someone who wants to hear from you.”

“You’re going to open that door and you’re going to listen to me,” Gillian cried, and Rollison had never heard her more shrill, was glad that anger had broken through, “Don’t stand there behaving as if you were a lunatic. Alan’s in deadly danger, and you’ve got to help him. Get that into your head.”

A murmur from outside sounded like M.M.M. saying: “That’s better,”

Rollison had to slam the door and refuse to talk any more, or else make some kind of a gesture. He wanted to know what Gillian had to say, and there seemed only one way of finding out.

He mumbled : “Say what you have to say, I’ll listen to you,” but he didn’t open the door, and leaned back against a chair so that Gillian couldn’t possibly see him. He wondered what she felt like, standing so close to the door and yet shut out: and what M.M.M. was doing : and whether the police were within earshot.

He could hear the girl’s heavy breathing, as if she was trying to regain her temper.

“Please listen very carefully,” she said, at last. “My brother has been threatened with murder—do you understand, murder—unless I sell this farm with vacant possession. You must leave here, Mr. Smith. We will pay you anything you ask, we will even buy you another farmhouse if you want it, but you must leave here.”

“I will, when I’m dead,” Rollison said harshly. “Don’t come whining to me with a lot of lies.”

“But they’re not lies! Alan told me this last night. Mr. Morne and I left him in a drugged sleep, hiding—hiding from his enemies.” How true was that? “Mr. Smith, I’ve come to beg you to do what I ask. I’ll give you everything I possess, if only you’ll leave the farm.” Rollison didn’t answer.

M.M.M. said roughly : “It’s no use banging your head against a brick wall. If I could get in there I’d knock some sense into him.”

The girl was almost in tears.

“Mr. Smith, you mustn’t stand out any longer. I can’t do more than I have.”

“Come back again tomorrow morning,” Rollison said abruptly, and tried to sound like Smith at his harshest. “I’ll think about it.”

He heard the girl draw in a sharp breath. “But we can’t wait until morning!” M.M.M. protested angrily,

“Mr. Smith,” said Gillian, and there was a new note in her voice, as of hope replacing despair, “will you let me come and talk to you this evening? I’m so worried for Alan, and I daren’t leave it any longer.”

“A’right,” Rollison conceded. “I’ll expect you at six o’clock.”

She said: “Thank you,” in a way which was oddly touching, and then there was a pause before the sound of footsteps suggested that she was walking away. Rollison went closer to the door. She was moving towards the car, and M.M.M. had his arm round her, but not very tightly. It was easy to believe that Gillian was crying. It was as easy to believe that she felt sure that her brother’s life depended on getting the farm house empty, so that she could sell it. Whatever the police had said, whatever offers she had had of larger sums of money, and in spite of his, the Toff’s, advice, Gillian Selby would sell the farm in order to help her brother.

Did it make sense ?

Who would buy it ? Who dare buy it, in view of what had happened? The police would be after a purchaser like a flash, and even if he was a cover for the principal, they would soon get to the real man.

Wouldn’t they?

Rollison heard the car move off, with M.M.M. driving, and a moment afterwards saw two plain-clothes men step from a corner of the farmhouse; so the police had heard every word. One of them hurried across towards the cottage, which was cut off by the trees, as if to take his report to the policeman in charge.