‘H’m! Death must have been almost immediate,’ he said. ‘The bullet appears to have mushroomed out and lodged somewhere in the muscles. I don’t see any signs of an egress wound. Where did the shot come from?’
Hartley explained.
‘Ah, that accounts for it,’ he grunted. ‘Hitting the glass would make it mushroom. That’s why the wound isn’t a clean one.’
‘I thought that,’ remarked Dr. Grendon as the police surgeon glared up at him.
‘Did you — did you?’ he snapped. ‘Are you Dr. Grendon? How do you do? Not much used to this sort of thing, eh?’
‘Not at all used to it,’ said Grendon a little stiffly.
‘Neither am I,’ retorted the other, scrambling to his feet, ‘but I shall be if they go on at this rate. Homicidal maniac loose in the place, or what?’
‘Maybe; we don’t know yet,’ answered Hartley cautiously. ‘Will you come upstairs, now?’
‘Upstairs? What for?’ demanded Dr. Peters.
‘The dead man’s wife is upstairs,’ said Lowe. ‘She appears to have committed suicide.’
‘Good God!’ Peters’ neck protruded from his loose collar until it was an amazing length. ‘You don’t say so! At this rate the entire population of Stonehurst will be wiped out; not that that’d be much loss.’ He bustled over to the door. ‘Take me up to the room, Hartley, and let’s get it over.’
During the short space of time that the police doctor and the superintendent were away a silence fell over the group in the dining-room. Trevor Lowe, busily occupied with his own thoughts, was standing by the window, staring out at as much of the garden as was visible at this point. Dr. Grendon, plucking nervously at his lips, was gazing at nothing, and Jim and McWraith lounged against the fireplace, watching each in turn. In less than five minutes Dr. Peters and the superintendent came back, and the police doctor confirmed Grendon’s diagnosis as to the cause of the woman’s death.
‘There’ll have to be a post mortem, of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll arrange about that at once. Are you ready to have these remains put into the ambulance?’
Hartley nodded, and called to a constable who had come with the ambulance that had brought Peters, and between them they lifted the body of North and carried it out. When his wife had been placed in the vehicle beside all that was left of her husband it drove off with Grendon and the police doctor, and Hartley came back and joined Lowe, Jim and McWraith in the dining-room.
‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘what do you suggest we do next?’
‘I suggest,’ said Lowe, ‘that we go and arrange with your aunt to put up myself and my secretary for the length of our stay in Stonehurst.’
The superintendent’s big face broke into a smile. ‘I’m glad you’ve decided to leave the Crossed Hands, sir,’ he said. ‘Somehow I don’t think you’d find it very healthy.’
‘I don’t think anywhere in Stonehurst is going to be very healthy for us during the next few days,’ answered the dramatist. ‘I’m under the impression that I, in particular, am going to be very unpopular indeed.’
‘If you’re thinking of shifting from the inn,’ put in Jim, ‘why not come and stay here?’
Lowe considered.
‘Would you mind very much, Hartley?’ he said at last.
The superintendent shook his head.
‘No, sir,’ he said; ‘in fact, I think it’s a better suggestion than mine.’
‘That’s settled, then,’ exclaimed Jim. ‘When will you come?’
‘As soon as White comes back from London with our things,’ answered Lowe.
But Arnold White did not come back, and it was nearly a week before Trevor Lowe was destined to see his secretary again!
Chapter Fourteen – White Meets With Trouble
Arnold White reached Portland Place shortly before midday and decided to have lunch before starting out on the return trip to Stonehurst.
While the meal was being prepared he went upstairs and packed his own and Lowe’s suitcase with the things that he thought would be necessary for their stay.
After that he shaved and had a bath, for neither of these things had been possible at the Crossed Hands, and came down to find the table laid and his food ready and waiting.
He was ravenously hungry and thoroughly enjoyed the tender steak which was put before him.
By the time he had finished and drunk a cup of coffee it was a little after two o’clock, and he began to think about getting back to Stonehurst.
He carried the suitcases downstairs, said good-bye to the housekeeper, and went out to the waiting car, which he had left drawn up outside the door.
Stowing the bags in the back, he took his place behind the wheel, and as he pressed on the pedal of the self-starter happened to glance at the petrol gauge.
It was very low, and he decided to call in at the garage round the corner, and have the tank filled up.
Lowe used a special mixture of petrol and benzol, and whenever possible White liked to keep to this.
He was a quarter of an hour at the garage, and when he drove out and turned the long radiator of the car in the direction of Oxford Street he failed to notice the leather-clad figure on the motor-cycle who had watched him leave Portland Place and waited while he had made his call at the garage.
There was no reason why he should have noticed this man, for he was not expecting to be followed, and neither did the cyclist attempt to do so after he had come out of the filling-station. Instead he swung his powerful machine round in the opposite direction and drove it slowly up Portland Place, turned to the right at the end, and presently came to a call-office.
Here he left the motor-cycle at the kerb and, entering the scarlet box, was presently engaged in a long conversation with somebody at the other end of the wire.
Had White been able to hear what was being said a great deal of trouble might have been avoided.
But White was at that moment entirely engaged in steering Lowe’s Rolls in and out of the stream of traffic in Oxford Street and looking forward to the time when he should have left the outskirts of London behind and be able to let the powerful engine have its head.
He got through the traffic at last, passed the straggling edge of a suburb and came out into open country.
The needle of the speedometer spun round to forty as his foot came down steadily on the accelerator, swung up to fifty, and stayed there quivering.
The afternoon was fine and sunny and the clean sweet air hummed round the wind-screen and brought a glow of colour to his cheeks.
He was rather anxious to get back and learn what had happened — if anything — for this mysterious business interested him immensely.
He tried, as he kept the big car running smoothly along the broad road, to evolve some theory that would account for the disappearances, the killing of the unknown man at the cross-roads, and the attempt on Lowe at the inn that failed.
It was the time lapse between the disappearances of Scory — what was the other man’s name: he couldn’t remember it — and Drin that baffled him. Those two years had to be taken into account. Whatever was the explanation behind the affair, it was something that had been going on for some time.
He was still puzzling when he reached Maidstone and decided to stop at a cafe for tea.
It was nearly four when he started on the second half of his journey, and by the time he reached Hythe, getting on for half-past five.
He took the coast road from Hythe, the same that Lowe had taken on the previous night, and turned off just before reaching Dymchurch into the secondary road that led through to Stonehurst. This was a lonely, winding country road, bordered on each side by tall hedges, beyond which lay wide stretches of ploughed fields.
Just before reaching the cross-roads where he and Lowe had made their tragic discovery the night before there was an old tumble down cottage, empty because it was in too bad a condition for anyone to have lived in it, for there was nothing except the four walls left.
The roof had
fallen in and the windows were glassless; even part of the front wall was in ruins, and the whole place looked as if it might collapse completely at any moment.
White glanced at it as he approached, and then as the car came abreast he heard two loud reports and the wheel in his hand was wrenched round.
He knew what had happened at once — the front tyres had burst.
With an angry exclamation of annoyance he stopped the engine and got out. Both front tyres were as flat as pancakes, and he was wondering what had caused them to go suddenly together like this when he saw.
The roadway had been sprinkled with sharp iron spikes.
‘What a damned silly trick!’ said White aloud, his face red with anger. ‘Whoever did this ought to get six months!’
‘Indeed?’ said a voice gently. ‘I think it’s a pretty good trick. It’s had the desired effect, anyhow.’
White straightened up and swung round.
A tall figure, clad in a long coat, a handkerchief bound round his nose and mouth, was watching him.
‘Who —’ began White furiously; but the stranger interrupted him.
‘Put up your hands,’ he said evenly, and the secretary saw that he held a small, snub-nosed automatic. ‘I’ve been expecting you for some time. You’re late.’
‘What the dickens do you think you’re playing at?’ demanded White hotly.
‘I’m not playing at anything,’ retorted the other, still in that gentle, almost caressing tone. ‘This is not a game, I can assure you. Look behind you.’
White looked and saw three other men emerging from the ruins of the cottage.
Like the man who held the pistol, their faces were concealed by handkerchiefs and they advanced towards him silently.
A thrill of apprehension shot through him. What was the meaning of this ambush?
‘We’re rather afraid that you and your employer are going to be a nuisance,’ said the first man, and he might almost have read White’s thoughts. ‘So we are taking the precaution of attending to you first and putting you safely out of the way.’
Before White could reply the other three approaching men had reached him. Two gripped his arms and the third, in spite of his struggles, clapped a reeking wad over his nose and mouth.
He tried to hold his breath, but his exertions had made him pant, and he was forced to draw in a gulp of the drug.
He felt his head swim and experienced a violent desire to be sick. He tried to jerk his head away from the chloroform-soaked pad, but it was pressed tighter. And then his senses were engulfed in a wave of darkness that swept into his brain and receded, carrying with it the last vestige of consciousness.
As he fell back limply into the arms of his captors the man with the pistol advanced.
‘Has he gone off?’ he inquired; and was answered by a nod from the man with the chloroform. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Take him over to the cottage and secure him. I’ll get rid of the car and come back. So keep him there and wait with him until I do.’
He pocketed the automatic and went over to the car. Getting up behind the wheel, he started the engine and began to drive slowly towards Stonehurst.
The three men left behind picked up the unconscious figure of White and carried it towards the ruins of the cottage.
In a few seconds the road was empty and deserted, and it remained so until ten minutes later, when the tall figure of the man who had driven Lowe’s car away reappeared walking rapidly towards the cottage.
His eyes above the handkerchief gave a keen glance round before he forced his way through the tangled bushes and entered the rubbish littered space that the four crumbling walls enclosed.
The three other men had removed the handkerchiefs from their faces and were sitting on a heap of stones, smoking cigarettes.
Arnold White, still unconscious, was lying nearby, securely bound and with a gag tied across his mouth.
‘We’d better get him away now,’ said the man. ‘One of you pick up those spikes and then we’ll carry him across the field to the car.’
A short, thick-set man with a red face and a stubbly beard threw away his half-smoked cigarette and rose to his feet.
‘I’ll go and clear up the road,’ he said; ‘and there’s no reason why you should wait for me. You could get along with him to the car and I’ll go home, see? Don’t you think that’s best?’
The tall man nodded.
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘That’s all right. You carry on, then.’
The red-faced man lounged out and the other turned to the two men who were still sitting smoking.
‘Come on,’ he said; ‘pick him up and we’ll get away.’
They obeyed, and carrying White’s helpless form between them, made their way out of the ruins and across the field at the back.
Passing through a gap in the hedge they came out into a narrow lane where a closed car was waiting.
The tall man opened the door and White was bundled into the back. The two who had carried him got into the front of the car, and one of them slid in behind the wheel and started the engine.
The other man shut the door.
‘You know what you’ve to do,’ he said, and they both nodded. ‘All right’ — he turned away — ‘then off you go.’
The car moved forward slowly at first, but with gathering speed, and bumped down the lane.
He stood watching it until it was out of sight, and then, removing the handkerchief from his face, he slipped it into his pocket and walked away in the opposite direction.
Chapter Fifteen – Vanished!
Trevor Lowe did not begin to worry until after darkness had set in.
After arranging with Jim Winslow to come back as soon as he had collected his secretary, he had gone down to the Crossed Hands and informed the landlord that he had decided not to remain there — a decision that had brought something very like a look of relief to Mr. Japper’s pale eyes — paid the bill and ordered tea.
It was served to him by the landlord’s daughter in the bar-parlour, and he expected while he drank it that White would turn up at any moment. But there was no sign of him.
He finished his tea and smoked two pipes, but still his secretary had not put in an appearance. And at last he came to the conclusion that something had happened to detain him in town.
It never entered his head there was any cause for alarm. Quite a number of things might be the reason for White’s delay in getting back. Letters that had required attending to at once, or perhaps someone had called and had been difficult to shift. Any number of things.
Leaving word with Mr. Japper for White to come up to Greytower, Lowe left the inn and walked back.
Jim and McWraith were in the kitchen when he arrived, engaged in trying to cook something for dinner.
There was a lot of smoke and a great smell of burning, but as far as Lowe could see precious little else.
Jim welcomed him with a grin.
‘Do you know anything about steak?’ he asked.
‘I know that it tastes much better if you don’t burn it,’ said the dramatist, and seizing the frying-pan from McWraith’s hand, he took it off the blazing fire. ‘Ugh!’ he grunted, looking at the leathery mass of blackness that reposed at the bottom. ‘Is this steak?’
‘It was,’ said McWraith, wrinkling his nose. ‘I’ll admit it doesn’t look like it now.’
‘It would have been better if you had put some sort of grease in the pan,’ said Lowe. ‘The only thing you can do with this is to throw it away. What else have you got?’
‘There’s some bacon and half a dozen eggs,’ answered Jim, ‘and that’s about all.’
‘Well, we’ll see what we can do with those,’ remarked the dramatist, taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves.
‘Are you going to cook them?’ demanded Jim.
Lowe’s eyes twinkled.
‘I think I’d better, don’t you?’ he remarked. ‘Have either of you ever cooked bacon and eggs before?’
‘I haven’t
,’ grunted McWraith.
‘Neither have I,’ confessed Jim.
‘Well, I have,’ answered Lowe. ‘You fetch them and I’ll get on with it. You might get rid of that steak, though,’ he added. ‘I shall want the pan.’
McWraith carried it away and deposited it in some mysterious place in the scullery, while Jim went in search of the bacon and eggs.
Fifteen minutes later they sat down to an appetising meal in the big stone-flagged kitchen.
‘I’ve never tasted better bacon and eggs,’ said Jim, speaking with his mouth full. ‘How did you manage it?’
Lowe smiled.
‘I’ve cooked things in all sorts of weird places,’ he said, ‘and all sorts of weird things, too.’
‘Well, I must say you’re an expert,’ said McWraith, helping himself to a huge chunk of bread.
‘Your secretary’s a long time, isn’t he?’ asked Jim. ‘Weren’t you expecting him back this afternoon?’
‘I was, but I expect he’s been detained over something,’ answered the dramatist.
‘You know,’ said the new owner of Greytower, ‘I shall have to get some kind of servants to take the place of the Norths. What do you think I’d better do?’
‘I certainly shouldn’t try and get them locally,’ advised Lowe. ‘I should either have them sent down from London or get them from Hythe.’
‘Yes, perhaps you’re right,’ Jim nodded. ‘I’ll have to see about it first thing in the morning. We can’t go on without anybody.’
They finished their meal, washed up the dirty things and went along to the drawing-room, where McWraith had lighted a fire.
‘I can get fires to burn all right,’ he said proudly, indicating the cheerful blaze.
‘And steaks, too,’ murmured Trevor Lowe with a smile.
The huge Scotsman grinned.
They settled down round the fire and began chatting about the excitement of the day. So engrossed did they become that it was with a start of surprise that Lowe suddenly discovered that it was ten o’clock.
For the first time he felt a little twinge of uneasiness at White’s absence. What could be detaining him?
Terror Tower Page 11
