The Lake District Murder (British Library Crime Classics) (24 page)

“Very clear and concise,” was Meredith’s comment when Gratorex had concluded. “You had no doubt that it was Wick?”

“No, sir. None at all.”

“Any idea as to what was emptied from the drum?”

“No, sir. When Wick was safe back in the cottage I cut up through the wood again and took a look into the beck. But although I made a close examination with my torch I found nothing in the way of a clue.”

“The beck was flowing fast at that point?”

“Very, sir. In spate after Saturday’s rain.”

“Then anything thrown in at that point would soon be carried away,” observed Meredith. “How big was the drum?”

“I should say it held about four gallons, sir.”

“Who’s on duty at the Lothwaite to-night?”

“I am, sir.”

“Very well. I shall join you there at eleven o’clock.”

Meredith, with his usual efficiency, was there to the tick. Gratorex had just taken over from Peters, who was working the shifts with him. In reply to the Inspector’s whispered query, Peters stated that, so far, nothing untoward had taken place. He had seen the lorry pass on its homeward run about five-thirty.

“Right. That’s all.”

The man melted away into the shadows.

Then for more than an hour nothing happened. The night was intensely still, abnormally warm for the time of year, and moonlit. Meredith could just discern the outline of the constable’s features in the faint glow dispersed by the lighted petrol-pumps below. At midnight these flicked out, and save for a single light burning in one of the cottage windows the place was in darkness. Ten minutes later this light, too, went out. Meredith held his breath. Did it mean that Wick was now in bed or was he——?

He felt the constable’s hand on his arm.

“Look, sir!” came the tense whisper. “There he is again. Heading for the beck, too, by the look of it!”

“Quietly does it,” hissed Meredith. “We’ll follow him up as close as we dare. Come on!”

With infinite caution they set off through the larch trees, preceded by the dimly discernible figure of the loaded man. By the manner in which he laboured up the slope, Meredith guessed that the oil-drum was pretty weighty. Gratorex was right. It looked as if it would hold just about four gallons of—what? Oil? Meredith smiled. Hardly that. A man doesn’t empty four gallons of oil into a beck. All day he had been puzzling over the contents of that drum. Petrol? Brandy? Nothing plausible had suggested itself.

He was suddenly aware that Wick had reached the edge of the gully and set down his burden.

“Stay here,” was his whispered order. “No need for both of us to go forward.”

He waited a few seconds until Wick had disappeared into the gully then rapidly worked his way forward until he reached the bramble bushes. There, safely concealed, he watched.

Everything happened again just as Gratorex had reported. Wick unstoppered the drum, tipped it up and waited until the contents were completely emptied into the beck. Then, shouldering the drum, he climbed up the bank, passing some five yards away from Meredith, and set off at a swinging pace down through the wood. The moment he was well out of sight, Meredith, shielding his torch with his cap, made a careful examination of the beck. He then realized Wick’s cleverness. If his intention had been to rid himself of something incriminating, he could not have chosen a better spot. The beck, at that point, dropped sheer for twelve feet or more into a regular “Devil’s Punchbowl”. It was into this seething mass of water that Wick had emptied the drum. If, therefore, its liquid contents contained any incriminating sediment, which might not be immediately washed away, it would be necessary to divert the flow of the beck before this sediment could be examined.

As he was staring down into this foaming pool, Meredith was struck by a sudden thought. Had he been wrong in his surmise that the drum did not contain brandy? He recalled the exemplary behaviour of No. 4 during the last few days. What if the gang
had
got wind of the police activities? Wouldn’t their first thought be to rid themselves of any incriminating evidence? In brief—wasn’t Wick pouring the smuggled brandy into the beck?

He sniffed. There was no suggestion of any odour and the smell of spirits was notoriously strong. But if the drum had not contained brandy—then what?

A hiss cut short his speculations. Gratorex, on top of the bank, was beckoning wildly. In a flash Meredith had climbed out of the gully and dropped down into the bramble bushes beside the constable.

“What the devil——?”

“He’s coming back again,” was the whispered reply.

Gratorex was right. In less than a minute Wick reappeared with the oil-drum and repeated the entire process of a few moments before. Once the coast was clear, Meredith, for the second time, scrambled down the bank and sniffed at the water. Then he let out an exclamation of surprise. Surely there was a faint odour on the air this time? A curious odour, rather like baked bread. Was it brandy, perhaps? Or if not brandy, some other sort of spirit?

He signalled to the constable.

“Can you smell anything, Gratorex?”

The constable sniffed in turn, then nodded.

“Smells like a brewery, sir—doesn’t it?”

“A brewery?”

“Yes, sir. Maltings.”

“Maltings! Maltings!” thought Meredith, his brain a whirl of swift conjectures. Where exactly did maltings enter into the picture? Surely malting was a brewing operation? And what had brewing operations to do with smuggled brandy? Then suddenly, in a single illuminating flash, he saw the explanation and uttered a smothered cry of triumph. “Man alive! I believe you’ve hit it! A bull’s-eye! If you haven’t, I’m a Dutchman! I’ll eat my hat! I’m willing to wager every penny I possess that——”

Meredith suddenly realized that he was in the presence of a subordinate. He gave vent to an ashamed chuckle.

“Sorry, Gratorex. Only I’ve got an idea. I forgot that you haven’t the faintest notion of what I’m talking about. Well, you needn’t hang about
here
any longer. You can go off duty and get some sleep. Understand?”

“Very good, sir,” was the delighted reply.

Back at Greystoke Road, Meredith crept in between the sheets, without waking his wife, and lay thinking.

He had got it at last! He knew now what Ormsby-Wright was up to!

He had, so to speak, walked through a pitch-black tunnel and emerged into blinding sunlight. Now the whole case, like a smiling stretch of countryside, lay spread out before him. One or two necessary tests, he felt, and this part of his job was at an end. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? But that was what one always asked when, after a long and arduous struggle, the solution of a problem appeared. There were still details of the
modus operandi
to clear up, but even as he put his mind to thinking about them the shadows smoked up in his brain and he slid into the toils of a profound sleep.

But next morning early found the Inspector over at Whitehaven. There, in his Turnpike Road office, Meredith had a long talk with Maltman. It was, as he realized, the most vital interview which he had held since the opening of the dual-case. But this time there were to be no depressing disappointments. He left Maltman’s office with a broad grin on his face, certain now that the end of the journey was in sight.

Back at Whitehaven police station, he put through a call to Carlisle. In a few moments the Superintendent was at the phone. After he had made his report and modestly accepted his superior’s congratulations, Meredith made a request.

“I want a night watch kept on the Stanley Hall and Filsam now, sir. We’ve only got them covered during the day at the moment. You see what I’m after?”

“Perfectly. Righto, Meredith. I’ll see that it’s done. The men will be on duty to-night. Anything more?”

“Not at the moment, sir—thanks.”

Leaving Whitehaven, Meredith drove off along the Cockermouth road until he came to the Filsam. He found the broad-shouldered proprietor “de-carbing” a client’s engine.

“Good morning,” said Meredith affably. “I wonder if you could spare me a moment?”

The man straightened up, wiped his hands on an oily rag and declared himself at the gentleman’s service.

“The fact of the matter is,” began Meredith glibly, “I’ve heard the land behind your garage here is for sale. I’m on the look-out for a small dairy farm, as it happens, and I wondered if this place would suit.”

The man looked surprised.

“It’s the first I’ve heard about it! Mr. Transome farms the land at the back here. There must have been some mistake, sir.”

“No, really, I don’t think so. The agent mentioned your place as a landmark. At any rate, now I am here, perhaps I could use that gate of yours behind the garage and take a look round?”

“Certainly, sir, if you like. But I’m sure Mr. Transome isn’t selling.”

After thanking the proprietor, Meredith passed out through the little wicket gate into the meadows beyond. A single glance brought to light what he was looking for. Close under a stone wall, which divided one meadow from another, was a shallow, swift-flowing beck. In pretence of taking stock of the property, Meredith strolled down to the edge of the stream and began to work up it to a point where it disappeared under a low stone arch beneath the main road. The bank at this spot was muddy and clearly defined in the soft soil were numbers of large footprints. Casting his eye back to the wicket gate, Meredith could trace a faint line of muddied grass, suggestive of the fact that somebody had been passing to and fro between the garage and the bank of the stream. But although he peered under the arch he could unearth no clue as to the reason for these visits. That, he suspected, was another thing. Suspicions and proof were poles apart—but for all that he returned to the garage in a highly satisfied state of mind. He wondered if the constable concealed in the derelict barn had taken note of his movements. He glanced across at the ventilation hole and smiled. If the constable didn’t incorporate this visit in his nightly report he’d be for it!

After thanking the proprietor, he mounted his motor-cycle, passed through Cockermouth, and in a short time drew up outside the Stanley Hall. The wizened, white-haired little man came forward and demanded in a querulous voice what Meredith wanted. The Inspector adopted the same tactics and fifteen minutes later he was in possession of yet one more incriminating fact. A similar beck passed under the road, close to the garage, and again there was a defined track leading from the rear of the premises to the bank of the stream. This time, however, on account of the shaly nature of the soil, there were no footmarks.

For all that, Meredith was in a happy mood. Three isolated garages, three nearby becks, with, doubtless, three men emptying oil-drums into the water at the dead of night. And before he reached Keswick he had added a fourth to the list—the Derwent. In this case he had no need to dismount and pursue an inquiry. The beck was perfectly evident from the road, running parallel with it for some distance, before vanishing, like magic, underground. And at the point where the stream disappeared the bank was churned up with the marks of human footprints. Was Higgins back at work again? was Meredith’s passing thought. Well, he was having the place covered that night, so by to-morrow he might know the answer to that question.

Back in his office he found Gratorex waiting.

“Got those measurements, Constable?”

“Yes, sir. Width six feet. Length five feet. Depth four feet. Approx., that is, sir. We’ve allowed about six inches on the width and length for a good clearance.”

“Quite good enough for our purpose,” was Meredith’s comment. “You’d better come with me up to Wilkinson’s Yard.”

Meredith, who knew his way about the builder’s premises, made straight tracks for the carpenters’ workshop.

“Mr. Root about?”

“Down in the timber-shed, sir,” said one of the apprentices.

Meredith found the old man rooting about under a pile of elm boards. After a few exchanges about local topics, the Inspector got down to the matter in hand.

“Now, Mr. Root, I want you to make me a box-frame to these measurements. Width six feet. Length five feet. Depth three feet six inches. It needn’t be——”

“Excuse me, sir,” cut in the constable quickly. “You’ve made a mistake. The depth was four feet.”

Meredith cast a withering glance at his subordinate.

“Don’t be a fool, Gratorex! We don’t want the damned thing to show, do we?” He turned to the carpenter. “You’ve got that, Mr. Root? Good. I want it within an hour. No need for a cabinet-maker’s job. Just knock it up out of any old stuff.”

“Oh, and by the way,” he added as he was leaving the yard, “I want you to nail four strips of lead round the base.”

His next visit was to Burry and Sons, the big drapers in Main Street, where he purchased a large square of muslin. After lunch, accompanied by Gratorex, he returned to Wilkinson’s Yard, where Root was just driving the last nails into the box-frame. Meredith unpacked his parcel of muslin.

“Now, Mr. Root—I want you to tack this muslin securely over the top of your box-frame. Not stretched, mind you—but so that the stuff sags a bit in the middle. Understand?”

The carpenter nodded and in a few minutes the job was complete. Paying the man for his work, Meredith and the constable then carried the contraption to a closed Ford van, which was waiting at the gates of the builder’s yard. Once it was loaded, Meredith instructed the driver to stop on the road about half a mile beyond Braithwaite Station.

“Then I want you to help the constable here,” he concluded. “Just take your orders from him. And, don’t forget ... no chattering!”

The lad grinned and he and Gratorex drove off in the direction of Braithwaite.

At six o’clock reports came in from the Filsam and Stanley Hall watchers. No. 4 had coupled up with both places. The Filsam delivery had been run out in eight minutes—the Stanley Hall in seventeen. Meredith grinned. He was no longer interested in these time factors. He felt certain now that they had little bearing on the case. That the lorry had called at these two isolated garages was, of course, significant. It meant that his previous fears were groundless. The gang had not got wind of the police investigations. They were obligingly carrying on with the good work and supplying him with further incriminating data.