“She could know the reason without realising it,” said Rollison. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
But he had been testing the girl, and trying to make sure that she was telling the truth. He believed that she was, and also believed that she was badly frightened.
Was it safe to leave her, even for half an hour ?
5
SPEED THE TOFF
Obviously, M.M.M. did not think it a good idea to leave Gillian alone, but he did not say so. As obviously, Gillian was reluctant to stay by herself, but saw the force of Rollison’s plan, and almost bustled them out of the front door. She showed no sign that she had been annoyed by Rollison’s questions; but M.M.M. still seemed resentful. Rollison went ahead to the scarlet car, opened one door for M.M.M., and then took the driving wheel. Gillian stood in the doorway for a moment, and Rollison looked at her, seeing the background of the old red brick building with its huge oak beams, and the background of trees, meadows, and a corner of Selby Farm, just visible from here.
The girl waved, and went inside. M.M.M. levered himself into the car. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “If anything happens to her while we’re gone, I’ll have your head for it.”
“And welcome,” said Rollison, as if it did not occur to him that the other man was ruffled. “You don’t often come across ‘em as brave as they’re beautiful. But she’s as safe as houses.”
“You seemed to argue by guesswork.”
“Just simple logic,” declared Rollison. “At least two people want this farm badly and only she can sell it to them. If she were to die, there would be a lot of fending and proving and probating, and it would take months before anyone could buy the farm. So Gillian isn’t in physical danger at the moment, although she might come under a lot of pressure. And it looks,” went on Rollison, shooting the car forward so that a crash seemed inevitable, “as if one of the pressures is through brother Alan.”
“How?”
“When this mysterious man of the telephone visits Gillian, I expect him to offer Alan’s living corpus in exchange for the deeds of the farm.”
“Good lord !” gasped M.M.M.
“Which seems to make three people all very anxious to get it, as we said before, and if we add old Smith, who’s in splendid bargaining position, we have four people to tackle. Any one ought to be able to tell us the reason for it all.” Rollison drove the car along the narrow road at bewildering speed, yet came to a standstill smoothly at the road junction. Then he swung into the main road and tore off again. M.M.M. sat looking at him and occasionally glancing nervously at the road. They passed a farmhouse, a mile from the cottage, then came in sight of the tiny village, with the pub, the Wheatsheaf, in the middle of it. At the thirty-mile-an-hour sign, Rollison slowed down, and no timid woman driver could have turned more gently towards the pub’s parking place.
By now, M.M.M. was smiling.
“Three minutes seventeen seconds,” he commented. “You’re the only man I know faster than I used to drive.”
“When you’ve learned to use your piece of automation, you’ll be passing me in the first lap,” Rollison said. He was already out of the car. “I’m going to grab half a pint and a pork pie, but you’d better have a leisurely lunch, and make it look as if you’re staying.” He glanced at three other cars in the drive-in, and added thoughtfully : “Incidentally, the telephone chap might own one of these. If anyone leaves within a few minutes of us going inside, that may be the man we’re after,”
“Could be,” conceded M.M.M. “I’m glad I brought you, after all.”
He grinned.
They went in. The saloon bar was low-ceilinged and old fashioned, with uneven wooden flooring covered with sawdust, oak beams, brasses round the walls. The bar itself was higher than most, and a man and a woman stood behind it. Two men, obviously local, were standing at one end, one man by himself stood at the other, eating a pork pie and drinking from a pewter tankard.
He looked a city type, with his immaculate suit and his snow-white shirt and neat grey tie. He took no outward notice of the newcomers, and Rollison did no more than glance at him as he led the way to the bar. It wasn’t surprising that the woman, youngish and buxom and with a pleasant face, greeted Montagu Montmorency Mome with a delighted smile and a warm handshake.
“Why, Mr. Mome, we haven’t seen you for months, not since that awful accident you had, we were ever so sorry to hear about it, weren’t we, Bert ?”
Bert, who was twice her age, agreed with : “Ah.”
“And I said from the beginning, nothing was going to keep you on your back for long, didn’t I, Bert ?”
“Ah,” said Bert.
“And when I heard you’d lost a leg I said you’d learn to use a n’artificial one quicker than most people learned with real ones after a long illness. Didn’t I, Bert?”
“What’s it to be?” asked Bert, who looked as if he had grown from seed in one of the nearby fields, his face was so darkly weathered and his hair so much like wind-withered com.
“Two pints of your 3 XXX,” said M.M.M., “and how’s lunch today? Got any steak and kidney pudding?”
“No luck, duck,” said Mildred. “Steak pie do?”
“Next best thing. Does the cooking herself, Mildred does,” M.M.M. confided, and then nudged Rollison, for the city type at the other end of the bar was gulping at the remains of his pie, and showing obvious signs of haste. He washed the pie down with a long draught of beer, then turned towards the door.
“Good-day, sir,” said Mildred.
He nodded.
“ ‘Day,” conceded Bert.
The city type hardly nodded goodbye, but went outside. M.M.M.’s elbow became as a thorn in Rollison’s flesh, but Rollison sipped his beer as if testing its quality, and looked back into Mildred’s bold blue eyes. Mildred in her brash, bright way was quite a piece of homework.
Outside, a car started up.
Rollison snapped his fingers, and looked ludicrously dismayed.
“Monty, I’m half-witted,” he declared. “I left my wallet back at the cottage. Remember I took it out for that card? I put it down while I scribbled, and “
“It’ll be there for a hundred years,” Mildred said. “You needn’t worry.”
“Sorry,” said Rollison, “I couldn’t enjoy your steak pie if I had that on my mind. I’d better have a snack, and nip back. Almost as quick across the fields, isn’t it?” he asked, and then picked up a pork pie and bit into it. It was so luscious that the jelly spilled out, and he dodged back, to keep it off his tie. “Mmmmmmm,” he said, and finished his beer. “Now I know why you said this was the place for food, Monty. I’m coming back. Can you manage to drive the car.’’
“I will not be insulted,” said M.M.M. with dignity.
Rollison went out by a door and a passage leading to the yard. He could see the trees which ringed Selby Farm, but neither the cottage nor the buildings from here. He hurried across the inn yard, climbed a fence, and went as fast as hillcocks and mole-hills would allow him, casting a glance towards the road as he did so. He saw a car making its way, reflecting the sun brightly, and was not surprised when it turned off towards the farm.
“There’s the city type,” he mused, and slackened pace a little, for it was warm and he was perspiring, and it would not help if he twisted his ankle. In his simple way, he was happy this morning. Here was mystery not marred by tragedy, a pretty girl in need of help, and Montagu Montmorency Morne, who probably did not know it but needed a course of therapeutic treatment, for he had not really conditioned himself to the fact that he had lost a leg. M.M.M. was far from his usual sunny self; he had to fight for his self control and his high spirits.
“This might see him through,” Rollison mused. Slowing down, for him, he made speed which surprised a man and a boy who were spreading muck over a meadow. He vaulted a five-barred gate, and was then near enough to the cottage to hear the engine of the car; and to notice the moment when it stopped. He was perhaps half a mile away, and he could not see the car. Now, he ran along the side of the field, which was fairly firm and much flatter than the one behind him, until he reached a spot where he could see beyond the trees to the cottage, the farmhouse, the city type’s black Humber car and the city type himself. He was at the front door, which was not yet open. Rollison took cover behind the trees again, was aware that the man and boy were watching him, but did not pay them the same compliment.