Macdonald nodded: it looked that way to him, too, and he stood up and stared down at the grass and clumps of heather.
“That would ha’ done it,” said Jock. He picked up a big pebble, a heavy thing but shaped so that it would have fitted into a man’s hand for throwing. Macdonald knew at once that the pebble was no fragment of the rough outcrop: it was water-worn, smooth, and rounded. Jock was quick enough to realise the same thing.
“I don’t like it,” he said slowly. “This stone, reckon it got up here in the load I carted from the shiller bed to make our track. I threw out the big ones, I wanted to get that level.”
“That’s probably how the stone got here,” said Macdonald, “but what we’ve got to do is to get the police up here. This’ll be their job, not mine. Now go and get a hurdle and we’ll lay Mr. Brough on it and carry him indoors. He’s not dangerously hurt so far as I can tell, but we can’t leave him lying here.”
Within ten minutes they had got the farmer lifted on the hurdle and they carried him back to Fellcock and laid him on the settle in Betty’s kitchen, while she stood and looked at them with wide troubled eyes.
“However did he do it?” she asked, and Jock replied quickly:
“Reckon someone attacked him. Did you see anybody about when you went to gather some kindling?”
“Aye. I saw a fellow up top. I thought he was one of Mr. Brough’s men, come to help round up his beasts.”
“We shall have to leave all the questions until I get the police up here,” said Macdonald. “Jock, you stay in here with Betty until I come back.” He turned and glanced at Mr. Brough, who was beginning to stir and snort a little. “You can bathe his face and give him a drink of water if he comes to, but don’t let him move. I’ll be as fast as I can and I’ll get a doctor sent up.”
4
Macdonald drove down to the valley faster than he had ever driven down that hill before and those who noticed his car passing said, “He’s in a mighty hurry like, doesn’t often drive like that,” for he was known as a careful and considerate driver. “Something wrong like,” was the immediate reaction, coupled to the afterthought, “Mr. Brough, he went up to High Garth not so long since.” Country folk are quick to notice anything out of the common round, and quick to draw their own conclusions, though these are seldom passed on to any save their immediate familiars.
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
