Terror Tower Read online

  Arnold White went over to a side-table and mixed him a stiff whisky and soda, and he drank half of it at a gulp.

  ‘You’ll keep in touch with me — won’t you, Mr. Lowe?’ he said. ‘Whether you discover anything or not.’

  ‘I will,’ promised the dramatist; ‘I’ll drop you a line and let you know what progress we’re making.’

  Shadgold finished the remainder of his drink, and picked up his hat.

  ‘Well, then I’ll say good-bye,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘And thanks once more.’

  He shook hands with Lowe, nodded to White, and they heard his heavy footsteps hurrying along the passage. The front door slammed and the dramatist turned to his secretary.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘Well?’ said White.

  ‘That was a queer story of Shadgold’s,’ remarked Lowe. ‘What do you think of it?’

  ‘I don’t think anything of it,’ replied Arnold White. ‘It’s certainly peculiar, these fellows disappearing like that, but I can’t think of any reasonable suggestion to account for it.’

  ‘All Scotland Yard men,’ said Lowe musingly. ‘H’m! I wonder what’s behind it.’

  White wrinkled his brows.

  ‘The only thing that I can think of,’ he said, ‘is that these chaps must have stumbled on to something that somebody didn’t want them to know anything about.’

  ‘It sounds a little involved the way you put it,’ agreed Lowe, ‘but I think the same. The question is, what did they stumble on? It must have been something very extraordinary, for Locker disappeared two years ago, and it was not until six weeks ago that the same thing happened to Roach and Scory, and three weeks ago that Drin left Hythe at ten o’clock one morning and was never seen again. That means that this thing, whatever it is, which they accidentally discovered has been going on for at least two years, and possibly longer. I don’t mind admitting that I’m very interested. The unusualness of it appeals to me.’

  Crime was Trevor Lowe’s hobby. During the writing of a mystery play he had sought permission from Scotland Yard to study police methods, and had been turned over to Detective-Inspector Shadgold. At that time the papers were full of the murder of Thomas Carraway, the ex-Member of Parliament, who had been found stabbed to death in the grounds of his house in the country. Shadgold was in charge of the case, and he had suggested that Lowe would acquire all the knowledge he wanted if he accompanied him on his investigations. The dramatist had eagerly agreed, and his help had been so valuable that the Chief-Commissioner himself had written a personal letter of thanks. A friendship had sprung up between himself and the Scotland Yard detective, and since then Shadgold had been in the habit of enlisting his aid on more than one occasion.

  Nine o’clock brought a messenger from Scotland Yard with the official reports that the inspector had promised, and Trevor Lowe settled himself in an easy chair in front of the fire, and with the folders on his knee, began to read carefully through them. Except for the fact that they were couched in official language, and that the date and times were set down in detail, he found that there was very little more information to be gathered than Shadgold had already told him.

  He was in the middle of the last pages when the telephone bell rang. Arnold White went over to the instrument, and lifted the receiver.

  ‘Hullo!’ he called . . . ‘Yes . . . Yes . . . Who is that? . . . I don’t know. I’ll see.’

  Covering the mouthpiece with his hand, he turned to Lowe.

  ‘Somebody wants to speak to you,’ he said. ‘It’s a man, but he won’t give his name.’

  ‘Ask him what it’s all about,’ said the dramatist.

  White repeated his remark to the unknown at the other end of the wire.

  There was a pause while the caller argued, and then the secretary once more turned.

  ‘He says it’s very urgent, and he must speak to you personally,’ he reported. ‘He sounds to me as if he was scared.’

  With an impatient exclamation Lowe laid the typescript he was reading aside, and rose to his feet. Going over to the telephone, he took the receiver from White’s hand and held it to his ear.

  ‘This is Trevor Lowe speaking,’ he said. ‘What do you want? Who are you?’

  The voice that replied was faint and far away.

  ‘I want to see you, Mr. Lowe,’ it said rapidly. ‘I must see you.’

  ‘Who are you?’ repeated the dramatist.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ answered the voice. ‘I can’t tell you anything on the telephone. Somebody may hear. Can you come down to Stonehurst — now?’

  Lowe started.

  ‘Stonehurst?’ he said. ‘Is that where you’re speaking from?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered the unknown caller. ‘I’m at a call-office. I’ve got some information, important information, Mr. Lowe, and I must see you. Can you meet me at one o’clock to-night?’

  ‘Where?’ asked the dramatist.

  ‘Here,’ said the voice. ‘There are four crossroads just outside the village with a signpost. On one of the arms you’ll see ‘Stonehurst three-quarters of a mile.’ Meet me there.’

  Lowe hesitated.

  ‘If you’ll tell me who you are —’ he began, and the other interrupted him.

  ‘You know me,’ he said impatiently, and then: ‘For God’s sake come! There’s devilish work going on! I can’t tell you any more now; I daren’t tell you any more now. There are two men following me. They’ve got a car outside the Crossed —’ The voice broke off with a gasp.

  ‘All right,’ said Lowe, suddenly making up his mind; ‘I’ll be at the cross-roads at one o’clock.’

  There was a click at the other end and the wire went dead.

  Coming back to the fireplace, Lowe gave White a rapid account of the conversation.

  ‘Are you going,’ asked the secretary. ‘It may be a hoax.’

  ‘Hoax or not, I think we ought to go,’ replied the dramatist. ‘Particularly after what Shadgold told us this evening.’

  Arnold White looked at him, a peculiar expression in his eyes.

  ‘By Jove,’ he muttered; ‘you mean —’

  ‘I mean,’ said Lowe seriously, ‘that call came from Stonehurst, and it was in the neighbourhood of Stonehurst that Roach, Scory and Drin disappeared!’

  Chapter Four – Death at the Crossroads

  Trevor Lowe’s sectional motoring-map showed that the quickest way to Stonehurst was by the main road which ran through Wrotham, Maidstone, Ashford, and from thence on to Hythe. There was a secondary road which branched off at Ashford and led on to New Romney, which was not very far from Stonehurst, but the dramatist decided to go on to Hythe and then take the road along the coast.

  The night was fine when they left Portland Place, but at Maidstone they ran into a drizzle of rain, and this continued for the rest of the journey.

  It was a quarter past twelve when they came into Hythe, with the screen-wiper working furiously, and, veering sharply to the right just outside the town, continued along the main road to Dymchurch.

  Lowe decreased his speed considerably here, searching the road ahead for the side turning that would take them up to Stonehurst. He found it, a secondary road that twisted and turned and eventually brought them to a point where it was bisected by another and narrower thoroughfare, at the junction of which stood a four-armed signpost.

  ‘I think this is the place,’ said the dramatist as he ran the car into the side of the road and brought it to a halt.

  As he spoke a clock somewhere in the distance chimed the three-quarters, and he confirmed the time by a glance at his watch.

  ‘We’ve got a quarter of an hour to wait,’ he said, and taking his pipe and tobacco pouch from his pocket, he filled the former and lit it.

  The rain was still falling in a thin, wetting drizzle, and the gentle noise that it made on the leaves and hedges surrounding them was the only sound that broke the stillness of the night. The slight wind that was blowing brought with it a tang of the se
a that smelt very clean and fresh after the petrol-laden atmosphere of London. There was no moon, and the clouded sky obscured the stars, so that except for the light from the car the darkness was intense.

  They waited in silence while the time crept on, Lowe smoking throughtfully and Arnold White speculating as to what the information was that the unknown man they had come all this way to meet had to reveal.

  Presently the same clock that had chimed before struck one, and Lowe sat up a little more alertly in his seat and peered ahead at the dim outline of the signpost. Two minutes went by — five, but there was no sign of the man who had telephoned. Nothing stirred in the darkness of the night, and no sound of approaching footsteps broke the monotonous hiss of the gently falling rain.

  The clock struck again, a quarter past one, and Lowe began to get a little impatient. Had the whole thing been a hoax, and was the joker at the moment laughing to himself at having tricked them into making this night journey for nothing? If it had been, there had been very little point in it, and remembering the urgency of the voice, the dramatist was not inclined to believe this explanation.

  If it was not a hoax, then something must have happened to the unknown man to keep him from his appointment, or — and this was a possible suggestion — they had come to the wrong place.

  With a word to his secretary, Lowe got out of the car and walked towards the signpost. The headlights were shining full on it, and it was quite easy to read the black lettering on the arms. The one pointing directly ahead in the opposite direction from which they had come bore the inscription ‘Stonehurst three-quarters of a mile.’

  There was little doubt, then, that this was the right place. Lowe walked back to the car, deciding that he would wait until two and then give it up. If anything had happened to detain the man, an hour’s grace should surely give him ample time to put in an appearance. There was, of course, always the possibility that he had changed his mind — that something had occurred after the telephone call to prevent him imparting the urgent information which he possessed.

  However, it was useless speculating. If the man turned up, all well and good, if not, well, they could do nothing except make the best of a bad job and go back to town.

  The time crept slowly on — half-past one, a quarter to two, two — and still nothing happened. As the last notes of the hour were carried away on the wind the dramatist uttered an impatient exclamation and got back into the car.

  ‘I don’t think it’s any good waiting any longer,’ he said. ‘We may as well go back.’

  White grunted disgustedly.

  ‘We might just as well have stopped at home,’ he said. ‘As it is we’ve lost nearly a whole night’s sleep for nothing.’

  ‘It can’t be helped,’ said Lowe philosophically. ‘But I should very much like to know what went wrong. I’m convinced the fellow, whoever he was, was genuine.’

  He kicked the self-starter, and as the engine purred to life, let in the clutch, and they began to move slowly forward.

  ‘If we go round the island with the signpost,’ he said, ‘we can turn right round and go back the way we came.’

  He carried out the suggestion, and as the car rounded the irregular piece of grass in the centre of the cross-roads the headlights shone brilliantly on a hedge at the side of the road. With a sudden startled cry Arnold White gripped his employer’s arm.

  ‘Look there!’ he exclaimed hoarsely, and pointed.

  Lowe looked, and the next second had jammed on the brakes and brought the car to a skidding standstill.

  Below the hedge, so clearly seen in the brilliant light of the headlamps, was a wide ditch, and protruding from this and resting on the grassy edge was a hand!

  Lowe jumped out of the car almost before it stopped and ran towards this gruesome sight, and then he saw that the hand belonged to a man who lay in the few inches of water at the bottom of the ditch. His face was visible, and the eyes, glassy and immovable, stared up into the dark arch of the sky. It only needed a glance to show that he was dead, and the round hole in the centre of his forehead, from which the blood had trickled and dried on his white face, amply testified to the manner in which he had met his end.

  ‘What is it?’ asked White breathlessly as he hurried up.

  ‘It’s either murder or suicide,’ answered the dramatist grimly. ‘This fellow’s been shot through the head.’

  With a horrified exclamation the secretary peered down at the lifeless thing in the ditch.

  ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed, and stopped abruptly, staring at the sprawling body.

  ‘Not a pleasant sight, is it?’ remarked Lowe. ‘There’s a torch in the right-hand side door-pocket of the car. Will you get it?’

  He stood looking down at the man in the ditch while White went on his errand, and when the secretary returned took the torch from his hand, and switching on the powerful white ray, directed it on the dead man.

  He was of middle age and shabbily dressed; the brown suit he wore was old and creased, and there was a small slit in one of his brown shoes. His shirt and collar were of a bluish grey and none too clean. His face was thin and lined, and his hair, for he wore no hat, was of a light straw colour. It was not a prepossessing face; the chin was weak and the forehead low and narrow, the eyes set too closely to the broad, rather shapeless, nose. Lowe thought there was something rather familiar about the man, but though he tried hard he couldn’t place him. He made a rapid search of the ditch in the vicinity of the body, but there was no sign of the weapon by which the man had met his death. There was the possibility of course that it might be underneath him, but the dramatist thought it advisable not to move the body until the police had seen it and the police doctor had made his examination.

  ‘Take the car, White,’ he said, turning to his secretary, ‘and find the nearest police station — it’s in Hythe, I think — tell them what has happened, and ask them to come back here at once. I’ll wait with this fellow till you return.’

  White obeyed and, standing in the darkness by the side of the ditch, Lowe watched him swing the car round and drive off in the direction of Hythe. As the red eye of the tail-lamp disappeared in the distance he turned his attention once more to the dead man. This must be the man who had put through that urgent call to Portland Place, demanding to see him; and if he were, it looked a great deal more like murder than suicide. There was no satisfactory reason why the man should have gone to all the trouble and then shot himself before keeping the appointment. But there was every reason why somebody else should have killed him. He had said that he had important information to impart. What this information was Lowe had not the least idea; but if it was concerned with a crime of some description and involved somebody else, then here was a very good motive for the man being killed before he could pass his knowledge on.

  The dramatist knelt down beside the motionless form and, taking the greatest care not to disturb the position of the body, went through all the pockets.

  They were all empty, and he frowned. This pointed still further to murder, for it is very unusual for any man to walk about with completely empty pockets, and it was unlikely that this particular man should be an exception to the general rule. Whatever he had had on him at the time of his death, therefore, had been removed, and it was not unreasonable to suppose that it had been removed by the person who had killed him.

  Lowe was certain now that this was a case of murder — certain that the man before him had been killed in order to keep his mouth shut. But what had he known? What was the vital information that had caused him to ring up Lowe so urgently and arrange that night appointment at the cross-roads? Was it connected with the disappearances? Had this man stumbled on the truth that lay behind the vanishing of Locker, Roach, Scory and Drin? Lowe thought that it was more than possible; it seemed too much of a coincidence to think otherwise. Somewhere in the vicinity of this peaceful countryside there was devilish work going on. Locker had got an inkling of it, and disappeared. Roach, Scory and Drin had follow
ed him, and now this man who had also known something had died before he could speak.

  Lowe walked slowly up and down on the edge of the ditch in the darkness and the gently falling rain, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his overcoat, his brows drawn together in a thoughtful frown.

  What was the thing behind it all? Shadgold had said it was something pretty big. But what? What gigantic plot was being hatched in this rural setting? Whatever it was, it had been going on for two years, for it was two years ago that Locker had vanished for good from the sight of his fellow-men. Had these Scotland Yard men, like the man in the ditch, been killed too? Their bodies had never been found, but that was by no means proof that they were still alive.

  The dramatist looked round him into the blackness and silence of the countryside. There must be numberless places in the neighbourhood where a man could lie buried without much risk of ever being found.

  He was still trying to form some conjecture as to what the thing could be that lay at the root of the mystery when the whine of a car came to his ears, and looking up, he saw the headlights coming towards him. They widened out as they came nearer, and he saw that behind them was a second pair less brilliant than the first.

  The car came to a halt by the side of the signposts, and Arnold White got out, followed by a short thick-set man and a uniformed constable.

  ‘This is Superintendent Hartley,’ explained the secretary, introducing the newcomer.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ said the thick-set man. ‘There’s been pretty bad trouble here, I understand?’

  Lowe gave him a brief and concise account of the finding of the dead man, and when he had finished the superintendent went over and peered down at the body.

  ‘Before we go any further,’ he said, ‘we’d better get the doctor’s opinion.’ He turned and called into the darkness. ‘Are you there, Doctor?’

  ‘Coming,’ said a voice, and a little man carrying a black bag appeared in the ray of the car’s headlights.