The Pit-Prop Syndicate, Freeman Wills Crofts [books to read for 12 year olds .txt] 📗

floor. Behind the raking piles rough tree stems had been laid on the top of each other horizontally to hold back the earth filled behind them. The front was about a hundred feet long, and was set some thirty feet out in the river.

Parallel to the front and about fifty feet behind it was the wall of the shed. It was pierced by four doors, all of which were closed, but out of each of which ran a line of narrow gauge railway. These lines were continued to the front of the wharf and there connected up by turntables to a cross line, evidently with the idea that a continuous service of loaded trucks could be sent out of one door, discharged, and returned as empties through another. Stacks of pit-props stood ready for loading between the lines.

“Seems a sound arrangement,” Hilliard commented as they made their inspection.

“Quite. Anything I noticed before struck me as being efficient.”

When they had seen all that the wharf appeared to offer, they walked round the end of the shed. At the back were a number of doors, and through these also narrow gauge lines were laid which connected with those radiating to the edge of the clearing. Everywhere between the lines were stacks of pit-props as well as blocks and cuttings. Three or four of the doors were open, and in front of one of them, talking to someone in the building, stood a man.

Presently he turned and saw them. Immediately they advanced and Hilliard accosted him.

“Good morning. We are looking for Mr. Coburn. Is he about?”

“No, monsieur,” the man answered civilly, “he has gone into Bordeaux. He won’t be back until the afternoon.”

“That’s unfortunate for us,” Hilliard returned conversationally. “My friend and I were passing up the river on our launch, and we had hoped to have seen him. However, we shall get hold of him later. This is a fine works you have got here.”

The man smiled. He seemed a superior type to the others and was evidently a foreman.

“Not so bad, monsieur. We have four saws, but only two are running today.” He pointed to the door behind him as he spoke, and the two friends passed in as if to have an idle look round.

The interior was fitted up like that of any other sawmill, but the same element of design and efficiency seemed apparent here as elsewhere. The foreman explained the process. The lopped trunks from the wood came in by one of two roads through a large door in the center of the building. Outside each road was a saw, its axle running parallel to the roads. The logs were caught in grabs, slung on to the table of the saws and, moving automatically all the time, were cut into lengths of from seven to ten feet. The pieces passed for props were dumped on to a conveyor which ran them out of the shed to be stacked for seasoning and export. The rejected pieces by means of another conveyor moved to the third and fourth saws, where they were cut into blocks for firewood, being finally delivered into two large bins ready for loading on to the lorries.

The friends exhibited sufficient nontechnical interest to manage to spend a good deal of time over their survey, drawing out the foreman in conversation and seeing as much as they could. At one end of the shed was the boiler house and engine room, at the other the office, with between it and the mill proper a spacious garage in which, so they were told, the six lorries belonging to the syndicate were housed. Three machines were there, two lying up empty, the third, with engine running and loaded with blocks, being ready to start. They would have liked to examine the number plate, but in the presence of the foreman it was hardly possible. Finally they walked across the clearing to where felling and lopping was in progress, and inspected the operations. When they left shortly after with a promise to return to meet Mr. Coburn, there was not much about the place they had missed.

“That business is just as right as rain,” Merriman declared when they were once more in the boat. “And that foreman’s all right too. I’d stake my life he wasn’t hiding anything. He’s not clever enough for one thing.”

“So I think too,” Hilliard admitted. “And yet, what about the game with the number plates? What’s the idea of that?”

“I don’t know. But all the same I’ll take my oath there’s nothing wrong about the timber trade. It’s no go, Hilliard. Let’s drop chasing wild geese and get along with our trip.”

“I feel very like it,” the other replied as he sucked moodily at his pipe. “We’ll watch for another day or so, and if we see nothing suspicious we can clear out.”

But that very evening an incident occurred which, though trifling, revived all their suspicions and threw them at once again into a sea of doubt.

Believing that the Coburns would by that time have returned, they left the launch about five o’clock to call. Reaching the edge of the clearing almost directly behind the house, they passed round the latter and rang.

The door was opened by Miss Coburn herself. It happened that the sun was shining directly in her eyes, and she could not therefore see her visitors’ features.

“You are the gentlemen who wished to see Mr. Coburn, I presume?” she said before Merriman could speak. “He is at the works. You will find him in his office.”

Merriman stepped forward, his cap off.

“Don’t you remember me, Miss Coburn?” he said earnestly. “I had the pleasure of meeting you in May, when you were so kind as to give me petrol to get me to Bordeaux.”

Miss Coburn looked at him more carefully, and her manner, which had up to then been polite, but coolly self-contained, suddenly changed. Her face grew dead white and she put her hand sharply to her side, as though to check the rapid beating