“When you were up there, did you ever see anybody about, Healey?” asked Macdonald.
‘‘None but your chap, Jock Shearling. Jock he came and had a look, and said, ‘I could do with this shippon. We haven’t got all the standing room we needs,’ and I said, ‘You talk to my boss about that. I’ve had enough of this ’eathen ’ill you call the fell side.” He broke off and then added: “I didn’t see anybody around but Jock, but since you’re asking, I’ll tell you this. I sometimes wondered if there wasn’t someone dossing down in the hay loft there.”
“What made you think that?”
“Well, ’twas the way my dog carried on. She’s a good dog, Patsy, and one day she rushed round that barn like a mad thing, aye, and she went up that ladder to the loft, a thing she don’t often do. And I thought, ‘Sure to goodness, ’tis the rats she’s after.’ But when next I went up to the loft, to pitch the hay down to fodder the beasts, I had a look round and I thought, ‘Someone’s been making free with this hay.’ ’Twas all bundled up against the wall, and I thought ‘Someone’s been sleeping up here,’ nice and warm it’d be, under the hay, with the beasts down below, wonderful hot, ’tis, in a shippon when that’s full of beasts. But I couldn’t see nought, and I thought, well, if some poor soul was benighted up in those hills, I wouldn’t grudge him a bed in the hay. I looked around, careful-like, other days, but I never saw no more signs, so happen he didn’t come again.”
“Did you ever report it to Mr. Brough?” asked Macdonald.
“I told him I thought someone had been around the shippon, but I didn’t say much in case he told me to go and look around of a night. And he said, ‘That’s a perishing long way off—and I don’t want to lose no stock. It can happen,’ he said, and ’twas after that he said as how it wasn’t worth while using that shippon. ‘There’s those gangers, out on Bowland,’ he said. ‘Maybe some of them know how to drive a bullock,’ and I said, ‘Happen they do—and know a butcher who’s not that particular where a good beast comes from.’ But ’twas all right, we lost nought, and your Jock Shearling’s nearer at hand and he can keep an eye on things.”
2
As Macdonald walked back to his car, he pondered over the story he had just heard and pondered, too, over the fact that Mr. Brough had had various reasons to impel him to make an inspection of High Garth, reasons which he had not imparted to Macdonald. There was the probability, known to a number of people in the locality, that old Nat Borwick had hidden his money in the house or buildings at High Garth. There was Tim Healey’s story of someone sleeping in the barn.
Before he left the valley road, Macdonald telephoned to Bord, who had just got back to Carnton. There was no telephone at Fellcock and it would cost a lot of money to get a line out there. Neither, of course, was there any telephone at the pipe-line camp out on Bowland, but Bord had hurried back and he was about to tell Macdonald that the gangers could be counted out so far as any illicit activities in the afternoon were concerned.
“And the same goes for Brough’s men,” said Macdonald. “I went along there to have a look at them. Now I’m going home to talk to Jock and Betty Shearling.”
“Right,” said Bord, “and the C.C.’s fixed things up with your boss, and you’re to go to Leverstone tomorrow. I hope you’ll pick up something helpful: we’re drawing blanks everywhere so far.”
“Well, we haven’t had very long to work in,” said Macdonald. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Betty was looking out for him when he arrived at Fellcock. “Your fire’s burning nicely, Mr. Macdonald, and the kettle’s boiling. I’ve made you some sandwiches and there’s a whole pile of savoury toast, all sizzling hot.”
“And I’m ready for it,” said Macdonald. “When you’ve made the tea, come in and pour it out for me, Betty. I want to talk to you.”
She came into Macdonald’s room with the teapot and poured out sedately, seeing that the toast was near to hand. She had a serenely capable way with her and was never shy with “the gaffer,” and Macdonald found it easy to talk to her.
“Betty, you said you saw a man on the fell side at the back of the house just before Jock and I brought Mr. Brough in here.”
“Aye, I saw someone walking away. I mean I saw his back, I didn’t see his face, and I thought, ‘It’ll be one of Mr. Brough’s men, come to round up them bullocks, the black Aberdeen Angus he’s so proud of.’ They break the fences sometimes and come round the back. Jock says they scent the hay and root crops he puts out for our store cattle. I thought, ‘That’ll be Tim Healey,’ because it’s him who always came up here to see to Mr. Brough’s beasts, and when Mr. Brough came up in his car, wanting to look over his stock, he’d send Healey up here to round the beasts up. But after I’d thought, I knew ’twasn’t Healey: ’twas a heavier man than Healey. It might have been Metcalf, he’s a soldier build, but I can’t rightly say. His back was all I saw, and he’d got a cap on, pulled right down, like the caps they mostly wear for milking, when their heads are against the cow’s flanks.”
“How long did you see him for? Was he hurrying?”
“No. I’d have noticed if he’d hurried. Farm chaps don’t often hurry, they take their time. I saw
