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
