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What for three consecutive nights could bring the manager down to the sawmill? He could not imagine, but he was clear it was not the pit-prop industry. If the Girondin had been in he would have once more suspected smuggling, but she was then at Ferriby. No, it certainly did not work in with smuggling.
This one had a precisely similar plate, but it bore the legend "The Landes Pit-Prop Syndicate, No. 3." Though the matter was of no importance, Merriman was a little intrigued, and he looked more closely at the vehicle. As he did so his surprise grew and his trifling interest became mystification. The lorry was the same. At least there on the top was the casting, just as he had seen it.
Once again Inspector Willis felt that he ought to have completed his case, and once again second thoughts showed him that he was as far away from that desired end as ever. He had been trying to find accomplices in the murder of Coburn, and by a curious perversity, instead of finding them he had bit by bit solved the mystery of the Pit-Prop Syndicate.
Hilliard realized that he was here on shaky ground, though the balance of probability was in his favor. It also seemed certain that the whole pit-prop business was a sham, a mere blind to cover those other operations from which the money came. But when Hilliard came to ask himself what those operations were, he found himself up against a more difficult proposition.
He was wondering whether he should not start an assistant on the routine business of the tragedy, while himself concentrating on the pit-prop business, when his cogitations were brought to an end by a messenger. A lady had called in connection with the case.
The failure of the attempt to learn the secret of the Pit-Prop Syndicate affected Merriman more than he could have believed possible. His interest in the affair was not that of Hilliard. Neither the intellectual joy of solving a difficult problem for its own sake, nor the kudos which such a solution might bring, made much appeal to him.
There was no disorder in the hut. Many a time have I seen sleeping men in more grotesque attitudes. But the open jacket and the blood-stained shirt told probably of a miserable being who had crept inside to die. A red triangular flag hanging limply from a lance stuck in the chalk-bank near a roughly-contrived tarpaulin and pit-prop shelter revealed the infantry brigadier's headquarters.
Motor ship Girondin, 350 tons, built and so on. 'The Landes Pit-Prop Syndicate, Ferriby, Hull. Hull, my son. There we are." "Hull! I know Hull," Merriman remarked laconically. "At least, I was there once." "We shall know it a jolly sight better than that before we're through, it seems to me," his friend replied. "Let's hope so, anyway." "What's the plan, then?
The inspector's precautions were observed, and not a word was uttered which could have given a hint to any member of the Pit-Prop Syndicate that the bona fides of his organization was suspected. Two days later, when the funeral was over, Merriman took Miss Coburn back to her aunt's at Eastbourne.
On the side of the deck was a brass plate bearing the words in English "The Landes Pit-Prop Syndicate, No. 4." Merriman was somewhat surprised to see a nameplate in his own language in so unexpected a quarter, but the matter really did not interest him and he soon dismissed it from his mind. The machine chuffed ponderously past, and Merriman, by now rested, turned to restart his bicycle.
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