Terror Tower

by Gerald Verner

  ‘This, sir,’ said North, ‘is part of the old fortifications, though Mr. Winslow had a lot of alterations made.’

  He crossed over to a solid-looking door and, taking a key from his pocket, unlocked it. Beyond was a dark passageway, and the butler explained that this led to the tower. There was a similar door at the other end of the passage which was unlocked, and passing through this, they found themselves at the base of the squat tower which gave the house its name. It had apparently been used as a lumber-room, for several empty packing-cases were piled in one corner and near them was a broken chair from which the stuffing had tumbled out on to the floor. Reared against one wall were the remains of an iron bedstead, red with rust. An unusual-looking object attracted Jim’s attention, and he went over and examined it. It was a framework of enamelled iron, supported on four rubber-tyred wheels, and resembled the type of ambulance used in hospitals for taking patients into the operating-theatre.

  ‘How did you come by that?’ he asked, for the contraption appeared to be quite new.

  ‘Mr. Winslow bought it about a year ago, sir,’ replied North. ‘He suffered from rheumatism very badly, and was sometimes quite unable to stand. On these occasions I used to wheel him into the garden.’

  ‘I see,’ said Jim.

  ‘Surely,’ put in McWraith, ‘an ordinary bath-chair would have been more convenient?’

  ‘I suggested that at the time, sir,’ said North respectfully, ‘but Mr. Winslow was, if you’ll excuse me saying so, sir, a very self-willed gentleman.’

  ‘Where does that lead to?’ asked Jim, pointing to a door under the spiral stone staircase that led to the upper regions of the tower.

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ said North. ‘So far as I can remember it has always been locked, and I have never seen the key.’

  McWraith strolled over and examined it.

  ‘Why, it’s iron!’ he said, and, gripping the handle, shook it violently.

  The door, however, fitted closely, and except for a slight rattle, remained immovable.

  ‘Funny place to put a door like that,’ said Jim. ‘I wonder what’s behind it?’

  ‘I think, sir,’ answered North at his elbow, ‘that there must be some sort of small room built in the thickness of the wall. I’ve never seen it; it was locked when Mr. Winslow first came to the house, and we’ve never been able to open it. Would you like to see the rest of the tower, sir?’

  Jim said he would, and North began to ascend the worn stone staircase, lighting the way with his lantern, which cast long flickering shadows, and really did more to accentuate the gloom than to serve as an illuminant.

  The tower consisted of four square rooms built one over the other. At regular intervals narrow slit-like apertures acted as windows. These were unglazed, and the wind blowing through them made a peculiar whistling, moaning sound that was extraordinarily eerie. There was nothing in any of the rooms except dust, and without pausing they went on towards the top of the tower. From here they could see across the intervening land to the sea, and in spite of the drizzle of rain that was falling they both remained for some time. Far away out to sea twinkled the orange light of an anchored lightship, and farther to the west the intermittent light of the Dungeness lighthouse. It flashed, went out, and flashed again.

  ‘The view from here in the daytime must be magnificent,’ muttered McWraith, standing by his friend’s side, and Jim nodded absently.

  He was counting the time lapse between those intermittent flashes.

  ‘Ten seconds,’ he said below his breath, and although he had no particular reason for noting the fact then, later he was to be very glad that he had done so.

  There was nothing more to be seen in the tower, and they returned to the kitchen. Mrs. North was still ironing methodically, and this time she gave no indication whatever that she was aware of their presence.

  The butler took them down a narrow flight of stairs and showed them the cellars, which were extensive and more like dungeons. There was a coal cellar and a well-stocked wine cellar, but for the most part they were unused. By the time they had seen these Jim was feeling tired and announced his intention of postponing further exploration until the morning.

  They returned to the drawing-room, and were in the midst of a final cigarette when North came in with a tray containing whisky, soda and glasses.

  ‘Excellent!’ boomed McWraith. ‘I can just do with a spot before turning in.’

  North asked if they wanted anything further, and on receiving a negative reply wished them ‘Good night’ and retired.

  McWraith poured himself out a generous peg, and looked enquiringly at Jim, who shook his head.

  ‘No whisky, thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a drop of soda though.’

  In the corridor outside his bedroom they found Mrs. North waiting.

  ‘I’ve put Mr. McWraith in the room next to yours, sir,’ she said. ‘The linen has been well aired, and there’s fresh water in the jug.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jim. ‘Good night, Mrs. North.’

  ‘Good night, sir,’ said the woman. ‘I hope you both sleep well.’

  ‘I think I shall sleep very well,’ said McWraith with a prodigious yawn as she disappeared in the shadows of the staircase. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt so tired before.’

  Jim went with him to his room, saw that he had everything that he required, and then came back to his own and went to bed.

  But for some reason or other he did not sleep. The wind had risen and he could hear it moaning round the house, and fainter and far away the noise of the surf on the beach. For some time he lay listening, twisting and turning from side to side, and then, hoping that perhaps a cigarette would soothe his nerves and make sleep more possible, he got up.

  A fitful, watery moon was shining, and its light faintly lit the room. Without troubling to light the lamp, he searched for, and found, his cigarettes, lit one, and, strolling over to the window, looked out.

  From where he stood he could see the tower rising blackly against the sky, and as he looked something attracted and held his attention — something that was moving in the shadows of the base of the huge stone structure. It was a curious, shapeless thing, and seemed to be gliding along the path that led away from the house.

  He craned forward interestedly, wondering what it could be, and then, as he watched with quickened breath, it came out of the shadows for an instant into the pale light of the moon.

  The cigarette dropped from his fingers as he stared incredulously at what he saw.

  Somebody was pushing the wheeled-ambulance, and on it, plainly visible in the moonlight, the white face upturned to the sky, was the body of a man!

  Chapter Three – Shadgold Asks a Favour

  Mr. Trevor Lowe flung down the book he had been reading with an exclamation of disgust and began to stuff tobacco into the bowl of his pipe.

  His secretary, Arnold White, looked across from the desk at which he was working.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he inquired. ‘Book a bad one?’

  The dramatist sniffed savagely.

  ‘Quite well written for its type,’ he replied. ‘It’s the type I complain of. There isn’t a solitary character in it who isn’t cross and nasty. They’ve all got kinks of some sort or another, and they spend pages analysing themselves to find out what they are, and pages more to find out why they’ve got them!’

  White smiled, and twisting round in his chair, glanced at the cover.

  ‘It had very good reviews,’ he remarked.

  ‘I’ve no doubt it did,’ answered Lowe, striking a match. ‘It’s sufficiently gloomy to have been eulogised by every newspaper in the country! It’s the type of literature that I call really pernicious. I suppose it can be classed under the heading of a slice of life, and to a certain extent it may be, but taking the world as a whole, it only portrays a crumb. You cannot tell me that the people characterised in such a book as that’ — he jerked his head contemptuously at the novel lying on the settee
— ‘are true of the majority. The world is made up mostly of decent hard-working people, who are much too busy earning their bread and butter to worry about inhibitions. Why, then, with such a large selection to choose from, should these authors pick on a small minority to write about?’

  ‘Presumably,’ said the secretary, ‘because there is a demand for that kind of story.’

  ‘There is a demand for any story, provided it is sufficiently talked about,’ retorted Trevor Lowe. ‘It’s becoming increasingly common for people to do and read and think what somebody else tells them they ought to do, read, and think. They don’t read a book for the enjoyment they are going to get out of it, but for the enjoyment they are going to get talking to Mrs. Smith or Jones or Brown about it. It’s the correct thing to have read it, so they rush to their library and demand it. I don’t say that this is true of everybody; a great number of people choose their reading matter because it gives them pleasure, and for one hour or two makes them forget all the worries, big and little, that go to make up their lives.’

  He paused for a moment and puffed furiously at his pipe.

  ‘There was one time not so very long ago,’ he continued, ‘when the penny dreadful was cited as responsible for a great deal of trouble. A boy was found stealing the jam, or injuring property, or getting into some very ordinary mischief, and the penny dreadful was blamed. A youth got into bad company and stole the petty cash, and again it was the penny dreadful that was at the bottom of it. But the penny dreadful never has and never will be responsible for so much crime, misery and disaster as these so-called psychological novels.

  ‘Think of the effect on the youth of the country of a book like that’ — he swept his arm towards the offending novel — ‘the people who are just reaching adolescence. They dig down into their subconsciousness and try to discover things that don’t exist, and never did exist, and they end up after a long dose of this ‘nothing-is-worth-while’ creed by looking out of the window on a bright spring morning and deciding there’s nothing left to live for. It’s taught them self-analysis in the wrong way. It’s taught them —’

  He broke off as there came a tap on the door, and the housekeeper entered.

  ‘Inspector Shadgold has called, sir,’ she announced. ‘What shall I tell him?’

  ‘Oh, ask him to come in,’ said Lowe quickly, and the woman departed.

  ‘I wonder what he wants,’ said White. ‘It’s ages since we’ve seen him, isn’t it?’

  ‘He’s been away for his holiday,’ replied Lowe. ‘No doubt that accounts for it.’

  Apparently the holiday had done the inspector good, for when he entered his face was redder than ever, and the secretary thought that his waist-line had decidedly expanded.

  ‘Hullo, Mr. Lowe,’ he jerked, throwing his hard bowler hat on to a chair. ‘I hope I’m not intruding?’

  ‘Only too glad to see you, Shadgold,’ said the dramatist. ‘Did you have a good time?’

  ‘Eh?’ Shadgold looked at him in surprise, and then: ‘Oh, you mean the holiday? Yes, it was all right — while it lasted.’

  ‘You’ll have to start dieting now you’re back,’ said White with a grin.

  Shadgold glared at him.

  ‘What do you mean — while it lasted?’ asked Lowe hastily.

  ‘Well, by rights I should still be away, Mr. Lowe,’ answered the inspector. ‘But I was recalled yesterday.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ murmured the dramatist. ‘Well, sit down, my dear fellow, and tell us all the news.’

  ‘Thanks.’ The Scotland Yard man perched himself on the arm of a chair. ‘As a matter of fact, Mr. Lowe,’ he went on, ‘I’ve come round to ask you a favour.’

  A slight smile twitched the corners of the dramatist’s lips. He had guessed from the inspector’s manner that the call was not entirely a friendly one.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Do you remember my telling you about a man called Locker?’ asked Shadgold abruptly, and Lowe frowned.

  ‘Locker?’ he repeated. ‘No, I can’t say that I do.’

  ‘You must remember, surely,’ said the inspector. ‘I believe I introduced him to you once. He was quite a clever fellow, except that he would talk. Whenever he had successfully concluded a case he used to talk about it for hours on end. We nicknamed him the ‘Loud Speaker’ at the Yard. Now do you remember him?’

  ‘Why, yes, I seem to have some vague recollection about whom you’re talking,’ answered the dramatist.

  ‘Well,’ continued Shadgold, ‘he went after Canning, the forger, two years ago, and completely disappeared.’

  ‘Now I remember,’ said Lowe, and he looked interested. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well’ — Shadgold gave his chair a hitch and leaned forward, his hands on his knees — ‘if you remember, he was never found, neither he nor Canning, and the general theory at the time was that he had accepted a heavy bribe from Canning to let him get away, then got frightened and cleared off himself.’

  ‘Yes, I remember discussing it with you,’ said Lowe, ‘and suggesting that it was equally possible that Canning might have killed him and concealed the body. But what’s all this got to do with the favour you want to ask me?’

  Shadgold cleared his throat and fidgeted for a moment.

  ‘It’s got a great deal to do with it,’ he said. ‘Two months ago Lew Telmann did a ‘bust’ at Hennigers, the jeweller’s, in Bond Street, and got away with over eighty thousand pounds worth of emeralds which they’d got specially to show a customer. We knew it was Telmann by the way the job had been done, and we sent two men to go and pull him in, but he’d left all his usual haunts, and they couldn’t trace him. Six weeks ago, however, news came through that he’d been seen in Kent, just outside Hythe. We sent two fellers, Roach and Scory, down to follow up the clue, and from that day to this there hasn’t been a sign of them.’

  The dramatist sat forward in his chair, and from his expression was interested.

  ‘Do you mean that they disappeared?’ he asked.

  ‘Completely,’ declared Shadgold. ‘We searched the whole neighbourhood, but there was not a trace of them anywhere.’

  ‘Extraordinary!’ muttered Lowe.

  ‘That’s not all,’ went on the inspector. ‘Three weeks ago — while I was on my holiday — there was some trouble with a car at Oxford Circus. It was travelling too fast and failed to stop when the man on point duty tried to pull it up. He took the number, however, and we communicated with the police at Hythe, and they sent a summons to the owner of the car, a Mr. Gordon-Watts, who lived at an adjoining village called Stonehurst. The Hythe police were very busy at the time. There’d been an outbreak of assaults in the district: women crossing lonely places were knocked down and their handbags pinched; and every available local man was out searching for the assailants. One of our fellows — a plain-clothes man called Drin — was down there making an inquiry on some other business altogether, and as he had to pass through Stonehurst on his way back, he offered to serve the summons and save the local superintendent calling one of his men off the chase. Drin left Hythe at ten o’clock in the morning, but he never arrived at Mr. Gordon-Watts’, and nobody’s seen him since. Like Locker, Roach and Scory, he’s vanished into thin air.’

  ‘This is extraordinarily interesting,’ said Lowe. ‘Do you think there is a connection between these disappearances?’

  ‘The Assistant-Commissioner thinks so,’ answered Shadgold. ‘And that’s why my holiday has been cut short. I’ve been given the job of finding out exactly what has happened to these men.’

  ‘And I presume,’ said Lowe with a twinkle in his eye, ‘since you’ve come round here, that you want me to help you.’

  ‘That’s right, Mr. Lowe,’ replied Shadgold. ‘I know you’re interested in this sort of thing, particularly if it’s something out of the ordinary; and this is out of the ordinary enough, God knows!’

  ‘Well, what can I do?’ asked the dramatist.

  ‘We
ll,’ answered the inspector a little hesitantly, ‘you see, it’s like this. Roach and Scory went to Hythe and disappeared. We don’t know where Locker went to, but Hythe seems to me to be the place to concentrate on. Whatever happened to Drin must have happened quite close to Hythe, because Stonehurst’s only about ten miles away, and from all accounts he never reached there. Now, what I’d like you to do, if you’ll be kind enough to do it, is to go down to Hythe and have a nose round. There’s something queer going on in the neighbourhood, and I think you’re more likely to find out what it is than I am. For one thing, you don’t look like a policeman and I do; and for another, I’ve got an idea that whatever it is that’s at the bottom of this business, it’s something pretty big. If you’re too busy, don’t mind saying so —’

  ‘As a matter of fact I’m not very busy at the moment,’ answered Lowe. ‘I’ve finished my new play, and it doesn’t go into rehearsal for another month.’

  ‘Then you’ll take it on?’ said the inspector eagerly.

  The dramatist nodded.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said. ‘I’ll go down tomorrow and see what I can find out. Mind you, I can’t promise that I’ll be successful.’

  ‘That’s awfully good of you, Mr. Lowe,’ said Shadgold gratefully. ‘Now, is there anything more you want to know?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Trevor Lowe shook his head. ‘I suppose you’ve got official reports concerning the disappearances of these men, with all the details such as dates, times, etc.?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve got all those,’ said Shadgold. ‘Do you want ’em?’

  ‘I’d like you to send them round first thing in the morning if you could manage it,’ said the dramatist.

  ‘I can do better than that,’ said the inspector, glancing at his watch. ‘I can let you have them this evening. I’m going back to the Yard now, and I’ll send them straight up.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Lowe. ‘What about a drink before you go?’

  ‘It will have to be a quick one,’ said Shadgold; ‘I’ve got to get back in time to catch the Assistant-Commissioner before he leaves.’