The Murder Farm Read Online Free PDF

neither. I’d only have to go out there again in a couple of days’ time. An engine like that isn’t going to repair itself, is it?
    So there was nothing for it, I went to the shack where they kept the machine. It’s around behind the barn, or rather behind the barn and the cowshed, they’re built right next to each other.
    I knew where to find the root-slicing machine from last time.
    How late was it then? Oh, around nine thirty. Yes, the time would have been nine thirty.
    The door had a padlock on it. I looked around to see if I could find the key to the padlock anywhere.
    Some people hide keys very close, you see. For instance under a stone or a bucket, or on a hook at the side of a building just under the overhang of the roof. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen. They do it so they won’t misplace the key and it’ll be easier to find. It’s crazy, it’s downright irresponsible. Might as well leave their doors wide open. But that’s how some folk are. It really makes you wonder.
    But the Danners hadn’t left the key anywhere, not under a stone nor hanging from a hook. My bad luck. I wanted to go home, like I said, but not without doing the job first, and my next job for a customer wasn’t until the afternoon, that was for the Brunners over in Einhausen.
    So on impulse I fetched my toolbox from the carrier of the bike. I took out a pair of pliers and very carefully bent aside the little wire the padlock was hanging from. That way I just had to take the padlock off.
    I felt like a housebreaker or a thief. But there you are, I didn’t want to cycle out again, and if anyone had come along I could have explained.
    No one did come along, though. There was only the dog; I heard it barking its head off. Didn’t see it anywhere, though. You could hear the cows mooing, too. Not loud but all the time, I remember that now.
    When I’d taken the padlock off and opened the shack door, I could finally fix the machine. I’d already wasted a whole hour as it was. No one pays you for wasted time, certainly not a penny pincher like old Danner.
    A man like that, he watches every minute, anyone would think it was you who owed him something; he’ll starve to death yet with a bit of bread in his mouth. It was the cylinder-head gasket had gone; I’d thought that was the trouble all along. Changing one of those takes time. Back in summer I’d already told old Danner if he wanted to buy a new machine, we’d take the old one as adown payment. It was a prewar model at that, but no, the old skinflint didn’t want to, even though that’s the usual thing to do these days.
    There still wasn’t a soul in sight at the farm. I was getting to feel the whole thing was eerie. So I left the door of the shack where they kept the root-slicing machine open. First, that gave me more light to work by, and, second, anyone could see straight off that I was busy repairing the engine.
    I’d almost finished, was just about to screw one last nut back in place when it slips clean through my fingers and rolls toward the cistern.
    There was this old cistern in the shack, for keeping milk cool. You stood the full milk churns in it. Thank God there wasn’t any water in the cistern, it was empty.
    So down I climb into the cistern. It’s not deep, comes maybe up to my thighs if that, and I fish out my nut.
    At the very moment I was bending down to feel around for the nut, I thought a shadow scurried past. I couldn’t see it; it was more of a feeling. A voice inside you saying look, there’s someone there, even if you can’t see whoever it is. But it’s there, you feel it, there’s somebody there.
    So I’m up and out of the cistern in a flash.
    “Hey, anyone there? Hello!” I shouted.
    No answer, though. I’d not been feeling too comfortable before, now the farm seemed downright creepy. And the dog barking and barking all the time, though I couldn’t see it.
    So I screwed the nut on as fast as I could and packed up my tools. Now to give