The Theft of the Iron Dogs

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “I’m sorry to butt in on you like this, Hoggett,” said Barton Shand, speaking more easily now, though he was obviously out of breath. “The fact is I saw the light through the cracks in your shutters and I wondered if there was a house breaker on the premises. I just thought I’d make sure nothing was amiss.”

  “Very good of you, Mr. Shand. I’m grateful for your thoughtfulness. We’re just down here for the week-end, but the cottage is often empty. Won’t you sit down a while?”

  “Thanks. I should be glad of a sit. Running’s not so much in my line these days. I’ve been having the deuce of a time, Mr. Hoggett.”

  Mr. Shand sat down heavily in the big wooden armchair pushed forward for him, and ran a hand through his ruffled white locks. Macdonald subsided silently into his chair and Giles Hoggett sat on the edge of an ancient Victorian couch.

  Macdonald noticed that Mr. Shand had recently had a tumble; his good raincoat was still thick with wet mud and slime.

  “I’ve been very much put out by this business of thieving down here,” went on Shand. “I went into see Willoughby this evening, and he told me about his hut being broken open. He also said the police had told him you’d had burglars down here.”

  “Well, that’s putting it a bit strongly,” said Giles Hoggett mildly. “I did report to the police that some unauthorized person had been in here and lighted a fire and taken some food – but burglary seems rather a strong word to use.”

  “Can you define the term burglary for me?” demanded the other in rather testy accents.

  “Certainly,” said Mr. Hoggett, promptly and urbanely. “A burglar is one who breaks into a house by night, that is, between the hours of nine and six, with a felonious intent. I have no idea what time the unknown visitor entered this cottage. He did not break in – so far as I can ascertain. I do not know if his intent were felonious.”

  “Come, come, that’s mere quibbling, Hoggett. However, I should be interested to learn if you have any ideas as to the identity of your. . . er. . . unauthorized entrant.”

  “Why, yes, I’ve got an idea of my own, but as my wife very properly reminds me, I have no evidence,” replied Giles Hoggett. “I believe it’s the potters.”

  “I don’t agree with you. I don’t agree with you at all,” ‘ said Shand peremptorily. “I have some evidence I can put forward myself, but it’s nothing to do with the potters. Far from it. I had a word with the police about these accusations against the potters. Far from having been proven, these accusations were all very wide of the mark. I know nothing at all about the potters, but the police have satisfied themselves that the Golds were improperly accused. Now I have a very different suggestion to make – especially after my experiences this evening. I have a tenant who, speaking in confidence, is a very untrustworthy fellow. It won’t tax your intelligence very far to know who I mean, Hoggett. That fellow at Thorpe Intak – Vintner by name.”

  “Aye. The artist,” replied Hoggett. “My wife tells me he’s a very competent painter.”

  “A fig for that!” retorted Mr. Shand. “I can tell you he’s very far from being a responsible tenant. Now when I left Willoughby’s cottage this evening I ran my car along to the top of the brow in order to turn, and I saw a man disappearing down the brow. I turned my headlights on, and there was no mistaking who it was. It was Anthony Vintner. I can swear to that all right. Now can you suggest any good reason why Anthony Vintner should be skulking down the brow after dark, Hoggett?”

  “Yes, Mr. Shand,” replied the imperturbable Giles. “I can suggest a number of reasons. The man’s an artist. He may well have been studying the effect of moonlight on the flood water. It’s really very beautiful, Mr. Shand. He may even have been composing poetry – about the moonlight.”

  Giles turned to Macdonald with a gentle naiveté which nearly reduced the C.I.D. man to an outbreak of the mirth which had been welling up in him.

  “There are some lines of Sir Walter Scott’s about moonlight, Jock, perhaps you can recall them,” said Giles.

  Macdonald played up.

  “If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,

  Go visit it by the pale moonlight,

  For the gay beams of gladsome day

  Gild but to flout the ruins gray.”

  The C.I.D. man rolled out the lines as a Highland minstrel might have pronounced them and had the pleasure of seeing the muscles twitching round Hoggett’s close shut lips. Mr. Shand was obviously annoyed by this levity and he cut in:

  “Vintner may write poetry and he may paint pictures, but neither supposition explains why he first ran away from me and later tripped me up. I called to him when I first saw him, and instead of replying, he hurried on down the brow. I followed him. I was convinced he was up to no good. It’s infernally dark on the brow, and just at the steepest corner I was tripped up by a stick thrust between my ankles. I took a proper toss – it winded me for the moment.”

  “Hard lines!” said Giles Hoggett. “I’m very sorry you had a tumble, Mr. Shand, but can you be certain you were tripped up? The ground is very treacherous on the brow and there are some fallen branches which came down in the gale. It’s very easy to trip on the brow after dark.”

  “I am quite certain I was tripped up,” retorted Mr. Shand, “and I’m also certain that Vintner went on ahead of me along the dales. That’s why I came to investigate when I saw your light. Now I think you should consider this matter seriously, Hoggett. Here is this fellow Vintner. He hasn’t the money to pay his rent; his chicken farm is derelict and he’s to all intents and purposes bankrupt. I wouldn’t put it beyond him to do a little safe thieving. Now this cottage of yours – it’s deserted for weeks at a time. He may well have thought it worth while to break in and see if there were anything of value here.”

  “But there isn’t,” said Giles Hoggett. “At least, nothing of value in terms of money.”

  “Are you quite sure?” said Shand.

  He got up and stretched a hand toward the shelves in the recess beside the chimney.

  “Those old books, for instance, Hoggett. I remember looking at them one day when you asked me to come in and shelter a while – last Spring it would have been.. I was surprised at the time that you risked leaving them down here. . . This one, for instance. Fine old binding, tut. . . tut. . . mildewed. Really, Hoggett, not fair to a good book to leave it against these damp walls. Damp plays the devil with books, y’know.”

  Macdonald was more diverted than ever. It seemed that Mr. Shand did not know Giles Hoggett’s vocation before he had turned farmer. Giles remained deceptively mild; he even looked politely grateful for the information.

  “Damp?” he said gently, taking the ancient little volume in his hand. “I’m afraid it’s been damp for a long time, Mr. Shand. . . 1837. . . That’s quite a time ago. H’m. . . that’d be my grandfather Ramsden. Yes, he was born in 1825. He went to Wenningby Grammar School. We had a Grammar School here as late as 1870, Mr. Shand. Perhaps the book is damp, but it’s been here a long time, and I doubt if anybody wants a text book of English grammar written in the Latin tongue.”

  Macdonald took the book from Giles Hoggett and read the doggerel written on the title page:

  “John Ramsden is my name,

  England is my nation

  Wenningby’s my dwelling place,

  And Heaven my destination.”

  May 6, 1837.

  It was a nice little book, and Macdonald was surprised when he realized that an impulse flashed through his mind to put the mouldy little volume into his own pocket. He hastily returned it to Giles Hoggett and looked across at Mr. Shand, who was fussing over the other books on the shelves.

  “H’m. . . classics. . . Well, Hoggett, I should have these valued. You never know. . . Have you got them catalogued? No? So you may have lost something valuable. Vintner’s just the sort of chap who’d spot a valuable old book.”

  Giles Hoggett sat by his own fireside, his stockinged feet stretched comfortably to the blaze – he had fo
rgotten to put his slippers on again when he went to the door. His hands were thrust well into the baggy pockets of his ancient tweed breeches, his hair was a bit tousled and his face not quite clean – he’d cooked the supper over an open fire – but Macdonald always recognized innate dignity when he saw it, and without moving a muscle Giles Hoggett achieved real dignity at that moment.

  “I have no catalogue of the books save that in my own memory, Mr. Shand. I grew up with those books, just where they are now. I know every one of them. I know also that not one of them would be priced at higher than sixpence by any bookseller of repute. They have, as I told you, no monetary value, but they have value to me. I know them – and they are all there. Nevertheless I thank you for your concern.”

  Mr. Shand looked slightly nonplused. Macdonald, who was a good judge of men, summed up the situation pretty accurately. Barton Shand was a land-owner – quite a sizeable landowner. He could probably have bought up Giles Hoggett’s acres – if he had the chance – without missing the money thus spent. He wanted to put Hoggett in his place; he wanted to do it very much, to condescend to a simple country neighbor and show him his ignorance, but his intention was not working out according to plan.

  “Very well, have it your own way, Hoggett, but I have my own opinion on the matter and I’m not likely to change it.” He got up, and then added: “If there is nothing of value in this cottage, how do you account for the fact that it was. . . er. . . entered?”

  “I said nothing of monetary value, Mr. Shand. There was food and fuel and shelter – all valuable commodities on occasion. There were some old coats. These things may have been valuable to itinerant hucksters. I don’t think they would even tempt a man like Vintner. He may be broke, but I don’t think he’s hungry, and his clothes are rather better than my own.”

  “I deprecate this readiness to make a scapegoat of the potters. It seems to me an unjustified and unworthy attitude.”

  “I respect you for what you say, Mr. Shand. I feel rather the same about Vintner. He’s a fool with poultry and he hasn’t the sense of a louse over housekeeping, but he’s not a bad chap taking him all round.”

  “Perhaps you might think otherwise if he were a tenant of your, Hoggett.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t have been so unwise as to let him the tenancy of a rural property,” said Giles genially. “Now can I see you up the brow, Mr. Shand? It is, as you say, rough going, and it’s dark under the trees.”

  “No thank you, no thank you. I can find my own way. I wish you good night.”

  Mr. Shand went to the door and made the best exit he could, observing that the moon was still bright.

  Giles Hoggett closed the door and returned to the fireside. “The man’s an ass in some ways, but he’s not a bad landlord,” he said. “I’ve known worse.”

  “What did you think of his explanation of his arrival here?”

  “Oh, I think he was telling the truth – he’s a truthful man under the pompous stuff. He probably did see Vintner. The latter has been painting the valley in moonlight. Kate saw his picture. She said it was ‘arbtirary’ and advised me not to buy it. Do you know what an ‘arbitrary’ painting is?”

  “I think so, Hoggett. And do you imagine that Vintner tripped up his landlord?”

  “No – though I wouldn’t put it beyond him. He’s got his own sense of humor. I’ve no doubt Shand tripped over a broken branch and thought he was being attacked.”

  Macdonald stretched himself thoughtfully.

  “Would you care for a walk, Hoggett? I heard you mention the moonlight over the flood water.”

  “Aye; it’s a fine sight.”

  Without further comment Giles reached for his shoes and started pulling them on.

  “If you take the small lamp upstairs and set it on the landing, we can put this one out before we open the door,” he observed.

  “You’re a thoughtful chap,” said Macdonald. “If I open the bedroom doors there’ll be enough light shining through to give the right impression.”

  “Aye,” said Mr. Hoggett.

  The harvest moon was just past the full, and it seemed to sail overhead in a sea of luminous iridescence, due to the vaporous clouds in the high steely vault of the sky.

  Giles Hoggett closed the cottage door quietly behind them, and the two men stood still by common consent until their eyes were accustomed to the delicate black and white of the world outside. The air was cold and very still, and at first the silence seemed unbroken. It took Macdonald some seconds to attune his ears to the distant sounds of the night; the gurgle of the becks, the call of a beast in the holm-land far across the river, the faint jarring cry of a night bird, and another queer sound closer at hand, which he realized was the munching of a beast in Richard Blackthorn’s pasture.

  Giles Hoggett, as certain as a cat on his feet in the shadows of the cottage, preceded Macdonald to the gate and took a few steps forward before he touched the other’s arm.

  “Shand’s car. He’s got his headlights on.”

  Hoggett’s low deep voice seemed to be but an echo of the murmuring becks in Macdonald’s ear. Glancing upwards toward the top of the scarp he could see the glow of the headlights for a second or two and then the faint sound of jarring gears put in by an impatient hand.

  “He’s taken the turning by the church,” murmured Hoggett.

  Macdonald, keen of ear and keen of vision, admitted the other chap had got him beaten in both respects. Here, in his own valley, under the night sky, the dalesman heard and saw more quickly than the London detective.

  “There’s someone moving yonder – in the dales downstream. . .” said Hoggett.

  He turned to the right, westwards, walking parallel with the river, and Macdonald followed. On his right was the wooded scarp, sloping steeply up from the valley meadows; to his left some ancient low thorns were between him and the main stream. Macdonald fell behind a little, deliberately. Hoggett ahead of him knew the ground and could risk moving forward, loping, as it were, at a surprising speed, considering he made no sound. Macdonald felt the water over his shoes as he stepped through a small beck and perceived that he had passed the shadowing thorns and was now on the open dales.

  The moonlight shone white over the wet fog grass and made paths of radiance in the flood water, and the willows which fringed the river bank stood out black, their trunks rising from the water now; to his right the woods reached in impenetrable blackness to the level of the shining dales.

  Macdonald had time for a fleeting acknowledgment of the beauty of the moonlit valley; surely any painter might wish to study the black and white of trees and shining water – and then he forgot the loveliness about him as he realized that Hoggett had halted and stood immobile for a second before he squatted low on the sodden ground. Macdonald followed suit, and a second later he saw a sight suited to the fairy black and white of flooded, moonlit Lunesdale.

  A figure was running over the grass, and for a second Macdonald thought he was bewitched. The slight figure was clad only in singlet and running shorts, it seemed, white in the moonlight, and the slender limbs shone white too, while the head shone pale gold – a pixie figure in the cold moonlight. Hoggett seemed to have no feelings about fairies. Suddenly he was off, running at an astonishing speed, flat out, a long angular blackness, splashing through the flood water like a steeplechaser.

  Macdonald was not slow off the mark himself. With an absurd feeling of exhilaration he raced after the other, and he admitted afterwards that he wasn’t really chasing the eldritch figure of the fugitive – he was racing Hoggett. “Damn the fellow. . . he’s older than I am,” was the reaction of a distinguished member of the C.I.D. as he sent the flood water flying under the moon.

  Macdonald always believed that he gained several yards on the straight, but it was Hoggett who brought the chase to an end. He tackled in the proper spirit and the proper place, and next second the air was lively with vituperation by no means fairy-like.

  “Well, I’m very sorry, but you s
houldn’t have run away,” panted Mr. Hoggett. “If you behave like a lunatic you must expect to be treated as one.”

  He had staggered to his feet, gripping his sodden captive. This was no sprite; Macdonald could see him now. It was the poultry-farming painter. Clad in a manner more suitable for the tropics than for Lunesdale on a perishing cold evening in the back-end, Anthony Vintner’s teeth were chattering as he swore and went on swearing.

  “Now stop it,” said Mr. Hoggett, shaking him vigorously. “Your coat’s on the old thorns yonder,” he continued severely. “We’d better get it, or you’ll be getting pneumonia – and dying like those hens of yours.”

  Suddenly Vintner laughed, and his laughter echoed across the valley in peal after peal of mirth.

  “Damn and blast you, it’s funny all the same,” he gasped. “I thought you were my landlord. I meant to ditch him by the fence. All right, where’s my coat? Don’t pinch, confound you. I’m not running away from you, Mr. Giles Hoggett. Have you got a hot toddy in that cottage of yours?”

  “No, I haven’t – and I’d say you don’t need one,” retorted Hoggett. “You’re a rotten runner anyway. You can have a cup of tea and get dry while you’re explaining why I shouldn’t get you certified.”

  ***

  They found Anthony Vintner’s coat just where Mr. Hoggett had said they would find it – hanging on the old thorns. Macdonald admitted (very handsomely) that he hadn’t noticed it as he passed, and Giles Hoggett said modestly, “Well, you see I know the shape of those trees pretty well.”

  “Yes,” agreed Macdonald. “You’re several tricks up this evening – but I’ll diddle you yet.”

  They trooped into the cottage, and Giles Hoggett got busy with the fire and kettle, while Vintner crouched over the blaze and Macdonald kicked off his sodden shoes, studying the painter the while. His slim build, white skin and carroty gold hair explained why he had looked so sprite-like in the moonlight – but his hair was wet, trickles of water still dripping from the wiry curls which defied the wet.