Dishonour Among Thieves Read online

  “It is and all,” said Macdonald. “Potter here will look after Sam Borwick, and you will come with me, Rory Macshane, and you might as well come quietly. There’s a matter of a prison sentence and so forth to be faced. Now I’m prepared to do my best for you. I know about you and I’ve got reason to respect you, because you got away from Stalag X, but we’ve got to get things fixed so that you’re straight with the law—and then, I’ll do my best to help you to a way of life that’ll be more worth while than what you’ve been doing. What about it?”

  “You look a decent bloke,” said Rory Macshane. “What’s it to be now?”

  “You come with me,” rejoined Macdonald. “I’ve no doubt you’re a good fellsman and I don’t want to chase you all over Bowland Forest. Potter, look alive.”

  Macdonald slipped his right arm inside Rory Macshane’s and the grip of his arm muscles prevented Rory from getting away. A moment later, Potter had produced handcuffs and what he did, with great dexterity, was to handcuff Macdonald and Macshane together by their wrists.

  “That’s the way of it, so come quietly,” said Macdonald. “You can’t get rid of me, even killing me wouldn’t help. So come along, and I’ll do my best for you—and Sam can come later.”

  “Christ,” said Rory Macshane, “chained to a cop. I never thought of that one.”

  “If you’re never chained to anything more than a cop you’ve not much to complain about,” said Macdonald cheerfully. “Come along and give evidence to the inspector; tell him what Sam said just now, and I’ll uphold you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “WELL, BORD,” said Macdonald later, “you’re a punctilious sort of chap, and I can well believe you find this the most unorthodox case you’ve ever been involved in, haywire, as they say.”

  “You can call it haywire or anything else you like,” rejoined Bord cheerfully. “The thing which matters to me is that you’ve picked up three criminals. You’ve got Macshane after the police of the whole country had been hunting him for months, and you got him quietly, with no violence, and I’d have expected him to kill somebody before he let himself be taken.”

  “Macshane isn’t a killer, neither is he a brutal criminal,” said Macdonald, “and I’ll put both those points before the judge when he’s brought up again. Macshane could have murdered Sam Borwick, he had Borwick at his mercy, but he didn’t even hurt him. He frightened Sam all right and that’s why Sam coughed up the evidence.”

  “Sam Borwick,” went on Bord. “Leverstone’s been looking for him for months and Millstone, too. You found ’em both.”

  “In a manner of speaking Brough found Millstone and thereby led me to Borwick,” said Macdonald. “When Brough was knocked out, I was sure it was Borwick who had done it. What was the point in knocking Brough out? To stop him saying, ‘I saw Sam. I tell you I saw him.’ And when I thought that one out, I thought, ‘Then Sam has been watching High Garth, hanging around there, and that means he hasn’t found the hiding place where his dad put the money.’ If Sam had found the money, he wouldn’t have been hanging round the house any longer.” Macdonald paused and then said: “Do you remember saying to me, ‘Why didn’t the old fool tell us all he knew?’ the old fool being Brough. Well, the more I’ve thought about it, the more do I believe that Brough could have told us a lot. Brough knew that Sam Borwick had been hanging around High Garth and he knew what Sam was after—the money. When Brough asked me to go over High Garth with him on Monday afternoon, I think he knew Sam Borwick would be around.”

  “Aye, I think you’re right there,” said Bord. “Brough wanted to get inside that house, but he didn’t fancy doing it alone, and he didn’t trust any of his own chaps, so he asked you.”

  “We’re getting on,” said Macdonald. “We’ve agreed that Sam had been around High Garth and that Brough knew it. That was probably the reason that Brough told Jock Shearling he could use the shippon, so that Sam should see there was someone around. Well, the next thing I learnt was about Millstone’s identity. Millstone had been involved in the Raine’s Wharf break-in. A night watchman had been coshed and the only man arrested for the job was Rory Macshane, who got a long sentence for robbery with violence, was sent to Dartmoor, and broke prison about three months ago. When Rory was arrested, he gave a lot of trouble, and fought like a madman, which didn’t do him any good. It occurred to me that he might have been employing P.O.W. tactics, making a diversion to help his pals get away. If that was it, Rory was successful, the other two did get away. When I heard that the dead man in High Garth was Millstone and that Millstone’s fingerprints had been found at Raine’s Wharf, it seemed a pretty good bet that the third man involved in that break-in was Sam Borwick and I believed that Brough had seen Sam Borwick up here. So it seemed to me that there was quite a chance that Rory Macshane was up here too, intending to settle the score between himself and Sam Borwick. After all, Rory had held the can for Sam over the Raine’s Wharf business.” Again, Macdonald paused, then he went on: “I shouldn’t have been in the least surprised if Rory Macshane had killed Sam, but he didn’t kill him, although he had every opportunity to do so. He didn’t even hurt him; all he did was to frighten Sam to induce him to give evidence. And neither did Rory kill Millstone. When Millstone was killed, Rory was in Dartmoor. Rory will have to finish his sentence, in Dartmoor or elsewhere, but I shall see to it that a competent counsel puts Rory’s case to the authorities, including his war record, his escape from Stalag X, and the help he gave to the police by apprehending Sam Borwick. As to Sam, it’s probable that he’ll be charged with the murder of Millstone, but I don’t think the verdict will be easy to arrive at. Millstone probably fell down those steps and broke his neck on the flagstones. If somebody pushed him to his death, there’s no proof, and I don’t think a jury would bring in a verdict of murder against Sam on that count, though it may be attempted murder in the case of Brough. Sam threw that stone all right and I don’t think Brough’s going to recover. So it’ll be a long sentence for Sam, he’ll be put where he can’t do any harm for quite a while. Now the thing you and I should do is to find old Borwick’s hiding place, where he put the proceeds of his sale. My own belief is that the money’s still there, Sam never found it. And if we find it, I think it ought to be handed over to old Mrs. Borwick. The farm is left to Sam, and I can’t see Sam doing anything for his old mother.”

  “You’re right there, by gum,” agreed Bord. “Once the old man’s dead, and he won’t last long, I’m told, there’ll be nothing for the old lady to live on. Sam will sell the farm, but he won’t help his mother.”

  “Well, let’s have a bash at searching,” said Macdonald. “You can concentrate on the house, I’ll do the barn. Giles Hoggett’s coming up to help me, he knows more about these old stone barns than either of us.”

  “Right,” said Bord cheerfully, “and if we find the cash, we’ll take the law into our own hands and give it to the old lady, saying, ‘See here, ma’am, this must be your husband’s, so you take it to him. You’ve been looking after him a long time now, so you can look after his money, too.’ She’ll understand and that’s the last we shall ever hear of it,” ended Bord cheerfully.

  2

  Giles Hoggett stood in the great barn at High Garth and stared about him thoughtfully. “Valuables have been hidden in old barns for generations,” he said. “In the old days when the Scots came marauding down Lunesdale, driving the cattle off and looting the houses, valuables were often sunk in the wells. But I don’t think old Borwick would have used the well, he was hiding things from his son and his wife, not from the marauding Scots, and his son and wife would have noticed if the old man was busy round the well. Try those grain bins, Macdonald—they may have false bottoms. I’ve looked at the cattle standings, but the flagstones haven’t been lifted for a lifetime, and the threshing floor and the rest haven’t been dug up.” He looked up to the great beams of the roof, and said, “There are plenty of hiding places up there, but I don’t think old Nat Borwick would have gon
e so high. He was old and shaky and a ladder tall enough to reach those beams would have been too heavy for him to shift.”

  “What are the holes in the wall?” asked Macdonald.

  “They were left to support the beams for a mason’s scaffolding, as the wall got too high to be reached from ground level,” said Giles. “They’ve got birds’ nests in them. There’s a ladder there will reach them. Are you going up, or shall I?”

  “I’ll go up,” said Macdonald. The holes were about fifteen feet from the ground, at intervals of ten feet or so, and he shifted the ladder along and reached into hole after hole, pulling out the closely packed straw and mud which some industrious birds had woven together to make a close compact nest—but he found no sign of coins, of cashbox or wallet or bag, and at last he said, “Nothing doing, Giles,” and stared across at the opposite wall of the barn.

  “It’s odd,” he went on. “If those holes were meant for beams, you’d expect to find corresponding holes in the wall opposite, and there aren’t any.”

  “You’ve got it,” said Giles. “There must have been corresponding holes in the opposite wall, that’s how the beam was supported. And the holes on this side have been blocked up so that you can’t see them: they’re blocked with stone slabs so that they don’t show, but they must be there. And anybody who took all that trouble to block them so skilfully must have had a reason for doing it. I’ve got a wide chisel and a bar to lever with—so up you go. It all fits,” he added. “There’s this ladder, which is long enough to reach those holes, but not long enough to reach the roof, and it’s not too heavy for an old chap to lift.”

  Macdonald went up the ladder, fixing it carefully so that it was exactly opposite the beam holes in the farther wall, and Giles paced out the intervals carefully and measured the height of the holes. When Macdonald tackled the first spot, he knew they had found a deliberately contrived hiding place. The hole was blocked by a stone, fashioned so that it fitted the gap accurately and looked exactly like the rest of the stone wall. With Giles Hoggett’s wide chisel and levering bar, Macdonald cleared the stone away, but there was nothing hidden in the gap behind it. He came down and shifted the ladder, three times, each time removing a roughly dressed stone. It wasn’t until he had moved a fourth stone that he put his hand in the gap and pulled out a heavy leather bag which had been jammed into the gap.

  “Here it is, Giles, Mrs. Borwick’s dowry for her old age.” The two men sat on one of the grain bins and investigated the money bag, closely packed with currency notes, silver, and even some golden sovereigns.

  “The old chap must have hidden those sovereigns away over forty years ago,” said Giles Hoggett, “and he never dreamt they’d be used ‘to right a wrong.’ You used the word ‘dowry’ just now. When Nat Borwick got married after his father died, he married Sally Newby, and Sally owned a farm which her father had left her. Nat Borwick sold that farm—it was Helbeck in Littledale, and poor Sally never saw a penny of the money. Nat just hid it. Well, if this little packet is the proceeds of Nat’s last sale, it will just about repay Sally for what that old skinflint robbed her of long ago.”

  “What a lot you do know about folks in these parts,” said Macdonald. “Did you know Sam Borwick as a lad?”

  “Not to say know him, but I knew him; everybody did, he was known in every village shop, every bar, every farmhouse. The shopkeepers knew that if they didn’t keep their eyes on him, he’d get away with something, sweets or smokes or something he couldn’t get at home. The farmers’ wives would say ‘be off with you and don’t hang around here.’ Folks were sorry for him in a way, because they knew about his father and how his father treated the old lady. Sam was a thief from the time he could toddle: we all knew it.”

  Macdonald drew a photograph out of his pocket. “Can you recognise this face?”

  “Aye,” said Giles Hoggett placidly, “though I haven’t seen him for years. This was Tom Martin, the Irish lad who worked at Langton’s Farm before the war. That’s over towards Barbon, Langton’s Farm is, up in the Westmorland fells, across the county boundary. Tom Martin, he was a good worker and Richard Langton was right sorry when he left.”

  Macdonald asked, “Would Martin have come across Sam Borwick?”

  “Likely enough, down by the river. Sam was a clever poacher. Maybe he taught Tom how to tickle trout: all the boys play tricks like that.”

  Macdonald sat with Tom Martin’s photo in his hand. “Did you ever see this photograph in the papers, Giles— the convict who escaped from Dartmoor?”

  “No. 1 didn’t, but then I’m not very observant of pictures in the papers. My wife might, have, I don’t know, she’s much more observant than I am, but I don’t think she’d have said anything even if she did see it. It isn’t easy, you know, although we’re both law-abiding people, it goes against the grain to help in hounding down a fugitive, especially if you’ve known that fugitive as a boy and liked him, because he was a good hard-working boy. Kate never mentioned that picture to me, but if she saw it I expect she hoped that Tom would get back to Barbon and work on one of the hill farms up there again.” Giles looked at Macdonald rather sadly: “When you catch Tom, you’ll send him back to Dartmoor?”

  “I’ve caught him. He’s got to work off his prison sentence. After that, I hope to get him started on something to keep him straight. Have you ever heard of Don Whelpton?”

  “Aye, I’ve heard of him, read his books and heard him lecture. Explorer, sailor, naturalist, mountaineer—not much he hasn’t done in the wilder parts of the world.”

  “And he’s taken a few wild characters with him on his jaunts and taught them a little sense. If I go to Don Whelpton and tell him about your Tom Martin—Rory Macshane, I think Don would be interested. Rory escaped from a P.O.W. camp in Lower Silesia and got clean away, he walked to Switzerland, all by himself. He escaped from Dartmoor and he walked to Lunesdale—‘living off the country’ as he calls it. I know he’s been a thief, but he’s never been brutal or violent, and he’s got some good stuff in him. It seems to me that to keep him straight he’s got to have an objective, the tougher the better. Once it was the Swiss border—and he made it. Once it was Lunesdale—and he made it. If Don has some objective, sufficiently tough and far away, I think Rory would be worth his place in the crew.”

  “Crew,” said Giles. “I know that Whelpton’s bought a schooner and he goes sailing these days, but Tom Martin’s a countryman.”

  “Maybe, but he was born in a village not far from Belfast and he played about in small boats from the time he could toddle. He’ll be worth his place in a crew if Don will take him and J think Don will.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  BALANCE SHEET

  “To WHAT END? What’s the good, who benefits?” asked Don Whelpton, shooting out his rhetorical questions at Macdonald with perfectly good temper. “Climbing Everest, camping at the poles, extending our knowledge of the most barren areas of the world’s surface, the places which make life impossible without aid from all the elaborations of this mechanical era. What good does it do to anybody? I’ve been asked those questions again and again, and it isn’t always easy to find convincing answers if the questioner is an honest humane chap, as he often is.”

  “Striking a balance sheet,” said Macdonald, “we all have to do it sometime. While I could supply my own answers to your questions, I should be interested to have your answers. You have spent many years in conditions of intolerable discomfort, of danger and privation in forbidding parts of the earth, so you must have a sanction which answers your cui bono?”

  “Yes, first and foremost it’s the personal satisfaction I gain from overcoming difficulties—the harder the struggle, the greater the sense of achievement. Nothing very worthy about that, no answer for the philosopher who talks about ethical standards. The real justification from the philosophic point of view is the improvement in the personalities of the toughs who join one in the struggle. I’ve known the most commonplace blokes disregard their own comfo
rt, their own profit, their own safety, in a common endeavour. You may say it’s not necessary to go to the ends of the earth for this purpose, but the remoteness, die difficulties and the dangers do add up to something which is salutary to the human spirit I don’t want to sound smug, but I can only answer your question about the worthwhileness of such expeditions in terms of human values.”

  “Thanks. That’s what I wanted you to do,” rejoined Macdonald. “I spoke just now of a balance sheet. I’ve been trying to cast my own. I’ve spent the greater part of my adult life in pursuing criminals and I want to ponder over the results of that pursuit in terms of personality, including that of the criminal, who is a human being himself.”

  “Well, your balance sheet will be a damned sight more interesting than mine,” said Don Whelpton. “It’s too often forgotten that the criminal is a human being, having some of the impulses of decent humanity which we like to think is a characteristic of us all. Moreover, decent humans are sometimes capable of criminal impulses. Now, looking back on your years of pursuit, your own form of hunting, for that’s what it is, are you satisfied of its justice and efficacy?”

  “It’s difficult to give an unqualified answer,” rejoined Macdonald. “A policeman’s job is a necessary one, inasmuch as the average honest law-abiding citizen must be protected from the thief and the murderer. I don’t think anybody would dispute that. It’s the policeman’s duly to round up the lawbreakers, but not to be a judge or jury, thank God. Judgment and sentencing must be the most onerous job of all. You asked me if I were satisfied with the efficacy of the system, the penal code of this country. The answer is that, having had experience of it at first hand for half a lifetime, I’m not really satisfied. Sending a criminal to prison may punish him by depriving him of his liberty and the amenities of life, but it doesn’t improve him or make him less of a criminal. If a young thief is sent to prison, he’s a worse character at the end of his sentence; he’s associated with other criminals and something about the recidivist mentality is catching, as bodily disease is catching.”