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

It was pitch dark among the trees, and they had some difficulty in keeping the track until they reached the clearing. There a quarter moon rendered objects dimly visible, and Willis at once recognised his surroundings from the description he had received from Hilliard and Merriman.

“You see, somebody is in the manager’s house,” he whispered, pointing to a light which gleamed in the window. “If Henri has taken over Coburn’s job he may go down to the mill as Coburn did. Hadn’t we better wait and see?”

The Frenchman agreeing, they moved round the fringe of trees at the edge of the clearing, just as Merriman had done on a similar occasion some seven weeks earlier, and as they crouched in the shelter of a clump of bushes in front of the house, they might have been interested to know that it was from these same shrubs that that disconsolate sentimentalist had lain dreaming of his lady love, and from which he had witnessed her father’s stealthy journey to the mill.

It was a good deal colder tonight than on that earlier occasion when watch was kept on the lonely house. The two men shivered as they drew their collars higher round their necks, and crouched down to get shelter from the bitter wind. They had resigned themselves to a weary vigil, during which they dared not even smoke.

But they had not to wait so long after all. About ten the light went out in the window and not five minutes later they saw a man appear at the side door and walk towards the mill. They could not see his features, though Willis assumed he was Henri. Twenty minutes later they watched him return, and then all once more was still.

“We had better give him an hour to get to bed,” Willis whispered. “If he were to look out it wouldn’t do for him to see two detectives roaming about his beloved clearing.”

“We might go at eleven,” Laroche proposed, and so they did.

Keeping as much as possible in the shelter of the bushes, they approached the mill. Willis had got a sketch-plan of the building from Merriman, and he moved round to the office door. His bent wire proved as efficacious with French locks as with English, and in a few moments they stood within, with the door shut behind them.

“Now,” said Willis, carefully shading the beam of his electric torch, “let’s see those lorries first of all.”

As has already been stated, the garage was next to the office, and passing through the communicating door, the two men found five of the ponderous vehicles therein. A moment’s examination of the number plates showed that on all the machines the figures were separate from the remainder of the lettering, being carried on small brass plates which dropped vertically into place through slots in the main castings. But the joint at each side of the number was not conspicuous because similar vertical lines were cut into the brass between each letter of the whole legend.

“That’s good,” Laroche observed. “Make a thing unnoticeable by multiplying it!”

Of the five lorries, two were loaded with firewood and three empty. The men moved round examining them with their torches.

“Hallo,” Laroche called suddenly in a low voice, “what have we here, Willis?”

The inspector crossed over to the other, who was pointing to the granolithic floor in front of him. One of the empty lorries was close to the office wall, and the Frenchman stood between the two. On the floor were three drops of some liquid.

“Can you smell them?” he inquired.

Willis knelt down and sniffed, then slowly got up again.

“Good man,” he said, with a trace of excitement in his manner. “It’s brandy right enough.”

“Yes,” returned the other. “Security has made our nocturnal friend careless. The stuff must have come from this lorry, I fancy.”

They turned to the vehicle and examined it eagerly. For some time they could see nothing remarkable, but presently it gave up its secret. The deck was double! Beneath it was a hollow space some six feet by nine long, and not less than three inches deep. And not only so. This hollow space was continued up under the unusually large and wide driver’s seat, save for a tiny receptacle for petrol. In a word the whole top of the machine was a vast secret tank.

The men began measuring and calculating, and they soon found that no less than one hundred and fifty gallons of liquid could be carried therein.

“One hundred and fifty gallons of brandy per trip!” Willis ejaculated. “Lord! It’s no wonder they make it pay.”

They next tackled the problem of how the tank was filled and emptied, and at last their perseverance was rewarded. Behind the left trailing wheel, under the framing, was a small hinged door about six inches square and fastened by a spring operated by a mock rivet head. This being opened, revealed a cavity containing a pipe connected to the tank and fitted with a stopcock and the half of a union coupling.

“The pipe which connects with that can’t be far away,” Laroche suggested. “We might have a look round for it.”

The obvious place was the wall of the office, which ran not more than three feet from the vehicle. It was finished with vertical tongued and V-jointed sheeting, and a comparatively short search revealed the loose board the detectives were by this time expecting. Behind it was concealed a pipe, jointed concertina-wise, and ending in the other half of the union coupling. It was evident the joints would allow the half coupling to be pulled out and connected with that on the lorry. The pipe ran down through the floor, showing that the lorry could be emptied by gravity.

“A good safe scheme,” Laroche commented. “If I had seen that lorry a hundred times I should never have suspected a tank. It’s well designed.”

They turned to examine the other vehicles. All four were identical in appearance