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Authors: Victor Canning
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there. He could call the police, say where Yarra was, refuse to say who he was â and then he would have to take off smartly.
Down below him, he heard Yarra stir on her straw, and he said aloud, âOld girl â if you got any sense you wonât come back tomorrow. And I hope you donât, because I donât want to lose a soft billet.â
He dropped off to sleep, thinking that it was hard that on top of his own problems he had the problem of the right thing to do about Yarra.
The sun was well up over the valley ridge when Smiler woke. The owl was back on its king post roost after a nightâs hunting. On the floor below the post were two or three fresh pellets which the bird had spewed up, little wet balls of fragile mouse and shrew bones, fur and feathers from a wren that it had taken at the first paling of morning light. Smiler stretched and yawned. He had a busy day ahead of him, and maybe a dangerous one. He had his own problem to deal with and he meant to tackle it properly. No half measures. He lay for a moment, going over it in his mind, and then suddenly remembered Yarra.
He got up, unbolted the trap and looked down. The lower part of the barn was empty. Yarra had gone.
Smiler went down, peered cautiously around the corner of the open barn door to make sure that the coast was clear and then, closing the barn door, he went across to the cottage.
He went into the kitchen, had a drink of water and some biscuits and then washed his hands. There was no point in having a good wash yet, he thought.
Although he had bad habits â like smoking an occasional cigarette â and was no respecter of small items of other peopleâs property when he was bored and idle and needed some excitement to make the day shine a little, Smiler was fundamentally a good sort. When he wished, he could be methodical, industrious and reasonably honest. In addition he was intelligent and a quick learner. He was also shrewd and far-thinking in an emergency; and he was in an emergency now. The emergency of keeping Samuel M. out of the hands of the police and all the other busybodies who wanted him to go back to that school. No thank you. Not for Samuel M. He was going to stay free until his father came back and sorted things outâ¦
After giving his problem much thought the previous day he had come to the following very clear conclusions:
1. He couldnât hang around Ford Cottage and the barn for nine months, cadging food and shelter.
2. So long as Major Collingwood was away, however, he could just use the barn for a sleeping place.
3. He had to find out exactly where he was (somewhere near Warminster was all he knew), and he had to go out and get a job so that he would have money for food and other things.
4. But to get a job wasnât all that easy, because the moment he showed his face anywhere some policeman with a long memory would recognize his fair hair and freckled face. He had, therefore, to disguise himself somehow â though there wasnât anything he could do about the freckles! But he could do something about his hair and about his clothes.
5. As for the job, well, he was strong and bandy and people were always advertising for help around the place. He would have to get a newspaper and see what was going.
6. And, to do all this â because people were always full of questions â he had to have answers as to who he was, where he lived, and so on and so on. For public purposes Samuel M. would have to go and a new lad take his place.
7. And if he stuck it out and wasnât caught, then some time he would have to telephone the shipping company offices in Bristol and find out what date his father was due back so that he could meet him.
It was a long list but Smiler felt that he had worked out the answers to most of the immediate problems, and he now set about them with a will. If there was something to be done he liked to get on with it.
He went first into the sitting-room and
Down below him, he heard Yarra stir on her straw, and he said aloud, âOld girl â if you got any sense you wonât come back tomorrow. And I hope you donât, because I donât want to lose a soft billet.â
He dropped off to sleep, thinking that it was hard that on top of his own problems he had the problem of the right thing to do about Yarra.
The sun was well up over the valley ridge when Smiler woke. The owl was back on its king post roost after a nightâs hunting. On the floor below the post were two or three fresh pellets which the bird had spewed up, little wet balls of fragile mouse and shrew bones, fur and feathers from a wren that it had taken at the first paling of morning light. Smiler stretched and yawned. He had a busy day ahead of him, and maybe a dangerous one. He had his own problem to deal with and he meant to tackle it properly. No half measures. He lay for a moment, going over it in his mind, and then suddenly remembered Yarra.
He got up, unbolted the trap and looked down. The lower part of the barn was empty. Yarra had gone.
Smiler went down, peered cautiously around the corner of the open barn door to make sure that the coast was clear and then, closing the barn door, he went across to the cottage.
He went into the kitchen, had a drink of water and some biscuits and then washed his hands. There was no point in having a good wash yet, he thought.
Although he had bad habits â like smoking an occasional cigarette â and was no respecter of small items of other peopleâs property when he was bored and idle and needed some excitement to make the day shine a little, Smiler was fundamentally a good sort. When he wished, he could be methodical, industrious and reasonably honest. In addition he was intelligent and a quick learner. He was also shrewd and far-thinking in an emergency; and he was in an emergency now. The emergency of keeping Samuel M. out of the hands of the police and all the other busybodies who wanted him to go back to that school. No thank you. Not for Samuel M. He was going to stay free until his father came back and sorted things outâ¦
After giving his problem much thought the previous day he had come to the following very clear conclusions:
1. He couldnât hang around Ford Cottage and the barn for nine months, cadging food and shelter.
2. So long as Major Collingwood was away, however, he could just use the barn for a sleeping place.
3. He had to find out exactly where he was (somewhere near Warminster was all he knew), and he had to go out and get a job so that he would have money for food and other things.
4. But to get a job wasnât all that easy, because the moment he showed his face anywhere some policeman with a long memory would recognize his fair hair and freckled face. He had, therefore, to disguise himself somehow â though there wasnât anything he could do about the freckles! But he could do something about his hair and about his clothes.
5. As for the job, well, he was strong and bandy and people were always advertising for help around the place. He would have to get a newspaper and see what was going.
6. And, to do all this â because people were always full of questions â he had to have answers as to who he was, where he lived, and so on and so on. For public purposes Samuel M. would have to go and a new lad take his place.
7. And if he stuck it out and wasnât caught, then some time he would have to telephone the shipping company offices in Bristol and find out what date his father was due back so that he could meet him.
It was a long list but Smiler felt that he had worked out the answers to most of the immediate problems, and he now set about them with a will. If there was something to be done he liked to get on with it.
He went first into the sitting-room and
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