“Six o’clock should be early enough,” he said in a soft whisper. “I’ll wake at six.” Soon, he was asleep.
He slept with the door open, and the knowledge that he would wake at the slightest sound, for the years had taught him how to be asleep one moment, and wide awake the next. No sound disturbed him. At two minutes to six by the watch on his wrist, he began to stir, his eyelids flickered, and he moistened his lips. At one minute past six he opened his eyes wide and stared about him : then grinned.
“I’ll bet there’s no hot water,” he said, and pushed back a blanket he’d pulled over him, and got up. He washed in cold water, but made no attempt to shave. He put a kettle on the oil stove downstairs, and then went into Smith’s room and examined his wardrobe. It wasn’t extensive, but there were two jackets and three pairs of breeches. He found the breeches a little too big round the waist but the Norfolk jacket wasn’t a bad fit. He took off his scarf, but did not put on a collar and tie : Old Smith didn’t wear one.
Smith’s shoes were much too small for Rollison.
“Mine’ll have to do,” he said aloud, and then pulled his own cap over his head, for he could not persuade himself to wear the old man’s. By the time he had finished, the kettle was singing downstairs. He made himself tea, found biscuits and ate two, and then went into the big room. He pulled the blinds up sufficient to allow light in, but not to permit anyone to see inside, and then he began to search the room.
A squad of police would not have been more thorough.
He moved furniture and pictures, stepped inside the huge fireplace, put his head up the chimney, and tapped the inside walls. He felt every wall for loose bricks or loose plaster, and tapped the floor of the fireplace, too. Everything seemed solid. He went down on his knees and tested the floorboards, seeking any evidence that one had been taken up lately. He found none. He studied the furniture, trying to judge if any had a false drawer, or other secret hiding-place. All this took him over forty minutes, and at the end of it he was frowning.
“That’s one blank,” he said sotto voce, and then went into the kitchen and did exactly the same thing.
He found nothing.
He searched the pantries and the cupboards, then turned his attention to the stairs. There was a narrow cupboard underneath them, but it contained only a few old boxes and old clothes. The floor was solid, and looked as if the boards had been undisturbed since they’d been laid, over a hundred years ago.
“Two blanks,” he said, a little less cheerfully, as he went upstairs.
At half past seven he had finished his search of the farmhouse, and had found nothing to explain the sensational interest in it. He was hungry as well as disappointed when he went downstairs. He drew the blinds a little, so that anyone who wanted to see inside would have to come close to each window, and then went into the kitchen, opened the back door, and hobbled out, shoulders bent and head towards the ground. A man called : “Good morning, Smith.”
“‘Morn’n,” Rollison grunted, without looking up. He shuffled across to the hen coops and unfastened them, and was on his way back when the first hen was sprawling about the muddy yard. The policeman who had spoken came no nearer. Rollison went back into the kitchen and closed the door. Out of the line of vision of anyone at the window, he straightened up, and raided the larder. There were plenty of eggs, a piece of bacon, bread, butter, everything he wanted. He found the frying slow on the oil stove, but eggs and bacon as succulent as Jolly’s at his best. The bread was stale and chawy, and he missed toast. He brewed strong tea, pondering the mystery all the time, and wondered how long it would be before someone called.
He couldn’t face the scrutiny of anyone who knew Smith, or even of anyone who knew that he was old, but the half-drawn blinds made it so gloomy in here that he might get away with a brief encounter.
One question was on his mind all the time. If the value of Selby Farm wasn’t in the farmhouse, where was it?
He was fooling himself, of course; there was no way of being sure that he’d searched everywhere. The roof might hold the secret. If he took up the floorboards in any room he might find what he wanted. That was like asking for the moon.
He wondered where Brandt was : who was the American who had telephoned the previous night: what Grice was thinking, and more important, what he was planning to do ? He wondered how well Gillian had slept, and where she was now : and whether she was with her brother and M.M.M.
Peculiar character, Montagu Montmorency Mome.
Rollison was picturing M.M.M. telling him that he wasn’t wanted, when he heard the sound of a car engine. He hurried to the front room to peer out, and saw Morne’s car. Getting out of it was Gillian, and at the wheel was M.M.M. himself.
The police wouldn’t be far behind.
18
FORLORN HOPE?
ROLLISON would not be able to fool Mome, and dare not let the girl come face to face with him. He saw Gillian’s pale face, and guessed from the brightness of her eyes that she hadn’t slept much. M.M.M. looked pale and tired, too. He was getting out of the car clumsily, and Rollison thought back to the accident, and wondered whether the change in him had started from the time of that dread happening.
Gillian had come on ahead, and was at the door and out of Rollison’s sight. She knocked. Odd; one would have expected her to go to the back entrance for she knew Smith well enough. She knocked again, as M.M.M. called out:
“The old devil will pretend he can’t hear. Go round to the back.”
“He won’t talk to me if I do, he’s always ordered me to knock at the front door.”
‘‘Ordered you,” choked M.M.M.
“It isn’t any use getting bad tempered or blinking at facts,” said Gillian, in a voice which suggested that she would easily get out of patience. She knocked again, and this time Rollison stepped towards the door, banging against a chair to make sure that Gillian knew he was coming. This door was bolted. He opened it a fraction, but left it on the chain. He could just see the girl, as he stood on one side. She seemed to expect to be kept waiting there, and said quite patiently:
“Mr. Smith, please open the door. I want to talk to you.”
Rollison said in a harsh, sour voice : “Well, he can’t.”
“Please open the door,” said Gillian, with a pleading note in her tone. “I’ve got to talk to you.”
“I’ve told you I’ll never step outside this house while I’m alive, when I’m dead he can carry me out,” Rollison said, mumbling, and hoping that it sounded like Old Smith talking ; certainly the girl seemed to suspect nothing amiss.
“You’ve got to be reasonable,” she said, and it was even more obvious that desperation and fear had driven her here. “My brother’s in grave danger, and “
“It’s naught to do with me.”
“Mr. Smith, please listen to me !”
“I’ve listened to the nonsense from you and your good-for-nothing brother for too long already, why don’t you go and talk to someone who wants to hear from you.”
“You’re going to open that door and you’re going to listen to me,” Gillian cried, and Rollison had never heard her more shrill, was glad that anger had broken through, “Don’t stand there behaving as if you were a lunatic. Alan’s in deadly danger, and you’ve got to help him. Get that into your head.”
A murmur from outside sounded like M.M.M. saying: “That’s better,”