Anything For a Quiet Life by Michael Gilbert Page A

Arrangements are you leave your car in Joe English’s yard. That’s about half a mile down the byroad west of my place.”
    “I know it,” said Jonas. “What then?”
    “Then you walk. But not along the road. There’s a track that goes through the woods, and comes out near my house. Joe’ll show you.”
    It was dusk by the time he reached Maggs’s place. The approach route had been carefully chosen. It ran for the most part through woodland and the lie of the land hid it from observation. Maggs had the door open and whisked him inside as soon as he arrived.
    He and Mrs Maggs seemed to be alone in the house.
    “I saw five cars in Joe’s yard,” said Jonas. “Where are the men?”
    “They’ve moved off to take up their positions,” said Maggs. “All afternoon they’ve been coming in, quiet-like, by twos and threes. They’ve got searchlights with them. And rifles. They’re expecting trouble, no question.”
    Mrs Maggs said, “I liked that young Scottie. Very well spoken, he was. You’ll take a bite of supper, Mr Pickett, I expect.”
    “That would be splendid,” said Jonas. “I guess we’ve a long night ahead of us.”
    “Better comfortable in front of a nice fire,” said Maggs, “than squatting in a damp ditch.”
     
    It was two o’clock by the illuminated dial on Jock Anderson’s watch when the cars arrived. They stopped a long way short of the field, but he was listening for them, and he heard them. Then there was half an hour of silence. “Playing it cautiously,” he said to the Sergeant, who was in the ditch beside him. “Afraid there may be a trap, but think they can spring it.”
    The Sergeant grunted. He suspected that he was catching a cold and was glad that the moment for action had arrived. “Pass the word to take up action posts, but no lights until I give the signal.”
    There were five men, and they came across the field in a purposeful bunch; the two on the flanks were carrying shotguns. Two had spades, and one a measuring line. There was enough light for the watchers to see them at work. A line was laid down from one of the gate posts in the inner fence, and the digging started.
    It was easy going, because it was clear that the earth at that particular spot had already been disturbed. After twenty minutes’ spadework a halt was called, and one of the men got into the shallow excavation and stooped to lift what was in it. A second man got in beside him to help. Six boxes had been unearthed and laid on the grass when the lights came on from two corners of the field.
    “There are fifteen men here,” said Anderson. He had rejected the loudhailer. His voice was clear, and there was a flat undertone of menace in it. “We are armed, and if there is any trouble, our instructions are to shoot. Drop those guns.”
    When he finished, there was a long moment of complete silence and immobility.
    Anderson said, “In case you might be thinking of making a run for it, I should tell you that your cars have already been taken over.”
    The man standing beside the excavation, who seemed to be the leader, said something. The shotguns were dropped and the police closed in.
    Later, Anderson said to Maggs, who had come up in defiance of orders to the contrary, “I think we’d better leave things as they are until it’s light. We’ll need to take photographs of things as they’ve been left, and then maybe do a bit more digging.”
    “It’s much too late to go to bed,” said Maggs. “So why don’t you come in and have a hot cup of tea, with maybe a drop of something in it?”
    This seemed to everyone to be an excellent idea. Two men were left on guard, and the rest came down to the farmhouse, where the fire was revived, a kettle put on, and bottles produced.
    “Do you think,” said Jonas, “that you could now tell us what it’s all about, and what’s been dug up? Not, I gather, the abbey treasure.”
    “May be more valuable than that,” said Anderson. “I’m not too sure what the