John Creasey - The Toff on The Farm

9

THE FARM

“What is it?” Gillian asked, in a strangely calm voice; it was as if she had a premonition, or as if she understood instinctively what made Rollison stop so abruptly. She was just behind him. Outside there was the sound of a car, approaching slowly; that would be the man whom Bishop had sent to follow them.

Rollison turned round. There was no point in trying to conceal anything, no point in trying to soften any blow. This girl had taken tremendous punishment in a few hours, and now his impression was that she had steeled herself to take yet more. He could see beyond the immediate fear, to her fear for her missing Alan. For if men could kill so slickly and cruelly as the killer of Lodwin and Charlie, then there was no telling where they would stop.

“Victim Number 2,” Rollison said. “Go down and ask that policeman to come up, will you ?”

She flinched; and there was anguish in her eyes.

“Who is it?”

“Charlie.”

“The devils,” she said, in a quivering voice. “The devils.” She didn’t sway, didn’t close her eyes, didn’t look as if she was going to collapse, but she lost all her colour, even her lips were pale.

“Go and bring the policeman, will you?” If she had something to do, it would help.

She didn’t answer, but turned on her heel, moving very quickly, as if blindly.

Rollison stepped to the body on the bed. Charlie’s face was quite relaxed, all terror smoothed away. But there he lay, as the American had left him, bound to the bed at waist and ankles, and with his wrists bound, too. That was how he had been lying when someone had come into this room and driven the knife to his heart.

Rollison felt the chill of horror; and of hatred for whoever had done this thing.

He looked out of the small window, so tiny that no one could have climbed out. He saw the trees which protected Selby Farm, and the roof of the farm itself. A man who looked as if he were very old came in sight, and a dog trotted after him. The man disappeared.

Was that Smith ?

Did Smith know the secret of Selby Farm ?

There were heavy, hurried footsteps on the stairs and the landing, and then Bishop’s man came in, a thirty-ish, fair-haired, eager Detective Sergeant Keen, dressed in navy blue, looking a little outgrown in it; an overgrown school-boy of a man. But there was nothing school-boyish in the way he looked at dead Charlie; except for a tightening at the lips, he showed no sign of the impact at all.

“Did you find him like this ?”

“Yes.”

Keen went forward, felt the dead man’s pulse, lifted an eyelid, did all the things he should do to make sure that no doctor could help. Then he looked about the room, and said in a man’s deep voice :

“We must leave this room at once, sir. I shall have to telephone for a team, I expect Mr. Bishop will come out himself. This is just inside our area.”

Rollison nodded.

“And this was the man you saw here ?”

How deeply would lies involve him ?

“Yes. I tied him to the bed.”

Keen took that well.

“How long ago?”

“About two o’clock.”

“He can’t have been dead more than an hour,” said Keen, and was suddenly less sure of himself.

“I was in Brighton an hour ago,” Rollison murmured.

“Yes, I know. Who else knew that this man was tied to the bed?”

“Miss Selby.”

“No one else?”

“No one else whom I know about.”

“Fair enough,” Keen said, but he gave the impression that the shock was no

Then the telephone bell rang.

Keen looked up, as if in surprise, then stepped out towards the head of the stairs, a pace ahead of Rollison. They heard Gillian say ‘Hallo’. They hurried down the stairs, and at the foot Keen turned left, into the living-room. Rollison could see over his shoulder. Gillian was standing by the table with the telephone at her ear. She looked round at them. It was as if death was talking to her, and he had never seen a woman with less colour in her cheeks.

She said: “Yes, goodbye.”

Keen was sweeping across towards her, hand outstretched as if he would like to take the receiver before she replaced it; but he hadn’t a chance. It seemed to Rollison that Gillian made sure of that, and then stood almost defensively in front of the telephone.

“Who was that?” demanded Keen, roughly.

“A friend of mine.”

“What friend?”

“Just a friend,” said Gillian, and turned away. Keen stood in his new-found arrogance, but he could not find the right thing to say. Rollison moved past him towards the girl, and before Keen spoke, he said :

“Have you any close friends near here, Gillian?”

“No,” answered Gillian, drably.

“No one who could come and stay with you for a bit, or with whom you could stay?”

“No.”

“Where have you some friends?”

“Only in London.”

“Who would come and stay with you?”

She said as if with an effort: “Monty’s sister might. I don’t know. Who would want to, after this?” She looked drearily out of the window, and all the life had been drained out of her, partly by the succession of shocks—and partly by what had been said on the telephone, Rollison imagined. “I don’t even know if I can stay here.” She began to shiver, and that didn’t surprise Rollison. “Why don’t you find Alan? Everything will be all right if you’d only find Alan.”

“We’re doing everything we can,” Rollison said, and was all too aware of the futility of the words.

“Well,” Gillian retorted, “it isn’t much.”

Keen came across, took up the telephone, and called his headquarters; once routine was needed, he was a man again. He was never likely to be good enough to take responsibility, Rollison thought. Keen didn’t greatly matter, except that he would probably be fairly easy to handle.

He put the receiver down.

“They’ll be out within forty minutes,” he said, “and a patrol car will be here before then. You’re asked to stay here, Mr. Rollison. And you. Miss.” He looked dubiously at Gillian.

“Where else would I go?” asked Gillian, in that new, helpless way.

“We’ll stay close by,” promised Rollison. “Miss Selby ought to get some air, sergeant. We’ll stroll across to the farm, if that’s all right with you.”

Keen obviously wished they wouldn’t, but decided not to stop them. Perhaps he thought it better to let them go, and have them followed. Gillian was prepared to do whatever Rollison wanted. They went out the back way. It was beautiful in the garden, with the meadows and the woods beyond, and much warmer than it had been during the morning. The sky was clear, and the birds were busy and noisy, and insects were humming and hovering. Half way down the garden was a fork, dug into the freshly turned earth. Rollison saw Gillian’s eyes flood with tears.

“Alan’s?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Did he often leave a fork in the ground overnight?”

“Yes, I was always telling him about it.”

“Very fond of him, Gillian ?”

“He’s been mother and father and brother to me,” she said, heavily. “He’s fifteen years older than I am, you see. Oh, God, I can’t stand it if anything happens to him !”

It was useless to say: “It won’t,” for more empty comfort now would make real comfort impossible later; and it might be desperately needed.

They went towards the end of the garden and to a small gate which opened onto a field; beyond was the farm itself. It looked as if it had been standing there for four hundred years, and would stay for another four hundred. It was low and snug and picturesque, with its mullioned windows, its gables, its lichen-covered tiles and its red brick with the great oak beams in it. Here was a little of England’s past, with the smoke of the present curling lazily out of a squat round chimney.

“Gillian,” Rollison asked, “who was on the telephone?”

“A friend.”

“You needn’t lie to me.” She didn’t look at him. “I’m not lying to you.”

“It wasn’t a friend. It was another threat to Alan, wasn’t it?”

“It was a friend.”

“If you don’t tell me everything, how can I help?”

“How can you help?” she echoed, and turned to glare at him, her eyes flashing, colour storming back in her cheeks, as if anger was the stimulant that she needed. “You’ve let two men be murdered, you haven’t done a thing to find Alan, you haven’t done anything at all. Why, Tex Brandt did twice as much as you in half the time !”

“Did he telephone?”

“No!”

“Who was it, Gillian?”

“It was a friend from the village, she wanted me to go and sit in for her tonight, I told her I couldn’t.” The he, if it was a he, came out very pat: but Rollison felt sure that it was untrue. “Now don’t keep pestering me, you might just as well go home.”

“Soon,” he said. “I want to see Tex, too. Who telephoned you, and what did he say?”

“I’ve told you, it’s no use pestering me,” Gillian cried. “I’m not going to tell you another thing !”

She turned and half ran back to the house. Detective Sergeant Keen stood by the window, giving Rollison the impression that he was glad she was on the way back, and probably maliciously pleased that Rollison had obviously not got far with the girl. Rollison watched her disappear into the kitchen, and then he walked on, briskly. The girl was worked up to the highest possible pitch of tension and hardly responsible for what she said; but he wasn’t any more pleased with himself than she was. It was not that he had done so little, for he had not been here more than three and a half hours; it was because he could not be sure that he had done any of the right things. He had allowed Charlie to stay here unguarded, and so was indirectly responsible for the man’s death; that was the most unpleasant thought. True, Charlie hadn’t been one of the most lovable of men, but he did not necessarily deserve to die.

He might have been very informative, too.

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.