Dishonour Among Thieves

by E. C. R. Lorac

  Macdonald found Bob Tucker, the constable at Crossghyll, toiling over a report about a minor collision. Tucker knew all about Macdonald and his face lightened as he saw the Scotland Yard officer, but Macdonald said:

  “There’s trouble up our way, Bob. Mr. Brough asked me to look round High Garth Hall with him, he got the keys from Mrs. Borwick. There’s a dead man in the house and he’s been there a long time. You must ring through to Carnton to report, and then I’ll have a word with them myself. Quickly now: tell the officer in charge that I’m here and I found the body.”

  Tucker got through to his headquarters at Camton and gave his message slowly and painstakingly and then held out the receiver to Macdonald. “Inspector Bord wants to speak to you, sir.”

  “Hallo, Bord. Macdonald here.” Tersely and clearly Macdonald gave the necessary facts, adding, “And Mr. Brough took a toss up on the fell when he was hurrying to report to Tucker. Brough is knocked out, concussed, so we want a doctor up at Fellcock as well as your chaps at High Garth— photographer, fingerprint men and all the rest. I’ve locked the house up, and I’ll go back there at once and wait till you come.”

  “Right: I’ll come out straight away: better take Tucker up with you, it’s his job to make the preliminary report: and I’ll ring Dr. Green and ask him to go and see to Mr. Brough.” Tucker, on his motorbike, went ahead of Macdonald up the long hill, and the villagers of Crossghyll stared and said, “Summat amiss. Cattle thieving, maybe. Mr. Brough, he’s often said there was some bad characters up there. That’s too far away, too lonely like.”

  Tucker left his bike at Fellcock and walked across to High Garth with Macdonald. “How did the man get inside the house?” he asked wonderingly. “That’s all locked up. I goes past there, once in a way, and ’twas all in order, locked, barred, and that.”

  “Someone broke through the dairy wall,” replied Macdonald. “This isn’t my job, Tucker, but I can’t help wondering about it. You say you inspect High Garth. Have you ever heard any talk of strangers being seen up there?”

  “Well, there’s been one story and another, sir. There’s been more than a bit of trouble with the pipe-line gang. The men sign on for a spell, weeks or months, and some break their contract and clear out. That’s not in our district, but likely they’d come down the fell this side and make for the railway at Kirkham if they were doing a bolt. I’ve heard some of the village boys at Crossghyll saying they’d met strangers up t’ fell, so I went to have a look at High Garth Hall to see there’d been no breaking in.”

  Having arrived at the back door of High Garth, Macdonald handed over the keys to Tucker. “It was just like this when Mr. Brough and I got here,” he said. “Not a sign of anything wrong. We unlocked the door and went inside. It’s a nasty sight, Tucker—enough to turn a man up.”

  He heard the young constable gasp and swallow, but Tucker stood his ground gamely and stared around.

  “Any idea who the dead man could be?” asked Macdonald, but Tucker shook his head.

  “No, sir—and it’d be hard to say. Now reckon it’s my job to put down all particulars for the inspector: he won’t want me to go meddling in there, though it looks plain enough to me. Deceased broke in through that wall there after forcing the dairy door and he went up that ladder to see around upstairs and he fell on ’s head.” Stepping aside, the young constable produced his notebook and Macdonald said:

  “That’s right, Tucker. Mr. Brough of Greenholme and Mr. Macdonald of Fellcock met outside High Garth Hall on Monday, March twenty-eighth, at 1:30 p.m.”

  “Should I write Superintendent Macdonald?” asked Tucker, but the older man shook his head.

  “No. I’m plain Mr. at this juncture. I’m here to farm, nothing else.”

  “That’s as may be,” said Tucker.

  Chapter Five

  SHORTLY AFTERWARDS, three experienced men stood and looked at the sorry remains on the kitchen floor at High Garth. All three had had experience of “old mortality.” Macdonald, perhaps, had met such contingencies more frequently than the others, but Inspector Bord of Camton had had to deal with corpses washed up on the treacherous sands of Morecambe Bay, and Doctor Lee, the police surgeon, had held his present post for many years. A young photographer had performed his gruesome task of obtaining close-ups of the dead man, and had then taken his gear outside. Bord looked at the hole in the wall and at the ladder like steps and then at the spread-eagled body.

  “Looks plain enough, or was arranged to look plain enough,” he said. “The question is, who was deceased and how long has he been there?”

  Dr. Lee turned to Macdonald. “You’ve probably had more experience than either of us of problems like this. What’s your guess?”

  “I’d say he’d been there for a year—or longer,” replied Macdonald. “How near can you get to the answer when you dissect him out? ”

  “Not very near—as you know well enough: it’s a matter of assumption, balancing one probability against another. In every exhumation where I’ve taken part in the examination of remains there’s been a wide variation in the state of same, and in those cases we knew when death had occurred. From a glance at this subject, I’d agree with your estimate, about a year: his neck’s broken, as you’d expect it to be if he pitched on his head on those flagstones. Well, the sooner we get him to the forensic lab the better. He’s in no state for an examination in situ. Can I tell the chaps to bring the stretcher in and load him up? We’ve got medicated sheets and so forth.”

  Bord nodded. “The sooner you get him moved the better. I’ll follow you shortly and we’ll see if there’s anything on him to decide identity. I’ve no notion who he can be, and there’s been no disappearance from my district the last year or so. Age? About fifty?”

  “Fifty to sixty at a guess. We’ll be able to tell you that later.”

  “Looks more like an industrial bloke than a farmer,” added Bord, and Macdonald replied:

  “It’s hard to tell: they all wear dungarees these days and ‘windjammer’ coats, factory hands, lorry drivers, tractor drivers, and stock men. Could this chap be Sam Borwick, Bord?”

  “No. Sam’s still a young chap: this one wasn’t young.”

  The stretcher men arrived, and Bord said: “Let’s have a look at this door you were talking about.”

  “I’ve got a door hung the same way at my place, with a gap at the top, like this one,” said Macdonald. “It was locked and the key was missing when I took over: I heaved it off its hinges—like this.”

  He went outside and picked up an iron bar which lay against the wall. “This was in the shippon,” he said. “It’s been handled often enough so I’m not destroying evidence.” He picked up a wooden block, set it on the ground a few inches from the dairy door, slipped the rod under the loosely fitting door, and then, levering against the wooden block, raised the door inch by inch until he felt that it was off its primitive hinges.

  “The lock’s very old and there’s plenty of play,” he said, and set his shoulder to the door, which gave with a rasp and groan until there was space for a man to sidle through. Once Macdonald was inside, Bord followed him. The “dairy,” if such it had been, was a space about ten feet long by six feet wide, and enough light came through the partially open door to show that the place had been used as a lumber room, rather than a dairy. There were some buckets, a milking stool, a small old-fashioned paraffin stove, a pile of billets and kindling, a hatchet, a broken pickaxe, and other tools.

  “What could have been easier, once the chap had got inside here,” observed Macdonald. “When you remember the way P.O.W.S cut through stone walls with nothing to help them but half a broken knife or some such, it was child’s play to hack a way through that rubble wall with all the tools lying around here.”

  Bord nodded. “True enough, Super, and that’s the way it was done, but I’d say one thing: either the chap knew this place, or he acted ‘on information received.’ ”

  “Something in that,” agreed Macdonald, “but
shall we look over the house and leave the talking till later?”

  Bord nodded. They went back into the kitchen and Macdonald said: “I’ll go and open the front door and let the wind blow right through the place. None of these windows will open.”

  He walked round outside the house to the front door, unlocked the padlocks, and turned the huge key in the gaping keyhole and set the door wide. The house was very primitive in design, built without any passages: the back door opened straight into the kitchen, the front door opened into the parlour, which had windows on both sides. Macdonald unbolted a shutter and set it open and the light shone across the stone-flagged floor. There was a fine old oak dresser along one wall, a “display cabinet,” also of carved oak, with the date 1695 carved on it, and a huge dower chest, with finely carved panels. It was obvious enough that all these pieces were valuable, as were the spindle-backed, rush-bottomed chairs, a set of six, plus a rocking chair.

  Bord glanced in from the door which opened into the kitchen and Macdonald said:

  “Nothing amiss in here, apart from a bit of plaster fallen. This was a well-built house. If my opinion’s worth anything, any collector or furniture dealer would be glad to have the chance of making an offer for the furniture. It’s uncommonly good.”

  “Aye, it’s good and maybe a collector would pay a tidy price for it: genuine old farmhouse furniture’s prized these days. Well, I don’t know if that fact’s got anything to do with our business. There’s nought wrong here. We’d better go upstairs.”

  They went back into the kitchen and stood considering the wooden ladder: there was nothing to be learnt from the treads, for plaster dust lay on them undisturbed. Dust from the rubble of the wall and dust from fallen plaster, for patches had fallen from the ceilings in the neglected house.

  “It’s a dangerous setup, if you’re not used to steps like those,” said Bord. “Those who are used to them come down facing the steps, not facing outwards: then if you slip, there’s not much harm done.”

  Macdonald nodded. “Shouldn’t there be a rope hanging there, to hold on to?” he asked. “The steps are like those up to the hay lofts above the shippons: there’s a stout rope hanging by my barn steps at Fellcock.”

  “Aye, it’s the usual thing,” agreed Bord.

  They went up the ladder to the bedroom above: it was white with plaster, but showed no footprints. “Nothing in that,” said Bord; “the plaster’s coming down all the time.”

  There was an ancient wooden bedstead, “large enow to take the whole family,” said Bord, and a rotted mattress still lay athwart it, horsehair and crude wool protruding from the rotted ticking. Another huge dower chest and another “press,” similar to the one in the kitchen, stood against the walls.

  “Reckon he come up here to look around and missed his footing going down,” said Bord.

  “Or was pushed down,” said Macdonald. “If you gave me a hefty shove when I wasn’t expecting it, I should probably go forward and there’s nothing to hold on to. The devil of this job is that it might be accident or might not. We’ll get those lads to go over everything with their fingerprint apparatus. A lot will depend on whether there are any fingerprints you can’t account for.”

  Bord nodded and a few minutes later they went down the treacherous ladder, and outside again into the fresh air.

  2

  “Why didn’t the damned old fool tell you what he knew?” demanded Bord irritably. He was talking of Mr. Brough, and Mr. Brough had been taken to hospital, snoring intermittently but incapable of speech.

  “He’s seventy and he weighs over fifteen stone,” said the doctor. “His blood pressure’s much too high and he took a toss when he was trying to run. He crashed down full length, a proper wallop, and he hit his head on the ground as he landed. As to whether he was downed because someone hit him, either by throwing a stone or at close quarters, I can’t tell you. The damage is as much shock and the fall as the bruise on his head. If he doesn’t have a thrombosis, I shall be surprised, and it’ll be a good time before he’ll be fit to be questioned—and you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t have a stroke to put the lid on it.”

  Bord felt almost personally aggrieved. He agreed with Macdonald that there was nothing to show if accident or violence had caused the death of the unknown man in High Garth kitchen, but Mr. Brough’s “accident” did seem to indicate that violence was afoot. Macdonald set to work to tell Bord about Brough’s conversation with himself and his allusions to Sam Borwick.

  “Now what are the real facts about Sam?” asked Macdonald.

  Bord was so obviously anxious to have the superintendent’s co-operation, that all talk of etiquette had been disregarded and they were talking like the old cronies which they, in fact, were.

  “I can’t tell you the facts about Sam, because I haven’t any facts,” said Bord. “There was a lot of gossip when he didn’t come home when he was demobbed: he stayed on in the Army after his term and served in Malaya, but he was demobbed in Leverstone in 1948: twenty-five, he’d have been then. One or two farmers from hereabouts knew Sam was in Leverstone, they saw him around the cattle market: he was skilled at handling beasts, and he got jobs as drover and suchlike. Folks said he was wild, living the sort of life that’s no credit to anyone, but I never heard any exact statement until Mr. Staple said he’d actually seen Sam run in, arrested when he was driving a stolen lorry. Well, it happened I was in Leverstone myself on business six months ago, and I asked the city police about Sam: they’d never heard of him. Now that doesn’t mean he hadn’t been through their hands, it means he gave a false name if ever he was picked up. You know the form, the name given is Brown, Jones, or Robinson, no fixed address, occupation, none. If nobody comes forward to identify the man charged, there’s no way of learning his real name. If it’s a charge of larceny or suchlike, it’s not worth spending the time on a wide inquiry and the chaps are sentenced under the name and description given. Anyway, there’s no entry of Sam Borwick’s name in police records, though whether his fingerprints are entered under another name is open to question. If a chap’s made up his mind not to give his real name if he’s arrested, he’s generally smart enough not to carry any papers or suchlike which will identify him. But it makes me mad to think Mr. Brough had some information about Sam and wouldn’t report it.”

  “I don’t know that he had any further information,” said Macdonald. “He was suspicious. I’m wondering if there were any rumours going round the district that Sam Borwick had been seen hereabouts: I’m also wondering if there’s any story about valuables’ left at High Garth. There often are stories about ancient houses, plate in die well, sovereigns in the chimney, coins under the flagstones. And quite often valuables have been found hidden in old houses when builders got to work on floors and chimneys.”

  Bord nodded. “And have you been wondering if Brough had an idea that if there was anything of that kind, he might as well have it as leave it for Sam? Don’t take me wrong,” went on Bord. “Brough’s respected hereabouts, known as an honest man, but there have been times when honest farmers went astray when it looked as though there were easy money to be had: you know, black-market meat when rationing was tight, false claims for government subsidies. Oh, it’s happened and I know it. It seems to me that if Brough thought there was treasure trove about, he’d have argued ‘No reason why Sam should have that.’ And he thought ‘If I’m going to have a look around to see what’s been happening, better have a witness to prove I haven’t been up to any hanky-panky.’ ”

  “Yes, there’s that, and better have company in case there’s trouble,” said Macdonald. “It does look to me as though someone watched out when Brough and I went to High Garth and that Brough was attacked when he hurried back to his car. Betty Shearling said she saw a man going across the fell and thought he was one of Brough’s hired men.”

  “It wasn’t. We’ve got his men taped,” said Bord. “Then there’s this: Jock Shearling was out there and his wife knew it. I’ve nought to say again
st Shearling, but this is the third time he’s been in a district where there’s been trouble: he was on Whemside at the time of the sheep-stealing racket, he was in Gimmerdale when Herdwick was arrested, and now he’s here.”

  “There’ll be plenty of people to remember that,” said Macdonald. “I believe Jock’s straight, and his wife’s straight, too. Now there’s another point we ought to consider. We don’t know how long ago that hole was made in the wall at High Garth, nor how often it was used, nor when it was last used. One thing’s perfectly plain: that house would have been a godsend to any chap who wanted to lie low, once he’d found a method of getting in which couldn’t be noticed from outside.”

  “Aye. Sam Borwick might have thought about that, when he was in trouble in Leverstone,” said Bord, “and Sam would have known about the dairy door and the rubble wall. Looks like Sam to me.”

  “And to me. He could have used the place himself or told his pals about it, describing the method of entry which he might have arranged for himself. There was shelter, firing, and some degree of comfort: it would have been safe to light a fire there any night. There’s water in the trough. If a man meant to five there over a period of days, he’d have had to bring food with him. Food generally means tins these days.”

  “Well, if there were tins, they were well hidden,” said Bord. “Now I reckon my first job should be to go down and see old Mrs. Borwick: it’s not a job I fancy. The old man’s had a stroke: nothing to be got out of him, and she’s not so good herself, I’m told. Weak heart and that. Not that she’ll tell me anything about that precious son of hers, and I couldn’t press her.”

  Macdonald agreed. “There are some things we know we can’t do, and thank God for it: bullying an aged mother for information about a suspect son is no job for police in this country, but you might get some information about Brough’s part in the setup. He said she handed him the keys, you could ask about that, especially as he’s had an accident and can’t answer questions himself.”