Dishonour Among Thieves

built the whole structure of detection in the wider and more impressive sense. Macdonald wanted to learn more about Sam Borwick, the farmer’s son who had taken to crime rather than going home to work on the land. It was, in a sense, an improbable story, but the roots of it had been indicated by Brough and Staple when they spoke of old Borwick’s miserliness and the hardness of life at High Garth, a life which was not only devoid of even elementary comforts but, for Sam, entirely lacking in independence or the opportunities of doing those things which all young men want to do. Sam had no money—never a penny, Staple had said, though he must have known his father got very fair prices for the cattle he reared on the High Garth pastures. As Macdonald saw it, it was this experience of poverty, of denial of a young man’s simplest demands on life, which might have turned Sam Borwick into a thief. It was not only the poverty, the lack of a few pence to spend, it was the knowledge that his father had money, hidden away somewhere, and would not part with a penny. His son could go about in rags, but was never given a new coat. Other lads of his age could go courting, could take their lassies to the cinema, could have a pint at the pub. Sam could do none of these things. Doubtless he had searched for his father’s money, pondered Macdonald, feeling he would be justified in taking it if ever he found it. He had “done a man’s work” as Staple said and never been paid for it, so there developed in his mind the sense and conviction of the thief, “I’ll take it if I can get it. I’ve a right to it.”

It was a big heavy young constable in the cattle market area who first talked to Macdonald of “that carroty chap.” Bob Sheldon, the constable, told how he had first spotted Carrots some years ago. “Just demobbed, a whole draft of them there was, off the troopship Empire Halliday. Most of ’em had got someone to meet them, you know how it is, or if not that, they’d got homes to go to and knew what they was adoing of, if you take me. It was another bloke who said to me, ‘See that chap; he’s got nowhere to go. No one to meet him, no home, nothing.’

“ ‘That’s tough luck, mate. Where do your folks live?’ I asked him.

“ ‘Not got any folks, me father and mother died, now there’s only me,’ he told me.

“ ‘Did you live in Leverstone before you was in the army?’ “ ‘No, in the country, up north. I was a stock man. Isn’t there a cattle market somewhere in this town?’

“ ‘There is and all. I’ll take you there if you want to find a job. Why not try the Y.M. first, they’ll give you a meal and fix you up with a bed for a bit.’ ”

That was Sam Borwick’s first appearance in Leverstone. He had gone to the Y.M., with papers not his own, he had got hold of another man’s pay book, but at the Y.M. they gave him a meal and promised him a bed. Then Sam Bor- wick went to the cattle market and the abattoir. There was no difficulty over getting a job, for he was a skilled cattle drover. He could manage beasts and he had no fear of them.

“I think he must have gone straight for quite a time,” went on Bob Sheldon. “They said at the market he was a useful chap. He could handle beasts and he was used to getting them into cattle vans—aye, and he could shift the vans too, if needful. Learnt to drive in the army, he said. I noticed him around, he was noticeable, with his red hair and all, and I was puzzled over that story of his—no home, no folks, nowhere to go. I know I said to myself, ‘Your folks may have had good reason to cast you off.’ He looked a liar to me. Howsomever, he got on all right, best part of six months it’d be, in a job with Parkinsons, the cattle dealers. Then there was some trouble over a missing lorry and Carrots was questioned. Evans he called himself. Nothing was ever proved and Parton, my mate, he said he’d seen Carroty Evans around with Millstone, and Millstone was a bad ’un, an old lag. Evans said he’d given Millstone a lift, when he was shifting a lorry, and he’d left Millstone in the cab while he (Evans) went to a cafe for a bite, and when he came out the lorry had gone. It’s an old story, sir,” said Bob Sheldon, “but the lorry was found later, so no charge was ever made, but we all kept our eyes open for Carrots after that. He was charged once, stealing cash from one of the dealers in the market, and he got ten days for that, the cash being found on him. Then he disappeared for quite a bit and we reckoned he’d left the town, but Millstone was around, and Parton said he wouldn’t be surprised if Carrots wasn’t working with Millstone. Millstone was a clever thief, he watched out and he knew when there was stuff worth pinching. Parton said as how Millstone had the wits and Carroty Evans had the beef. Millstone was a little rat of a man, no strength in him, but Carrots was a great hefty lout with muscles like a prize fighter’s. If it was strength that was needed, Evans had it all right.”

“Well, it looks as though your friend Parton was right and that Carrots ganged up with Millstone over this Raine’s Wharf job,” said Macdonald.

“Have they proved that, sir?” asked Sheldon. “I never heard that Carrots was on that job.”

“They haven’t proved anything about Carrots,” replied Macdonald, “but they