“What were you and this chap doing on the moor on Monday night, with bits of cloth over your faces?” asked Marrows quietly. “That’s a question you’ll find it difficult to answer, my lad!”
No one knew better than Marrows that this was a shaft drawn and discharged at a venture. But it went home — Madgwick’s face fell, in spite of his bravado; as for Stones, he grew paler still, and a cry half-escaped his lips. Madgwick twisted quickly in his chair and glared at him.
“Ho’d thi damned whist!” he growled. “Who says we were on t’ moor wi’ cloth on our faces?” he demanded, turning to the superintendent. “Ye’ve invented that — I know your ways!”
“Now then!” said Marrows, suddenly changing his tone to one of peremptory decision. “You were both of you packing up your clothes and things an hour ago. Where are their things, missis? Upstairs? All right — if. that’s the attitude you’re going to take, Madgwick, I’ll have your things and you taken straight off to Hallithwaite. But — I’m giving you a chance to speak because I think there’s somebody behind you!”
“Tell you we’ve nowt to do wi’ t’ owd man’s death!” asserted Madgwick. “I know no more of how t’ owd chap came to his end at them rocks than Sir Marston does!”
“Aye, but there’s something you do know,” retorted Marrows. “Come, now!”
“I know this!” said Madgwick. “I know ’at t’ law doesn’t allow t’ police to threaten folk!”
“If there’s somebody behind you, as I believe there is,” said Marrows, “I’m giving you a chance to save your own necks. But if—”
A sudden strange interruption came from the other side of the table. Stones, who had never ceased to show signs of a nervousness almost amounting to terror since the entrance of the police, suddenly lost control of himself and burst into tears.
“I tell’d thee it ’ud all come out!” he blubbered, letting his head drop on his folded arms. “Tha’d far better own up, and hev done wi’ it.”
Madgwick’s cheeks paled at that, but the pallor swiftly died away, to be replaced by an angry flush.
“Ye damned white-livered rat!” he hissed. “If I could—”
“But you can’t, my lad!” interrupted Marrows, keeping a watchful eye on his man’s movements. “And you’d better realize that the game’s up — you’re going to Hallithwaite, both of you, anyway. But if there’s somebody else—”
Madgwick turned his angry face on Stones. It was evident to everybody that the younger man’s nerve had gone; he continued to moan and sob and to roll his head about between his arms.
“I wish I’d brokken thy neck, Stones, afore ever I took thee on for a job like this!” said Madgwick, after a long look at his accomplice. “Damn thee for a coward! Well,” he went on, raising his voice and looking defiantly at those around him, “I reckon ’at if I don’t tell what there is to tell, this here feller will! But there’s not so much to tell as ye’d like to hear, Marrows, and if I do start on I shall tell nowt but t’ truth. Ye can eyther believe it or not, as ye like, but — it will be t’ truth. And I say again — neyther me nor Stones theer — damn him! — knows owt at all about what happened at Black Scar.”
“What do you know about?” demanded Marrows.
“Pour me out a glass o’ that ale!” said Madgwick coolly. “And I’ll tell you. But I’ll say this first, Mr. Spy!” he added, when he had drunk the ale which Calvert handed to him, “when I’ve finished wi’ this job, whether it’s at ten year end, or five year end, or twelve month end, thee look out for thisen! It’s thee ’at’s done it! — I mistrusted thee as soon as Etherton browt thee into t’ mill! Thou’rt a sharp ’un, thou art! — thou went straight to t’ root o’ t’ matter. He’s more brains nor all ye police put together, hes that feller, Marrows,” he continued, pointing at Weathershaw. “He varry soon saw where t’ secret lay!”
“Well, where?” asked Marrows.
Madgwick stared defiantly at his listeners.
“Why, i’ yon invention o’ Lucas Etherton’s!” he exclaimed. “If he hedn’t started inventin’ that theer machine ’at’s in t’ strong-room at t’ Owd Mill, all this here ’ud niver ha’ happened. Damn t’ machine! — I wish I’d niver heerd tell on it!”
“Nor me eyther!” sobbed Stones. “What’ll my owd mother say?”
Madgwick gave his accomplice a glance of scorn, and turned once more to his captors.
“Ye see,” he said, evidently not displeased to be in the position of narrator, “when Etherton started makin’ yon machine, t’ news filtered out. Not about t’ machine itself, but about t’ fact ’at he wor agate o’ makin’ summat, and he’d hed a strong-room built for to mak’ it in. And of course it wor known ’at he did try at a similar invention some years ago, and gev’ it up, so it were concluded ’at he wor makin’ another start. Anyway, there’s one man i’ this valley ’at’s known about it for some time, and he’s t’ man ’at’s behind all this.”
A dead silence followed on Madgwick’s last sentence — broken at last by a groan from Stones and a question from Marrows.
“What man? Who is he?”
“I shall n’t tell you till I’ve telled all t’ tale,” retorted Madgwick. “But — a man ’at iverybody knows reight well, an’ all! Now then, this man began tryin’ to get round me some time ago, wantin’ to know what I knew about Etherton’s machine, and so on, and he started hintin’ at what he’d pay for t’ knowledge. T’ fact o’ t’ case is, this man hes an idea of his own, and he believes ’at Etherton’s on t’ same idea, and he wants to be first i’ t’ field, does this man, not only here, but ower yonder i’ t’ United States. An’ it come to this — he offered me a rare lot o’ brass if I could do two things. T’ first wor to get into that theer strong-room secretly, and get a careful look at t’ model; t’ second wor to get hold o’ t’ drawings and specifications. Well, now, I did manage, not so long since, to get into t’ strong-room, and I hed a varry careful look at t’ model. But I saw it wor no good — nobody could tell exactly what that machine wor, nor how to mek’ it wi’out t’ papers — t’ drawings and so on. And of course when I telled this man that, he wor all the more anxious ’at I should get ’em, and in t’ end he made me an offer for ’em ’at nobody but a fool would ha’ refused.”
“How much?” demanded Marrows.
“Niver ye mind!” retorted Madgwick defiantly. “I gotten it, and it’s wheer neyther ye, nor t’ spy theer, nor all t’ police i’ t’ world can get at it, whether I iver do or not! And now I’ll tell yer how I got ho’d o’ t’ papers. That Monday afternoon, I hed to go to Etherton’s private office i’ t’ mill. But I heard voices in Etherton’s room, so I listened a bit, and I heard talk between him and owd Sir Cheville. An’ it wor just what I wanted, d’ye see? — Etherton wor talkin’ to t’ owd feller about t’ machine, and he said he’d have to let him into t’ secret. So I slipped away, and hid misen where I could see ’em go in and out o’ t’ strong-room, and by and by they come there, and they wor some time in it, and when they come out, Sir Cheville wor puttin’ a docket o’ papers in his inside breast pocket. An’ I saw then how t’ thing could be done.”
Madgwick glanced round the ring of interested faces with something of an air of triumph — one listener, at any rate, saw that, like all criminally-minded persons, he was intensely vain and proud of his achievements.