Dishonour Among Thieves Page 10

  “Was it Tim Healey who used to go up to High Garth to fodder the beasts in the shippon?” asked Macdonald.

  “I couldn’t rightly say,” she replied. “I don’t have nought to do with the farm these days, it’s as much as I can do to manage the house single-handed. Now if you want to see the men, you’ll find them in the cottage down by the beck, that’s where they live, and Mrs. Walton—that’s Bob Walton’s wife—she does for them, cooks their meals and all. But you’ll find they was all about the place this afternoon, Inspector Bord, he’s asked them already.”

  With a word of thanks, Macdonald took his leave and left the big farmhouse. He found the cottage by the beck, drummed on the door with his knuckles, and it was opened at once by a youngish dark fellow, tallish and lithe, less heavily built than most farm workers. The lamplight shone out on Macdonald and a cheerful voice said:

  “Why, it’s Mr. Macdonald from Fellcock. I’ve seen you up there. And how’s the master? We heard he was in a poor way. Had a nasty tumble? And ’tisn’t the first time: he gets dizzy-like sometimes.”

  “He’s safely in bed and they say he’s pulling round,” said Macdonald. “Has he had other falls?”

  “Aye, that he has,” said another voice, a Lancashire voice this time. The first man was certainly an Irishman. “It’s true what Tim says, Mr. Brough gets dizzy-like, ever since the time he fell off the oat stack, last back-end, he comes over dizzy and he’s tumbled more’n once.”

  “That’s a bad sign, that is,” said a third man. “He should ha’ seen doctor and taken a holiday. I said to him, ‘The three of us, we can manage all t’ work here, up till hay time anyway. You have a holiday. Take the missis away to Blackpool,’ I said; ‘that’ll do you a right lot of good,’ but he wouldn’t listen, and he dared us to tell Mrs. Brough he’d had a tumble. ‘Don’t you name it,’ he said.”

  “I wish I’d known,” said Macdonald. “I’d no idea he wasn’t well. Now will you tell me what you three chaps were doing this afternoon?”

  “Spreading muck,” replied the second of the two speakers.

  “Walton?” asked Macdonald.

  “Aye, I’m Walton and this is Jack Metcalf. Drove the tractor, Jack did. Tim Healey here, he loaded the trailers in the yard, Jack drove and I went with him on the tractor. We tossed the muck out on the ten-acre—in heaps, you know the job, and later Tim came up with us on the last load and we was muck-spreading till six, when we came back here to tea. Muck-spreading, that’s a right heavy job. Mr. Brough, he ought to buy one o’ those muck spreaders. You can do the job in half the time.”

  “Less than half,” put in Metcalf firmly. “Two men and a tractor with a muck spreader can do more in a half day than four men in a full day working by hand.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Macdonald. “Now Metcalf’s the tractor driver. Healey, you’re the stock man?”

  “In a manner o’ speaking, but we all lends a hand at all the jobs here,” rejoined Tim.

  “Was it you who used to go up to High Garth to fodder the beasts when Mr. Brough wintered stock in the shippon there?” asked Macdonald, and Healey replied:

  “I did and all, and I tell you I was glad enough when the boss said it wasn’t worth his while, what with the time I took getting there and back. You try it, mister!” declared the Irishman. “Best part of an hour it do take, walking up there, and it’s steep and all. Rough ground ’tis, too. You should know, mister. The land falls away from Fellcock the same it falls from High Garth, and that’s a real tug, getting up there from the valley here. The boss, he’d given it best a long time. If he went up there he drove in his motor as far as your place. I had to tramp, all weathers, too: sinful ’twas.”

  “When you were up there, did you ever see anybody about, Healey?” asked Macdonald.

  ‘‘None but your chap, Jock Shearling. Jock he came and had a look, and said, ‘I could do with this shippon. We haven’t got all the standing room we needs,’ and I said, ‘You talk to my boss about that. I’ve had enough of this ’eathen ’ill you call the fell side.” He broke off and then added: “I didn’t see anybody around but Jock, but since you’re asking, I’ll tell you this. I sometimes wondered if there wasn’t someone dossing down in the hay loft there.”

  “What made you think that?”

  “Well, ’twas the way my dog carried on. She’s a good dog, Patsy, and one day she rushed round that barn like a mad thing, aye, and she went up that ladder to the loft, a thing she don’t often do. And I thought, ‘Sure to goodness, ’tis the rats she’s after.’ But when next I went up to the loft, to pitch the hay down to fodder the beasts, I had a look round and I thought, ‘Someone’s been making free with this hay.’ ’Twas all bundled up against the wall, and I thought ‘Someone’s been sleeping up here,’ nice and warm it’d be, under the hay, with the beasts down below, wonderful hot, ’tis, in a shippon when that’s full of beasts. But I couldn’t see nought, and I thought, well, if some poor soul was benighted up in those hills, I wouldn’t grudge him a bed in the hay. I looked around, careful-like, other days, but I never saw no more signs, so happen he didn’t come again.”

  “Did you ever report it to Mr. Brough?” asked Macdonald.

  “I told him I thought someone had been around the shippon, but I didn’t say much in case he told me to go and look around of a night. And he said, ‘That’s a perishing long way off—and I don’t want to lose no stock. It can happen,’ he said, and ’twas after that he said as how it wasn’t worth while using that shippon. ‘There’s those gangers, out on Bowland,’ he said. ‘Maybe some of them know how to drive a bullock,’ and I said, ‘Happen they do—and know a butcher who’s not that particular where a good beast comes from.’ But ’twas all right, we lost nought, and your Jock Shearling’s nearer at hand and he can keep an eye on things.”

  2

  As Macdonald walked back to his car, he pondered over the story he had just heard and pondered, too, over the fact that Mr. Brough had had various reasons to impel him to make an inspection of High Garth, reasons which he had not imparted to Macdonald. There was the probability, known to a number of people in the locality, that old Nat Borwick had hidden his money in the house or buildings at High Garth. There was Tim Healey’s story of someone sleeping in the barn.

  Before he left the valley road, Macdonald telephoned to Bord, who had just got back to Carnton. There was no telephone at Fellcock and it would cost a lot of money to get a line out there. Neither, of course, was there any telephone at the pipe-line camp out on Bowland, but Bord had hurried back and he was about to tell Macdonald that the gangers could be counted out so far as any illicit activities in the afternoon were concerned.

  “And the same goes for Brough’s men,” said Macdonald. “I went along there to have a look at them. Now I’m going home to talk to Jock and Betty Shearling.”

  “Right,” said Bord, “and the C.C.’s fixed things up with your boss, and you’re to go to Leverstone tomorrow. I hope you’ll pick up something helpful: we’re drawing blanks everywhere so far.”

  “Well, we haven’t had very long to work in,” said Macdonald. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Betty was looking out for him when he arrived at Fellcock. “Your fire’s burning nicely, Mr. Macdonald, and the kettle’s boiling. I’ve made you some sandwiches and there’s a whole pile of savoury toast, all sizzling hot.”

  “And I’m ready for it,” said Macdonald. “When you’ve made the tea, come in and pour it out for me, Betty. I want to talk to you.”

  She came into Macdonald’s room with the teapot and poured out sedately, seeing that the toast was near to hand. She had a serenely capable way with her and was never shy with “the gaffer,” and Macdonald found it easy to talk to her.

  “Betty, you said you saw a man on the fell side at the back of the house just before Jock and I brought Mr. Brough in here.”

  “Aye, I saw someone walking away. I mean I saw his back, I didn’t see his face, and I thought, ‘It’ll be one of Mr
. Brough’s men, come to round up them bullocks, the black Aberdeen Angus he’s so proud of.’ They break the fences sometimes and come round the back. Jock says they scent the hay and root crops he puts out for our store cattle. I thought, ‘That’ll be Tim Healey,’ because it’s him who always came up here to see to Mr. Brough’s beasts, and when Mr. Brough came up in his car, wanting to look over his stock, he’d send Healey up here to round the beasts up. But after I’d thought, I knew ’twasn’t Healey: ’twas a heavier man than Healey. It might have been Metcalf, he’s a soldier build, but I can’t rightly say. His back was all I saw, and he’d got a cap on, pulled right down, like the caps they mostly wear for milking, when their heads are against the cow’s flanks.”

  “How long did you see him for? Was he hurrying?”

  “No. I’d have noticed if he’d hurried. Farm chaps don’t often hurry, they take their time. I saw him there and said to myself, ‘That’ll be Healey, looking for them beasts,’ and I was busy and I didn’t go on looking out of the window, but a minute later I said, ‘That’s not Healey, that’s not his build,’ and when I looked again he wasn’t there, and I said to myself, ‘Happen he’s gone to wait by Mr. Brough’s car, hoping for a lift, for it’s a tidy step down to the valley.’ ”

  “He didn’t do that,” said Macdonald. “It’s all a bit odd, Betty. It wasn’t one of Mr. Brough’s men, I’ve seen them and they were together all the afternoon, spreading muck. Not one of them would have had time to come up here. And it wasn’t one of the pipe-line men, either. They were doing a job of blasting this afternoon, I expect you heard the charges, and the overseers can answer for it that all the men were there, under their eyes.”

  “That’s a right funny thing,” she said. “Must ha’ been someone from away, ’tisn’t often we get strangers up here. They’ll come at the back-end, when the heather’s out, and come picking blueberries and blackberries, too, along the fences, but now there’s nought to come for.”

  “Did you ever know Sam Borwick, Betty?”

  “No. I’ve never set eyes on him. ’Tis years since he went away, in the war that was, and I lived in Gimmerdale, as you know, and I was too busy to come all this way and nought to come for.” She laughed a little. “Jock and me, we’ve often named him: ‘When Sam Borwick comes back,’ we’d say—meaning never. You see, Jock and me, we’d have liked to farm High Garth, and if so be Sam Borwick wasn’t ever going to come back, that might have been a chance. Not that we bother now. We’re right well off here.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose High Garth’s going to be empty for always,” replied Macdonald. “Perhaps we could farm it together. Go and ask Jock to come in here, and tell him to bring another cup.”

  Jock came in slowly and sat down when he was bid. Macdonald told him of Tim Healey’s story about someone having “dossed down” in the hay loft.

  “Did you ever notice anything of the kind yourself, Jock, when you first looked round the shippon?”

  “Aye, I noticed. I went up to the hay loft, to see if any of the hay up there was fit for fodder, Mr. Brough having said I could have it. And when I saw someone had rolled in the hay, made a bed of it as ’twere, why I thought, ‘That’d be Healey, having a nice rest, or sheltering from the weather.’ He was up there at High Garth a long time, some days. I reckon Mr. Brough thought he took a mighty long time to fodder a few beasts and that’s why Mr. Brough said, ‘That don’t suit.’ All of three bob an hour he pays Healey and more for overtime and Mr. Brough wasn’t paying good money for Healey to have a nice lie in t’ hay. And then he’s courting, Healey is. I don’t want to throw dirt at no one, but I reckon that fat lass of Healey’s came up there when he was there—and that’s how it could ’a been.”

  “It certainly could,” rejoined Macdonald. “What do you think of Healey, Jock?”

  “Not all that,” said Jock. “He’s good with beasts, but I did think he didn’t play fair with Mr. Brough. Wasted no end of time up at High Garth, Healey did, and ’twas time he was paid for. Then I never did like Irishmen.”

  “Did you ever see Healey walking round the house?”

  “Not so’s to notice. He’d come round to the back and over the fell, looking for beasts that had strayed. He’d have done better to fettle up those fences,” added Jock; “but Healey was never one to do a job when he hadn’t got to, and ’twas Mr. Brough’s fault in a manner of speaking, a lot of new posts was wanted and he ought to have sent some up on the tractor. Healey wasn’t going to carry posts all that way.” He paused a moment and then added, very slowly and solemnly: “ ’Tis this way, gaffer. You’ve found a dead man in that house. It’s easy to say, ‘Healey might ha’ downed him and left him there. Plenty of time he had to break in and all that.’ And easy for Healey to say, ‘Shearling, he lives close by, likely he did it.’ ”

  “Oh, I know,” rejoined Macdonald, “but I’d say this: in my opinion that dead man had lain where we found him much longer than six months. In my judgment, his body had never been moved, he lay where he died. Now you and Betty have only been at Fellcock for six months. Before that yon lived in Gimmerdale, ten miles away. Did you ever come over to High Garth or Fellcock before I brought you over here last September? ”

  “No, we didn’t,” replied Jock and Betty put in:

  “ ’Twas no use. We knew Fellcock was for sale, but we’d no money. We never came here. Jock and me, we was both working, and we didn’t waste time walking over the fell all that way to look at steadings they was asking £4000 for. If it’d been £400, likely we’d have come, though we hadn’t four hundred neither. But we never came within miles of High Garth nor Fellcock till that day you brought us. The fifth of September that was, and I shall never forget it.”

  “Well, you’ve nothing to worry about,” replied Macdonald.

  Chapter Ten

  THE MAN WHOM Betty Shearling had seen from the back windows of Fellcock had realised that he was visible from those windows. The instinct of the fugitive urged him to run, to hurry away, to get clear before he was pursued. He had seen Jock running across to High Garth after bending to examine Mr. Brough and the fugitive knew that another man was at High Garth. If instinct urged the man to run, cunning urged him to seek cover. A moment after Betty had turned from the window, the fugitive was lying flat on the rough ground among the dead heather and the dried bents. He lay there for some moments until he was satisfied that there was no immediate pursuit, then he raised his head just enough for him to see over the intervening ground. There was nobody on the fell between him and the enclosing wall of Fellcock, no one in the garden, no one at the windows. Satisfied of this, he began to crawl, very slowly, on his belly, his face close to the ground. He knew the background well and he-believed that if he could gain a hundred yards he could elude any pursuit. After the first hundred yards he crept into a cleft in the ground, it was deep enough to hide him from any observer save one who stood immediately above him. That cleft, he knew, continued up the fell side, getting deeper and deeper: it was the bed of a beck which had once run down the fell side from a spring higher up. The course of the beck had been diverted to fill the water tanks at Fellcock. Higher up, the cleft opened into a pit which had been scoured out over the course of centuries by the water which was collected on the ridge of the fell, flowed underground, and broke surface at the “well” or spring, whence the farmers of Fellcock had once watered their beasts and obtained their domestic supply. Since the beck had been diverted, there was a deep hole or pit and the cleft the fugitive followed led him directly to this hiding place. Again he risked a reconnaissance; he saw two men hurry out from High Garth and later he saw them carry Mr. Brough on a hurdle to Fellcock. Still later he saw one man go to a car, start it up, and turn off down the hillside in the direction of Greenbeck. There was another car standing there—Mr. Brough’s car, and for a moment the fugitive was sorely tempted to go and try to start it up. He was a skilled car thief and the lack of an ignition key did not bother him. He had a variety of ignition keys and
substitutes for same in his own pockets and he could generally start up any old car without difficulty (modem cars were a different matter, but Mr. Brough’s car was very old). Although he toyed with the temptation of making off with the car, intelligence warned him against it—he was an intelligent fellow (that was why he was lying on the fell side under a blue sky instead of in a prison cell as many of his friends were at that moment). Intelligence reminded him that there was only the one road down to the valley, the road by Greenbeck and through Crossghyll, and that everybody on that road would know Mr. Brough’s car. Seeing a stranger driving it, they would assume the driver to be a thief. They might block the road with a tractor and drag him from the car. No, however tempting the thought of driving, the fugitive knew that it was safer to keep to the fell side. He could stay where he was, safely hidden, until evening, and then, when dusk fell, he could get to his feet and get a move on, and find a vehicle which would take him down from the heights of Bowland to the railway line. That would be a better bet than the old rattle-trap yonder which was known to everybody for miles. From his hiding place, the fugitive was able to see all the arrivals which had caused so much excitement in the neighbourhood. The constable on his motor bike, followed by Macdonald in his gleaming new Vauxhall. These two walked across to High Garth and shortly after a police car arrived, and Inspector Bord followed the two earlier arrivals: then came an ambulance and finally a mortuary van. . . . The fugitive saw these with a sinking heart: he was a cowardly fellow and he felt sick and chilled as he thought out the implications of all these comings and goings, but he was glad he hadn’t attempted to get away in Mr. Brough’s car.