Walker again confirmed him, with the aid of a compass-bearing and the pit-plan.
"Well?" he said.
The old man pointed with his stick to some dismantled and abandoned pit buildings farther down the valley, a full mile away.
"The old Shawcliffe Pit," he croaked. "Worked out this forty year. But I knowed it well when I were a lad."
Juggernaut, suddenly seeing light, caught the old man by the arm.
"You mean," said he rapidly, "that the Shawcliffe workings run up this way——"
"No, no," said Walker, interrupting. "You are wrong, Mr Entwistle. The Shawcliffe workings all run down the other way, to the north."
"Nay," persisted the old gentleman—"not all. They thowt there were a seam this way, and they drove one road out here, if so be they might pick it up. They had got signs of it, boring. But it were a faulty seam. It weren't until Belton Pit were opened, thirty years later, that they struck it fair."
"And that road runs out this way, from Shawcliffe shaft?" asked the Inspector.
"Ay, and it must come very nigh to the Belton Workings now—nigh to Number Three. I reckon——"