Temple Tower

by Sapper

  It was the thought of that that drove us nearly insane. At that very moment, whilst we stood there powerless to do anything, le Bossu was free to do what he liked in the stronghold itself. And Miss Verney was in his power. He had the whole night in front of him to find the stolen stuff, and then what would he do? Kill Granger for a certainty, but what about the girl? If he was the type who would kill one woman, he certainly wouldn’t scruple about killing another if it served his purpose. And then, leaving us where we were, he would quietly depart, having beaten us all along the line. True we did know who he was, but that was very cold comfort. To devote the rest of one’s life to the pursuit of Jean Picot was an inadequate return for what he had done to us, even if we ever caught him.

  We didn’t talk: there was nothing to say, just as there was nothing to be done. Just once Hugh put his hand on Freckles’ shoulder and said, “Buck up, old man: no need to despair yet.” But for the rest we sat or stood in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. And after a while Hugh switched off the torch, which was beginning to run low, and black, overpowering darkness came down on us again.

  Not a sound came from the house; each minute seemed like an hour as it dragged by. And at length I began to doze where I stood. Suddenly I felt Hugh’s grip on my arm: a faint light was filtering over the top of the barrier between us and the house. I glanced at the luminous dial of my wristwatch; and it showed a quarter to one. For nearly two hours had we been imprisoned.

  The light flickered a little, and then grew steady. Still there was no noise; only that faint illumination proved that someone was about on the other side. Then, without warning, there came the most ghastly sound I have ever listened to in my life – peal after peal of wild maniacal laughter. It rose and fell – echoing round us: then, abruptly, it ceased. And a moment or two later the light flickered again, and then went out. Darkness was on us once more: darkness and silence.

  “My God!” stammered Freckles in a shaking voice, “what was that?”

  My own forehead was wet with sweat, and even Hugh’s iron nerve was a bit shaken. Regardless of his failing battery he had switched on his torch: even its feeble glow was welcome after that devilish laughter. Was it Granger, or was it le Bossu? Gone mad suddenly…loose in the house… And no one blamed the youngster when he suddenly hurled himself hysterically at the stone barrier and began to beat at it with his fists.

  “Damn you,” he screamed, “damn you – open.”

  And to our stupefied amazement it did. At the time – not knowing the reason – it seemed like a miracle: afterwards when we did know the reason, and the marvellous part played by that marvellous girl, it seemed no less of a miracle. But at the moment we could think of nothing save the fact that the prison door was opening. The wheels on which the walls moved creaked and groaned, until, with a thud, they came to rest in their proper place. The way to the house was free.

  But not at once did Hugh move: the possibility of a trap was still there. It might have been the man whose frenzied laughter we had heard who had opened the walls. And if that was so he might be even now waiting for us out of sight, inside the house, to pot us one by one as we came out of the passage. At last he went with a rush, and from inside there came the single sharp clang of the gong. And with each of us as we dashed through the clang was repeated. But after that there was silence. No movement came from the walls: no movement came from the house. The man whose laughter we had heard was not there.

  We were standing in a sort of stone basement, from which stairs led to the upper part of the house. Further delay was useless now: the time had come to meet le Bossu on equal terms. And so we raced up the stairs behind Hugh. A light was shining above us through an open door. And in the doorway he stopped abruptly.

  “My God!” he muttered. “Look at that.”

  We crowded round him. It was the hall we were in, and the big chandelier in the centre was lit. Hanging from it, just as Vandali had hung from the beam in the Dolphin, was Granger. He was swinging to and fro, and as he moved the tips of his toes brushed against the carpet.

  Suddenly there came footsteps on the stairs above us, and we swung round. Faltering they were, and unsteady: no man was making them. A figure in white appeared, clutching the banister: then, tottering and swaying, it came down towards us – a step at a time. It was Pat Verney, and with a great cry Freckles sprang to meet her.

  But she hardly seemed to see him, as she stood staring at us with a look of frozen horror in her eyes. She just gave a little cry of: “Has he gone?” then, without another word, she pitched forward insensible.

  CHAPTER 13

  In which the account is settled

  And now, before I tell of the last grim fight between Hugh Drummond and le Bossu, I will go back a few hours, and write of what happened in Temple Tower while we lay prisoners in the passage. Not for three or four days did we hear it, and, bit by bit, we got it from Pat Verney. And because the horror of it was still on her, she got the horror of it across to us, so that I feel that I actually was present myself in that upstair room where it happened. Wherefore I will write of it as if I had been a silent and invisible witness, and not as the teller of a second-hand tale.

  At eight o’clock Pat Verney had dinner in her own room. It was served by Mrs Gaspard, and to her dismay she discovered that the instant it was dark the servant proposed to go. Nothing, she said, would induce her to remain another night in the house, and so the girl found herself confronted with the prospect of being left alone in the house with a man who was to all intents and purposes demented with terror. For a while she hesitated: should she go too? She weighed it up in her mind, as she stood by the window staring over the grounds. Dusk was beginning to fall, and in her imagination she seemed to see phantom figures slinking through the undergrowth already. Then she took a pull at herself. Even if le Bossu did come, were there not five of us? And already she had discovered another of Granger’s hiding- places: afterwards she might discover more. She had agreed to go and sit in his room at the top of the house, after she had finished her meal, and with luck she might get him to talk.

  Nine o’clock came, and she turned on her light. In half an hour or so she would go to Granger: until then she tried to concentrate on a book. From below there came no sound: Mrs Gaspard had gone, and much as she disliked the woman it seemed as if the last link with the outside world had snapped. She and the Toad were left alone to face the unknown terrors of the night.

  “Don’t be an ass, Pat Verney,” she told herself. “You and your unknown terrors! Le Bossu will probably get a thick ear, and with your share of the reward you will be in a position to tell Miss Mudge to go to blazes.”

  But try as she would she couldn’t be altogether common sense about it. There was something in the incredible cold butchery of le Bossu that prevented anyone being normal about him. Supposing he did dodge us: supposing he came first – what then? Little did she think that she was actually going to get the answer to her question, poor kid.

  At half-past nine she put down her book: even Granger’s society seemed preferable to none at all. She opened her door; outside the house was in darkness. No lights were lit in the passage, and for a while she hesitated. No lights ever were lit in Temple Tower, but tonight she wondered whether she should turn them on. From all around her came those queer noises that occur in every house after the sun goes down, but each sudden crack of a board sounded to her like a footstep on the stairs. And at length she turned and fairly ran up to Granger’s room, feeling every moment that hands might come out of the darkness and clutch her by the throat.

  The Toad was seated at his desk, muttering to himself. He looked up as she entered, and it seemed to her that he looked lower and more debased than ever. Some trick of the light perhaps, or a leering expression of cunning that had for the moment replaced his chronic terror, may have caused it, but the fact remained that she very nearly returned to her room.


  “Sit down, Miss Verney,” he mumbled. “Sit down. Will he come tonight, do you think?”

  “Will who come, Mr Granger?” she asked.

  “The other one,” he said. “The one who is the devil himself.”

  His clawlike hands were moving like talons, and suddenly he burst into a cackle of laughter.

  “He has been once. I know: I know. But the police don’t. He caught the Nightingale, and he caught Gaspard: with his hands – so.”

  Fascinated, she watched his hands curving as if a man’s throat was inside them.

  “The Strangler: the Silent Strangler,” he went on. “That is what we called him in the old days. And other names, too. But le Crapeau was his match: le Crapeau beat him.”

  She said nothing: not by the tremor of an eyelid did she give away the fact that she knew the whole story. To let him talk was her object, in the hope that he might give away the secret of his various hiding-places. And it never seemed to occur to him that to anyone who knew nothing of the story what he was saying must have appeared absolutely gibberish.

  “By the old mill near Bonneval the Toad hid the stuff. Deep down under boards and sacks. He feared the police: but he feared the other one more. For to offend the other one – to play him false – meant death. Till then, no one who had done so had ever lived: but le Crapeau did, for he could not find le Crapeau.”

  “How do you know all this, Mr Granger?” she said quietly.

  But he didn’t seem to see the relevance of the question: apparently it didn’t strike him that he had given himself away utterly and completely. And after a while, as he went on chuckling and talking more to himself than to her, she began to realise that the man’s brain had partially gone. Sudden flashes of suspicion pulled him up periodically in his rambling story, but only for a moment. Then he was off again in full spate, as she put it.

  “Beaten them all,” he kept on repeating. “Le Crapeau beat them all. He was clever, was the old one. And now he will beat them again. The Nightingale” – he shook with hideous, silent laughter – “the Nightingale. The Strangler got him, but he won’t get the Toad. The Toad is too clever for him.”

  “What does the Strangler look like?” she asked.

  But he took no notice of the question, hardly seemed to hear it, in fact. On and on he rambled, incoherently mixing up the past and the present, until she gave up any attempt at listening. And after a while a sense of unreality stole over her: she felt the whole thing must be a dream. This crazy man gibbering and muttering: the bright-lit room, with its barred window making a black patch against the night, was a figment of imagination. And even as her eyes began to close, a sudden deafening clamour filled the room.

  In a second she was wide awake. The noise was coming from a gong fastened to one of the walls. It was evidently worked by electricity, and for a time she stared at it in bewilderment. What had suddenly started it ringing? Then she looked at Granger, and it took all her strength of mind to bite back a scream. For the man’s face was that of a devil. His lips were drawn back in a snarl, showing his yellow, discoloured teeth, and he was half standing, half crouching by his desk, with his eyes fixed on the gong. Then suddenly, with a grunt that was animal-like in its ferocity, he hurled himself across the room and forced home a big electric switch.

  Almost immediately the gong ceased, and in its place she heard another noise, this time coming from down below. Then that ceased also, and there was silence, save for Granger’s wild laughter. He was dancing round the room like a madman, yelling and shouting, but after a while he calmed down a little.

  “Beaten him: the old one has beaten him,” he mouthed. “The wheels have turned: the Strangler is caught.”

  And now terror got hold of her: what did he mean? In a flash the line of the verse came back to her: The sound of turning wheels – beware. But what was she to do? Something had happened below in the secret passage: something which filled Granger with such delight that he was almost off his head. Something, moreover, which made him think he was absolutely safe.

  She forced herself to be calm. She must act, and act quickly. Granger believed that the Strangler was caught below: to her it seemed certain that it was us. And so she did the one fatal thing. Believing us to be in some deadly peril, she argued that if it had been caused by putting in the switch, it would be removed by taking it out. And so, utterly regardless of the crazy madman, she dashed to the wall and pulled it out.

  For a moment or two he did not seem to realise what she had done: then, with a scream of bestial fury, he hurled himself at her. Desperately, she clung to the handle of the switch, whilst from below came the creaking, grinding noise once again. What had shut was now opening: let her but hold it a little longer and we should be safe. Thus she argued, whilst Granger clawed at her throat, mouthing foul abuse at her. Then there came one sharp clang of the gong above their heads, and silence from below. She had succeeded: we were free. Her hands relaxed weakly from the handle: she sank, half fainting, on the ground.

  Standing over her, with murder in his eyes, was Granger. So great was his fury that he seemed to have forgotten the Strangler, forgotten everything save his animal fury with her. His hands shot out once more and gripped her throat – gripped it till there came a roaring in her ears. He was murdering her: would we never come? And even as she had given up hope, a shadow fell on them both, and over Granger’s shoulder she saw a great masked figure. Le Bossu Masqué had arrived.

  “Crapeau: Crapeau.”

  Like a whiplash, the words cut through the room, and the grip relaxed from her throat. For a moment or two the relief was so great that she could think of nothing else: then she scrambled to her feet with a feeling of sick despair. We had not come: le Bossu had. Opening the switch had been the worst thing she could have done.

  “So, Crapeau, we meet again. What have you to say?”

  Granger, his hands plucking feverishly at his collar, was cowering in a corner, whilst le Bossu stood motionless in the centre of the room.

  “Doubtless a lot, Crapeau. But it will keep for a while. Just now I would like an explanation of that interesting mechanical device in the secret passage. Quickly, Crapeau: very quickly. I have an idea that before the night is out it may come in handy once again.”

  “Spare me,” screamed Granger, dragging himself forward on his knees. “Spare me. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Speak!” hissed the other. “And at once.”

  “A stone in the floor,” explained Granger in a shaking voice. “If you stand on it it rings that gong by electricity. Then that switch makes the walls close. It used to work differently, by some mechanism, but I had it altered.”

  “I see. So when you heard the gong ring, Crapeau, you knew that someone was standing on the stone. You knew that I had come for you, Crapeau. And so you put in the switch.”

  The Toad was grovelling at the other’s feet in his terror.

  “That is easy,” continued le Bossu. “What is difficult is why you took it out again. Or was it the lady?”

  “It was, you foul murderer,” said the girl contemptuously, and le Bossu gave a little hissing chuckle.

  “Considerate of you,” he remarked. “Do you think the gong will ring again tonight or not?’’

  He stood there shaking with silent laughter, and she stared at him fascinated.

  “Because, if it does, we know what to do,” he continued, “to ensure that we shall not be interrupted. Your friends are a little foolish to pit their brains against mine. And now, Crapeau” – he turned once more to the cowering man – “come here.”

  Granger rose and slunk towards him like a beaten dog.

  “To gratify my curiosity I am going to ask you a few questions, and then we will proceed to the business of the evening. Where did you hide yourself, Crapeau, so that even I couldn’t find you?”

  “In
Switzerland,” whined Granger.

  “Switzerland!” said le Bossu thoughtfully. “That’s where you bolted to, was it? However, it matters not. What you did in those far-off days is old and stale, and I grow weary of you. All these years you have slunk through the world, Crapeau, in fear of your life. Never knowing when le Bossu Masqué would come: never knowing when his hands would steal round your throat. You hid yourself here: you barricaded yourself in thinking you would be safe. And now you see the result. Your precautions were useless: le Bossu has found you. The time of reckoning has come.

  Clang went the gong again, and le Bossu turned to the girl.

  “Quicker than I had expected,” he murmured. “But this time the switch will remain in, young lady.”

  He forced it in, and, sick with apprehension, she heard the gong cease abruptly and the creaking noise come from below. Then silence.

  “A pretty little prison,” purred le Bossu, “where your friends will remain until I have finished. And perhaps longer than that. It all depends – on you. Should you attempt to open the switch” – his fingers touched her throat, and she shrank back in horror – “I should have to take steps to prevent you succeeding. And then they might have to stop there for days, or even weeks. So remember. Go and sit on the other side of the room.”