The Pit-Prop Syndicate

by Freeman Wills Crofts

“And you think he moved in so that he could load up that brandy at night?”

“That’s what I think,” Laroche admitted. “You see, there is the motive for it as well. He wouldn’t join the syndicate unless he was in difficulties. I fancy M. Pierre Raymond will be an interesting study.”

Willis nodded. The suggestion was worth investigation, and he congratulated himself on getting hold of so excellent a colleague as this Laroche seemed to be.

The Frenchman during the day had hired a motor bicycle and sidecar, and as dusk began to fall the two men left their hotel and ran out along the Bayonne road until they reached the Lesque. There they hid their vehicle behind some shrubs, and reaching the end of the lane, turned down it.

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 recognized 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.”