The Lake District Murder (British Library Crime Classics) (29 page)

“What about his sale returns?”

“Nothing doing, Inspector. An Excise official has no entry to a publican’s books. It’s his duty to keep a check on the actual stock and premises. Nothing more.”

“Suppose your supposition is right. What action would you suggest that we take?”

Maltman considered the point carefully for a moment, toying with the pens and pencils on his desk. Then he looked up and suggested:

“Why not buy a bottle of whisky from ‘The Admiral’? We could then compare it with a genuine bottle of the same brand bought at a safe place. If on analysis we can prove that the blend has been tampered with—well, that’s all we need know, isn’t it?”

“A sure test, you think?”

“Not absolutely,” admitted Maltman. “Blends of the same brand vary. But the difference in this case would be too marked to leave us much in doubt.”

Meredith nodded.

“That would certainly take us part of the way but not the whole road. We’d still have to prove that the stuff was being tampered with on the premises.”

Maltman laughed and looked across at the Inspector with a knowing look in his twinkling eyes.

“In other words—a search of the premises! All right, Inspector. I’m game—if that’s what you’re after. When shall it be?”

“To-day?”

“Good enough. We’ll tackle ‘The Admiral’. I’m about due to take a look round there, so our appearance won’t start a panic. Are you known in this district? You’re not? Good! Then you’re being trained up to the job of Excise official. I’m showing you the ropes. You’re a bit old for an apprentice but we’ll let that pass. Shall we say two-thirty outside ‘The Admiral’?”

“Splendid! I want to have a word with the local Superintendent, then I’ll get some lunch and meet you outside the pub.” Meredith rose and grabbed up his hat from Maltman’s untidy desk. “And if we don’t find something startling it won’t be for the want of trying!”

And after the exchange of a few bantering remarks he jumped on to the saddle of his motor-cycle and headed for the Whitehaven police station.

At two-thirty, after an excellent lunch, Meredith turned into the top of Queen Ann Street and sauntered toward the imposing façade of the old-fashioned hotel. Maltman was already waiting for him under the glass awning of the entrance to the saloon-bar.

“We’ll have to go in through the hotel,” he explained. “It’s after closing-time. Let me do the talking in case Beltinge—that’s the proprietor—asks any awkward questions. I don’t think he will, but be on your guard.”

The Inspector nodded and the two men passed into the dark and dingy reception-hall. Maltman, who knew his way about, turned down a long panelled corridor and rapped smartly on a door labelled “Office”. A wheezy voice bade them enter.

Mr. Beltinge was seated in an arm-chair before a roaring fire with a sheaf of papers on his lap. He was a moon-faced, unhealthy, stout individual with long, drooping moustaches and tiny black eyes. On seeing Maltman he rose cumbersomely from his chair and extended a podgy hand.

“Afternoon, Mr. Maltman. A pleasant surprise this! I was wondering when you were going to take it into your head to look us up again. Take a pew, won’t you?” He cast an inquiring glance at Meredith. “And you too, sir.”

Maltman shook his head.

“We really haven’t got time to spare, thanks all the same, Mr. Beltinge. I’d like to do the round straight away, if it’s all the same to you. Let me introduce Mr. Johnson to you. He’s working in with me for a time. Learning up the practical side of the Excise business.”

“Pleased to meet you,” wheezed Beltinge. “You’ll excuse all this litter, but I’m behind-hand with my books. Sorry you can’t stay for a chat, but I know what busy chaps you officials are! Do you want me to come round with you, Mr. Maltman?”

“No thanks. There’s really no need. Just a routine inspection. If you’ll give me the usual details of your stock and all the rest of it, we’ll just wander round on our own.”

Beltinge waved a plump hand toward the scattered papers. “Good! Suits me fine! And I reckon you know your way about the old place better than I do, Mr. Maltman.” He rummaged in his desk and produced the necessary invoices. These he handed to Maltman, together with a labelled bunch of keys.

“There we are, gentlemen,” he said with a husky chuckle. “And I hope you find everything in order.”

“Sure of that,” returned Maltman affably. “But England expects and all the rest of it! Well, see you later, Mr. Beltinge.”

The moment the door was closed Maltman caught the Inspector by the arm and walked him rapidly down the corridor. “We’d better snap into it,” he explained. “We daren’t take too long, else we shall rouse the blighter’s suspicions. This way!”

Unlocking a stout oak door, Maltman switched on an electric light and they plunged down a long flight of stone steps into the dry coolness of the cellars. Meredith made out long rows of fat barrels ranged along the walls, bins full of straw-hooded wine bottles and piles of beer crates stacked high in one corner.

“We won’t waste time here,” suggested Maltman. “This is the main cellar. I doubt if they’d tamper with the walls here—too conspicuous.”

He crossed the cellar, passed through a stone arch and vanished into a second, smaller cellar which lay beyond. Acutely excited, under his cloak of official calm, Meredith followed. He saw at a glance that this second cellar was full of barrels. All manner of barrels—ranging from tiny kegs to enormous, iron-hooped casks. The air was redolent with the pungent odour of beer. High up in the left wall was a small grille, through which streamed a pale wash of April sunlight.

Meredith seized on this at once.

“Where does that give on to? Any idea, Maltman?”

The garage yard, I imagine. Here, steady this barrel while I take a look.” With surprising agility Maltman sprang on to the top of an up-ended cask, caught hold of the bars of the grille and pulled himself up until his eyes were level with the opening. “I’m right,” he announced. “This wall flanks the end of the yard. I can see straight out into Jackson’s Mews. We’re just about under the lock-up garages.”

“And the Nonock pump? Can you see that?”

“Yes. It’s about eighteen to twenty feet from this grille.”

“Good!” exclaimed Meredith. “So if the spirit is being passed into the secret vault via the petrol pump, the entrance must be somewhere in this particular wall?”

“Looks like it,” agreed Maltman as he regained terra firma. “Suppose we start one at each end and run the tape over it.”

Without wasting a moment they got down to work.

Except for three or four large casks firmly fixed on trestles the wall was blank. It presented no buttresses or recesses, but stretched from one side of the cellar to the other, an unbroken, whitewashed wall of stone. But Meredith refused to be disheartened by its apparent solidity. Snatching up a spigot from the floor he began, with his usual thoroughness, to sound every inch of the surface. For ten minutes he and Maltman continued with this task until every stone in the wall had been meticulously tested. But the result was nil. Every stone seemed to be tightly cemented in place and there was no suggestion of hollowness in the whole length of the wall.

“Well, that’s that!” observed Maltman, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “What now?”

“The floor,” replied Meredith tersely. “There might be a trap leading to a shaft driven under the wall. That would account for its apparent solidity, anyway. If there is a trap I think we can rely on it being this side of the cellar. They wouldn’t want to make that shaft longer than was absolutely essential. Suppose we test a strip eight feet wide? That should tell us if we’re on the right track or not.”

“Right!” said Maltman incisively. “Let’s jump to it!”

Another ten minutes of frantic tapping and listening followed. But the result was the same. Everything was normal. There was no trap in the floor—not even the slightest suggestion of hollowness.

“Confound it,” exclaimed Meredith. “I’m sure there’s an opening here somewhere. It
might
run out of the main cellar, of course, with a right-angled shaft to bring it to the rear of the Nonock pump. But this seems the obvious place. Twenty feet from the pump! We
must
be right, Maltman!”

“Doesn’t look as if we are, for all that,” commented the excise official. “We’ve been over every inch of that wall and along this strip of the flooring. And there’s not——”

“Hold on!” exclaimed Meredith, clipping his fingers. “You’ve given me an idea. You say that we’ve been over
every inch
of that wall?”

“Well, we have!”

Meredith shook his head.

“That’s just where you’re wrong. We haven’t! What about those barrels? There’s a circular spot behind each of those casks that we haven’t tested. “Come on, Maltman, help me to drag these trestles away from the wall. I shan’t be satisfied with our test until we’ve had a look behind the barrels.”

Seizing hold of the first trestle they tugged with all their might. The trestle refused to budge.

“Good heavens,” cried Maltman. “They’re fixed. Look, they’re clamped on to the stone!”

“And the barrels are clamped on to the trestles,” added Meredith. “Surely that isn’t usual, Maltman?”

“Extraordinary,” said Maltman in puzzled tones. “I can’t quite see——”

But wasting no time on further speculation he suddenly strode down the line of casks, sounding them with the toe of his boot.

“Three full—one empty,” was his report.

“Which is the empty one?” asked Meredith.

“This one. The third from your end. But I still don’t see——”

But Meredith made no attempt to enlighten the mystified official. He was already kneeling in front of the empty cask tugging at the circular end into which the wooden spigot had been driven. Suddenly the whole end of the barrel gave way and Meredith all but fell backwards on to the floor of the cellar.

Maltman took an excited step forward and peered into the yawning hole.

“But, good heavens!” was his excited observation, “there’s no——”

“Exactly,” snapped Meredith. “There’s no back to the barrel. Just as I anticipated. And I’ll tell you why there isn’t any back to the barrel—because this particular cask is the entrance to that shaft we were looking for. Clever, eh?”

“You mean?” stuttered the amazed Maltman.

“I mean that if we crawl through this barrel we shall eventually find outselves in that secret blending and bottling department. No wonder we got no reaction from the wall itself. We shouldn’t. The vault probably lies behind a good thick slab of mother earth. Our friends weren’t taking any chances. At any rate, don’t let’s stand here theorizing. We’ve only got to crawl through that barrel to make certain.” Meredith glanced at his watch. “We’ve been down here for about twenty-five minutes. Is it safe to stay any longer?”

Maltman, after a quick consideration of the point, thought that it was. At his suggestion, however, Meredith was to crawl through the barrel, whilst he, Maltman, fitted the false end into place. Then if anybody should come down into the cellar the Excise man would merely be about his official duties. If Beltinge turned up, Maltman would be ready with an explanation to account for Meredith’s absence.

This line of action decided on, Meredith, with a joking remark about obstacle races, crawled on all-fours into the cask and disappeared into the hole which had been driven through the wall. No sooner was he well inside when Meredith heard Maltman refixing the false lid and the last vestiges of light were swallowed up by complete darkness. Groping for his torch, he clicked it on and directed the rays down the narrow, arch-shaped tunnel which ran away in front of him. Although it was very airless and uncomfortable in the shaft, the cement floor was dry and the bricked arch which supported the earth comparatively clean. On his hands and knees Meredith made rapid progress to where he had already noticed a slight bend in the tunnel. Turning this corner, he came suddenly on the very thing he was looking for! The shaft continued for about another eight feet and then terminated in a small, square vault!

Gaining this vault, he was able to straighten up and take stock of his surroundings. A single glance sufficed to show that he had reached, as it were, the very nerve-centre of the racket. The little cellar was chock full of whisky bottles, some full, some empty, some labelled, some ready for labelling. Crates filled with capped and sealed bottles lay piled one on top of the other along one wall. In a corner stood a small table on which were stacked little bundles of labels and boxes of metal caps. A pot of gum, one or two wire-brushes for cleaning the bottles, several squares of wash-leather, two or three glass funnels, a couple of graduated beakers and a large tank full of water completed the apparatus. Above the tank was a tap, obviously connected up in some secret way with the water-main which supplied the hotel. From the right wall projected a short length of small-bore metal pipe, which curved down into a glass container half-full of raw spirit. Meredith saw at a glance that the principle in action here was the same as that he had seen at the Derwent. It was evident that the small-bore pipe passed through the cement side of the petrol tank and thus up into the mouth of the countersunk intake in the yard above. If he had had any doubts as to how this end of the business was being managed, now they no longer existed. Maltman’s second theory was right. It meant that genuine whisky was being blended with the diluted products of the illicit stills and sold as
bona fide
stuff over the counters of the public house above.

All the unused labels bore the wording and trade marks of recognized brands. The empty, unlabelled bottles were similar in shape and size to those favoured by certain genuine whisky distilleries. What could be simpler? thought Meredith. With a good supply of labels, bottles and illicit liquor, the ramp could be carried on wholesale. And if the other five tied houses belonging to Ormsby-Wright were fitted up in the same way, the profits from the racket must be enormous.

Only waiting long enough to verify the contents of the glass container, Meredith crawled into the shaft and worked his way back as fast as he could to the barrel. Once inside it, he stopped dead and listened. There were no voices. Only the sound of Maltman’s measured footsteps passing up and down the stone floor. Softly he tapped on the end of the cask.