“Was 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 best 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 finger-prints on that bag—if there are any to identify.”
“If there aren’t, that’s proof the job’s phoney,” 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 such a nice straightforward story. Devout dame, a bit weak in the upper storey, goes wandering in the moonlight at midsummer with a nice fat bag under her arm. Tramp sees her, bats her one with his cudgel, steals bag and rolls dame in river. Tramp retires to hide-out in the woods, empties bag, keeps coin of the realm and burns any papers in the stove.”
“But why didn’t said tramp burn the bag, too, or at any rate bury it or hide it in the woods?” asked Macdonald. “Since he knew he’d just committed a murder, would he have left the bag to be found? Of course he wouldn’t.”
“I’m not so sure, chief. How often have bags been found after being emptied of their contents? You know the answer to that one. And you can’t burn a bag completely: the metal frame’s almost indestructible.”
“But you could bury it, or shove it down a rabbit burrow, or wedge it under a rock in the river,” objected Macdonald. “To burn the papers and leave the bag argues a very silly tramp. However, if you’ve finished chewing carrots, come and do your stuff on the bag.”
4
“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Macdonald.
He sat and looked at the bag thoughtfully. When it had been new, initials had been stamped on it in gold—M.E.T. There was very little of the gold left, but the die stamp was still clear enough. There were no finger-prints on the worn surface of the
