THE TOPMOST ROOM
It was in the evening twilight that Armstrong and Warrender put off in
the pram for their second expedition to the tunnel. On reaching the
ruins, Warrender posted himself in one of the lower rooms, while
Armstrong mounted to the upper floor, intent on discovering the source
of the ghostly moans. Climbing out of the window opening, and pulling
aside the ivy, he found that steps had been made in the brickwork of the
crumbling wall, by means of which any one with a steady head might with
ease ascend to the roof. And there, behind one of the gables, partly
protected from the weather, he came upon a long metal organ pipe laid
flat, and near it a large funnel-shaped object. A strong breeze was
blowing from the south-west, but the organ pipe gave forth no sound.
Still puzzled as to the manner in which the sound was produced, and
reflecting that Pratt would probably have jumped to it at once,
Armstrong heard a low whistle from below. He scrambled hastily down,
and had only just slipped into the eastern room when he heard lumbering
footsteps upon the stairs. From the doorway he watched the man whom he
had seen in the morning. A minute or two after the new-comer had entered
the western room, the moaning broke out. Armstrong waited until the man
had descended and all was quiet again, then once more climbed upon the
roof. The mystery was solved. The funnel had been so adjusted as to
catch the wind, and direct it with some force into the mouth of the
organ pipe. It turned like a weather-cock, so that the sound was
independent of the veering of the wind.
Rejoining Warrender, Armstrong informed him of the discovery, and
suggested that he should examine the contrivance for himself.
"I'll take your word for it," said Warrender, smiling. "I don't care
about steeple-jack feats in half darkness. We'll wait a little before
we follow that fellow through the tunnel. Let's go up and watch for the
signal."
It was perhaps half an hour later when the light appeared above the
tree-tops.
"Most certainly it's S.O.S.," said Armstrong, after counting the
recurring glows.
"I shouldn't wonder if Pratt is right after all, and it's Molly Rod
signalling. He was right about the organ pipe."
"Doesn't it occur to you that the light may come from the tower?"
"But if the forgers are at work there, why should any one signal?"
"Can't we discover whether it's from the tower or the house?"
"We can't take any bearings in the dark. Stay, though. If we move back
from the window, and go to the side of the room, perhaps we'll find a
spot where the light just becomes invisible. I'll mark that on the
floor, and in daylight there'd be no difficulty."
Acting on this suggestion, they were not long in discovering the
required spot. Warrender scratched a pencil mark on the floor; then
they descended to the cellar, cautiously lifted the flagstone, and
groped their way through the tunnel until they came to the chamber at
the end. Nothing was altered there, except that the opened bale of
paper had been removed. They had intended to enter the archway on the
farther side, and lift the flagstone which, they suspected, closed the
entrance to another cellar; but from above there came dully a succession
of regular thuds which proved that somebody was about, and active.
"I dare say that's the press at work," said Warrender in a whisper,
after they had listened for a few minutes.
"Doing overtime," said Armstrong. "I suppose, not knowing exactly when
Mr. Pratt will return, they want to make the most of their opportunity.
Who knows how many thousands of pounds of spurious money are getting
into circulation? No doubt Gradoff had his trunk full of notes that
morning we saw him driving off in the car."
They seated themselves on the unopened bales, hoping that work would
presently cease, and the man would leave the tower. But the thuds
continued with monotonous regularity.
"Every thud means a forged note," said Armstrong. "They may be going on
all night. How long can you stick it?"
"We'll wait till eleven; then if they're still at it, we'll go back and
reconnoitre the outside."
"Perhaps they have a sentry."
"Perhaps; but I fancy they'll feel pretty safe now that they've chevied
us from the island."
At eleven o'clock the work was still going on. The boys retraced their
course to the ruins, regained the pram, and allowed it to drift on the
current down channel to the south of the island. There they lay to for
a few minutes, listening, peering through the darkness. There was no
moon; the starlight scarcely revealed the outlines of the trees.
Presently, with careful, soundless movements of the sculls, they rowed
across to the left bank, and, pulling the craft out of sight, landed a
little below the island, and laboriously pushed their way through the
thicket, guiding themselves by the compass. Some fifty yards from the
bank the vegetation thinned, and they found themselves in a wood of
taller trees. Here the going was easier, though once or twice they
stumbled over trunks that had been felled and stripped ready for
carting. Emerging from the wood into park-like ground, where there were
large trees only at intervals, they progressed still more rapidly, and
at last caught sight, on their left, of the dim, square shape of the
tower. Behind a broad elm they stood for a minute or two, watching.
There was no light in the tower. Its base was surrounded by a mass of
low-growing shrubs. The doorway, no doubt, was on the farther side from
them. The walls were covered with ivy, except at the window openings,
where the recent boarding was visible as faint grey patches.
"Now for it," whispered Warrender.
They stole forward over the long grass. As they drew nearer to the
tower they heard the dull regular thudding; there was no other sound.
Armstrong posted himself at one corner, while Warrender gently pushed a
way through the shrubs to the wall. He examined the boarded window,
apparently an old embrasure much widened. The boards were on the inside;
the outside was protected by cross bars of iron. He went round the
building. There was only one other window opening on the ground floor.
At the north-eastern angle he halted, looking out for a possible sentry,
then crept along until he reached the entrance, a low iron-studded door
flush with the wall. Putting his ear against the wood, he heard more
clearly the metallic thuds, and men's voices. A footstep approached.
He slipped back to the corner, and crouched in the shelter of a shrub.
The door opened outwards, creaking on its hinges, and letting out a
stream of light. A short, stout figure emerged from the tower, carrying
a number of cans which rattled as he walked.
"_Fermez la porte!_"
The words, in a savage, half-suppressed shout, sounded from some little
distance away in the direction of the house. The man addressed hastily
closed the door behind him, and went on. Warrender saw another man meet
him. They stopped and exchanged a few words. Rod continued his way to
the house, his progress faintly marked by the rattling cans. The other
man came towards the tower. He opened the door quickly, slipped inside,
and shut it. In the one second during which the light shone out,
Warrender recognised the pale face of Paul Gradoff.
He hurried round to the spot where Armstrong had remained on guard.
"All right!" he whispered. "No sentry. Rod has just gone to the house;
Gradoff has gone in."
"Well," returned Armstrong, "what can we do?"
"We'll try the door first of all. Come on!"
They moved with slow, careful steps round the tower, came to the door,
and gently tried the handle. There was no yielding; the door was
fastened. They went on to the western face of the tower. Here also
there was a window opening on the ground floor, as securely boarded up
as the other. At equal intervals above it were two other embrasures,
similarly blocked.
"No way of getting in," murmured Armstrong.
The sound of the door creaking sent them scurrying to cover in the
undergrowth. When all was silent again, Warrender whispered--
"Come among the trees. We can talk more freely there."
They crept over the ground, and took post under a tall, thick-leaved
beech nearly a hundred yards away.
"I don't see any chance of getting in," said Warrender, "and that's a
pity. I wanted to see them actually turning out their forged notes."
"I suppose it was Gradoff going out again we heard just now," said
Armstrong. "If he and Rod are both away, there can't be more than four
others in the tower, probably not so many. They'll take turns at
night-work."
"That doesn't matter. Any forcible entry is quite out of the question,
if that's what you're thinking of. I say, isn't that a light up the
tower?"
More than half-way up the wall a faint streak of light was visible.
"Evidently there's some one in the top room," said Warrender. "Some one
sleeps there, I suppose. The machine is on the ground floor. Where
light gets out, we should be able to see in. You've done some climbing
already to-night; are you game to clamber up the ivy? There's no other
way."
"I weigh eleven stone," said Armstrong, dubiously.
"But ivy's pretty tough. It may support you. You may find foothold in
the wall."
"Hanged if I don't try. You'll stand underneath and break my fall if I
tumble. I reckon it's about thirty feet up; plenty high enough to break
one's neck or leg."
They hastened to the foot of the tower. With Warrender's help,
Armstrong got a footing in the lower embrasure. Then, taking firm hold
of the stout main stem of the ivy, he began to swarm up, seeking support
for his feet in the thick, spreading tendrils and in notches of the
stone-work. Warrender watched him hopefully. Slowly, inch by inch, he
ascended. He gained the second embrasure, rested there a few moments,
then climbed again, and was almost half-way to his goal, when he felt
the ivy above him yield slightly. Digging his feet into the wall, he
hung on, but at the first attempt to ascend he felt that the attenuated
stem would no longer support his weight, and began slowly to lower
himself.
At this moment Warrender heard the door creak, and threw up a warning
whisper. Armstrong stopped, effacing himself as well as he could amongst
the ivy, to which he clung with the disagreeable sensation that he was
dragging it from its supports above. Voices were heard; heavy
footsteps. After a few moments they ceased. Were the men turning to
come back? Had they heard anything? Then came the scratching of a
match. Warrender drew relieved breath; some one had halted, only, it
appeared, to light his pipe or cigarette. The footsteps sounded again,
gradually receding, and finally died away.
"All safe!" whispered Warrender.
Armstrong let himself down, and stood beside his friend.
"A quivery job," he murmured. "My arms ache frightfully. It's not to
be done, Phil. Another foot up and I should have dragged down the whole
lot, possibly a stone or two as well. We're fairly beaten."
"The sound inside has stopped. They've apparently knocked off work;
it's past midnight. I wonder if any one's left inside?"
"Why should there be?"
"Well, there was some one up above. Is the light showing still?"
They walked some distance away from the tower, and looked up. The thin
streak of light, so faint that it might have escaped casual observation,
still showed at the level of the topmost room. They went to the door and
again gently tried it. It was shut fast.
"We had better get back," said Warrender. "There's nothing to be done."
"Unless we try the tunnel again, now that all is quiet inside."
"If you like."
They crossed the grounds with the guidance of the compass, and presently
came among the medley of prostrate trunks.
"I've an idea," said Armstrong. "It'll take a long time to get back
through the tunnel. Why not shift one of these poles, and put it up
against the tower? I could climb then, and take a look in at that upper
window."
"Good man! We must take care to get one long enough."
They found a straight fir stem that appeared to be of the required
length, carried it to the tower, and raised it silently until the top
rested in the ivy, just above the left-hand corner of the window.
"Steady it while I climb," said Armstrong. "Don't let it wobble over."
He began to swarm up. For the first eighteen or twenty feet it was easy
work; then with every inch upward his difficulties grew, for not only
was there less and less room between the pole and the wall, but the pole
itself showed more and more tendency to roll sideways, in spite of
Warrender's steadying hands below. Slowly, very slowly Armstrong
mounted, maintaining equilibrium partly by clutching the ivy. At last,
gaining the level of the window, he gripped one of the iron bars that
stretched across it, rested one knee on the wide embrasure, and peeped
through a narrow crack between two of the boards.
He was transfixed with amazement. The first object that caught his eye
was the figure of an elderly man, bald, with thick grey moustache and
beard, seated at a table, resting his head on his hands as he read by
the light of a small paraffin lamp the book open before him. On one end
of the table stood a couple of plates, one holding a half-loaf of bread,
a knife, and a jug. Upon the walls beyond him hung animals' horns,
tusks, savage weapons, necklaces of metal and beads. The remainder of
the room was out of the line of sight.
As Armstrong gazed, the inmate got up and paced to and fro. He was tall
and lank; his clothes--an ordinary lounge suit--hung loosely upon his
spare frame. There was a worn, harassed look in the eyes beneath a
deeply furrowed brow. He strode up and down, his large bony hands
clasped behind him; sighed, sat down again, and began to take off his
clothes.
[Illustration: "HE STRODE UP AND DOWN, HIS LARGE BONY HANDS CLASPED
BEHIND HIM."]
Puzzled as to the identity of this solitary, wondering whether he, and
not Gradoff, was the head of the gang, Armstrong backed down to make his
descent. The pole swayed as his full weight came upon it, and he saved
himself from crashing to the ground only by desperately clinging to the
ivy, and forcing the top of the pole into a tangled mass of the foliage.
Then he slid rapidly down, barking his hands on the rough stem.
"Quick!" whispered Warrender. "You made too much row."
He ran backwards, letting down the pole; Armstrong caught up the lower
end, and they hurried away with it, laying it in the wood among the
others. Meanwhile they had heard sounds of movement from the tower.
Some one had come out. There were low voices, footsteps coming towards
them. Without an instant's delay they pushed on in the direction of the
river, thankful for the darkness of the night and the overshadowing
trees. Only when they had gained the shelter of the thicket did they
dare to pause for a moment to consult the compass. On again, but more
slowly, lest the rustling leaves should betray them.
At length they came to the channel. The island was opposite to them.
Turning southward, they groped along the bank until they stumbled upon
the pram. They launched it, and floated down stream. When they were
well past the southern end of the island they pulled round into the
broader channel, and, closely hugging the right bank, rowed quietly up
the river to their landing-place.
Only then did Warrender venture a whispered question--
"What did you see?"
"An oldish man, reading."
"Not one of those we have seen?"
"No. Can't make it out."
They returned to camp. It was past two o'clock. Pratt sprang up from
his chair before the tent, and held a small paraffin lamp towards them.
"Well?" he asked, guessing from their aspect that they brought news.
"They were working in the tower," said Warrender. "We heard the
machine, and couldn't risk going up from the tunnel. But we came back
and reconnoitred the outside, and Armstrong climbed up and peeped
through a crack in the boarding of the top room. What did you see,
Jack?"
"An old man reading by the light of a paraffin lamp."
"Another one of the gang!" exclaimed Pratt.
"I don't know. Perhaps. He looked haggard and anxious."
"No wonder. What was he like?"
"Tall and thin, with grey moustache and beard."
"A foreigner?"
"Couldn't tell. He might well have been English. A queer old
johnny--hook-nosed, high bald head: might have been a 'varsity
professor."
"What!" shouted Pratt. "Bald! Beard! Hook nose! Like a professor!
Great heavens--my uncle!"