Peter wanted to get away, to leave these two alone with their dead. He held out his hand to Charlie. “I’m sorry.” The man gripped it. “He always liked you, sir.” Harry followed him out of the kitchen. They walked slowly down the flag-path to the gate.
Peter held out his hand again. “See you tomorrow Harry.” The giant fidgeted for a moment; his blue eyes under the golden brows gazed straight into Peter’s.
“Father said,” began Harry, “that if anything happened to him we was to tell you about that lease.”
“What about it?” asked Peter wonderingly.
“Father didn’t like signing that lease,” went on Harry. “He didn’t ought to have signed it neither. That Henley solicitor fellow, he was altogether too sharp. And father got angry with him.”
It took half-an-hour before Peter got to the bottom of matters. Apparently, the trouble lay not in the house itself, but in the paddock. House and orchard stood on a little patch of freehold ground—Tebbits’ property: but the paddock, like most of Tebbits’ land, was leasehold—and Tebbits’ lease (an old-fashioned contract) expired with old man Tebbits.
“Well, I don’t see it matters,” said Peter finally. “You’ll keep the farm on, I suppose.”
“If we can,” said Harry, pulling at his great moustache. “If we can, sir.” He clumped heavily back to the house.