confided.
âWe understand theyâre going to come into all the old gentlemanâs money and itâs a big lot, but they havenât got much in the meantime. Seems funny with them being farmers, doesnât it? Theyâve got a name for being close, though, so perhaps they donât like paying for it out of their own money, as it were, and are waiting to get his. You never know with people, do you?â
Carolus agreed that you didnât, and at his friendâs request ran him quickly back to the crematorium for what he had described as the next lot. Then Carolus drove across country towards Hallows End which lay some forty miles from there.
It was a raw ugly morning with rain threatening and a misty chill lying over the flat uninteresting countryside. The journey was tedious because he was cutting across the direction of the main roads by narrow by-roads, sometimes no more than lanes, and they kept his speed uncomfortably low.
While still some four miles from the village, he had to follow a main road for a few hundred yards, and on it saw a bright new pub called the Falstaff Hotel. Its neo-Elizabethan architecture and expanse of diamond-paned windows did not attract him, but since it was likely to be the only place for lunch in the vicinity, he decided to follow the instruction on a large board: âDrive In.â Another board proclaimed: âLunch now Being Served in the Tudor Dining Hall,â and yet another: âAccommodation for Motorists.â When, however, he reached the Sir Walter Raleigh Bar, he found that these inviting inscriptions, at least for today, had been unproductive for he was alone with the landlord, a youngish man with a large and turbulent growth of hair on his upper lip.
âGood-o,â said the landlord, âyouâre the first today. You must have a drink on me. Whatâll you have?â
Carolus accepted his usual Scotch and soda and prepared to face the otherâs evident curiosity.
âSee youâve got a Bentley,â said the landlord. âEnvy you. Theyâre fab. Absolutely fab.â
âTheyâre good,â said Carolus.
âGood? Theyâve marve. Wish I could afford one. Nothing better, car-wise.â
Carolus deftly turned his line of thought.
âDo you know the village of Hallows End?â he asked.
âKnow it? Born there. Father the rector before the present man. You going there? Press, perhaps?â
âNo,â said Carolus.
âBut Iâm interested in recent events round here.â
âMean this joker whoâs disappeared? Incred, isnât it?â
âNo. Nothingâs incredible. How do local people account for it?â
âThey donât. They canât. Unless itâs a murder. Theyâve no experience of that sort of thing. Murder-wise weâve had nothing in the village this century.â
âHas there been any attempt to connect it with Monkâs Farm and Grossiterâs death?â
âShouldnât think so. Why should there be?â
Carolus believed in giving a little information sometimes â a sprat to catch a mackerel.
âThe man who disappeared was on his way there,â he said. âHeâd been called by Grossiter to make a new will for him.â
âOh! Was that it? I see what you mean. Well, the Neasts are pretty unpop round here but I donât think anyone connects them with this empty car. Theyâve lived here a long time. Stranger-wise the folks are a bit suspish, but not of one of themselves. See what I mean?â
Only just, thought Carolus, but nodded encouragingly and ordered two more drinks,
âNot sold on mysteries myself but itâs oddish now you come to mention it. This Grossiter had only been at the farm a few days and no one would have known he was there if it hadnât been for a character called Darkin who worked for him. He came here every night and told us. I thought him a bit obnox myself,