“What’s that there, sir? Him have left us a token, seemingly.”
He was just bending down to pick something up when Macdonald said:
“Don’t touch it. That never belonged to an old hobo. It must be stolen property.”
“Jiminy!” exclaimed Greave. “That be——” He broke off and stood staring. Reeves turned the beam of an electric torch on to the floor, where a black object lay jammed between the lower sack and the match boarding. The object was a black leather handbag, a bulging, old-fashioned object, the sort of handbag which was once described as a reticule by old-fashioned gentlewomen.
Macdonald pulled the sack away, and the bag slipped on to the ground and lay flat: both its straps were broken and its clasp unloosed.
“You know who that belongs to, don’t you, Greave?” said Macdonald.
“It’s the dead spit o’ the one Sister carried,” said Greave. “Her’s had it for years. Put it down on our kitchen table many a time when her came collecting. Deary, deary me, I never thought o’ nought like this.”
“When did you come here last, Greave?” asked Sanderson, and the old man rubbed his head. He had taken his cap off, and stood looking down at the black bag as though it were mortal remains.
“That’d be a fortnight ago,” he said slowly. “I came here to lop some ash branches, small stuff ’twas, but good enow for posts for fencing. I marked mun, aye, and sawed same into lengths to make a-shifting of ’em handy-like. Then this morning I got Joe Grant to bring his lorry as near as might be—seven o’clock we started—and we got the branches into the lorry and took ’em to sawmill to get ’em sawn up, ready for Mr. Moore. And ’twas this morning I saw the door of the hut had been interfered with. Joe saw it too. And after my breakfast I went along to Mr. Sanderson’s office to tell him I wanted a padlock and hasp and staple and that, to bolt from inside and make a job of it.”
“Were the door and lock in order a fortnight ago?” asked Macdonald.
“That was, sir.” Greave turned to answer the C.I.D. man, and at the same time pulled a key out of his pocket. “I was working here all morning, Joe gave me a lift in his lorry as far as he could, and I lit the stove to make me tea. I know ’twas all in order then, and I locked mun up meself when I left. I’d sharpened my saw to cut through a trunk—too heavy ’twas to handle—and I left my files on the bench there. I missed they at once, and my old iron pan I boil water in, that’s gone too.”
“Thanks very much. You’ve told me just what I wanted to know, and told it clearly, too,” said Macdonald. “Well, I think this is our job now, Mr. Sanderson. If you’ll take Inspector Reeves back with you, he can bring my car out here.”
“Very good,” said Sanderson. “I understand I’m to leave things to you, and not report elsewhere?”
“That’s it,” said Macdonald. “It would be better if neither you nor Greave said anything about it. Otherwise there’ll be no end of stories going round.”
“I shan’t name it, sir, not even to Mother. Get a woman on a tale like this and her’ll never leave off,” said Greave.
3
It was the better part of an hour before Reeves came back in the car, complete with his own “gear,” some Cornish pasties, two bottles of beer, and a bunch of very young carrots, which he chewed with the enthusiasm of a donkey.
“I’ll go hungry when there’s any object in going hungry,” he observed, “but I work better when I’m fed.”
“In common with other domestic animals,” agreed Macdonald. “All right. Let’s sit on the far side of the shed so that we’re not an exhibit if any happen to pass this way.”
“‘Happen’ is good,” said Reeves. “Thick and fast they came at last, meaning explanations. ‘Her was dizzy’ doesn’t seem to meet the requirements after last night’s little experiment. So a tramp is provided. Not a bad effort.”
“Provided by whom?” asked Macdonald. “I agree with you that somebody’s been being helpful, though we can’t be certain until we’ve identified the fingerprints on that bag—if there are any to identify.”
“If there aren’t, that’s proof the job’s phony,” said Reeves. “Tramps don’t wear gloves.” He chewed away at his Cornish pasty and then said: “Rather neat the way Sanderson collected us and brought us along. Did it occur to you that he was being helpful?”
“I wondered a bit, but the plain fact is that Sanderson had no means of knowing that you and I were going to stroll through the woods arguing over evidence to date. We couldn’t know ourselves. It was just chance. And I’d say Greave is honest. The way he told his story was absolutely straightforward.”
“Yes. If he’d been on in this act, he’d have seen to it that Joe Grant found that bag, and they could have brought it along to Sanderson with everybody’s paw marks all over it. But it was Sanderson who saw to it that the bag was found under our very noses: and it was Sanderson who was helpful last night.”
“Maybe, but it was Ferens who suggested the experiment on the bridge. As I told you, when I went and saw him this morning, Ferens was quite straight over it. It was his idea, and he persuaded Sanderson to co-operate—not that any persuasion was needed.”
Reeves dealt with a bottle of beer to his satisfaction and then said: “You know, it’s a pretty ingenious spanner somebody’s thrown in the works. We shall find that the story of a tramp being warned off by the gamekeeper was true, and it’s
