The Theft of the Iron Dogs

by E. C. R. Lorac

  It was Macdonald’s turn to chuckle – he had not expected to be examined in topography, but he felt fairly confident on this occasion.

  “My home is in Scotland, Hoggett, and my way home has frequently taken me through Carlisle. Tebay is a station on the main line between Penrith and Oxenholme junction. A very good center for a linesman to live. It’s after you leave Tebay that the line begins to climb Shap Fell. Every railway man in the world know of the Shap gradient.”

  “Aye. You can pass on that,” said Hoggett, “but it’s more local knowledge we need. Tebay is on the head waters of the Lune, and the main road from Kendal to Kirby Stephen passes through Tebay. You said that Ginner had lived in Kendal at one time, and since he stayed with his railway-linesman relatives in Chapelton-Lonsale he’d have been familiar with all the places in the Kendal-Tebay-Kirkby Stephen country. So it’s not surprising that he knew a bit about Lunesdale.”

  “He ought to have known better, oughtn’t he?” put in Reeves sotto voce. “He hadn’t even the excuse of being a Londoner.”

  “That worm is too antiquated to get a rise out of this fish,” replied Mr. Hoggett with dignity, and he turned to Macdonald again. “Mrs. Soper left Chapelton-Lonsdale in 1918 after her husband died, and she went back to live at Tebay again. She was then in her early forties in Mr. Braithwaite’s opinion. That would make her around seventy now.”

  “If she’s alive,” put in Reeves.

  “I see no reason why she shouldn’t be,” retorted Mr. Hoggett. “One can count on greater longevity in the north than in the south of England. It would be a very interesting drive from here to Tebay,” he added thoughtfully, “and one could reach Kirkby Stephen on the same day.”

  “I reckon that’s a very sound idea,” said Reeves apppreciatively.

  There was a silence for a while after that. Macdonald was evidently cogitating hard and he said at length:

  “We are collecting a lot of odds and ends of information which look as though they will fit into the picture some time, but they’re uncoordinated at present.”

  “Like Mr. Vintner’s kitchen,” murmured Giles Hoggett.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say it’s as bad as that,” rejoined Macdonald, “but the bits and pieces need some reconsideration. I’m going up to see Vintner again shortly, and I hope to get him placed in the picture: after that I’m going to see if Gold will be more forthcoming – and I want more help from you, Hoggett. Gold is concerned in this somewhere, but it’s important to remember that the crime was carried out in the dales, by the river. The potters don’t frequent the dales, do they? The potters keep to the roads.”

  “Aye,” rejoined Hoggett. “I’ve never seen the potters down by the river.”

  “Isn’t there anything that could have taken them down to the river?” persisted Macdonald. “For instance, you can get good prices for rabbits in the black market, and a fortune for hares. Do you think the Golds could have gone down to the dales on a rabbit snaring expedition? Poaching, in short.”

  Mr. Hoggett shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so. No, I don’t think so. If they had set snares or traps they’d have been noticed by some of us. Richard Blackthorn would have noticed. He knows all the rabbit runs and burrows. If he’d seen anything of the kind he’d have said so, and we should all have heard about it.”

  “Well, if not rabbits, what about fish? Mr. Willoughby told me he sometimes went fishing after dark.”

  “Aye. I’ve done it myself sometimes. When the river’s low and the water’s very clear you can’t get a fish in daylight, but they’ll sometimes rise to a fly on one of the pools after dark – but the potters don’t go fly-fishing. No. Of course there’s a possibility of another sort of poaching. I’ve heard of it being done, but I’ve no evidence it’s ever been tried in our valley. If a charge of explosive is detonated in a pool the fish are killed or stunned and they can be picked up with very little trouble. Now I don’t think the potters could get fish that way themselves – but if other folks did, the potters might be employed to take the fish away. Aye, that’s a possibility. The potters might provide safe transport for the loot.”

  “That’s an idea,” agreed Macdonald, “but wouldn’t you have heard the explosion?”

  “Perhaps – but that’s not to say we’d have noticed. They detonate in the quarry on the fells across the river, and we’re used to the sound.”

  Reeves put a word in here: “That’s just the sort of game a chap like Ginner would have liked – not too much work and plenty of profit. There are salmon in this river, aren’t there, as well as trout. Salmon’s worth big mosey these days.”

  “I’m still thinking about those bits of curtain stuff, Hoggett,” went on Macdonald. He related his experiences of the morning, ending up with the fact that when he retraced his steps through the woods the rags were gone. Reeves immediately put in:

  “Willoughby? It looks mighty like it.”

  Mr. Hoggett looked perturbed. “No. Not Mr. Willoughby. That goes all against the grain. I can’t imagine Mr. Willoughby tying bits of rag on to bushes. It’s all out of the picture. Why should he? – and he wouldn’t poach anyway.”

  “Those rags are connected with the potters,” said Macdonald. “They lead to and from the potters. Now Hoggett agrees that the potters keep to the roads with their cart, they don’t come down into the river meadows or the woods, so they wouldn’t know their way cross-country as it were. Isn’t it possible some one laid a trail with those rags so that Reuben Gold could follow it without getting lost? Even after dark, provided he’d got a torch, he could have followed that trail.”

  “That’s all right,” agreed Reeves, and Macdonald went on:

  “Hoggett, you suggested, quite reasonably, that the potters were most likely to be concerned in transport if there were any illicit dealings. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that Ginner used them as intermediaries to transport his own letters and packages, and maybe that orange rag in Gold’s pocket was used as a signal.”

  “Yes,” said Giles Hoggett; “I think that’s quite likely – but I don’t see Mr. Willoughby taking any part in that sort of thing.”

  Macdonald went on: “I think it’s reasonable to assume that those rags were removed this morning by someone who knew I had taken an interest in them. Now the news that Gold had been detained by the police and his cart impounded may have got around surprisingly quickly. So far as I could see, the spot where Gold and I met was quite solitary, but I’m beginning to realize the fell-side can have eyes – as Mr. Shand reminded me concerning the events of Sunday morning. Some friends of Gold’s may have seen or learned what happened and decided to come and remove the rags from the trail.”

  “Aye, that’d be it,” said Giles Hoggett more cheerfully. “Now that other point you mentioned – about the old man who wore my coat. You have now two witnesses who have seen him, one of them a reliable witness.”

  “Aye,” said Macdonald thoughtfully. “Anthony Vintner said he saw him and so did Mr. Willoughby – but how do I know that it wasn’t Anthony Vintner who was inside the coat Mr. Willoughby saw?”

  “He said an old man,” pointed out Mr. Hoggett.

  “Aye, so he did, but any man might have looked an old man in that coat and cap.”

  “It was a good coat,” protested Mr. Hoggett sadly, and Macdonald replied:

  “It still exists – as a coat: Mrs. Hoggett wouldn’t call it a good coat, but such as it is it’s hanging on the line to dry.”

  “Eh?” cried Mr. Hoggett joyfully, using every vowel as one vowel in that indescribable Lancastrian query. “Where is it?”

  “Out yonder. It’s wet – and it smells.”

  “All good tweed smells,” rejoined the owner.

  He hastened outside and returned with the weighty and noxious garment. “Let’s put it on Reeves and see what he looks like in it,” suggested Hoggett blithely. “George’s old cap’s here, too. Good. Come on, Reeves.”

  “You try it on yourself, chum,” p
rotested Reeves, but Hoggett said firmly:

  “No. That’s no good. The coat fits me, it’s my coat, and I admit I look an old man in it, but you’re still a young chap, Reeves. We can get an idea of what a young man would look like in my coat – a reconstruction, you see. That’s the idea, now the cap. Well, well, what a difference. Hi, stop. . .”

  Macdonald collapsed into helpless mirth. First, the sight of Reeves in the antique garment which reached right to the ground topped by George’s ancient soft tweed hat was enough to make any man laugh, but Reeves had his own ideas of a “reconstruction.” Swift as thought, he had lifted the long skirts of the preposterous old coat and flung its capacious folds over Giles Hoggett’s head, and the two were wrestling together under the voluminous tweed.

  “Stop it!” roared Macdonald. “This inquiry is getting completely out of hand. Hoggett, you’ve got just what you deserved, and as for Reeves, the north country air is going to his head.”

  Reeves disentwined the good coat from Mr. Hoggett’s head and shoulders, and tottered about the garden in it, practicing “Eh” and “Aye” in varying tones, more reminiscent of an elderly sheep than of anything else.

  “Look at him!” exclaimed Hogged victoriously. “He does look an old man, a very old man. It might have been anybody inside my coat. Anybody.”

  “Aye, anybody,” agreed Macdonald, “including Mr. Willoughby himself. Thank you for the reconstruction, it has been very helpful and suggestive.”

  “There’s something in it,” said Mr. Hoggett thoughtfully. “Now I have an idea about immediate employment for myself. John Staple and Richard Blackthorn are both dipping their sheep at Great Gill today – they make a practice of doing it together to economize labor. They ought to be just about through now, and I thought if I went along now it’d be a good chance of a crack with them.”

  “That’s very sound,” agreed Macdonald, and Reeves put in:

  “I’m not in on this act. If I went too I should cramp everybody’s style. If you’re going up to see Vintner, Chief, I should like to browse about down here. I’ve heard about the bogie and the pool and the willow tree and all these fields – dales, you call them, don’t you – but I’m not on terms with them. I just want to stare.”

  “This,” said Macdonald; “is where we leave him to it. A Londoner in Lunesdale. Good luck to you.”

  A few moments later Macdonald and Hoggett set off up the brow together, leaving Reeves deep in contemplation in the garden of Wenningby Barns.

  ***

  When Mr. Hoggett reached the fold-yard at Great Gill, the air was still full of the cries of sheep who were complaining bitterly about their recent experience. Richard Blackthorn’s sheep had been dipped first and they were now in this paddock, half-heartedly attempting to pasture and then raising their heads again to lament. John Staple’s sheep were folded in a corner of the yard, standing in an unhappy, huddled flock guarded by his dog. The two farmers were lighting their pipes and old Bob Moffat from Garthmere stood leaning on his crook, cogitating contentedly over a strenuous job well done.

  “Good day, Richard,” said Giles Hoggett. “You’re through in good time.”

  “Aye, Giles, we managed,” chuckled the farmer, and Staple added: “That’s a job you haven’t learned yet, Mr. Hoggett.”

  “I know little enough about my own cattle, Mr. Staple – and nothing at all about sheep.”

  “Ah, but you’re learning a lot about detection,” chuckled Richard Blackthorn. “It’s a story and no mistake, these doings in the Wenningby dales. Fact is, we nearly drowned those ewes, Giles, with Mr. Staple here telling me the rights of the story when he ought to’ve been getting they ewes out on their feet again.”

  “They ewes is champion,” said old Moffat. “Happen it’s easier to get ewes out o’ yon trough than t’sack out o’ river.”

  “Aye, it’s a real story,” said Mr. Staple. “I told you there was summat amiss when you first told me about the sack and the iron dogs being gone, Mr. Hoggett – and now I’m told they’ve run in old Reuben Gold. He’s an owd varmint, but I’m sorry he’s had a hand in this here.

  “But there’s nothing proved against him, Mr. Staple,” said Hoggett. “It’s true he was taken in charge, but that’s because he went for the chief inspector and tried to knock him down – and got more than he bargained for.”

  “Eh – reckon he did. Yon’s an ill man to scrap with,” said Staple, seating himself on the stone bench by the barn door. “We’ve been chewing it over, Mr. Hoggett: aye, we’re like a dog with a bone – can’t leave it alone. Now then, Bob Moffat, what’s this about the big chap you did see in dales just before the weather went back?”

  Giles Hoggett sat down too, and pulled out his pipe. This was just what he had hoped for – a good, lengthy, leisurely talk: the farmers had finished their job with the sheep, they were just tired enough to be glad of an “easy,” and there was a good hour to go before milking time.

  “Aye. ‘Twas the day after we’d finished carting Mr. Lamb’s oats,” said Bob. “I reckoned the river’d be oop soon, and they ewes is like to get caught under bank. I went down to river past t’ould hull – you’ll be minding where I mean – and I walked upstream to Mr. Hoggett’s fence. ‘Twas Mr. Hoggett I thought I did see, in ‘s big coat, just by they thorns. Ah, I said, he’s a fine hefty chap these days, farmin’s been t’making of him.”

  Bob took a deep breath while the others chuckled.

  “Eh, but tha’s stouter than tha’ were that first summer, Giles,” said Richard. “Skin and grief tha’ was then. Now ‘tis skin and muscle, eh, Bob?”

  “But I wasn’t down by the river that day,” said Giles Hoggett. “I didn’t go down to the dales at all between August 28th and September 15th. Now who could it have been, Bob?”

  At this juncture another visitor arrived to swell the committee meeting. Giles Hoggett’s reaction to Mr. Shand’s appearance was, “Confound him. He’ll put old Bob right off his stroke,” but Staple and Blackthorn got to their feet with the courtesy of men seeing a visitor on their own ground.

  “Good day, Mr. Shand. Weather’s brighter again,” said Richard Blackthorn.

  “Yes. A very pleasant day, Blackthorn. I’d say I’m not far out if I make a guess at what you’re all talking about.”

  “Aye, can’t keep off it,” said John Staple. “Now maybe you can help, Mr. Shand. Bob here was saying he thought he saw Mr. Hoggett down in the dales at end of harvest, and Mr. Hoggett said he wasn’t down by the river that day.”

  “Why did you think it was Mr. Hoggett?” inquired Shand, but Bob Moffat was unable to talk with the same ease in the presence of the less familiar and more pretentious landowner.

  “Eh, I thought like t’were Mr. Hoggett,” he mumbled, and Giles took up the story.

  “Bob recognized my old coat, Mr. Shand. It’s almost an antique – not another like it in the valley.”

  “Coat? What sort of coat?” inquired Shand, barking out his queries. “The fact is that I saw an old chap in an outlandish coat on your land, Hoggett. Big long thing, flapped like a scarecrow. Funny thing, I thought it was you for a moment – but it was a much older man, bent about the shoulders and knock-kneed.”

  “Now when would that have been, Mr. Shand?” inquired Richard Blackthorn, but Shand turned and looked closely at Hoggett.

  “No. I don’t think it could have been Hoggett,” he said. “Not unless you were fooling for fooling’s sake, Hoggett.”

  Giles kept the grin from his face – he felt that Mr. Shand had some justification for his last remark.

  “No, Mr. Shand. Not guilty. I haven’t worn that coat of mine for a twelve month. My wife wouldn’t let me. Now say if you describe the coat you saw.”

  “Describe it? You’re asking rather, a, lot, aren’t you? It was an old coat. . . any color or no color. Long. It looked as though it’d been taken straight off a scarecrow. It flapped in the wind around that old chap’s spindle shanks. Now I come to think, of it, it had g
ot some color on it somewhere. Colored lining, maybe, or perhaps it was mended with another color.”

  “Aye, you’re quite right,” said Hoggett. “That coat is lined with colored material – a sort of faded green tartan. It was a very warm coat. My mother had it specially made for my father when he went abroad one year.”

  “Good God!” said Mr. Shand, and then added hastily: “Yes, I see: a very old-fashioned traveling coat. That’d be it.”

  Bob Moffat suddenly spoke up. ” ‘Twere a rare goad coat. Aye, and him that wore it had no sort of spindle shacks like. He was a gey gurt hefty chap. Aye.”

  “Have it your own way,” said Shand with a shrug; and turned again to Hoggett. “I’ve told you my opinion, and I shan’t change it. The chap was a weedy-looking beggar – well, to tell the truth, like that painter you think so well of.”

  Bob Moffat moved toward Staple’s sheep. “Happen I’d better be driving of ‘em up like. They’ll take their time and all,” he mumbled, and the dog which had been sitting watching the sheep sprang to attention, ears cocked, eyes alert. When Giles turned back to concentrate on the conversation, Staple was saying:

  “If you could fix a date, or get near it, it might help, Mr. Shand. Bob says he saw the old chap at the end of harvest.”

  “Hard to say. There was nothing to fix it in my mind,” said Shand, and Blackthorn added:

  “Can you remember the weather, Mr. Shand? Was it a fine day? The weather broke on the 15th, though the day before was poor-like. Happen the weather might place it.”

  “I don’t notice the weather like you fellows do,” replied Shand. “It certainly wasn’t wet, though. Now I wasn’t here during the first week in September, so it’d have been before then.”

  “Aye. You was away at the end of August, too. Mr, Shand. I wanted a word with you so I mind that,” put in Blackthorn.