Temple Tower

by Sapper

  But not for long: the strangler had met his match at last. Under the hood went Hugh’s vicelike hands, and the snarling gave place to a hideous gurgling noise. Then that, too, ceased. And when Hugh finally relaxed his grip, it was into the boat, which he had planned to take him to safety, that le Bossu Masqué fell dead.

  “His eyes were green, Peter,” Hugh said to me. He was rubbing his hands together thoughtfully. “A sort of greeny yellow.”

  He bent over the dead man, and ran his hands through his pockets.

  “The loot,” he said curtly. And then – “Greeny yellow. For a moment it shook me.”

  “Anyway,” I remarked, “Jean Picot will strangle no more.”

  He stared at me thoughtfully.

  “You’ll blame me, Peter: you’ll all of you blame me. I ought to have told you sooner. But I never thought it would be quite such touch and go as this.’’

  He stepped into the boat, and ripped off the mask and hood from the dead man. And I gave an involuntary cry.

  “You knew?” I almost shouted.

  “All along,” he said.

  For the man who lay dead in the boat, his face still distorted in the snarl of death, was Victor Matthews.

  CHAPTER 14

  In which the Maid of Orleans returns from Boulogne

  “My dear people,” remarked Drummond lazily, “you have every right to pelt me metaphorically with bad eggs. I abase myself: I grovel. I should have let you into the secret. My only excuse is that between you I thought you’d give it away to the swab: and in addition I believed I had the situation easily in hand.”

  We were all of us sprawling in easy chairs in his garden late that afternoon.

  “How did you spot it?” demanded Freckles.

  “I spotted it when he was telling us the tale,” said Hugh. “All about the Chateau du Lac Noir, which, incidentally, I have taken the trouble to verify. It was all absolutely true. In fact, where Matthews’ cleverness came in was that all the way through ninety per cent of what he told us was the truth. But to go back to the moment when I spotted it. He reached out his left hand to pick up a glass of ale. In doing so his sleeve slipped back, and on his forearm were some most peculiar red marks. They were evidently caused recently, because in places the blood was showing purple under the skin. And I found myself wondering idly what could have caused them. I suppose suspicions like that come in a flash, and to start with it was only a suspicion. It struck me that they were exactly the sort of marks that would be caused by a dog savaging a man’s arm that was protected by a sleeve. What does a fellow do, instinctively, if an animal flies at him? He flings up his left arm to protect his face, and uses his right for attack. I studied his sleeve. The cloth was not torn, but its condition was on the tired side. And from that moment I began to read everything that happened by the light of the supposition that Victor Matthews was le Bossu Masqué. I was prepared to abandon it at any moment, but it was always present in my mind. The revolver shot through his coat, of course, was a very old trick. It might have been fired by someone else: equally well it might have been fired by himself as a blind.

  “The first thing was to go through everything that had happened, and find out if there was any episode that ruled it out. And up to date there wasn’t. The chimney-pot on my head: there was no reason why Matthews shouldn’t have done it. You get the line I was going on? True, there was no proof that he had: but there was no proof that he hadn’t. Therefore the chimney-pot didn’t rule him out.

  “Stealing John’s plan. Once again there was nothing to prove that Matthews wasn’t the culprit. He had plenty of time to go to Laidley Towers, steal the plan, and then be back at Spragge’s Farm at the hour we saw him.

  “Then came number one difficulty – my sparking plugs. True, there was time for him to have walked back to where the car was, after he had been caught by the light, whilst we were lying up. It didn’t absolutely rule him out – but I didn’t like it very much. And Jean Picot began to float into my mind. Where did he come in? It was him we had seen skulking by the warehouse when we started in the car. Was he in league with le Bossu? If so what about the Vandalis? At that time I had to leave a lot to chance, and all I had arrived at up to date was that nothing had happened which absolutely ruled him out.

  “Then came the biggest poser of all. Why, in view of the fact that he had got well away from us, after the murder of Gaspard, had he deliberately delivered himself, so to speak, into our hands? Well, the answer to that, after a good deal of thought, struck me this way. We were a completely unexpected factor in his calculations. Four large men, barging round for sport, were a complication he hadn’t bargained for at all. He had failed to get into Temple Tower, through knowing nothing about the verse at the back of the plan. So he knew he would have to try again the following night. And he came to the instantaneous decision that if we were going to be there he would sooner have us as allies than enemies. That seemed to answer that.

  “Then the Inspector arrived on the scene with the information about the Nightingale’s murder. And I cast my optic on Matthews’ face. There was no doubt about it: the news had upset him. He was annoyed. How did that fit in with my assumption?

  “All right: at any rate, it didn’t disprove it. When he murdered the Nightingale his idea was that he would be through with the whole thing that night, and since the Nightingale had served his purpose by supplying the ladder, he was a nuisance who might well be removed. If you remember, Matthews himself said all this afterwards, which was where his damned cleverness came in. It was true, and his momentary annoyance was due to the fact that, having failed to get in, the body had been found; as he said, it cut le Bossu short for time, meaning that it cut him himself short for time.

  “Then along comes Miss Verney with the news about Gaspard, and he realises that both these murders, which wouldn’t have mattered if he had succeeded the night before, are now going to complicate things badly. Police, reporters – the light of day on Temple Tower – altogether very awkward. How was he going to rectify it? I assure you I was as interested as he was.

  “Well, we know how he rectified it. The cold-blooded, unscrupulous devil proceeds to murder both the Vandalis, and throws suspicion for all four murders on Vandali. Matthews was Mr Thomas of the Dolphin. But it was there he nearly overstepped the mark. He had forgotten Jean Picot, a gentleman with whom I had a long talk yesterday afternoon.

  “Jean Picot is another of these birds with a past, and Jean Picot has been serving two masters. He had been with the Vandalis as chauffeur for three years, and in his queer way was absolutely devoted to her. But as I say, he had a past, and Matthews knew that past. And so he had but little difficulty in persuading Picot to help him. And, as a matter of fact, it was Picot who actually removed the plugs from the car, acting under Matthews’ orders.

  “But when it came to the murder of the Vandalis, Picot stuck in his toes. He knew it was Matthews who had done it – or Thomas as he called him – but he couldn’t prove it. And exactly what happened in that room we shall never know. As Mr Thomas, Matthews had undoubtedly become acquainted with the Vandalis. And presumably he carried out that double murder in much the same method as he described it. Only he put it on Picot.

  “A clever touch, that. In the first place it gave him a ready-made Bossu to plant on us: in the second, it would fit in with any possible attempt Picot might make to get even. In fact, I should imagine that our friend, as he sat in the dining-room that evening, just before Picot’s shooting practice, must have thought himself on velvet.

  “He had removed four obstacles in his path, without any suspicion falling on him. The outside public thought the murderer was Vandali: we thought it was Picot. In addition to that he had all of us eating out of his hand. And at that time I thought, as I told you Peter, that his plan was one of subtlety. He had presented us with the map – incidentally, how any of you could ever have th
ought that was an accident I don’t know. It was the one flaw in an otherwise brilliant scheme. However, he had to take a chance, and he took it.

  “We now know he made an alteration in the verse, but that does not affect what I believe his scheme to have been. It merely gave him an alternative line of action which, as events turned out, he availed himself of. And his scheme, I am convinced, was this. He intended to remain Victor Matthews with us to the end. With us he would have entered the grounds. No trace of le Bossu. With us he would have found the entrance: with us he would have forced his way into the house, and in the name of law and order compelled Granger to disgorge. And then, somehow or other, he would have given us the slip. That was his scheme, I am convinced, before I gave way to an extremely stupid impulse.

  “You remember when Picot let drive through the window and Matthews turned out the lights. Well – I couldn’t help it: I knew I was a fool at the time – but I just couldn’t help it. The door opened slowly, didn’t it? – largely because I pulled it. Then it shut, largely because I shut it. And Matthews screamed and gurgled, largely because I had my hands on his throat.”

  “You’re the limit, Drummond,” cried Freckles ecstatically.

  “Far from it, young fellow,” said Hugh gravely. “It was a damned silly thing to do, knowing what I did. From being absolutely confident that he had us fooled, he suddenly became suspicious. Was it Picot who had caught him by the throat, or was it not?

  “However, the mischief was done, and I did my best to rectify it. I took the precaution of making him sleep in a room from which he could not get out without my knowledge, and I did my best to allay his doubts. But I know I didn’t succeed. It was then he changed his plan, and took the alternative. It was then he decided to work alone: to make use of what he knew was the right verse, and leave us to stew in the wrong one.

  “But at once he was confronted with a difficulty. Miss Verney and Scott were going to find the tree, and under his first scheme of working with us that was good enough for him: working alone it wasn’t. He had to find that tree for himself. And he thought of the aeroplane.

  “Admittedly the man was a devil incarnate, but you can’t deny it was a stroke of genius. Not only did it make him independent of us, but it had the secondary effect of lulling me into a fool’s paradise. I did not see how he could get in without us. That he was going to have a dip at it that night I knew: I was lying up in the Marsh yesterday when he moved the motorboat from its original position to where Peter and I found it.”

  “That’s when you took the plugs?” I said, and he nodded.

  “How was he going to get in?” he went on. “That was what seemed to me to be the essence of the whole thing. And all through yesterday I still believed that my original idea was right. Knowing nothing of the aeroplane or the change in the verse, it was impossible to allow for the alternative plan. Even when he gave his cry for help over the telephone, I still felt absolutely safe, though that little effort positively reeked of suspicion. Why an AA box, of all places, to ring up from? And by what possible fluke of fate could he expect us to believe le Bossu was waiting there for him? But once again, believing that we were indispensable to him, I saw no risk in going. In fact, to tell you the truth, so preposterous did it seem to me as a blind, that I half believed something had happened to him. That possibly he had persuaded Picot for some reason or other to go with him in the car, and that in the middle of a message to us, Picot had actually set on him. Anyway, we know he didn’t, and Matthews got a start on us that, had it not been for Miss Verney, would have proved fatal. A very salutary thought, chaps: he got away with it as near as makes no odds, and but for her, he got away with it entirely.

  “Anyway, that’s that: only one little ceremony remains. From inquiries I made yesterday I gather that Count Vladimar still lives in the Rue Nitot in Paris. And since this property is his” – he held up the velvet bag – “I took the liberty of telling him that a charming lady, accompanied by a graceless young blighter, would wait upon him in due course to restore it, and to entertain him with an account of how it was recovered. He expressed himself as delighted, and confirmed the fact that the reward still stood. And so I have much pleasure in presenting Miss Verney with the bag of nuts, prior to consuming one or even two beakers of ale.”

  “But it is impossible, Captain Drummond,” cried the girl. “We must share it.”

  “My dear soul,” said Hugh, with a grin, “it’s too hot to argue. Peter would only spend it in drink and riotous living, and my share would go in bailing him out. As for John, churchyards are full of Inspectors of Taxes who have died of shock on seeing his income tax cheque. They didn’t know there was so much money in the world.”

  And so it ended – that strange affair which had started in an Apache revel nearly thirty years ago. Vengeance had come on the last two of that motor bandit gang: vengeance had come on the mysterious being who had employed them. Whether his real name was Matthews no one will ever know. From inquiries we made, the fact emerged that there was a man of that name, whose description tallied with Matthews, employed in the Paris police round about 1900, and whose reputation was above reproach. And if they were the same it may well be that it was an extraordinary example of dual personality, a second case of Jekyll and Hyde. For without some such explanation it is well-nigh impossible to conceive how the suave, capable, courteous man we had known could turn on the sudden into a snarling brute-beast murderer.

  The Maid of Orleans drew slowly into the side. Leaning over the rail was the usual row of cross-Channel passengers calling out greetings to their friends on the quay. An odd Customs man or two drifted out of their respective offices: the RAC representative raised entreating hands to High Heaven lest one of his charges should arrive without his triptyque. In fact, the usual scene on the arrival of the Boulogne boat, and mentioned only because you must end a story somewhere, and Folkestone Harbour is as good a locality as any.

  Standing side by side on the quay were two men, waving their hands in that shamefaced manner which immediately descends on the male sex when it indulges in that fatuous pursuit. The targets of their innocent pastime were two women whose handkerchiefs fluttered in response from the upper deck. And since these two charming ladies have come into the matter again, it might be as well to dispose of them forthwith. They were, in short, the wives of the two men, arriving on their lawful occasions from Le Touquet, where they had played a little golf and lost some money in the Casino. Which is really all that needs to be said about them, except, possibly, their first remark, chanted in unison, as the ship came to rest.

  “Have you both been good while we’ve been away?”

  “Of course,” answered the two men, also in unison.

  Series Information

  Dates given are for year of first publication.

  'Bulldog Drummond' Series

  These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  1. Bulldog Drummond 1920

  2. The Black Gang 1922

  3. The Third Round 1924

  4. The Final Count 1926

  5. The Female of the Species 1928

  6. Temple Tower 1929

  7. The Return of Bulldog Drummond 1932

  8. Knock Out 1933

  9. Bulldog Drummond At Bay 1935

  10. Challenge 1937

  'Ronald Standish' Series

  These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  1. Knock Out 1933

  2. Ask For Ronald Standish 1936

  3. Challenge 1937

  'Jim Maitland'

  These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  1. Jim Maitland 1933

  2. The Island of Terror 1937

  Synopses - All Titles

  Published by House of Stratus

  Ask for Ronald Standish

  Introducing debonair detective, Ronald Standish – good-looking, re
fined, and wealthy enough to be selective in taking cases that are of special interest to him. There are twelve tales in this compelling collection, written by the creator of Bulldog Drummond, who once more proves his mastery with the cream of detection.

  The Black Gang

  Although the First World War is over, it seems that the hostilities are not, and when Captain Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond discovers that a stint of bribery and blackmail is undermining England’s democratic tradition, he forms the Black Gang, bent on tracking down the perpetrators of such plots. They set a trap to lure the criminal mastermind behind these subversive attacks to England, and all is going to plan until Bulldog Drummond accepts an invitation to tea at the Ritz with a charming American clergyman and his dowdy daughter.

  Bulldog Drummond

  ‘Demobilised officer, finding peace incredibly tedious, would welcome diversion. Legitimate, if possible; but crime, if of a comparatively humorous description, no objection. Excitement essential... Reply at once Box X10.’

  Hungry for adventure following the First World War, Captain Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond begins a career as the invincible protectorate of his country. His first reply comes from a beautiful young woman, who sends him racing off to investigate what at first looks like blackmail but turns out to be far more complicated and dangerous. The rescue of a kidnapped millionaire, found with his thumbs horribly mangled, leads Drummond to the discovery of a political conspiracy of awesome scope and villainy, masterminded by the ruthless Carl Peterson.