Mirabelle interrupted this somewhat gruesome conversation to make inquiries about luncheon. Her head was steady now and she had developed an appetite.
The front door stood open, and as she turned to go into the dining-room to get her writing materials, she heard an altercation at the gate. A third man had appeared: a grimy-looking pedlar who carried a tray before him, packed with all manner of cheap buttons and laces. He was a middle-aged man with a ragged beard, and despite the warmth of the day, was wearing a long overcoat that almost reached to his heels.
“You may or you may not be,” the man with the pipe was saying, “but you’re not going in here.”
“I’ve served this house for years,” snarled the pedlar. “What do you mean by interfering with me? You’re not a policeman.”
“Whether I’m a policeman or a dustman or a postman,” said the patient guard, “you don’t pass through this gate—do you understand that?”
At this moment the pedlar caught sight of the girl at the door and raised his battered hat with a grin. He was unknown to the girl; she did not remember having seen him at the house before. Nor did Alma, who came out at that moment.
“He’s a stranger here, but we’re always getting new people up from Gloucester,” she said. “What does he want to sell?”
She stalked out into the garden, and at the sight of her the grin left the pedlar’s face.
“I’ve got some things I’d like to sell to the young lady, ma’am,” he said.
“I’m not so old, and I’m a lady,” replied Alma sharply. “And how long is it since you started picking and choosing your customers?”
The man grumbled something under his breath, and without waiting even to display his wares, shuffled off along the dusty road, and they watched him until he was out of sight.
Heavytree Farm was rather grandly named for so small a property. The little estate followed the road to Heavytree Lane, which formed the southern boundary of the property. The lane itself ran at an angle to behind the house, where the third boundary was formed by a hedge dividing the farmland from the more pretentious estate of a local magnate. It was down the lane the pedlar turned.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” said the companion of the man with the pipe.
He opened the gate, walked in, and, making a circuit of the house, reached the orchard behind. Here a few outhouses were scattered, and, clearing these, he came to the meadow, where Mirabelle’s one cow ruminated in the lazy manner of her kind. Half hidden by a thick-boled apple-tree, the watcher waited, and presently, as he expected, he saw a head appear through the boundary hedge. After an observation the pedlar sprang into the meadow and stood, taking stock of his ground. He had left his tray and his bag, and, running with surprising swiftness for a man of his age, he gained a little wooden barn, and, pulling open the door, disappeared into its interior. By this time the guard had been joined by his companion and they had a short consultation, the man with the pipe going back to his post before the house, whilst the other walked slowly across the meadow until he came to the closed door of the barn.
Wise in his generation, he first made a circuit of the building, and discovered there were no exits through the blackened gates. Then, pulling both doors open wide:
“Come out, bo’!” he said.
The barn was empty, except for a heap of hay that lay in one corner and some old and wheelless farm-wagons propped up on three trestles awaiting the wheelwright’s attention.
A ladder led to a loft, and the guard climbed slowly. His head was on a level with the dark opening, when:
“Put up your hands!”
He was looking into the adequate muzzle of an automatic pistol.
“Come down, bo’!”
“Put up your hands,” hissed the voice in the darkness, “or you’re a dead man!”
The watcher obeyed, cursing his folly that he had come alone.
“Now climb up.”
With some difficulty the guard brought himself up to the floor level.
“Step this way, and step lively,” said the pedlar. “Hold your hands out.”
He felt the touch of cold steel on his wrist, heard a click.
“Now the other hand.”
The moment he was manacled, the pedlar began a rapid search.
“Carry a gun, do you?” he sneered, as he drew a pistol from the man’s hip pocket. “Now sit down.”
In a few seconds the discomfited guard was bound and gagged. The pedlar, crawling to the entrance of the loft, looked out between a crevice in the boards. He was watching not the house, but the hedge through which he had climbed. Two other men had appeared there, and he grunted his satisfaction. Descending into the barn, he pulled away the ladder and let it fall on the floor, before he came out into the open and made a signal.
The second guard had made his way back by the shortest cut to the front of the house, passing through the garden and in through the kitchen door. He stopped to shoot the bolts, and the girl, coming into the kitchen, saw him.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked anxiously.
“I don’t know, miss.” He was looking at the kitchen windows: they were heavily barred. “My mate has just seen that pedlar go into the barn.”
She followed him to the front door. He had turned to go, but, changing his mind, came back, and she saw him put his hand into his hip pocket and was staggered to see him produce a long-barrelled Browning.
“Can you use a pistol, miss?”
She nodded, too surprised to speak, and watched him as he jerked back the jacket and put up the safety catch.
“I want to be on the safe side, and I’d feel happier if you were armed.”
There was a gun hanging on the wall and he took it down.
“Have you any shells for this?” he asked.
She pulled open the drawer of the hall-stand and took out a cardboard
