THE TOP OF THE TOWER
After his disquieting interview with Miss Fitzgerald, Stanley felt the
imperative need of an entire change of subject to steady his mind. This
want, the secret of the old tower supplied.
No time could have been better suited for his investigations. Lunch was
well over, the members of the house party were in their various rooms
for an hour at least.
A few moments spent in measuring on the first floor in the great hall,
and the library, which ran parallel to it, proved the correctness of his
theory, that the space enclosed was smaller at the bottom than at the
top, as only six feet was unaccounted for. Evidently on this floor the
tower contained merely a staircase.
He now carried his investigations to the second storey. The room over
the library had been assigned to Kent-Lauriston, and as the Secretary's
knock elicited no answer, he took the liberty of entering, finding, as
he supposed, that his friend had gone out. The inside measurements of
this room gave only ten feet, where they should have given twenty-five,
and brought up at a large fireplace, which had no existence in the
apartment below, and which was apparently much deeper than was really
the case. Around and behind this there was a secret chamber of
considerable dimensions, but half an hour's experiments brought the
Secretary no nearer effecting an entrance. The old blue glazed tiles of
the fireplace, and the bricks which composed its floor, were alike
immovable. There was only the roof left; if he failed there, he must
resign himself to the inevitable, and bend all his energies on trying to
open the secret door.
At the risk of being thought prying and meddlesome, Stanley now
proceeded to search for some mode of ascent to the leads, and after many
mistakes and much wandering, he discovered at last a worm-eaten ladder.
This he climbed, at great bodily risk, and forcing a rusty scuttle,
emerged at last, safe and unperceived, on top of the house, amidst a
wilderness of peaks and undulations, which attested more to the
ingenuity of mediaeval builders, than gave promise of comfort to him who
attempted to traverse it. At last, however, by dint of much scrambling,
and several hair-breadth escapes from an undignified descent to the
lawn, he reached the point at which the tower sprang from the roof. It
rose sheer above him for almost forty feet, unbroken by any window or
excrescence, and thinly covered by ivy which, while it was too scattered
to conceal any outlet, at the same time afforded no foothold for ascent.
It was dreadfully tantalising. Once on those crumbling battlements, he
persuaded himself he should have no trouble in entering through the
roof. The missing letter was then within reach, and the young man saw
the road to rapid promotion stretch glitteringly before him; saw that
Darcy would be in his power, with all that it implied; but saw that
forty feet of frowning masonry, which separated him from his hopes, and
cursed his luck.
A ladder would solve the problem--but for numerous reasons it was a
solution not to be thought of. Above all things, he wished his
investigations to be absolutely unsuspected. If Darcy for an instant
imagined that the truth was known, he would be off like a flash. If the
Secretary was to conquer the secret of the tower, he must do it unaided,
and he was about to turn back and descend, baffled by the hopelessly
smooth surface of the structure, when his eye caught sight of a small
iron ring in the side of the tower, about two feet above the roof of the
house. Examining closely, he saw a second ring two feet above the first,
and others at like distances up, presumably to the top, though the ivy
had in some cases concealed them. His first conjecture was that at some
time there might have been a rope ladder arranged; but that would have
called for pairs of rings at the same level, and the closest scrutiny
failed to reveal more than one.
Perhaps, thought Stanley, it might be possible to rig some sort of a
contrivance of rope to these, by means of which he might ascend; but it
was difficult to procure the necessary material, and still more
difficult to attach it to the tower without attracting observation. He
caught hold of the ring and gave it a good jerk towards him to be sure
it was firmly enough embedded to be of some service, when, to his utter
astonishment, not the staple, but the block of stone to which it was
attached, pulled out about six inches. Here was an unexpected
_denouement_. If the masonry was as rotten as all this, it was high
time, for the safety of the house, that it was pulled down. A moment's
examination, however, assured him that the tower was as solid as a rock.
Why then should this one stone be loose, and why could he pull it no
farther? He pushed it in again and pulled once more with all his
strength, but it came only the six inches, and then remained immovable.
He bent down and examined it closely. Then, as he perceived there was no
trace of mortar on its edges, he gave a shout of exultation, and seizing
the second ring, drew it towards him with a similar result. The stone to
which it was attached pulled slightly out. Unwittingly, he had stumbled
on to one secret of the tower. These stones formed nothing more or less
than a concealed staircase; perilous indeed, but quite possible of
ascent. Springing up on the first and second stones, he found they bore
his weight, and he was thus enabled not only to steady himself by the
rings above, but to pull them out in like manner. Having tested three or
four and pulled out six, he descended again to the roof, and returned
to his room to provide himself with certain necessaries for the trip,
among which were a small bicycle lamp and a match-box. He took off his
coat and waistcoat, and also his shoes, and set about making the attempt
in a more practical manner. For at least half the way up he would be
screened from view by the roofs, and for the remainder he must take his
chance of not being seen. Drawing a long breath, and placing his foot
firmly on the first stone, he commenced the ascent. For ten or fifteen
feet it seemed an easy matter, but as he cleared the intercepting roof
peaks, and the view opened out, he fully realised his perilous position,
and a gust of wind which swayed him on his airy perch made him feel all
the more insecure. Sternly resisting the temptation to look down, and
the no less dangerous desire to hasten his ascent, he kept his face
resolutely turned to the wall, and testing carefully each ring before
trusting himself to it, climbed slowly up and up. The way seemed
endless, and when but six feet remained, two sparrows, with a whir and
rush of wings, flew angrily round his head, at what they regarded as an
invasion of their nest, and almost caused him to lose his hold in an
attempt to drive them away. And now the battlements were just over him,
projecting awkwardly from the face of the wall, and proving much higher
than he had at first supposed. But he noticed, with relief, that
directly in the line of his ascent were a pair of projecting iron
stanchions not visible from below, but evidently intended to be used in
pulling oneself up and over the battlements; a supposition borne out by
the fact that they were placed each side of a break in the stonework,
which was ornamented with a lip or step of smooth stone, evidently
intended to afford an entrance to the roof of the tower. This lip had a
slight slant upwards, and might perhaps have served a double purpose as
a drain or broad spout.
Fortunately Stanley's caution had not entirely deserted him, and he had
the good sense to reach up and test one of the stanchions before
trusting himself to it. It was well that he did so, for its fastenings
proved to be rotten with age, and the bolt giving way, it tore out in
his grasp, and flying from his hand fell with a loud clank on the roof,
forty feet below. The Secretary swayed out from the tower with the force
of the shock, and had not the topmost iron, to which he clung, held
firm, this narrative would have come to a sudden and a tragic ending.
Having recovered his equipoise, he found himself face to face with a
serious if not an insurmountable obstacle. The natural entrance to the
roof was denied him; for even if the other stanchion held firm, he had
no mind to trust his entire weight to it, and without its mate it was of
little use for lifting himself up. Besides which, the lip or step,
which, by its slant towards him, would, with the aid of the stanchions,
have made access easy without them, rendered it, by reason of its angle,
the more difficult. The only practical way seemed to lean far to one
side, and seizing the rough stones of the battlement which projected
over his head, swing himself up and through one of the embrasures. The
last step would bring him breast high with them, but as they projected
nearly a foot beyond the face of the tower, he must bend his body
outward, and trust to them alone for support. If the stones of the
battlements were strong, his athletic training gave him no reason to
suppose that he would have any trouble in accomplishing the feat. Youth,
moreover, is apt to be venturous, and an aerial perch, eighty feet from
the ground, is not just the place one would choose for lengthy
consideration.
Therefore, after reaching up and testing the masonry, as thoroughly as
he was able, he flung caution to the winds, a full assemblage of which
were whistling around him, and, making a desperate effort, clutched the
stones above him, and swung his body up and one leg over the
battlements.
He was secure after all. Then, looking within, he received one of the
worst shocks which the events of his life had ever afforded him. There
was no roof in existence; at least, none where he had expected to find
it. He discovered that he was seated astride the rim of a circular well,
forty feet deep, whose bottom was the roof of the house. In other words,
the whole tower above the second story was a shell--a sham. A few
moments' observation was sufficient to assure him that there never had
been a roof at a higher level. An iron bar corroded with rust, round
which was wound a chain, stretched across the diameter of the well, and
had evidently furnished at one time support for a flag-staff, to further
keep up to the outside world the deception of a roof; but otherwise the
inside was perfectly smooth, even the holes where the steps were pulled
out not showing, which bore evidence to the fact that they worked in the
thickness of the wall.
Down at the level of the roof two or three little beams of light marked
the location of certain gargoyles or antique water-spouts, which Stanley
had noticed on the outside, and marvelled that they should have been
placed in the middle instead of the top of the tower. These explained
the absence of water in the well.
Looking down, as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he was able to
see something of the nature of the roof, which must enclose the secret
chamber. It was covered with dust and debris, but he was positive he
could distinguish certain little bumps or lumps, which he shrewdly
guessed to be thick diamond panes of glass, set in lead, and which, as
he conjectured, furnished light to the room beneath. Entrance to this
apartment seemed totally lacking from the roof, or else concealed by the
dust of centuries. No staircase could he discover on the inside of the
well, and he was about to relegate it to the limbo of unfathomable
mystery, when a startling discovery gave him the key to the whole
matter. It was, he saw, manifestly impossible to go down inside without
falling, after which, if not killed by the shock, he would be left to
starve at his leisure, while his friends searched the country-side for
him. But if to descend within was impossible, to descend without
presented almost as many difficulties. To go over the battlements as he
had come, was well-nigh hopeless; but if he could walk along their inner
rim for a foot or two, round the next embrasure, to the natural slanting
entrance which was directly over the first step, the descent would be,
comparatively speaking, easy. To rise from his present posture and
assume a standing position on the twelve-inch rim of a structure eighty
feet in the air requires a steady head, and though the Secretary was
possessed of this, he did not at all relish the undertaking. It had to
be done, however; but after his previous experience he determined to
take no more risks, and reaching out from his position of vantage, he
tested carefully every step of the way. At last only the slanting step
remained. Reaching far over he touched it with his hand, when, to his
horror, it practically revolved, now pointing down into the interior of
the tower, its outward end pointing up. He shuddered when he saw the
fate which the fortunate accident to the stanchion had caused him to
escape. Had he descended in the regular way and stepped upon the
slanting plate, the instant his foot passed its centre of equilibrium,
it would have revolved, and without a doubt flung him down into the
interior of the well. It was a cursed, mediaeval trick, a fitting
accompaniment to the inquisitorial horrors of those ages--an English
_oubliette_. If the fall did not finish the daring invader of the
tower--the inhabitants of the secret chamber doubtless had means to
insure his end, or perhaps he was merely left to starve.
Touching the plate once more he pushed it back to its original position,
and found that it remained stationary. As long as he kept on the outward
side he was safe, and if the Secretary observed this rule he could
easily avail himself of the plate to descend by, for the perpetrators of
the villainous arrangement had evidently not thought it necessary to
make it entirely revolve, as one who had once gone up the tower was
never expected to come down the outside again. And now, with great
caution, he wormed his way to the treacherous step, and with still
greater care placed his foot on its outer edge; it held firm, and he
ventured to plant both his feet upon it. But, alas! he has forgotten how
slippery a flag of slate, polished by two hundred years' exposure to the
elements, may become. His feet slipped from under him, and in striving
to save himself he overbalanced the stone. Instantly it revolved, and a
second later he found himself suspended over the well, with only the
strength of a despairing grasp on the edges of the slate between him and
eternity.