The inspector in charge came over to Winning and saluted.
‘What’s the trouble, sir?’ he asked.
The chief constable briefly explained, and the inspector whistled.
‘What do you want us to do, sir?’ he asked.
‘Wait here until the others arrive,’ answered Winning, ‘and then we’ll go up to Greytower.’
The others arrived during the next ten minutes, and when Winning had collected the men in charge around him and explained the situation he sketched out his plan.
‘What we want to do,’ he said, ‘is to take these men by surprise. They’re armed, and we don’t want any bloodshed if we can help it. My suggestion is that we leave the cars in the road and proceed up the drive leading to Greytower on foot. Are your men armed?’
‘Most of them, sir,’ was the reply.
‘Right, then; we’ll start,’ said the chief constable. ‘I’ll lead the way.’
He got back into his car and turned it round in the direction of Stonehurst.
With the police cars following behind, he drove off, and presently reached the road into which the drive emerged.
At the beginning of it he stopped the car and got out.
‘What do you suggest we do, sir?’ asked the inspector from Ashford. ‘Spread the men out and surround the place?’
‘Yes,’ said Winning.
The man turned away and began whispering instructions, and by ones and twos the crowd of policemen began to drift away into the darkness.
Major Winning followed cautiously up the dark drive and stood twisting his moustache and staring at the house.
He was beginning to feel a little twinge of uneasiness.
Everything was very quiet, and there seemed no sign of any trouble at all. Had that message been a joke? If it had, it was going to be very awkward. He had taken the responsibility of calling out thirty policemen, and if there was no justification for —
A sharp whip-like report broke in on his thoughts. It was followed by a scream of pain and, turning in the direction of the sound, he saw one of the constables fall writhing to the ground, his hands clasping his leg.
As though the shot had been a signal, it was followed almost immediately by a staccato volley.
A bullet sang past Winning’s ear so closely that he felt the wind of it and one of the inspectors dragged him down flat.
‘They’re firing from one of the upper windows, sir,’ he whispered. ‘Keep over in the cover of those bushes.’
‘This is like Sydney Street,’ gritted one of the inspectors, as the constable beside him went down, his hands clutching his stomach.
His companion sent a couple of shots in the direction of a pencil of flame that appeared momentarily in a lower window beside the front door.
A scream told him that his bullet had found a target and he gave a grunt of satisfaction.
‘As long as their ammunition lasts,’ he said. ‘This looks like going on for a long time.’
‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea, sir,’ said a plainclothes man, ‘to try and rush the place? If we could once get under the shelter of the porch we should be pretty well protected while we broke down the door.’
‘We’ll try it, Jack,’ said his superior. ‘We’ll take a dozen men and try it. Tell the others to keep on firing, so as to keep those fellows inside occupied.’
He moved away in the darkness and went round collecting his men.
‘Now,’ he said when they were all ready. ‘When I say ‘Right,’ make a dash for the porch.’
He waited until a heavy burst of firing broke out from the back, and then gave the signal.
In a concerted rush they made for the steps, stumbled up them and reached the comparative safety of the porch.
‘So far, so good,’ panted the inspector. ‘Now we’ll have the door down!’
He put the muzzle of his pistol to the lock and fired.
‘Now, then,’ he said. ‘All together!’
The men with him hurled themselves at the stout door and it creaked under the onslaught of their combined weight. But it still held.
‘Again!’ ordered the inspector.
This time with a tremendous crash it flew open.
A hail of bullets greeted them from the darkness within, and three of the attacking party crumpled up and fell backwards down the steps.
‘Blow your whistle for the others!’ said the inspector. ‘We’ve got ’em now!’
He hurled himself on a man who sprang at him out of the darkness, and they went down fighting desperately.
A police whistle sounded shrilly, and a few seconds later the rest of the men came pouring in through the shattered door.
It was now a fight at close quarters. The crooks had no time to reload their weapons, and except for an odd shot here and there the firing had suddenly ceased.
‘Well,’ panted Major Winning a few minutes later speaking with difficulty through swollen lips and looking blearily through an eye that was rapidly becoming black, ‘that was pretty hot while it lasted!’
He looked round at the sullen faces of the prisoners.
‘Nasty looking bunch,’ he remarked. ‘Isn’t that Japper over there?’
The landlord of the Crossed Hands, who was handcuffed to a burly constable, glowered at him, but said nothing.
‘The inmates of the house are in the drawing-room, sir,’ said an inspector, coming up at that moment. ‘Trussed up like a lot of chickens. One of the men is releasing them now.’
The first to emerge into the hall was Trevor Lowe, and he greeted Winning with a smile.
‘You and your men arrived just in time,’ he said.
‘Who sent that message to the lighthouse?’ asked Winning.
‘I did,’ answered the dramatist. ‘I managed to get away and reach the Tower. It was just after I’d sent the message they caught me again. Did you get the leader of this lot — a tall man with a mask?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said an inspector, ‘but I’m afraid he’s dead, sir. He’s in the kitchen.’
‘I’d like to see him,’ said Lowe, and followed the man across the hall.
The masked man lay among the pile of petrol cans, but the mask had slipped from his face, revealing his heavy features rigid in death.
The front of his coat was soaked with blood, and he had apparently been shot in the general struggle.
Lowe was bending over him when he heard a muttered exclamation of surprise behind him, and looking round, he saw that Shadgold and Murley had come in and were standing staring in amazement at the dead man.
‘What is it?’ said Lowe quickly. ‘Do you know this fellow?’
‘Yes,’ answered Shadgold. ‘It’s Locker!’
*
The rest of that night was a busy one.
From the smaller members of the gang, now thoroughly frightened and cowed, they succeeded in obtaining the names of the people who belonged to the organisation which Locker had brought into being.
From house to house they went, and by four o’clock in the morning had finished their task.
The only person who escaped them was Lady Thurley. When they went to take her they found that she was dead. She was lying peacefully in her bed, and the empty bottle of the drug which had killed her was still clasped in one nerveless hand.
It was a bedraggled group that came in the grey of dawn to the little police station at Hythe.
Mrs. Gordon-Watts without the heavy make-up that she usually affected, looked a washed-out, rather pitiable creature, although her husband put on a certain rather false nonchalance.
Freeman, alias Netherton, was almost in a state of collapse, and his companion, Kenner, who had passed in Stonehurst under the name of Linney, was practically in the same condition.
Inspector Murley had recognised them both, in spite of their dyed hair and certain alterations which they had made in their appearance.
Only Toogood and Dr. Grendon appeared to be completely unmoved.
Lowe’s first though
t when the fight at Greytower had come to an end was for Arnold White, and he had been overjoyed when they had discovered his secretary, rather weak and ill but otherwise unharmed, in the cellar of Toogood’s house.
Much against White’s will, for he had wanted to hear all the news, Lowe had insisted upon packing him off at once to bed, under the care of Superintendent Hartley’s aunt with strict injunctions that he was not to stir.
‘And that’s that,’ remarked the dramatist when the prisoners had been charged and locked in cells. ‘I must say I wasn’t so very surprised when you identified the leader of this outfit as Locker.’
‘Neither was I,’ said Shadgold. ‘I began to suspect who he might be when he started that long rigmarole about how clever he was, and how clever he was going to be. Locker could never help boasting. We used to pull his leg about it at the Yard.’
‘That’s why I guessed,’ said the dramatist. ‘I remembered what you told me, and when I saw the expression on your face I was pretty certain.’
‘I wonder what put the idea into his head,’ grunted Shadgold.
Lowe shrugged his shoulders.
‘That we shall never know,’ he replied. ‘But, of course, the forming of this organisation was child’s play to him. He knew most of the crooks who specialised in the various branches of crime, such as forgery, drug-running, burglary and blackmail. I’ve had a talk with Miss Heyford, and apparently he called once on her aunt, Lady Thurley, who was being blackmailed. When he started this mass production of crime he remembered her and forced her by threats to come in with the rest. Her job was the blackmail end of the business. She moved in a good set and was very useful. By the way, they were extending their operations on the drug-side, so Freeman says. They were getting tired of paying the price for cocaine that they had to and were thinking of growing it themselves. As you know, it comes from a plant — the coca plant. Locker apparently conceived the idea of running up a factory in the middle of the village that was ostensibly to be used in the manufacturing of soap, but really would have concealed the huge greenhouses in which they were going to grow these plants. It would have been a profitable scheme if it had come off.’
‘Who shot Calling?’ asked Shadgold.
‘Locker himself,’ replied Lowe. ‘I got the whole story out of ‘Sniffy’ Smith. Calling was kicking over the traces. He didn’t mind burglary, that was his job. But when he learned of the Scotland Yard men who were killed he kicked up rough. He told them he wasn’t going to have anything more to do with them, and Locker, who was afraid he might squeal, decided to kill him. Calling got wind of this and came up to his friend, North, for protection. That was the night Jim Winslow first arrived in Stonehurst. But they got him in the grounds before he could reach North. Winslow and McWraith heard him scream. He managed to escape again, however, and rang me up from the village. He must have remembered meeting me and my interest in crime, and I suppose he rang me up because he was afraid to ring up the police, in case he might get himself into trouble. These fellows caught him again just as he came out of the call-box. They had a car with them, and they bundled Calling inside and took him to the Tower, where Locker shot him.’
‘And I suppose,’ said Murley in a low voice, ‘that’s where those other poor fellows were killed?’
Lowe nodded.
‘Yes, it was a sort of execution chamber,’ he replied. ‘Their bodies were buried in the wood at the back of Greytower.’
‘And the reason why they were killed,’ said Shadgold, ‘was because they had stumbled on to something.’
‘They must have recognised Locker,’ said Lowe. ‘He had a house at Hythe. Only one member of the outfit knew who he was really, and that was Grendon. None of the others ever saw him without his mask.’
‘Well, it’s a pity we can’t hang him,’ said the inspector. ‘But we’ve got enough evidence to hang his friends.’
He yawned.
‘What a night!’ he said, and Lowe smiled.
‘I suppose that young lady will be all right, sir,’ put in Superintendent Hartley. ‘Miss Heyford, I mean. It was plucky of her to try and warn us after she had overheard her aunt and Mrs. Gordon-Watts discussing what was going to happen.’
‘Very plucky,’ agreed the dramatist. ‘I think she suspected something for a long time. You needn’t worry about her. Hartley. Mr. Winslow’s looking after her, and I should think it’s quite likely he’ll go on doing so.’
The superintendent raised his eyebrows.
‘Like that, is it, sir?’ he said, and his good-humoured face broke into a smile.
‘Just like that,’ replied Trevor Lowe. ‘And now what about breakfast?’
*
The new landlord of the Crossed Hands pushed a foaming tankard across the beer-stained counter towards old John Tarley and the fat Mr. Criller paid for it.
‘An’ ’e said ’e bought the land?’ he asked.
Old John poured a large quantity of beer down his wizened throat.
‘’E did,’ he said, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. ‘So there ain’t goin’ to be no more trouble about that. We shan’t ’ave no factories spoilin’ the view and ruinin’ of the crops.’
‘Just come back from their ’oneymoon, ain’t they?’ said Mr. Criller.
‘Aye,’ said old John. ‘An’ right well they look, too.’
‘Where did Winslow get his money from?’ asked a thickset farmer who was standing nearby.
‘That there Lunnon fellow got ’im a good job,’ answered Tarley.
‘’E’s ’avin’ Greytower done up and the gardens all looked arter,’ said Mr. Criller.
‘Aye,’ said old John Tarley, and signalled to the landlord by banging the bottom of his empty tankard on the counter. ‘What you goin’ to ’ave, Joe Criller?’
‘Beer,’ said Mr. Criller.
‘Beer,’ said the thickset farmer.
‘Three beers,’ said old John Tarley.
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Terror Tower Page 19