“You wait here. So this is what you do when I go out in the evening, eh? I’ll settle with you later, Smith.”
He dragged the girl inside and bolted the door. Mr. Smith, who was by no means a squeamish man, made a little grimace as her cries came out to him...
She lay huddled on the bed, too weak, too stunned even to cry. Mr. J. Giles buttoned his wristband and put on his coat.
“Now you can go to bed, my girl, and be thankful you’re alive,” he said.
He locked the bedroom door on her and went downstairs into the kitchen and chose an empty soda-water bottle. Then he went out of the house and knocked at Mr. Smith’s door. He was glad to notice that the hallway was in darkness. He heard the footsteps of the man, and then the door was pulled wide open.
“Well?”
Evidently Joe had been recognised.
“I thought I’d come to see you, Mr. Smith” — Giles’ manner was polite, even deferential “—and ask you as a great favour to me not to talk to my wife. She’s a very foolish girl, and I don’t want to get her into trouble of any kind, and—”
His tone was so conciliatory, his manner so completely subdued, that Smith was off his guard. He saw, only for the fraction of a second, the weapon in the man’s hand, and ducked his head as the soda-water bottle struck him. He went down on his knees and collapsed in a heap on the floor, and Mr. J. Giles closed the door carefully and went back into his house to spend an uncomfortable half-hour. Suppose this bird went to the police... that was the second mad thing he had done.
From time to time he pressed his ear against the thin party wall, and had the satisfaction of hearing the stumbling feet of his victim. Taking up a position in the parlour where he could watch the front door, he waited for the man to emerge; but half an hour and an hour passed, and nothing happened. The Farmer smiled. There was probably a very good reason why the man should not go to the police.
Towards ten o’clock the man he expected called. It was “Higgy,” the best of runners and the most loyal of assistants. There was a job ready for the working — a big house on the outskirts of Horsham. The family were away; there were seven maidservants and two elderly men.
“The old lady who owns the house is down at Bournemouth, and keeps all her jewels in the safe. You can’t see it because it’s let into the wall behind the head of the bed. ‘Stokey’ Barmond went through the house yesterday — he got pally with a gel servant — and he says it’s easy. A French safe that you could open with your fingernails, and lashings of jewellery — old-fashioned, but the stones are extra.”
“What’s the best way for the car?” asked Mr. Giles.
“Higgy” explained. There was a side road where it could be parked, and from there over a low boundary wall into the grounds was “a step.” He produced a fairly accurate plan, for “Higgy” in his youth had been apprenticed to a cartographer. This the Farmer scanned carefully.
“It looks good. Get ‘Stokey’ to knock off a car to-morrow night, and pick me up at the top of Denmark Hill.”
“No shooters,” said “Higgy.” It was his conventional warning.
“Is it likely?” demanded the Farmer.
It was his conventional reply.
Nevertheless, when he went up to his room he took his Browning from a locked drawer, and slipped in a full magazine. He knew better than any that his next stretch would be a lifer, and he would as soon hang.
That morning he had seen Smith with a bandage round his head. He was standing at a little iron gate that shut off the forecourt of his house from the road. For a moment, at the sight of him, the heart of J. Giles had quailed and he had gripped the loaded cane he carried.
“Good morning,” said Smith. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”
“Pick it when you like,” said the Farmer, keeping his distance.
The man shook his head.
“I think you’ll choose the time yourself,” he said, and with the mysterious hint they parted.
All day long Mr. Smith considered his position, and in the evening, after the Farmer had gone to his nefarious work, the man next door went out to find a telephone booth and Rater. For the party walls were very thin, and Mr. Smith, who made a hobby of wire and other electrical contraptions, had made for himself a small microphone...
“You’ve left it rather late, Smith,” said the Orator; but anticipated Smith’s explanation.
“It’s a queer thing for me to do, sir. I can’t very well go into the box, and that’s been worrying me all day.”
The Orator only waited long enough at Scotland Yard to get into touch with the Sussex police before he boarded a swift tender and took the Worthing road.
The Farmer’s gift of organisation was of a high order. Almost to the minute he was picked up at the top of Denmark Hill by a light car, the proprietorship in which had undergone a change in the previous hour. “Higgy” was at the wheel, their companion in the seat behind.
“You picked a good ’un,” said the Farmer graciously, which was high praise for him.
They passed through Horsham in a blinding shower of rain which would have made police observation a difficult business even if “Higgy” had not already changed the number-plate of the stolen car and covered its radiator with a muff.
As they approached the scene of their exploit, “Higgy” asked, not without anxiety:
“You haven’t brought your shooter, have you, Farmer?” and Mr. Giles turned on him savagely.
“What’s the matter with you? Would you get a stretch for my gun? It’s me that’s got to go through it if we’re caught — not you!”
Nevertheless, “Higgy” persisted stubbornly.
“Have you got a gun or haven’t you?”
“I haven’t,” snapped the Farmer.
“Higgy” said nothing, but he was not convinced. It was his task to stand by the car, and at the first sound of a shot — well, “Higgy” knew his own graft best. He’d be half-way to Horsham before the Farmer reached the road. He had already got his excuses ready for his desertion.
The car turned into the side lane, moving silently on the downward slope with its engine shut off till “Higgy” braked the machine to a jolting standstill. There was a whispered consultation. Crossing the wall, Farmer and his assistant disappeared into the night. “Higgy” loosed the brakes, and, by pushing and pulling, managed to turn the nose of the machine about without switching on his engine. He waited for ten minutes to pass, trod on the starter and set the engine going. A quarter of an hour, and he was half-dozing at the wheel, when he heard the squelch of a footstep, and a light was suddenly flashed in his face.
“Step down and don’t shout,” said a terse voice. “Higgy” was conscious that the lane was full of uniformed policemen, two of whom were already crossing the wall.
The Farmer had reached his objective, and with the assistance of a convenient porch had forced a window which brought him to the bedroom. The safe proved to be almost as easy money as he had anticipated. In a quarter of an hour he had wrenched the little door from its hinges and had stowed away in his several pockets the valuable contents. When he came out on to the porch his watcher had disappeared. Swinging over the balustrade, he slid down a pillar...
A hand gripped his arm tightly, but he wrenched it free. He saw, dimly, the shape of a helmet against the copper-red sky, dodged under an outstretched arm and ran. He was within a dozen paces of the wall when his pursuer leapt forward and, tackling him low, brought the thief sprawling to the ground. In an instant he was on his feet, grinning with rage, and as the constable scrambled up with him...
“Here’s yours!” said the Farmer, and shot twice from the hip.
He didn’t wait to see the man go slithering into the mud, but darted for the wall and threw himself over, into the arms of the Scotland Yard men who were waiting for him.