Macdonald met Bord in Kirkham, and he heard the results of the investigation at the gangers’ camp on Bowland. How all the gangers had been accounted for during the afternoon when Mr. Brough had had his “accident.”
“It was a stone which knocked him out,” said Bord, “the surgeon’s sure of it.”
“A stone thrown by Sam Borwick,” said Macdonald. “I’m sure of that. There was only one point in attacking Brough at that moment, because Brough had seen Sam and recognised him, and so far as I can tell, there^‘nobody else but Sam that Brough could have recognised. He didn’t know any of the gangers, he never went up to the camp.”
“O.K., Super,” replied Bord, “but Sam wasn’t up there among the gangers. Staple went up there with me and we saw all the chaps, all forty-eight of them, and Sam wasn’t among them. They checked the gangers again last night, after someone tried to get away with one of the lorries, and all the men were there.”
“I bet it was Sam who tried to pinch the lorry,” said Macdonald. “He’d been getting practice with vans and lorries in Leverstone. You say he ‘tried to get away with a lorry,’ didn’t he succeed?”
“That he didn’t. He started the engine up all right, but instead of taking the metalled road, he must have turned on to the fell side and he wrecked the lorry in a small pit not a couple of miles from where he pinched it. We haven’t found a sign of him, nor his body neither, but I’ve had all our chaps out making a screen across the pipe-line approaches and every track a vehicle can move on. I don’t think anybody’s got away, Super.”
“We’ll hope they haven’t,” said Macdonald; “but it’s a difficult job to keep an eye on the approaches to a great stretch of open fell like Bowland. You might have an army out there, but a cunning fugitive could worm his way through. Tell me all you can about this lorry incident. Who was the first to follow up after the alarm had been given?”
“Wharton and Lawley woke up when they heard the engine start and they got another lorry out, the fastest they’d got, to go in pursuit, meaning to ram the first one when they overtook it. It was difficult, you know, the thief was driving without lights. Wharton assumed, wrongly, as it turned out, that the thief would keep to the road, it was the only way if he meant to get clear. Wharton and Lawley were just blinding down the road, hoping to overtake, when they were stopped by one of the gangers, a chap named Martin. When he heard the first lorry start up, Martin guessed a thief was making away with it and he ran after it and got hold of the backboard. It must have been a rough ride, the thing was bucketing over the fell like a tank. Martin held on until the lorry crashed into the pit. He fell off then and managed to pick himself up and run across to the road and signalled to Wharton to stop and told him where the number one lorry had crashed. He said he saw the chap who’d been driving it jump down and make off. Incidentally, Martin made no attempt to make off himself. He came back to camp and he’s working with the others.”
“Not a stain on his character,” said Macdonald. “Well, first, I’m going to have a look at the lorry tracks, to see just where those two vehicles did go. I take it you’ve examined the wrecked one?”
“We have. We can’t raise it until we’ve got a big crane. It’s a proper mess, but I’ll swear there’s no sign of the driver.”
“I didn’t think there would be. Well, I’ll go up to the camp and follow the trail of number one. After that I want to talk to Tom Martin, if he’s still there to be talked to.”
“I don’t see why he shouldn’t be,” said Bord. “He’s had plenty of time if he’d wanted to make a break. He’s working with Number 2 gang, away to the west there.”
“Then leave him to it. Have you got a man up here with you?”
“Yes, Sergeant Potter. He’s in the lorry park.”
“Then tell him to follow me when he sees me go over the fell. I’ll signal if I want him to join me.”
Macdonald went up to the lorry park and studied the wheel traces. He saw the tracks where Wharton had turned his vehicle on to the roadway and then he picked up another set which led to the fell itself and then turned along the track parallel with the pipe line. He followed these tracks until he reached the first halt, where there were clear signs that the lorry had hit the bank. To Macdonald’s mind, this might have happened because the driver had not been able to see where he was going, or it might have happened because someone interfered with the driver or gave the steering wheel a wrench. Macdonald was sufficiently interested in this to look around and study the trench of the
