THE TOWER OF SILENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19549, 31 January 1927, Page 16

THE TOWER OF SILENCE.

BY J. B. HAREIS-BURLAND.

SYNOPSIS. Lady Torkington, her son, Harold, Lord Glen Off ! ei; f and her daughter, Lady Kosemarv, are Laving tea in the billiard room m Godemark, tho iiome of the. Glenowere for nearly six centuries. liiis room is situated in what is called the Eagle Tower. Lady Torkinston comments on the fact tnat Audrey is late, and expresses anxiety about her She mentions that there is a wl.ite yacht hanging about. They . hear nailed boots clomping on the stone stairs. Audrey Glenower, who is cousin to Harold and Rosemary, enters hurriedly. She ;s pale end is breathing hard. Lady Tor Kington would like her for a daughter-in-law. Andrew jfives a short account of her nclventure, and shows them her brown fer; liat, which has been shot through one objects to seagulls being shot at, and when, from her height 011 the cliffs, alio suw a mim on the bench engaged in this sport., she just shouted down what she. thougut of him. He fired at her, and missed the top of her head by about half an inch. Audrey dropped on the ground and era.vied for about fifty yards before making a rush for home. Lady Torkington thinks this idiot, or criminal should be caught. They hear a voice thundering from the top 01 Hie stone steps leading to the room above. The Earl of Torkington is warmly welcomed by his wife, but they all stand in awe of him. Ho hears Audrey'a story gloomily and then passes a letter to his "or., osKins him to read it aloud. It is iliiterove threatening. No tim ; < is allowed to Genower family to say their " prairs. Ho returns to his own quarters, a nd a dark yomiK man appears at the top of tno stairs, nnd descends. The two girls play billiards. Lord Glenower proposes a game with Lambard. They are about to commence their play when the bell from the room above rings out three times in quick succession. Lord Glenower is: alarmed and runs up the utairs, followed more slowly by Lambard. The earl is discovered lying on the "°°r. His forehead has been shattered by a bullet. There were signs of a terrible struggle. No stranger was in the room: the windows were barred, and r.J one could go downBtasirs without passing through the billiard room.

CHAPTER ll.—(Continued.) "Mv God!" whispered Lord Gienower. Oh, my God"! He did not ask himself how this tragedy had happened. His brain was dazed with the horror of it. That terrible thing on tho floor was his father. Lord Torkington was dead and nothing could bring him to life again. During thoso moments of genuine terror, Gienower did not ask himself whether this were a ease of murder or accident or suiciclc. Ho was just faco to face with violent death. And it was something new to bim. Ho had been too young to light in the Great* War, when men had grown accustomed to even more horrible sights than that which lay before his eyes. Ho had seen a man killed in the hunting field, but that had- been rather a grimly picturesque affair—no blood, at any rate. J3ut this? And his father? A queer •memory came back to liirn. A very genial and affectionate father, tipping a small boy of thirteen and giving a littlo lecture on iho way the son of a gentleman should conduct himself at a great' public school.. " So he was right after all." Gienower turned and saw Lambard in the doorw-y —Lombard, breathing h*av il after the quick ascent of sli those SJtiirs, Oro ox rm t'jfi thick otj; jamb of >'d'A r. pss farp, w\r!y iW.v-ys ffitM, : j. : heiQ whs m. V,cifor in x-is eyc», brfc th:a John had seen so many dead and shattered men. " You all laughed at him.," Lombard continued in a cold, even voir?, " not to his f i.'Jl bo bound, but afta? ht. left you. ' They're a,pack of fools,' ho said to mo when ho came back to this room. 'They'd laugh at the Day of Judgment.' " Ho camo forward, knelt down by tho body, and looked at tho faco without flinching. " Death must havo been instantaneous," he said, as if speaking to himself. " The struggle must havo taken place before the shot was fired. It was not the struggle of his death agony. .Where is tho murderer?" He roso to his feet, opened a drawer in tho writing-table, took out an automatic pistol and thrust it into lais pocket. " Somewhere between this room and the billiard room, Glenower," he continued. "No 0110 can get out of any of these windows."

Lord Glenower pulled himself together. *' A man could fire through them,'* he said. " That window, looking out. on the sea, is open." "Yes, but who could climb up to it? [As you know, the tower is skty feet high, and" the cliff another forty. That is a sheer drop of a hundred feet. Weil, these details can wait. The girls downstairs may bo in danger of their lives." The two young men descended to the room below. Harold tore a sheet away from his father's bed, went up the stairs again, arid reverently covered up that terrible figure on iho floor. He knew that nothing must be 'touched, nothing bo moved until !.'ie police arrived, but he could not leave the body uncovered. " You had better go and telephone to tho Sanford police again. We must have the Inspector himself, and a doctor. There is no one in this room, and no one could have left it by any of the windows. As a matter of fact, three of them are •but." They made their way down into Lambard's sitting room and bedroom. Lambard asked Glenower to go to the telephono, but Glenower insisted on helping the secretary in the search. It seemed to Glenower tbf.i. > himself ought to be quite c-.r. »dtc that f ero was 110 ono hiding r: :he room thj !ay between his father study and tho ..i'.iiard room, and that ii >vas not sufficient, for h'.m to take the wor ! of John Lambard. And when the search was finished and nothing had been found, Ik> said to Lambard, "1 think you had better telephone. I don't feci quite able to give a clear account—and, besides, I must break it to the girls." John Lambard hesitate,;. cT'cnrd hii> moa'h -as if to speak, an J then said, " Oil, very well—yes, of course, you are the proper person to tell your family, sou had better take this pistol. 1 had forgotten about the roof of the tower. 1? the trap door is not bolted vou must go out on the roof and see if the murderer is hiding up there. 1 doubt if he could escape, hut the sooner you have a look, tho Letter." Lord Glenower made his wav back to his father's room. lie scarcely glanced «t the white heap on the floor. His mind was now intent on bringing the murderer to justice. For the time being he thought less of the horror of the tragedy than how it had occurred. Not that his mind was yet ready for the perception of details. But lie was able to concentrate on the central fact—that the murderer must be caught before he had time to escape from tho tower Pistol in hand, he searched the room again. 1 lie walls were of stone, covered >v tapestries that lay close against them, ine groined and vaulted roof was of stone. lh« floor Mas of stone. There v ' ;l s ri '' panelling— no posibilitv of secret doors or hiding-places. "There were four windows—ono in each wall thev .were larger than the windows m toe billiard room, and the embrasures were not so deep. the seventeenth century they had been altered from the original design. Cacii of them consisted of two narrow lights divided bv a thick stone mullion. One of the lights was a casement, and in the case of' the window there was a drop of a hundred feet to the. sea! Of course it, was improbable that anyone could have fired through the window. », trom the sea," he said to himself, •*' from far out at sea No, that was «uite impossible. There had been a violent struggle in the room, ■there had been a hand to hand struggle "-perhaps for the weapon.

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He concluded liis searcfli of tho room,, and pressed down the switch near the top of an iron ladder that ran to the roof. "If tho chap is up there, he himself, "the odds are in his favour. But it was not even necessary for Lord Glenower to open the heavy wooden trapdoor that gave access to the roof. For the trapdoor was bolted, and no one who had passed through it could possibly have bolted it from the other sice. He switched off the light that was designed to illuminate the roof, descended the iron ladder, and seated himself in a chair at the writing table. He rested Jus elbows on the table and covered his ejes with his hands. The worst part of tho business lay before him. His mother, Roserouiy> drey i Lambard had left the breaking 01 the news to him, Harold Glenower the head of the house. _ Well, that was right enough. But it was the woist part of tho. business.

CHAPTER 111. "The anonymous letter?" said John •Lambard. "The obvious attempt on Miss Audrey Glenower's life ? The death of Lord Torkington ? Can one possibly dissociate these three incidents from each other ?" "One can, sir," Inspector Evanson replied, "and so far as I car, see, one must.' "You speak in riddles. These are not your own ideas, Evanson. I know you very well. It would not occur to you to be so illogical." The inspector stroked his chin and glanced at a picture on tho wall of Lambard's sitting room. He was a big, redfaced man with a black moustache, and did not seem to be very intelligent. He appeared to be listening. From the room above voices came down through the open door at tho top of the stairs. Lambard had spoken the truth. The ideas were not his own, but they had appealed to him as something original. Thev were, as a matter of fact, the ideas of Detec-tive-Superintendent Gotsford, who was talking to Lord Glenower and the doctor in the room above. Mr. Cots'ord had chanced to be at the police station in connection with another matter when the telephone message had come through from Godsmark. And Evanson had asked Cotsford to drive out with him to the scene of til? tragedy. Cotsford had consented, provided it was understood that he did so in a quite unofficial capacity—as a friend. "We have not been able to find that letter," sad Mr. Evanson, after a pause. "I suppose you do not know anything about it?" "I made a copv of it—at Lord Torkiniton's request. 1 have given you a copy." "Yes, sir; but we should like to si:e the original. Can you remember what his lordship did with the original after you had copied it?" "Yes," answered Lambard. "He put it in his pocket." Mr. Evanson made another entry, in his notebook. "You have given me the following information, sir," he said. " I will read it over to you in case you may like to correct any mistake on your part or mine." "Great Scott —see you going Ko waste all this time V ' No time h?s 'l-ecn or will be waste-'], &')»,•. My friend, Gout., d, ,V«s telephoned to Ev\'?j fcv-fiOi Coast p'vVij lias ;* dc-v-tir rir-r; <?? shff --y *nH "■

* »he via 11 !?'■' uciw. sad iae irowrs^ftuon ! being sent across the Chanc-jL Half-a-dozen police arc in the house already, ! and more, are coming. The whole coun* i > rysirle has been waned. Bui- my wont lies bore, sir, and ,'m hoping the clmf constable will call in Seo£!ar t s Yard, .n wiJcio caso Mi*. Cotsford, being- 011 the spot, will probably be put in charge of the case. A very able mart, Mr. Cotsford, sir.'' "I know all about Cotsford. 111. repeat to you exactly what I'm told you, word for word. I have a very good memory. I trained that during ths war, when, mind you, Evanson, one carried a good deal in one's memory. Now here goes. Correct me if I'm wrong in even a word," "Oh, a word would not matter, sir." ,! It might matter. You've been trained in a bad school, Evanson. Ask your friend Cotsford what the difference of a single word might make to a statement. Now this is what I said to you, Evanson —word for word. "Lord Torkington repeived this letter by the morning post. It was marked 'private' and I did not open it. I noticed, however, that it bore the Sanford postmark, and that it "was addressed in capitals, or block letters as advertisers call them nowadays. He did not speak to ms about it until just before lunch. He then gave it to me to read and asked my opinion of it. I said to him, 'This has been written by an educated man, my lord. The mistakes in spelling are not those which an uneducated man would naturally make. Your lordship is better able to judge of its value than I am, ar'd then he said to me, 'I do net know who the fellow is, Lambard, It must have been written by a lunatic.' There was no further discussion or. the matter, until half-past four in the afternoon, when Lord Torkington said to me, 'There may be something in this after all, Lambard. Even lunatics are dangerous. I think. I had better warn mv family, and ring up tho police.' Lord Torkington then went downstairs to the billiard room, and you have heard Lord Glenower's account of what happened in the billiard room. _ I always make my tea up here, or go without tea. At half-past five I am free and my work is over for an hour. I went downstairs at half-past five., and at quarter to six the bell rang. Is that correct. ?" '"Yes, sir—word for word. I congratulate you, sir—on a very remarkable memory," and to himself he added, "It's almost as though he had written it out and learnt it by heart." "Obviously," Lambard continued, "Lord Torkington must have been murdered between the last ringing of the bell, and Lord Glenower's arrival in the room. That would scarcely be more than a minute. There was 110 smell of powder in the room, and it seems impossible for anyone to have entered or left it. One cannot, get away from those two fvts, and itiat is why I am certain that the shot was fired from the se?, aj< Lord Torkington as lie stood near the lighted window. And that wouid fit in with the previous attempt on Miss Audrey Glenower's life." "But we have the doctor's evidence, sir—that his lordship must have dropped stone dead on the spot where his body was found. The window is 15ft from that spot, and though Lord Torkington is 3 tall man—well, sir, it was you who made the calculations." * "Yes, that even if the bullet had just cleared the sill—it would have had to be fired tVnm a point half a mils out at sea. Well, half a mile is nothing in these davs—'or a modern rifle." " Except that one has to be an uncommonly good shot, sir." ''Come, come. .Mr. Lambard." said a cheerv voice. "You mustn't make fun of Mr. Evanson. You mustn't pull his leg." Thev turned and looked at a thin, tall man who was descending the stone stairs, two steps at a time. "Mr. Cotsford did not look as if he could ever "pull anyone s _ leg'* or make a jest of the mildest description. Hi's face was long and cadaverous—a yellowish white face with a reddkh grey moustache. He was almost bald, though .he was 110 inure than 40 years of age. His grey eyes were keen and bright. He was wearing a shabby grev suit. He looked like a man who would have moved slowly and wearily, but be was very strong and active and as cheerful as a boy. "Does a man ring his bell three times?" queried Mr. Cotsford. "Does he gpt mixed up in a fight that overturns chairs, sweeps papers to the floor, and smashes two vases, because someone half a mile out at sea "! going to have a chance shot at him ? Evanson knows that you talking nonsense, sir.'* do bs continued dailj.)