John Creasey - The Toff on The Farm

Rollison moved the palm gun until it was just at the side of Smith’s face, and pressed the trigger gently. There was scarcely a hiss of sound, and no more vapour than there would have been from an atomiser. The old man paused in his breathing once, and after that appeared to breathe steadily and silently,

Rollison put the gun back into his pocket.

He stepped to the back door, and saw that the huge key had been turned in it, and that it was bolted and chained. With extreme care, he drew bolts and pulled the chain out, then turned the key: and the turning made the greatest sound. He opened the door a fraction and listened, but saw no sign of the patrolling policeman, nor did he hear him. He stepped into the garden, and drew the door to behind him, without closing it. He looked towards the cottage. No lights showed above the trees now, for except for a guard back and front, much more thorough than the guard at the farm, no police were there.

Footsteps sounded.

Rollison waited in the dark shadows. The policeman, in plain clothes, was angled for a moment against the sky. He drew nearer, glanced at the door, but did not think of trying it or of going nearer.

He passed, slowly.

Rollison went back inside, hurried to the old man, and lifted him bodily: Smith did not stir or make a sound, he was in a drugged sleep now. Rollison took him outside and across the farmyard with its earthy and its animal smells. Just behind a gate in a nearby field there was a rustle of sound.

“That you, Mr. Ar?” a man inquired in a rich Cockney voice.

“Hallo, Sam,” said Rollison. “How would you like to be a farmer?”

“Not so-and-so likely, the smell’s more’n enough for me,” said the man named Sam. “I’ll buy me eggs from the shop, ta. Got ’im?”

“Yes. Take him and look after him well, he might be precious,” Rollison said. “You know where to go with him.”

“Everything’s okay, Mr. Ar,” said the man named bam, and another man appeared by his side and echoed : “Sure, it’s okay.” Rollison handed over the unconscious man, and then stood and watched the two men from London’s East End as they carried Smith on a chair which they made with their arms, until the strange little group disappeared from his sight.

Ten minutes afterwards, some distance off, a car engine started up, whined for a few moments, and then moved off; but oddly, there was no light in the sky to show the beam of head-lights.

Rollison turned back to the garden. The policeman was on the way round again, and this time smoking a cigarette : the smell of tobacco smoke came temptingly, but Rollison resisted temptation, and waited until the man was round the nearest corner. Soon he went to the kitchen, locked up as securely as Old Smith, then turned out the oil lamp and, using a torch, went up the narrow stairs. He had seen the condition of the farmhouse during the day, and knew that it was messy enough, but he pulled off his boots, loosened his collar and tie, then sat down in an old armchair, and closed his eyes.

“Six o’clock should be early enough,” he said in a soft whisper. “I’ll wake at six.” Soon, he was asleep.

He slept with the door open, and the knowledge that he would wake at the slightest sound, for the years had taught him how to be asleep one moment, and wide awake the next. No sound disturbed him. At two minutes to six by the watch on his wrist, he began to stir, his eyelids flickered, and he moistened his lips. At one minute past six he opened his eyes wide and stared about him : then grinned.

“I’ll bet there’s no hot water,” he said, and pushed back a blanket he’d pulled over him, and got up. He washed in cold water, but made no attempt to shave. He put a kettle on the oil stove downstairs, and then went into Smith’s room and examined his wardrobe. It wasn’t extensive, but there were two jackets and three pairs of breeches. He found the breeches a little too big round the waist but the Norfolk jacket wasn’t a bad fit. He took off his scarf, but did not put on a collar and tie : Old Smith didn’t wear one.

Smith’s shoes were much too small for Rollison.

“Mine’ll have to do,” he said aloud, and then pulled his own cap over his head, for he could not persuade himself to wear the old man’s. By the time he had finished, the kettle was singing downstairs. He made himself tea, found biscuits and ate two, and then went into the big room. He pulled the blinds up sufficient to allow light in, but not to permit anyone to see inside, and then he began to search the room.

A squad of police would not have been more thorough.

He moved furniture and pictures, stepped inside the huge fireplace, put his head up the chimney, and tapped the inside walls. He felt every wall for loose bricks or loose plaster, and tapped the floor of the fireplace, too. Everything seemed solid. He went down on his knees and tested the floorboards, seeking any evidence that one had been taken up lately. He found none. He studied the furniture, trying to judge if any had a false drawer, or other secret hiding-place. All this took him over forty minutes, and at the end of it he was frowning.

“That’s one blank,” he said sotto voce, and then went into the kitchen and did exactly the same thing.

He found nothing.

He searched the pantries and the cupboards, then turned his attention to the stairs. There was a narrow cupboard underneath them, but it contained only a few old boxes and old clothes. The floor was solid, and looked as if the boards had been undisturbed since they’d been laid, over a hundred years ago.

“Two blanks,” he said, a little less cheerfully, as he went upstairs.

At half past seven he had finished his search of the farmhouse, and had found nothing to explain the sensational interest in it. He was hungry as well as disappointed when he went downstairs. He drew the blinds a little, so that anyone who wanted to see inside would have to come close to each window, and then went into the kitchen, opened the back door, and hobbled out, shoulders bent and head towards the ground. A man called : “Good morning, Smith.”

“‘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.

The other went off on his patrolling again.

Rollison knew a little more. Alan Selby was still free, and it looked as if he would remain free for a while, to give his sister a chance to sell the property. Whoever had released him had taken a big chance—or else they had known their man, and were sure that Selby wouldn’t fight.

Why wouldn’t he ?

Was he just a craven, or had someone been working on his nerves for a long time ?

Rollison walked briskly to the kitchen and then into a big larder-like cupboard where he had seen a good set of carpenter’s tools. He selected a screw-driver, a saw, a claw hammer, a brace and bit and some oil, and went back to the big front room. This time he really meant to search it so that there could be no possibility of a mistake.

But within half an hour, he felt sure that there was nothing buried under this floor.

He went moodily into the kitchen, sat in the old man’s chair, ht a cigarette, and studied the floor there. He had seldom felt so nearly despondent, seldom been without a real clue. Usually he could guess at the truth, even if he couldn’t prove it. Now his own mind as well as the circumstances seemed to be going round in circles.

He noticed the flagstoned floor was very uneven, especially in one corner. He looked at the wall, and saw that there was a pale patch in the plaster. He stared at this for some minutes, then stood up and went closer. About a dozen flagstones were raised higher than the others, and he scrutinized the little gaps where they were fitted together. These had been cemented in much more recently than most of those in the rest of the room. Rollison began to feel a glow of excitement, but before he did anything to the stones, he went to each window and looked out.