pastureland. Merrion stopped, and pointed straight in front of him. âSee that?â he exclaimed triumphantly.
Arnold looked in the required direction. A few hundred yards from where they stood was a cylindrical brick structure, about six feet in diameter and eight feet high, not unlike a factory chimney cut off short just above the base. The suggestion was heightened by the fact that a feather of whitish smoke was floating lazily from the top. The inspector looked at it without interest. âThat thing thatâs smoking over there?â he replied. âYes, I see it. What is it? A lime-kiln, or something?â
âLime-kiln!â Merrion retorted scornfully. âDonât you remember walking through the tunnel on Saturday? And when I remarked to the ganger that the atmosphere seemed a trifle less poisonous towards the middle, he said that was because there was a ventilating shaft there. Well, weâre just about over the middle of the tunnel now, and thatâs the top of the shaft. The smoke you see comes up from the tunnel beneath. Now, letâs go and have a look at it.â
To do so, they had only to follow the lane which ran within a few feet of the shaft. Merrion looked at this thoughtfully. âI wish weâd thought of bringing a ladder,â he said. âNever mind, there are one or two holes in the brickwork. Enough to give me a foothold, I think. Lend me your back a moment, will you?â
With Arnoldâs aid he scrambled up the side of the shaft, and perched himself on the top, with his legs dangling over the edge. He sat there for so long in silence that the inspector became impatient. â Are you going to stop up there for the rest of the day?â he asked.
âShut up, Iâm listening,â replied Merrion sharply. And it was not for several minutes that he spoke again.
âItâs all right,â he said at last. âIt works perfectly. Sitting up here I can hear the whistle of the trains as they enter the tunnel, and Iâm beginning to be able to distinguish the direction from which they are coming. The roar is faint at first, then becomes louder as the train approaches the shaft. The noise is quite different as it passes under the shaft, more like a rattle. Then the roar begins again, and dies away as the train proceeds towards the other end of the tunnel. Thatâs all I want to know to begin with. Lend me a hand down, will you?â
Arnold did so. âListening to trains isnât a hobby of mine,â he said. âSince you appear to be satisfied, letâs see if we canât find a decent pub where we can have a drink.â
âYouâll have to curb your thirst for a little longer, Iâm afraid,â Merrion replied. âLook here, on the grass between the lane and the shaft. See that track? Made by a biggish car or a light lorry, unless Iâm greatly mistaken. And I think these are the wheel-marks of a smaller and lighter car too. Neither of these tracks are many days old. Come and have a look at them for yourself.â
âYes, I see the tracks all right,â said Arnold. âWhat about them?â
âSit down here, on the leeward side of the stack, and light your pipe. What has been our chief difficulty with regard to the man or men in the tunnel?â
âWhy, how they got in or out unobserved.â
âRight. Well, this shaft is the way out of that difficulty. Let me explain how the trick was worked. Because we found those lamps in the tunnel, we jumped to the conclusion that there must have been a man down there to work them. But thatâs just where we were wrong. They were worked from up here.
âThere were two men concerned, A and B. A was the man with the beard, B his confederate. B arrived here some time before half-past five in a car. I donât understand why there should be two sets of tracks, but thatâs a detail. He had with him in the car the battery that puzzled
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