The Theft of the Iron Dogs Read online

  “No, I know it’s not,” she said serenely. “It’s your detective instinct. I told you if you read so many detective stories you’d be getting the subject on the brain. I quite agree you could make a good story out of ‘The Burglary at Wenningby Barns’ – so the best thing you can do is to come home and write it, while you’re in the mood. Crime pays much better than cows.”

  Giles Hoggett rumpled his hair up again.

  “I don’t think you realize all the implications,” he said. “I looked around outside before I went to fetch you. I found traces of wheels, and some very big footprints. Unfortunately the river came up and expunged the evidence before I could take any measurements.”

  Mrs. Hoggett sneezed.

  “It’s cold down here. Giles. If you want to stop here to argue, I’m going to light a fire.”

  “Not there, Kate, not there!” exclaimed Mr. Hoggett in scandalized tones. “You don’t know what’s been burnt there. . .”

  “I do. An old coat. Probably yours. It smelled. Perhaps the tramp was particular. If you won’t light a fire, I’m not going to stay here. I’m going up to get dinner. It’s Irish stew and dumplings, and they’re horrid when they’re cold, so don’t be too long. . .”

  Mr. Hoggett wasn’t listening.

  “I believe it’s those potters,” he murmured to himself, as his wife pulled on her coat and went out into the rain again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MR. HOGGETT got home in time to enjoy the Irish stew and dumplings, with apple cake to follow. He was very silent during the greater part of the meal, but when he drew up to the fire and lighted his cigarette, he unburdened his soul to his wife as she sat and darned his socks and shirts. Mr. Hoggerty put forward his evidence very clearly and cogently and proceeded to his quite reasonable deductions. He ended up with a weighty peroration.

  “I have always said that I distrusted the potters. Reuben Gold and his wife are anti-social nomads. Whenever there’s been a case of thieving hereabouts I have been certain they were at the bottom of it. They had the ducks we lost last December, I never doubted it. They had Allan’s geese and Mrs. Clout’s sheets which were stolen from her washing-line.”

  Mrs. Hoggett intervened here. “It’s no use saying the Golds were the thieves if you have no evidence to support it. You may suspect them – and you told Sergeant Cobley you suspected them at the time, but he was quite right in saying that you had no evidence, and the Golds proved that they were at Preston when our ducks were stolen.”

  Mr. Hoggett was silent. He had been very angry about the loss of his ducks, which had been stolen one night just before they were ready for the Christmas market. Reuben Gold and his wife Sarah were itinerant hawkers: “tinkers” was the term which would have described them in the south; “potters” was the northern idiom. They would buy any old junk-rags and bones, old metal, rabbit skins, crocks, old clothes, broken furniture. They had a decrepit cart and an ancient nag, and they plied their trade from Carnton in the north to Preston in the south. Sometimes they had goods for sale on a hawkers’ license, combs and pins, brushes and brooms, besoms and mats – but as a general rule they sought to buy any old oddments which housewives were willing to dispense with. They would also act as carriers or take messages for anybody who trusted them. All the farmers regarded them with suspicion, and Giles Hoggett would have found plenty of worthy neighbors to support him in his belief that any petty theft in the district could be blamed on to Reuben Gold and his wife, but it was a fact that they had never been convicted of any offense. They always had an alibi when thefts had occurred in the Wenningby district.

  The local police knew all about the Golds, and Sergeant Cobley had wasted a good deal of his valuable time in the effort to bring offenses home to them, but the sergeant had been quite unsuccessful. Far from earning a feather in his cap on the only occasion when he had charged them in court, the sergeant had lost a lot of prestige, because his evidence had been incomplete, and the Golds had been clever enough to let him produce his evidence before they proved their own alibi. There had been a new J.P. sitting on the bench on the occasion of this case, and he had lent a sympathetic ear to the potters’ whines about police persecution. It had been a poor day for Sergeant Cobley, and he had gone home feeling hot under the collar, swearing he would let the lying varmints alone until he had absolutely fool-proof, copper-bottomed evidence to convict them on.

  Of course, both Giles Hoggett and his wife knew all about the sergeant’s troubles, and Katherine was quite right in reminding Giles that he only risked a snubbing if he reported nebulous suspicions without conclusive evidence.

  Having heard all her husband’s recital, she summed up:

  “What indisputable facts have you, Giles? Someone has been in the cottage; you are sure of it and I’m sure of it. Someone lighted a fire and meddled with your woodpile; but I doubt if the magistrates would really believe that I could swear to the condition of the hearth. The chain and hook have gone, and the iron dogs, but neither is of any value; and they might argue that some children had been playing tricks. Apart from that, you have no conclusive evidence. The clothesline and sack may have been moved at any time. I can’t swear to the time I last saw them – and neither can you. One tin of beans is very much like another, and I don’t believe you could really swear that your salmon line was still in the cottage.”

  “I could,” said Mr. Hoggett morosely, and then, because he had a very sensitive conscience, he added: “At least, I think I could.”

  His wife laughed.

  “That’s just it, Giles. Neither you nor I would be a bit good at swearing to something we weren’t sure of. You could say you were morally certain the salmon line had gone, but in court you’ve got to swear by Almighty God. . .”

  “I know that,” said Mr. Hoggett sadly. He was kicking his toes – a sure sign of unease. “Then there’s the bogie tracks, the footprints and that bit of curtain stuff I found in the dales,” he went on.

  The “bogie” was a contraption on wheels which Mr. Hoggett had fabricated in an optimistic moment, saying (in defiance of Katherine’s judgment) that the easiest way of getting suitcases up the brow was by harnessing himself to a wheeled vehicle, and pulling like a cart horse. The experiment had been tried once only, for despite Mr. Hoggett’s determination to act as a horse, the “bogie” was a complete failure. It had jibbed, it had side-slipped and finally capsized; the suitcases were rescued from the ditch, and the “bogie”

  had ambled back to the dales under its own velocity. Since then it had been relegated to a corner of the hay barn at the cottage, save when the children used it to play with. Mr. Hoggett felt that to have entered the bogie as serious evidence while talking to his wife was a tactical error, because Kate felt every symptom of acute appendicitis the moment the contraption was mentioned. She had laughed so much, on the only occasion the bogie had seen active service that the mere mention of it gave her the pain which accompanies excessive mirth.

  “The bogie tracks,” persisted Mr. Hoggett painstakingly. “I saw them in the dales, just across the stones crossing the ditch. I hadn’t time to measure them, because the flood water rose while I stood there.”

  “Canute. . .” murmured Mrs. Hoggett, firmly controlling the mirth which unfairly tried to demoralize her. After all, Giles was in dead earnest, but he must have looked very funny standing in the pouring rain while the tracks of his bogie were “expunged” as he had said, by the rising flood.

  “So you can’t enter the tracks as evidence,” she said firmly, “nor the large footprints. They were probably your own. As for the piece of curtain you bought back, it’s true I did give those curtains to the potters; it was less trouble than burning them, and they were quite rotten, but I couldn’t swear I didn’t give some pieces to the children when they were playing Red Indians down there.”

  Mr. Hoggett looked hurt.

  “You’re not being helpful, Kate,” he said, and she replied:

  “I know I’m not, but it’s much b
etter for me to tell you all the defects in the evidence than for the sergeant to do it. Anyway I am not going to swear to anything at all unless I’m absolutely positive it’s an objective fact, observed by me, without any possibility of mistake.”

  “Of course,” murmured Mr. Hoggett, and she went on:

  “You’d much better get some paper and make a short story of it. You could write jolly good stories if you’d only take the trouble.”

  Mr. Hoggett got to his feet. “It’s no time of day to start writing,” he said. “I’m going to see the beasts are all right. That Friesian heifer has been trying to break out of the pasture into the meadow again.”

  “None of your cows has any feeling for discipline,” murmured Katherine.

  True to his declaration, as always, Mr. Hoggett went to the nearby pasture to inspect his stock. He had now two cows in milk: a blue roan named Blue Belle, with the accent on “Belle” because Mrs. Hoggett said she was the ugliest cow in the neighborhood, and Suzette, a mild lustrous-eyed companionable young Friesian, black, save for graceful white lines down her flanks and a white belly. In addition to this modest milking herd was a two-year-old Friesian heifer, Lady Clare, the pride of Mr. Hoggett’s pasture. He had bought her as a small calf, impressed by her build and coat, and she had developed into a beauty, with creamy white dewlap and quarters and a broad white star on her forehead.

  Lady Clare had been fed and tended by Mr. Hoggett alone since her arrival, and she behaved far more like a domestic pet than any heifer should, running up to her master and curvetting around him every time he put in an appearance. Mr. Hoggett knew quite well that Lady Clare had broken bounds and was having an illegitimate gorge in the rich bog grass in his meadow, where she had no right to be. He found, as he expected, that his three stirks, Nanette, Patchey and Kitty, had managed to follow Lady Clare into the forbidden territory, though the sedate milking cows, and Rosie – a roan cow who was in calf – were standing morosely in the pasture, considering the gap in the hedge made by their slimmer and more athletic juniors.

  Mr. Hoggett considered the situation. If he rounded up the truants and opened the gate between the meadow and the pasture to drive them through, the stirks would almost certainly elude him again. If, on the other hand, he opened the gate first and then rounded up the trio, the cows would immediately take advantage of him and hasten into the meadow. He decided to let the situation alone until he had some co-operation.

  Leaving his own acres, Mr. Hoggett turned up toward the main road. He had an idea. Some three miles lower down the valley was the village of Garthmere, where Garthmere Hall stood above the River Lune. The bailiff of the Garthmere estate was one John Staple, a man of sixty, full of ripe knowledge concerning the land and its cultivation, and cognizant, moreover, of everything that happened in Lunesdale. Giles Hoggett decided to consult John Staple concerning his present problem at Wenningby Barns, for not only was Staple knowledgeable about local matters, but he had had experience of detective procedure when a chief inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department had come to Garthmere the previous year to investigate the death of old Robert Garth.

  Staple had formed a real regard for the Scotland Yard man, whom he held to be a man of notable common sense, willing to profit by the experience of others, and not at all a daft southerner. Mr. Hoggett had heard that this same chief inspector had fulfilled a promise made to John Staple and had come up to lend a hand at haymaking. Report had it that C.I.D. man had shaped well for a novice, and by the end of his week had been fit to trust with most of the jobs at haymaking for the simple reason that he did just what he was told, “and a power o’ folk ha’n’t the sense to do that” as old Bob Moffat had said.

  The rain was still falling steadily, and by the time Giles Hoggett had breasted the hill to the main road, he could see the river had risen until the flood covered the dales, “a white unbroken radiance.” It was a beautiful sight, with the gray fells rising to the shoulder of Clougha in the west, and white drifts of mist settled in the hollows. Mr. Hoggett was not consciously aware of any aesthetic admiration: he had seen such floods too often; it was just part of his experience, a phase in the life of Lunesdale which had become his life, too. And the trout would be quite demoralized by now, sated, so that no worm could tempt them.

  Giles Hoggett found the Garthmere bailiff in his barn, checking up on the contents of his bins, and seeing that the gear used at harvest was well housed for its winter retirement, cleaned and oiled and in order. Hoggett looked thoughtfully round the barn, as he waited for John Staple to finish putting the hinges of a bin to rights. The disorder of this barn was unlike his own: it was an orderly disorder, from which a planning mind could be deduced. Even Katherine, excessively tidy though she was, would not have called this barn “a lunatic asylum” as she had called his.

  “Kate’s quite right. I must see to it,” thought Mr. Hoggett just as John Staple turned round with an inquiring “Eh. . . ?” – that aggregate of vowels uttered in such varying tones by all good Lancastrians, and quite inimitable to the southerner.

  “Good-day, Mr. Staple. I hoped I might find you at home today; dampish for outdoor jobs.”

  “Good-day, Mr. Hoggett; you’re very welcome.”

  John Staple was a sturdy gray-haired fellow, with a fine long head and blue-gray eyes. He spoke with the ease and courtesy of the northerner, who yet calls no man “Sir.”

  “That roan cow calved yet?” he inquired.

  “Not yet,” replied Mr. Hoggett. “I’m hoping she’ll drop a heifer; she comes of a good milking strain and I reckon she should have a good bag.”

  “Aye, I mind you bought her from Aughton,” replied Staple. “ ‘I had a cow from that same herd, a shorthorn. Five gallons she gave. Come inside, Mr. Hoggett. I’m through here, and I’ve nought to do that can’t bide till after milking.”

  Seated in the comfortable farm-house kitchen, Giles Hoggett stretched his legs to the fire and began to feel happier. Staple was the man he wanted, no doubt about that.

  “You remember the potters, Mr. Staple – Reuben and Sarah Gold?”

  “Aye, I mind them, and a good-for-nothing pair they are. If they put their noses inside my fold yard they know what to expect because I’ve warned them,”

  “Aye. I think you’re quite right,” said. Mr. Hoggett. “Have you seen them of late?”

  “Aye. I saw their outfit on the Borwick road, and I’m told Reuben Gold was seen in Yealand Conyers – but not his old woman.”

  “Ah,” said Mr. Hoggett, and his tone spoke volumes. He leaned forward confidentially.

  “I hope you’ve the patience to listen to rather a long story, Mr. Staple. The fact is I’m worried, and I’ve come to you for advice. I was down at Wenningby Barns this morning. . .” and Mr. Hoggett told his story.

  John Staple was a much more satisfactory audience than Kate Hoggett had been. He was interested from the word go. Staple knew all the habits and conventions of life in Lunesdale. He took it seriously that a man’s garden had been entered and his wood-pile meddled with. He entered wholeheartedly into Mr. Hoggett’s resentment concerning “liberties” with his property, and when it came to the list of missing objects, he saw the point without further leading.

  “Eh. . . but that looks like dark doings to me,” he said simply. “For why should a housebreaker take a sack and cord and salmon line, eh, and weights, too? I don’t like the sound of yon o’er much.”

  They sat in silence, cogitating. Had a portraitist been there, he would have been interested in the salient points of resemblance between the two men. Hoggett was more erect and slighter in the hips, but both men had the long heads, strongly marked brows and light eyes of the Norse. John Staple had never left his own fell country; Giles Hoggett had spent thirty years in the south midlands, but now, as he grew older, he reverted in appearance to his northern forebears. Sitting by John Staple’s fireside, he was just part of the picture.

  Staple scratched his short stubby gray head, and broke
the silence.

  “With the river up, what d’you reckon’s the depth of that pool down yonder end of your dales, Mr. Hoggett?”

  “Jacob’s Buttery?” queried Mr. Hoggett, giving the pool its traditional name. “I’d say it’s never less than ten feet. It may be nearer twenty today. The river scours its bed as it rounds the bend and that pool is always deep.”

  “Aye. That’s the way of it. I’ve known beasts drown in Jacob’s Buttery,” said Staple.

  “And Reuben Gold’s wife hasn’t been with him of late?” inquired Mr. Hoggett.

  John Staple did not reply. There was no need to. Both men were following an identical train of thought, in complete sympathy.

  “That’s the deepest pool for a tidy stretch, either up or down stream,” said John Staple. “With the fine weather we had for harvest the river was very low these past weeks. Jacob’s Buttery is the only pool which would serve that purpose between Garthmere and Wenningby I reckon.”

  Giles Hoggett was beginning to feel very much perturbed. Now he had to face the logical results of his own deductions, he felt like John Staple. “I don’t like yon o’er much.”

  He tried to minimize his own apprehensions.

  “Perhaps I’m making too much of it, Mr. Staple. After all, this is only guess-work.”

  “Call it guess-work if you like, Mr. Hoggett. T’isn’t guess-work about those iron dogs disappearing, is it? How much did they weigh?”

  “Twenty pounds the pair.”

  “Aye. And for why should a tramp burden himself with a weight like that, and take an empty sack and line when he could have filled the sack with good tinned victuals? I don’t see it, Mr. Hoggett. ‘Twas a big sack?”

  “Aye, a chaff sack.”

  The two were silent again. Both knew all about the capacity of sacks.

  At last Mr. Hoggett broke out:

  “What ought I do? If I go to the sergeant with a tale like this he’d tell me I was imagining things.”