Dishonour Among Thieves

by E. C. R. Lorac

“ ’Tis the rats she’s after,” he explained. “She went fair mad when I first brought her here; she’s caught a lot of ’em. I’m going to bring Tom and Lucy along here, champion ratters they are.”

  Tom and Lucy were cats, real farm cats, who hunted for their living and brought in rats, mice, and rabbits to consume outside Betty’s kitchen door, where a bowl of milk was put out for them morning and evening after milking.

  Having admired the sleek black cattle, Macdonald turned and looked round the barn again.

  “It’s a fine barn,” he said. “It doesn’t seem any the worse for being neglected all these years.”

  “Aye, ’tis a good barn,” agreed Jock. “The doors want painting—Mr. Brough hasn’t bothered—and I’ll bring some lime along for the walls and bostings. You see, I don’t reckon Mr. Brough wants the barn no longer. Labour costs so much, ’tisn’t worth his while to send a man up all this way twice a day to fodder and water the beasts: pays him better to winter his young stock down there, where he can keep an eye on his hired men.” Jock grinned cheerfully, and added: “Suits us: we can do with more standing room for young stock in winter, and if I keep an eye on them Aberdeen Angus, everyone’s satisfied-like.”

  Macdonald nodded. “Suits us, as you say, Jock, and it’s a pity for good buildings not to be used. Do you think Mr. Borwick’s son will ever come back here?”

  “Not him: he’ll never come back,” said Jock. “Some folks down in Crossghyll know a thing or two about Sam Borwick, though they’d never tell his dad: not that the old man’d listen if they tried: deaf as a post he is, and simple with it. He’s over eighty now and gone childish.”

  “But folks know that Sam Borwick is alive, then? He wasn’t killed in the war?”

  “Not him: came back all right, Sam did, but he wasn’t coming back here and who’s to blame him? His dad saw to it Sam worked harder than any hired man and he didn’t pay him proper. And ’twas a hard life up here, with no sort o’ comfort in t’ house, the old lady being past bothering about cooking and that. No: reckon Sam Borwick had enough and to spare of High Garth.”

  “Then what’s he doing now? Farming somewhere else?”

  “Folks say not. Lives in a town now: a real wild one, is Sam, if what’s said is true.”

  Jock gave a final glance at his beasts and the two men turned away, fastened the shippon door and set off back to Fellcock. Macdonald said: “What do you think will happen to High Garth when old Borwick dies, Jock?” And Jock smiled.

  “ ’Tis left to Sam in his father’s will, that’s well known,” he replied. “Sam’ll sell it, house, land and all, get the highest price he can and that won’t be so much. There’s not many farmers’d bid for it, it’s been let go, land and buildings and all, and that house: well, ’twas never a good house like Fellcock, a right cosy house, Fellcock is. High Garth—well, rector once called it Heartbreak House, ’tis that drear. Not that you couldn’t make something of it if you had a mind,” he added. “Same with the land: that’s sour, drainage all broken down: but nothing that couldn’t be put right if a man had the will to right it.”

  Macdonald laughed. “Well, those who five longest will see most,” he said, and Jock nodded contentedly.

  “I’m glad you’re casting an eye on it, gaffer. You come along of me sometime and we’ll look over the land, careful-like—just in case.”

  Chapter Three

  “JUST IN CASE,” echoed Macdonald to himself that evening, as he settled down by the log fire in his own sitting room at Fellcock. He had been round the flock of ewes with Jock and Betty and had been told that there should be some lambs by morning. He had helped Jock to load the trailer with dung from the midden and had driven the tractor while Jock did the muck-spreading and he had taken an axe and chopped enough logs to keep his fire going for a while. Now, pleasantly tired, he looked round his room and thought how comfortable and attractive it was. It was “the parlour” of the farmhouse, a good-sized low-ceilinged room, crossed by beams which were only a few inches above Macdonald’s head: there was a good fireplace, with stone surround and overmantel, and the mullioned windows looked out over Lunesdale and to die heights of the northwest. Behind the parlour was another smaller room which would one day be his office—at the moment it only boasted a table and chair and a filing-cabinet for Government forms.

  “Just in case.” It was High Garth that he was thinking about, and there was a sound reason for his preoccupation with that rather derelict holding. Chief Inspector Reeves, who had worked at Scotland Yard with Macdonald for over twenty-five years, had a son named George, who had just finished his National Service. George had spent some of his school holidays in Lunesdale (staying at Giles Hoggett’s cottage in the dales), and now George had determined to become a farmer, with the example of Giles Hoggett and Superintendent Macdonald to overcome his mother’s objections. (His father raised none: Chief Inspector Reeves was all in favour of a farmer son.)

  George was now at an agricultural college: when Macdonald looked at the abandoned farmhouse at High Garth, his thoughts turned to George Reeves. The place was likely to come on the market sometime, and what pleasanter neighbour than young Reeves, with the Shearlings to advise him and lend him a hand? The cultivated land of both holdings together was only about eighty acres and there would be three able-bodied men to work them, with perhaps an Irishman to help at hay time, in accordance with local custom. It all seemed to Macdonald an excellent idea: young George would marry, of course, but until he had a wife, his sister Margaret could housekeep for him (this had already been discussed).

  Macdonald laughed to himself a little, as he thought out the advantages of the scheme: he would like to see High Garth Hall occupied. He knew that there was some element of policeman’s prejudice in his attitude to an uninhabited, derelict house; too often, in every policeman’s experience, empty houses had been the scenes of crime. In addition was his thrifty Scots’ sense that an unlived-in house was sheer waste in a period when house room was at a premium. It would be a tough job to get High Garth habitable again, but no vigorous young people need shrink from a tough job.

  It was at this stage in his meditations that Betty came to the door saying: “Mr. Brough’s here, Mr. Macdonald. He says can you spare him a minute?”

  “Of course, Betty. Ask him to come in.”

  2

  Mr. Matthew Brough was nearing seventy, but he was a fine vigorous figure of a man with huge shoulders and solid girth: washed and shaved for his visit, his face was as fresh-coloured as a young man’s, his blue eyes bright and twinkling, though his sparse hair, once yellow as oat straw, was nearly white. Macdonald knew that Mr. Brough was a “solid man” in more senses than avoirdupois: he farmed two hundred acres in the valley and his beef cattle were said to be the best in the district.

  He came in and shook hands, deposited his solid person in a suitably solid “grandfather chair,” and beamed cheerfully at Macdonald.

  “You’re right cosy here, Mr. Macdonald, and young Shearling’s doing well by the land, by gum he is: them meadows are in better heart than I’ve seen them for years. Well, I thought we might as well have a crack while you’re here. You’ll know that Jock and me have done a bit o’ business, fair exchange, no robbery, as they say.”

  “Yes. Jock told me and I’m all in favour of the arrangement,” replied Macdonald. “Seems sound common sense all round.”

  “Aye, ’tis that: well, I’m glad you’re satisfied, seeing you’re gaffer,” beamed Mr. Brough. “You can guess how ’tis with me, what with labour costs these days. If I send a chap up twice a day to High Garth to fodder the beasts in the shippon—well, he takes his time over it and that’s quite a step from my place. Reckon it cost me more in labour than was reasonable, so I gave up wintering beasts inside there, and just kept them Aberdeen Angus out at pasture. Even so, ’tis better for someone to look them over, and yon Jock’s got sense, by gum he has.”

  Mr. Brough accepted a proffered cigarette and went on: “Then there’s
this to ’t, Mr. Macdonald, and you being a policeman you’ll see what I’m getting at. ’Tis better for someone to keep an eye on the place: there’s gear and that in the barn and if ’tis known that none ever go nigh the place, ’tis asking for trouble. Why, there’s been thefts of stock, too, on some fell pastures, as you know full well.”

  “Yes. I hadn’t forgotten,” agreed Macdonald. “I think it’s a very sound idea for Jock to go along to High Garth twice a day—and for people to know that he’s keeping an eye on the place. Now I’m very glad you came in, Mr. Brough. I was wanting to talk to you: I’d been wondering about High Garth. Do you think young Borwick will ever come back there to farm?”

  Matt Brough replied as Jock had done. “Not him,” and paused for a moment: then he added, “I know I’m safe in talking to you, Mr. Macdonald. You won’t go gossiping and you must have heard a mort o’ queer stories in your time. Young Borwick’s no good: he’s a real bad ’un if what’s said is true.”

  “What is said?” asked Macdonald.

  “You mind Mr. Staple? Aye, he’s a good man is Staple. He was in Leverstone a year or so ago, he had business at the cattle market. He saw Sam Borwick, being run in by the police: some matter of stealing a lorry and that. He was discharged that time, but Mr. Staple heard he’d got into bad company when he was demobilised after the war and he’d been sentenced for thieving more than once. A real bad lot he’s turned out and I reckon he’ll never turn to honest work on the land. And that holding of Borwick’s, that’s going to take some work before a man can earn ’s living there, by gum, it is.”

  Macdonald nodded. “It’s going to take a lot of very hard work, Mr. Brough, and the house must be in a sorry state.”

  “ ’Tis that, and I’ve been thinking about that house,” added the farmer. “When old Nat Borwick and his missis left High Garth, they didn’t move all their gear out: no room for that sized furniture in the little place they’ve lived in since. They just left the big pieces as they were and they’d got some nice bits—dower chests, court cupboards, old carved dressers and suchlike, which have been there hundreds of years. Borwicks farmed that land nearly three hundred years. Well, I’m wondering how much of the good stuff is left in that house now.”

  Macdonald pondered. “It’d have been the heck of a job to move it out,” he said. “There’s no road up to the house: you couldn’t take a van across the fell.”

  “No one’d be fool enough to try, but you can take a tractor-trailer oufit along easy enow, and for that matter some of those heavy lorries they shift rocks in where they’re digging the pipe line over Bowland—go over anything they will.”

  “So that’s what’s in your mind,” said Macdonald.

  “Well, ’tis and ’tisn’t. They’ve got some rough chaps up there, I do know that. The contractors put up huts for the gangers to sleep and eat in, run a canteen, and give ’em proper hot meals. They have to, the men’d never stay else, and there’s trouble enough, even so, keeping them on the job, for that’s right heavy work. I doubt if many of they chaps bother to come tramping over the fell after a day’s work to see what they can lift when they strike a steading. No, to put it quite plain, I wondered if Sam Borwick had been home to see what he could make off with. He knows what’s there, and reckon he could raise some brass on some of the old chests and so forth.”

  “It’s a possibility,” said Macdonald, “but transport would be his chief trouble.”

  “Aye. I thought it out like this: if so be Sam was cunning enough to have got himself taken on as a ganger with the pipe-line contractors, ’twouldn’t have been ower difficult for him to’ve borrowed one o’ those five-ton lorries one night, driven across to High Garth and got some of the good stuff shifted to a road and transferred to a van. Tis no’ but an idea, but I’ve thought of it, many a time.”

  “It’s possible enough,” agreed Macdonald. “If he ever thought of it, he’s had plenty of time: Fellcock was vacant for a long time so there would have been no one to notice any comings and goings on the fell at night.”

  “That’s just it,” agreed Mr. Brough.

  3

  “I was going to ask Jock Shearling if he’d had any bother with them gangers coming over, cadging eggs and that,” went on Mr. Brough. “The pipe line’s only five miles away as the crow flies just now: the surveyors planned the line so’s to avoid the rocky outcrop they’d have struck if they’d taken the line direct over Bowland: they swung north a bit, nearer to our fells, but they’ll turn southwest again from now on and the gangs won’t be so near. I’ll be glad to know they’re farther off. I never like having casual labour near farmsteads and stock, and they’re a rough lot of chaps working out yonder.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Macdonald, “but Jock’s no complaint to make about the gangers, on the contrary in fact. You’ll have noticed that our track’s been made up, Mr. Brough, and we’ve got a decent surface to drive on right up to the house.”

  “Aye, I couldn’t help but notice: that’s a right good job, that is. Makes a mort o’ difference to have a clean road up to the house and buildings. I’d been wondering how you got that done, Mr. Macdonald, unless so be the council did it for you by contract.”

  “The council didn’t do any of the work,” rejoined Macdonald. “They let us have a load or so of asphalt and road grit which they had over from the job at Greenbeck, but Jock tackled the job: he did the levelling and laid the stones himself, and finished the job with the help of one of those gangers from the pipe-line works. This chap turned up one Saturday afternoon, saw Jock working, and cadged a job. Jock said he was a good worker and they finished the surfacing together. Jock paid him at the rate of half a crown an hour and the chap seemed satisfied.”

  “Well . . . I’d never’ve believed it, never,” said Brough. “That’s a rum go, that is: them chaps up there, they’ll curse you to your face if you offer them a job in their free time, or that’s my experience when I’ve wanted some casual labour, laying drains and suchlike. And I’ve warned them off more ’n once, reckoning they was up to no good coming over farmland.”

  “Well, Jock seems to have struck it lucky with the chap who worked for him,” said Macdonald, “and there haven’t been any others at Fellcock. I asked Betty, because I know she’s often alone for hours on end and I didn’t like to think of her being bothered.”

  “Reckon she’s got plenty of gumption, Mrs. Shearling has, and she’s got a good dog: these gangers don’t like dogs,” said Mr. Brough. “Well, I’m glad one of them had the sense to lend a hand at a useful job, but I can’t help wondering what he was after when he came tramping over t’ fell. The contractors lay on a lorry to take the chaps down to the main road midday Saturdays so’s they can have a break. They won’t stick it up in the huts weekends. It’s well run, that job is.”

  Macdonald nodded. “Aye. I had a word with the manager one day: he’s an experienced man. He’s organised these labour camps for the contractors in a number of remote localities and he knows all the problems that arise when you get gangs of casual labour miles away from the decencies of ordinary home life.”

  4

  “Well, I’d like to tell you just what I had in mind,” said Mr. Brough at last. “I’ve rented Nat Borwick’s land since he gave up best part of ten years ago and I’ve tried to play fair with him, keeping up his fences and ditches and that, so things didn’t go to rack and ruin. The old man’s gone childish now, no sense he’s got: likely he won’t last long now, but there’s his old woman to think of, and she worries about High Garth Hall. I’d like to look over the house and see how things are: now you being a policeman—arm of the law as they say—I wondered if you’d come with me, so there can’t be any back-chat like, if so be we find things aren’t as they should be.”

  “I’d be quite willing to come over the house with you, Mr. Brough, but how are you going to get in? Will Mrs. Borwick let you have the keys?”

  “I sometimes wonder if she knows where the keys are,” replied Brough.
“Old Nat, he had them safe enough for years, but where he’s got them now is a different story.”

  “Well, that makes it rather awkward, Mr. Brough. We can’t break in. Now has Mr. Borwick got a solicitor?”

  “No, that he hasn’t. When I rented the land from old Nat, I suggested we’d get a lawyer to make out a proper legal agreement, but Nat wouldn’t have it. ‘Lawyers is for rogues,’ he said. ‘You and me, we be honest men and we don’t want to go paying nought to lawyers. We’ll fix what’s right between our two selves as honest men should.’ And that’s how it was,” said Mr. Brough. “Every quarter day ever since then I’ve been to see old Nat and paid him what we agreed, paid him in cash, the way he wanted it. He’s never lost by it: he trusted me and I’ve paid him his money and he knows I’ll go on paying it as long as I use the land.”

  “Well, you have your own way of doing business,” rejoined Macdonald. “You say he’s getting childish. Can he still count the money when you pay it?”

  “Aye, he counts it and Mrs. Borwick she watches him do it and he still signs his name in the same rent book we started with, nigh on ten years ago. He’s satisfied and so am I, and no lawyers getting a rake-off. What were you thinking about, asking if he had a lawyer?”

  “If Mr. Borwick had a solicitor, the latter could empower you to inspect the house on behalf of his client. I agree with you it ought to be inspected, but you can’t break in. If you talked to Mr. Borwick and told him the house ought to be looked over, do you think he’d agree and ask you to do it for him?”

  “He might and then he mightn’t,” said Brough. “He’s a darned awkward old chap, but Mrs. Borwick, she’d be glad to know someone was doing something about it. Maybe she could find where he’s put the keys. They can’t be lost: that back door, it’s got a key like the key of our old church, weighs I don’t know what: and then he had bars and staples put across them doors when he left and padlocked them. He’s got all them keys together somewhere, under the floorboards as likely as not.” The farmer sat and pondered for a moment. “If so be as Mrs. Borwick found the keys and gave them to me, would that satisfy you, Mr. Macdonald? I’d like you to come over the place with me.”