Smallbone Deceased

Another thought struck Mr. Manifold. “What about our valuer?” he said. “If Stancomb Farm doesn’t exist, what did he value? Or is his report a forgery, too?”

“I see you haven’t grasped the full inwardness of the idea,” said Bohun. “When your valuer went down to Kent to inspect the farm he would naturally get in touch with the owner—arrange an appointment and so on.”

“Of course.”

“Well, the owner of this Stancomb Farm—which we now know to be a figment of his own fertile imagination—was Abel Horniman. I’ve no doubt Abel met him with a car, took charge of him, and showed him round his own farm. That’s why it was a plan of his own farm—Crookham Court Farm—and not a purely imaginary one, that he put on the forged set of deeds. Everything then tied up very neatly.”

A gleam of hope appeared in Mr. Manifold’s eye. He pointed to the last deed.

“If that’s really a plan of Crookham Court Farm,” he said, “can’t we claim that our mortgage covers that farm—whatever it says in the deed?”

“I suppose you might,” said Bohun. “Only it won’t do you much good. It’s already very heavily mortgaged to the National Provincial Bank.”

“Why didn’t you find that out?” said Mr. Manifold. He felt that it was intolerable that he should be able to blame nobody. “Didn’t you search at the Land Registry? I take it you made the usual searches.” This was a minutia of the law which he happened to understand, and he got it off his chest with some pride.

“Certainly I searched,” said Mr. Fremlinghouse. “And I found Abel Horniman’s mortgage of Crookham Court Farm duly recorded. Why should I worry about that? He was mortgaging Stancomb Farm to you. Of course, it really was Crookham Court Farm, too, but I wasn’t to know that.”

Mr. Manifold said something like “Tchah”, and started to tear up a large clean sheet of blotting-paper.

“Look here,” said Bohun. “It may not be as bad as it seems. I think there’s every chance that the money will be repaid in full.”

The telephone bell rang. Mr. Manifold ignored it for as long as he could, and finally picked up the receiver with a very bad grace.

“What?” he said. “Who? Oh! Wait a minute.” He covered the mouthpiece and turned to Henry. “It’s Scotland Yard,” he said. “Chief Inspector Hazlerigg wants you to go round there at once.”

“Tell him I’ll be right along,” said Bohun.

As he and John Cove left they saw Mr. Manifold and Mr. Fremlinghouse looking at each other with a wild surmise.

III

“I’m sorry to drag you down here like this,” said Hazlerigg, “but things are moving quite fast and I wanted to hear your story.”

Bohun told it to him.

“It seems easy,” said Hazlerigg. “Ten thousand pounds for one sheet of writing. However, most great frauds look easy.”

“I don’t think,” said Bohun, “that anyone except an expert conveyancer who also happened to be right on the spot, like Abel, could have pulled it off. Take one thing—supposing the valuer had been a local man, who knew the property. That would have blown it sky-high. I expect you’ll find that Abel knew the Husbandmen employed a London valuer. He may even have known him personally. That would have made it easier still.”

“One thing puzzles me,” said Hazlerigg. “According to you he laid the foundations of this fraud as long ago as 1938. Did he know about the angina then?”

“Probably not,” said Bohun. “He knew he was running short of cash, though. One of the real beauties of this method was that it was reversible. So long as he kept up the interest payments he was pretty safe. Then, if things looked up and he could repay the money all he had to do was discharge the mortgage. Then he would get the deeds back. He could burn them if he liked. The Husbandmen got their money. Everybody happy. No questions asked. Really, just like the office boy who steals from the petty cash and hopes to make it up next week on the pools.”

“They’re all the same,” said Hazlerigg. “However, that part of the business is reasonably clear now. Thanks to your efforts,” he added generously. “Here’s what must have happened. Smallbone got to hear of Stancomb Farm, and something—we shall never know what—led him to suspect its non-existence. On February 17th—that was Friday—he went down to make sure. We ought to have paid more attention to that remark he made to his landlady: ‘If I find what I’m looking for, that’ll be the beginning of great things.’ The nasty little man already saw a cause célèbre, dirty washing galore, himself perhaps in the witness box. Well, he found what he was looking for—or he didn’t find it, which amounted to the same thing. He came back that same night to his rooms and the next day—”

“Yes,” said Bohun. “How did he spend the next fortnight?”

“He spent the next week attending a sale of china and pottery at Lyme Regis. That’s one of the items of information that’s just come in. Ordinary routine. There’s no doubt about it, perfect identification. He wasn’t hiding or anything. He registered in his own name.”