He looked a city type, with his immaculate suit and his snow-white shirt and neat grey tie. He took no outward notice of the newcomers, and Rollison did no more than glance at him as he led the way to the bar. It wasn’t surprising that the woman, youngish and buxom and with a pleasant face, greeted Montagu Montmorency Mome with a delighted smile and a warm handshake.
“Why, Mr. Mome, we haven’t seen you for months, not since that awful accident you had, we were ever so sorry to hear about it, weren’t we, Bert ?”
Bert, who was twice her age, agreed with : “Ah.”
“And I said from the beginning, nothing was going to keep you on your back for long, didn’t I, Bert ?”
“Ah,” said Bert.
“And when I heard you’d lost a leg I said you’d learn to use a n’artificial one quicker than most people learned with real ones after a long illness. Didn’t I, Bert?”
“What’s it to be?” asked Bert, who looked as if he had grown from seed in one of the nearby fields, his face was so darkly weathered and his hair so much like wind-withered com.
“Two pints of your 3 XXX,” said M.M.M., “and how’s lunch today? Got any steak and kidney pudding?”
“No luck, duck,” said Mildred. “Steak pie do?”
“Next best thing. Does the cooking herself, Mildred does,” M.M.M. confided, and then nudged Rollison, for the city type at the other end of the bar was gulping at the remains of his pie, and showing obvious signs of haste. He washed the pie down with a long draught of beer, then turned towards the door.
“Good-day, sir,” said Mildred.
He nodded.
“ ‘Day,” conceded Bert.
The city type hardly nodded goodbye, but went outside. M.M.M.’s elbow became as a thorn in Rollison’s flesh, but Rollison sipped his beer as if testing its quality, and looked back into Mildred’s bold blue eyes. Mildred in her brash, bright way was quite a piece of homework.
Outside, a car started up.
Rollison snapped his fingers, and looked ludicrously dismayed.
“Monty, I’m half-witted,” he declared. “I left my wallet back at the cottage. Remember I took it out for that card? I put it down while I scribbled, and “
“It’ll be there for a hundred years,” Mildred said. “You needn’t worry.”
“Sorry,” said Rollison, “I couldn’t enjoy your steak pie if I had that on my mind. I’d better have a snack, and nip back. Almost as quick across the fields, isn’t it?” he asked, and then picked up a pork pie and bit into it. It was so luscious that the jelly spilled out, and he dodged back, to keep it off his tie. “Mmmmmmm,” he said, and finished his beer. “Now I know why you said this was the place for food, Monty. I’m coming back. Can you manage to drive the car.’’
“I will not be insulted,” said M.M.M. with dignity.
Rollison went out by a door and a passage leading to the yard. He could see the trees which ringed Selby Farm, but neither the cottage nor the buildings from here. He hurried across the inn yard, climbed a fence, and went as fast as hillcocks and mole-hills would allow him, casting a glance towards the road as he did so. He saw a car making its way, reflecting the sun brightly, and was not surprised when it turned off towards the farm.
“There’s the city type,” he mused, and slackened pace a little, for it was warm and he was perspiring, and it would not help if he twisted his ankle. In his simple way, he was happy this morning. Here was mystery not marred by tragedy, a pretty girl in need of help, and Montagu Montmorency Morne, who probably did not know it but needed a course of therapeutic treatment, for he had not really conditioned himself to the fact that he had lost a leg. M.M.M. was far from his usual sunny self; he had to fight for his self control and his high spirits.
“This might see him through,” Rollison mused. Slowing down, for him, he made speed which surprised a man and a boy who were spreading muck over a meadow. He vaulted a five-barred gate, and was then near enough to the cottage to hear the engine of the car; and to notice the moment when it stopped. He was perhaps half a mile away, and he could not see the car. Now, he ran along the side of the field, which was fairly firm and much flatter than the one behind him, until he reached a spot where he could see beyond the trees to the cottage, the farmhouse, the city type’s black Humber car and the city type himself. He was at the front door, which was not yet open. Rollison took cover behind the trees again, was aware that the man and boy were watching him, but did not pay them the same compliment.
Next time he looked, the door was closed again, and the man was out of sight.
Unlike the man who called himself Lodwin, the city type had not turned the car round for an immediate getaway, and Rollison gave a contented smile when he noticed this. He went to the back of the cottage, to approach through the kitchen, the way that Lodwin had disappeared. He stepped over a low beech hedge which divided the garden from a meadow, and reached the back door in a matter of seconds.
It was not locked.
He stepped inside, making no sound.
He heard Gillian say in an angry voice: “If you don’t let him come home at once, I’ll send for the police.”
“That wouldn’t do you or Alan any good,” said the city type; and he sounded more like a city slicker. There was an overtone of Oxford and an undertone of Cockney in his voice, and that exasperating air of absolute confidence which had ended many a friendship. “You’ve got to be reasonable, my dear, you don’t know how much trouble your brother’s in.”
Gillian didn’t answer.
“You see,” went on the city slicker, “all you have to do is listen to Charlie, and everything will work out all right. You are the legal owner of Selby Farm, and only you can sell it. The market price is four thousand five hundred, and here is an agreement to buy for five thousand. I can’t say fairer than that. Why, it’s a positive bargain.”
