The Pit-Prop Syndicate

It was becoming evident that Hilliard was talking of something quite definite, and Merriman’s interest increased still further.

‘I dare say I’m a frightful ass,’ he said, ‘but I’m blessed if I know what you’re driving at.’

‘Costs,’ Hilliard returned. ‘Look at it from the point of view of costs. Timber in Norway is as plentiful and as cheap to cut as in the Landes, indeed, possibly cheaper, for there is water there available for power. But your freight will be much less if you can get a return cargo. Therefore a priori, it should be cheaper to bring props from Norway than from France. Do you follow me so far?’

Merriman nodded.

‘If it costs the same amount to cut the props at each place,’ Hilliard resumed, ‘and the Norwegian freight is lower, the Norwegian props must be cheaper in England. How then do your friends make it pay?’

‘Methods more up to date perhaps. Things looked efficient, and that manager seemed pretty wideawake.’

Hilliard shook his head.

‘Perhaps, but I doubt it. I don’t think you have much to teach the Norwegians about the export of timber. Mind you, it may be all right, but it seems to me a question if the Bordeaux people have a paying trade.’

Merriman was puzzled.

‘But it must pay or they wouldn’t go on with it. Mr Coburn said it was paying well enough.’

Hilliard bent forward eagerly.

‘Of course he would say so,’ he cried. ‘Don’t you see that his saying so is in itself suspicious? Why should he want to tell you that if there was nothing to make you doubt it?’

‘There is nothing to make me doubt it. See here, Hilliard, I don’t for the life of me know what you’re getting at. For the Lord’s sake, explain yourself.’

‘Ah,’ Hilliard returned with a smile, ‘you see you weren’t brought up in the Customs. Do you know, Merriman, that the thing of all others we’re keenest on is an import trade that doesn’t pay?’ He paused a moment then added slowly: ‘Because if a trade which doesn’t pay is continued, there must be something else to make it pay. Just think, Merriman. What would make a trade from France to this country pay?’

Merriman gasped.

‘By Jove! Hilliard. You mean smuggling?’

Hilliard laughed delightedly.

‘Of course I mean smuggling, what else?’

He waited for the idea to sink in to his companion’s brain, then he went on:

‘And now another thing. Bordeaux, as no one knows better than yourself, is just the centre of the brandy district. You see what I’m getting at? My department would naturally be interested in a mysterious trade from the Bordeaux district. You accidentally find one. See? Now what do you think of it?’

‘I don’t think much of it,’ Merriman answered sharply, while a wave of unreasoning anger passed over him. The suggestion annoyed him unaccountably. The vision of Madeleine Coburn’s clear, honest eyes, returned forcibly to his recollection. ‘I’m afraid you’re out of it this time. If you had seen Miss Coburn you would have known she is not the sort of girl to lend herself to anything of that kind.’

Hilliard eyed his friend narrowly and with some surprise, but he only said:

‘You think not? Well, perhaps you are right. You’ve seen her and I haven’t. But those two points are at least interesting—the changing of the numbers and the absence of a return trade.’

‘I don’t believe there’s anything in it.’

‘Probably you’re right, but the idea interests me. I was going to make a proposal, but I expect now you won’t agree to it.’

Merriman’s momentary annoyance was subsiding.

‘Let’s hear it anyway, old man,’ he said in conciliatory tones.

‘You get your holidays shortly, don’t you?’

‘Monday week. My partner is away now, but he’ll be back on Wednesday. I go next.’

‘I thought so. I’m going on mine next week—taking the motor launch, you know. I had made plans for the Riviera—to go by the Seine, and from there by canal to the Rhone and out at Marseilles. Higginson was coming with me, but as you know he’s crocked up and won’t be out of bed for a month. My proposal is that you come in his place, and that instead of crossing France in the orthodox way by the Seine, we try to work through from Bordeaux by the Garonne. I don’t know if we can do it, but it would be rather fun trying. But any way the point would be that we should pay a call at your sawmill on the way, and see if we can learn anything more about the lorry numbers. What do you say?’

‘Sounds jolly fascinating.’ Merriman had quite recovered his good humour. ‘But I’m not a yachtsman. I know nothing about the business.’

‘Pooh! What do you want to know? We’re not sailing, and motoring through these rivers and canals is great sport. And then we can go on to Monte and any of those places you like. I’ve done it before and had no end of a good time. What do you say? Are you on?’

‘It’s jolly decent of you, I’m sure, Hilliard. If you think you can put up with a hopeless landlubber, I’m certainly on.’

Merriman was surprised to find how much he was thrilled by the proposal. He enjoyed boating, though only very mildly, and it was certainly not the prospect of endless journeyings along the canals and rivers of France that attracted him. Still less was it the sea, of which he hated the motion. Nor was it the question of the lorry lumbers. He was puzzled and interested in the affair, and he would like to know the solution, but his curiosity was not desperately keen, and he did not feel like taking a great deal of trouble to satisfy it. At all events he was not going to do any spying, if that was what Hilliard wanted, for he did not for a moment accept that smuggling theory. But when they were in the neighbourhood he supposed it would be permissible to call and see the Coburns. Miss Coburn had seemed lonely. It would be decent to try to cheer her up. They might invite her on board, and have tea and perhaps a run up the river. He seemed to visualise the launch moving easily between the tree-clad banks, Hilliard attending to his engine and steering, he and the brown-eyed girl in the taffrail, or the cockpit, or the well, or whatever you sat in on a motor boat. He pictured a gloriously sunny afternoon, warm and delightful, with just enough air made by the movement to prevent it’s being too hot. It would …

Hilliard’s voice broke in on his thoughts, and he realised his friend had been speaking for some time.

‘She’s over engined, if anything,’ he was saying, ‘but that’s all to the good for emergencies. I got fifteen knots out of her once, but she averages about twelve. And good in a sea-way, too. For her size, as dry a boat as ever I was in.’

‘What size is she?’ asked Merriman.

‘Thirty feet, eight feet beam, draws two feet ten. She’ll go down any of the French canals. Two four-cylinder engines, either of which will run her. Engines and wheel amidships, cabin aft, decked over. Oh, she’s a beauty. You’ll like her, I can tell you.’

‘But do you mean to tell me you would cross the Bay of Biscay in a boat that size?’

‘The Bay’s maligned. I’ve been across it six times and it was only rough once. Of course, I’d keep near the coast and run for shelter if it came on to blow. You need not worry. She’s as safe as a house.’

‘I’m not worrying about her going to the bottom,’ Merriman answered. ‘It’s much worse than that. The fact is,’ he went on in a burst of confidence, ‘I can’t stand the motion. I’m ill all the time. Couldn’t I join you later?’

Hilliard nodded.

‘I had that in my mind, but I didn’t like to suggest it. As a matter of fact it would suit me better. You see, I go on my holidays a week earlier than you. I don’t want to hang about all that time waiting for you. I’ll get a man and take the boat over to Bordeaux, send the man home, and you can come overland and join me there. How would that suit you?’

‘A1, Hilliard. Nothing could be better.’

They continued discussing details for the best part of an hour, and when Merriman left for home it had been arranged that he should follow Hilliard by the night train from Charing Cross on the following Monday week.

CHAPTER III (#ulink_14c1b56d-c24e-5f8a-8a91-2e6902627a4e)

THE START OF THE CRUISE

DUSK was already falling when the 9.00 p.m. Continental boat-train pulled out of Charing Cross, with Seymour Merriman in the corner of a first-class compartment. It had been a glorious day of clear atmosphere and brilliant sunshine, and there was every prospect of a spell of good weather. Now, as the train rumbled over the bridge at the end of the station, sky and river presented a gorgeous colour scheme of crimson and pink and gold, shading off through violet and gray to nearly black. Through the latticing of the girders the great buildings on the northern bank showed up for a moment against the light beyond, dark and sombre masses with nicked and serrated tops, then, the river crossed, nearer buildings intervened to cut off the view, and the train plunged into the maze and wilderness of South London.

The little pleasurable excitement which Merriman had experienced when first the trip had been suggested had not waned as the novelty of the idea passed. Not since he was a boy at school had he looked forward so keenly to holidays. The launch, for one thing, would be a new experience. He had never been on any kind of cruise. The nearest approach had been a couple of days’ yachting on the Norfolk Broads, but he had found that monotonous and boring, and had been glad when it was over. But this, he expected, would be different. He delighted in poking about abroad, not in the great cosmopolitan hotels, which after all are very much the same all the world over, but where he came in contact with actual foreign life. And how better could a country be seen than by slowly motoring through its waterways? Merriman was well pleased with the prospect.

And then there would be Hilliard. Merriman had always enjoyed his company, and he felt he would be an ideal companion on the tour. It was true Hilliard had got a bee in his bonnet about this lorry affair. Merriman was mildly interested in the thing, but he would never have dreamt of going back to the sawmill to investigate. But Hilliard seemed quite excited about it. His attitude, no doubt, might be partly explained by his love of puzzles and mysteries. Perhaps also he half believed in his absurd suggestion about the smuggling, or at least felt that if it were true there was the chance of his making some coup which would also make his name. How a man’s occupation colours his mind! thought Merriman. Here was Hilliard, and because he was in the Customs his ideas ran to Customs operations, and when he came across anything he did not understand he at once suggested smuggling. If he had been a soldier he would have guessed gunrunning, and if a politician, a means of bringing anarchist literature into the country. Well, he had not seen Madeleine Coburn! He would soon drop so absurd a notion when he had met her. The idea of her being party to such a thing was too ridiculous even to be annoying.