Rollison tensed himself, and then swung round.
He didn’t know the man, and had never seen him before. He saw the hard face take on a look of unbelief, saw the big mouth gape open. The man leaped forward in a desperate effort, but something checked him, and he didn’t finish his attempt. In the split second before Rollison hit him, he looked as if he was seeing a ghost.
Rollison’s fist caught him beneath the chin, and actually jolted him off his feet and sent him falling backwards. He struck the back of his head against the stone floor, and the dull thud told its own tale. He sagged, his head lolled to one side, and there was no pretence; he was unconscious.
But . . .
How had he got in?
19
WAY IN
ROLLISON Stepped over the unconscious man, to the door, and then into the passage which served the larders and the pantries. He felt a draught which he hadn’t noticed before. The obvious explanation was a forced window, of course, although all the windows here were small, and the man biggish, if not actually hefty. Then Rollison stopped short.
The door of a fruit storage room was open, and he could smell the sharp, almost cidery smell of last year’s apples; he had already seen some wrinkled and brown, on the shelves. He didn’t see so many, now. Part of the shelving and part of the wall had swung open, so that there was a hidden doorway. It hinged at a comer, and it wasn’t surprising that he had not found it.
Beyond, was darkness.
Rollison went back, made sure that the man was still unconscious, then came back. He stared down into a hole large enough even for a big man, and to three or four steps which looked as if they were made of cement. A fresh breeze was coming up the steps, nothing was dank and smelly. He went back again, found the string which the man had held out ready to strangle him, cut it in two, and bound the wrists and ankles. Now he had a little time to spare. He felt the choking excitement which often came with a discovery as he crouched down and entered the little staircase.
He shone his pencil torch.
There were cobwebs, and the walls were rather damp, but that was all. He had to bend his head very low so as to get along. Then the torch light fell on a wall in front of him, and revealed a comer. He turned this, and saw daylight coming from a hole about head height. He reached the hole and, moving with great care, hauled himself up so that he could see about him.
There were the trunks of trees, some undergrowth, some grass. This came up in the middle of the copse which made a kind of wall between farmhouse and cottage. No one else was near. The copse stretched for some distance, and anyone who kept his eyes open would be able to approach it from one side without being seen and, even with the leaves off the trees, reach the hole without being observed.
It was a discovery, but not the one which mattered most.
At one side of the entrance was a square of wood with earth and dead leaves on it. Rollison pulled this over the hole, and it left him in near darkness. He used his torch again, then found his way back to the storage cupboard and the door which he hadn’t seen. He examined it, and saw that it could be opened from the inside as well as from the outside. He closed it, and went back to see if his prisoner had started to come round.
As he reached the kitchen, a trick of the light seemed to throw a shadow, as of a knife, on the man’s chest, Rollison had a bad moment, and his heart thumped. Then he drew nearer, and saw that there was no knife. He went down on one knee, and began to go through the man’s pockets. His wallet contained only money: no driving licence, nothing to give his name away. He carried keys, two handkerchiefs, a comb, two studs, and a freshly opened packet of American Camels, with two books of matches. The cigarettes indicated nothing, but the book matches carried an American Motel slogan—
The Best in the South Atlanta’s Biggest Motel Rollison stood up, the matches in his hand. They proved little, but they could mean a lot. A man with a southern accent threatened both him and Morne, and had telephoned Jolly, asking for Brandt, someone who knew that Rollison and Brandt were together on this; and here were matches, which looked fresh and new, as they would if they had been brought from the motel only a day or two ago.
Yet this man’s clothes and appearance were as English as could be.
Rollison eased him over on his side, and examined the bruise at the back of his head. The skin was broken, but there was a little bleeding, nothing to suggest that it was too serious, but he was likely to be unconscious for some time longer.
Rollison went to the secret doorway, blocked it so that it couldn’t be opened from the tunnel and stairs, and then went back to the flagstones. As he banged and chipped, his chief worry was the noise—if he kept it up too long, the police outside might come to see what the ‘old man’ was doing. The chance had to be taken. In ten minutes, enough cement was out of a crevice to push the end of the chisel down into the earth below, and Rollison began to lever at a slab.
The screw-driver steel bent, slowly, softly, uselessly. Rollison drew back, unsmiling. He needed a spanner or a crowbar. He needed a lot of things—including news from outside—but above everything was the secret hidden beneath this floor.
The man behind him grunted.
Rollison turned to look at him. The man’s eyes were flickering and his lips moving, as if they were very dry. Rollison fetched water in a cup and moistened his lips, and knew the moment that the other really came round : the sudden tension in the body and the hands, the abrupt tightening of the lips, told their own story. Then he tried to free his ankles and wrists but realised that he hadn’t a chance. He opened his eyes wide and stared at Rollison’s face, and the fear was deep in him.
“All you have to do is answer questions,” Rollison said, and gave that a moment to sink in. “Who sent you to kill Smith?”
The man gulped, and his eyes showed the same kind of bewilderment as they had just before he had been knocked out.
“You—you’re not Smith,” he said hoarsely.
“You’ve got that right. Now don’t waste time : who sent you to kill Smith?”
The man began to breathe very hard.
“I didn’t come to kill him, he wouldn’t be any good if he was dead. I came to scare the wits out of him.”
“That might sound good in court, but it doesn’t make much impression on me,” Rollison said sharply. “Who “
The man cried : “You’re the Toff !”
“That’s right, but I don’t feel like one at the moment. I feel like breaking your neck.”
“Where—where’s Smith ?”
Rollison said: “All right, you really want trouble.” He glanced round as if for a weapon, and the hammer was within reach. He stretched out for it, and the man’s body seemed to give a convulsive leap.
“No, don’t hit me, don’t hit me !” There was the voice of fear. “I had to come and frighten Old Smith into doing what we wanted.”
“Who are ‘we’ ?”
“The—the boss and me.”
“Who’s the boss?”
“Will Brandt,” said the helpless prisoner, who looked too terrified to lie. “Will Brandt’s the boss, he wants the farm. After what’s happened, he wants to buy it in Smith’s name. That way he would be able to get it without trouble from the cops. Don’t stare at me like that!” The man’s voice rose so loudly that Rollison was afraid that he might be heard outside. “I tell you Brandt’s the boss.”
That made Grice right. Which made the Toff wrong.
“Now you’ve started, keep it up,” urged Rollison, and he weighed the hammer in his hand as if wondering whether it would be a good idea to use it after all. “You came to soften up Old Smith and make him buy the farm as a cover for Will Brandt of Abilene, Texas, is that it?”
The prisoner said : “If you know where he comes from, how much more do you know ?”
“Enough to be sure when you’re lying,” Rollison replied. “Why is he so anxious to get the farm ?”