The Shadow - Death Turrets Part 1

Death Turrets.

by Maxwell Grant.

CHAPTER I.

TOWERS OF DOOM.

THE big, high-powered roadster wallowed to a stop in the muddy parking s.p.a.ce close by the little station of Sunnyside. A young man alighted beside the single track and picked his way to the rain-soaked station platform.

The rain was coming in a heavy drizzle; the clouds that caused it had turned late afternoon into a gathering dusk. There was just enough light to show the grin that appeared on the young man's sallow face when he saw the faded name painted on the station sign.

"Sunnyside." The name certainly wasn't an appropriate one. It must have been raining for a week in this vicinity. The stream that flowed under a little railway bridge was swollen to its limits. Huge puddles showed along the road, and some of the low fields looked like ponds.

The station waiting-room was gloomy and unoccupied, but warm. An open stove provided heat and gave a flickering light, which was needed, for the windows furnished very little daylight.

The young man looked for the ticket window. It was shut, but streaks of light showed through the cracks of the closed wicket.

Prolonged hammering at the ticket window brought no response. Raising his raincoat collar about his neck, the young man went out to the platform.

He peered into the lighted ticket office, but saw no one. Looking the other direction, he spied a building farther up the tracks.

It was evidently a freight office, for there was a box car on the siding beside it. There was a man there, in overalls, busy s.h.i.+fting some boxes.

The fellow looked up when the young man approached him. He gave a nod, then said: "Howdy! What can I do for you?"

"Are you the ticket agent here?"

"Yep!"

"Telegraph operator, too?"

A nod. The young man smiled. He produced a telegram from his pocket and handed it to the agent. The man read the wire in the light of a lantern. It was addressed to Roderick Talroy, and the message read: AM AT FIVE TOWERS NEAR SUNNYSIDE STATION WILL SEE YOU.

OLIVE.

"Reckon you're Mr. Talroy," declared the ticket agent. "Yep, I sent this over the wire. It come down from Five Towers this morning."

"Did you see Olive?" inquired Talroy, eagerly. "Miss Huxton, the lady who sent it?"

"I didn't see no one," admitted the agent. "I was busy here, with some freight. It was just setting there by the ticket window, the wire was, with the money for it. It wasn't handwritten neither. It was done on a typewriter, like all the telegrams that come from Five Towers."

"Where is Five Towers?"

The station agent pointed through the drizzle. His finger indicated a wooded hill a few miles distant, so dark that even the trees wereindistinguishable in shape. But above, visible despite their grayish resemblance to the rain, were turrets that poked above the trees.

"There's Five Towers," said the station agent. "The hill road goes right up to it. I can tell you this, too. There's a girl's been staying there. So I guess you'll be finding Miss Olive Huxton."

"Thanks." Talroy turned, then remembered: "By the way, I want to send a telegram of my own."

"I'll be right with you, Mr. Talroy."

BACK in the gloomy station, Talroy found telegraph blanks in a box beside the ticket window. With a pencil, he scrawled a telegram, using lighted matches to see the blank. Talroy left the telegram on the counter, weighted with a half dollar. The agent could keep the change.

As he reached the platform, Talroy saw the agent approach. He told him about the telegram. The man nodded, but his head began to shake when he saw Talroy climb into the big roadster.

"A mighty heavy car you got there, Mr. Talroy. Maybe she won't make that gully bridge up by the entrance to Five Towers."

"Very dangerous, is it?"

"Well, the gully ain't deep. But the bridge ain't strong. There can't much happen to you, but you might get ditched deep."

The big roadster pulled away. Its headlights gleamed; they swung away as the car headed for the road. A flicker of light showed the doorway of the station, which overhanging eaves had held in thick darkness. The ticket agent blinked. In that momentary glimpse, he thought he saw the station door close.

Entering, the agent questioned sharply: "h.e.l.lo! Who's here?"

The only response was the crackle of wood from the stove. The agent shrugged his shoulders; crossed through the gloom of the waiting room. He saw Talroy's telegram lying on the counter, but did not pick it up. Instead, he unlocked the door to the ticket office. Once through, he closed the door behind him.

Some one moved from the darkened corner of the waiting room. With stealthy steps, a hunched man reached the ticket window. The light from the cracks showed hands that wore leather gloves. One lifted the half dollar; the other pulled away Talroy's telegram and crumpled it.

Fire crackles drowned the crunching of the paper, but the ticket agent could hear neither, beyond his closed wicket. The only evidence of an intruder was the fact that Talroy's telegram was gone. That clue, however, was quickly abolished.

From beneath a heavy overcoat, the leather-gloved fingers brought out another telegraph blank and laid it where the first had been. The half dollar settled in place with only the slightest clink. Hands drew away. The hunched figure turned, to start for the door.

The sudden opening of the ticket window made the m.u.f.fled man stop his sneaky stride. He waited near the wall, while the agent took the telegram and the money through the window. As soon as the wicket snapped shut again, the intruder resumed his departure.

This time, the station agent was not in a position to see the door of the waiting room, when it closed tightly shut.

THE agent was scratching his head, though, when he read the message on the telegraph blank. It was addressed to Rufus Fant, in New York City. The message stated: CAN BUY A MILLION DOLLAR INVENTION FOR TWENTY THOUSAND CASH STOP BRING.

THE MONEY TO FIVE TOWERS NEAR SUNNYSIDE.

The telegram had the name of Roderick Talroy at the end of it.

Therefore, the agent took it to be the message that Talroy had left for promptdispatch. But why was Talroy talking about inventions, when he had come here to meet a girl?

There was an inventor who lived up at Five Towers. The station agent knew that, so the telegram made sense. It dawned on the agent suddenly that the invention purchase might have had something to do with the telegram sent by Olive Huxton.

Yes, that was it. But it was funny, Talroy trying to kid the very man who had to tap the message over the wire.

There was another thing that puzzled the agent.

This telegram, like the morning one, was typed.

Talroy hadn't been carrying a typewriter when the agent saw him get back into the roadster. That brought another head-scratch, until the agent finally figured that Talroy might have had this typed telegram in his pocket, all the while.

That settled it. The station agent sent the wire. He filed the typewritten blank on a hook, directly over the wire that had been left at the station that morning. He was so satisfied with his answers, that he never thought to compare the two typewritten messages.

If he had, the station agent would have made a really puzzling discovery. Both messages-Olive Huxton's and Roderick Talroy's-had distinctive markings that showed they had been typed on the same typewriter.

Each of those wires was a false one, planted at Sunnyside station by the same hidden hand.

It was unfortunate that the station agent did not suspect the fraud. If he had, he could have called Five Towers, to warn Roderick Talroy after he arrived there. Nevertheless, the station agent had already done Roderick all the service that was needed.

He had warned Roderick about the weak bridge across the hill gully. If the young man had listened, he would have profited.

BUT Roderick Talroy had his own ideas of how to handle the matter of shaky bridges that bore signs warning against overweight.

If such bridges weren't too long or too high, you could whiz over them so fast that they never felt it. The gully bridge, it happened, was just the sort that Roderick thought was made to his order. He saw it as he took the final bend. No longer and no higher than a big culvert, that bridge, even if it did look flimsy.

Roderick s.h.i.+fted into high-speed second. His big car fairly sprang up the slippery grade to the bridge. Beyond, Roderick saw the gates of Five Towers, among the trees at the far side of a curve. Then big tires thudded the bridge. The gates, with the trees about them, seemed to do a rapid whirl.

The bridge was splintering under the weight of the big roadster! The car was doing a sideward twist into the gully, amid the crash of timbers. Quick in emergency, Roderick jammed the brakes and turned off the ignition key. The car landed at a crazy tilt. Chunks of rotten wood bounded from the raised top above Roderick's head.

A few minutes later, the occupant crawled out, unhurt. From the gully bank, Roderick ruefully studied the roadster. One wheel had doubled under; the rear axle was bent. That car wouldn't be much use for a few days. Neither would the bridge.

By cracking up at that spot, Roderick Talroy had cut off future traffic between the railroad station and Five Towers.

The station was four miles back, but Five Towers was close at hand.

Carrying a small suitcase, Roderick Talroy raised his collar against the rain.

He walked through the mucky driveway that led between the gates. Five minutes through the darkened woods brought him to a clearing.

There, dim in the misty dusk, stood Five Towers. The building was old and sprawling. It looked as if some one had patterned it after his own idea of a French chateau, without ever having seen one. There were lights, though, in the windows, that made Five Towers look cheery.Roderick Talroy smiled, confident that he would find a welcome there. So he would, but the welcome was to be of a most puzzling sort. As for the later consequences, if Roderick had even suspected them, he would have turned and left Five Towers far behind him.

The gray walls that loomed to receive the visitor were awaiting him as a victim. To Roderick Talroy, had he known it, those pinnacles against the sky were towers of doom!

CHAPTER II.

DEATH AT THE TOWERS.

WHEN Roderick Talroy pounded at the big door of the gray building, a servant promptly opened it.

There was no grating of rusted bolts; the door was well-oiled, including the hinges. Nor was the servant a fossilized old fellow of the sort who went with a strange old house like this. He was a polite man, scarcely middle-aged, who admitted the visitor with a friendly bow.

The big hallway was well-lighted and furnished in somewhat modern style.

To the left was the wide double door of a lighted living room. Roderick could hear the crackle of a fire; then came the patter of a girl's quick footsteps.

A voice asked: "Who is it, t.i.tus?"

Roderick thought the girl was Olive Huxton; he promptly waved a greeting. His coat and hat must have looked familiar, for the girl started to give a pleased response. Suddenly, she halted, to stammer: "Why-why-I thought-"

"You thought I was some one else," laughed Roderick, handing his hat and coat to t.i.tus. "I happen to be Roderick Talroy. Probably Olive has spoken about me."

"Olive?" The girl was puzzled. "Olive who?"

"Olive Huxton," said Roderick. "She wired me to come here."

"Olive Huxton," repeated the girl, slowly. "There is no one of that name here. No, you must be mistaken. What was your name, again? Roderick Talroy?"

Roderick nodded. The girl smiled; her lips indicated that she knew something, but she was emphatic as she repeated her headshake. However, she was cordial in her invitation when she suggested that Roderick come into the living room.

There was an elderly lady seated there, whose long face and suspicious eyes almost matched the expression of a moose head that hung above the mantel.

As they approached, the girl said to Roderick: "My name is Lucille Merrith, and this lady is also Miss Merrith. Aunt Augusta, I want you to meet Mr. Talroy."

Aunt Augusta gave a curt nod, as though she mistrusted the stranger.

Lucille and Roderick sat down by the fire. The girl watched the logs crackle.

Roderick could see a sparkle in her blue eyes, that seemed well-suited to the lightness of her hair. Lucille was trying not to smile. At last she managed it.

"You were engaged to Olive Huxton, weren't you?"

Lucille put the question soberly.

"Yes," replied Roderick. "How did you know? Did Olive tell you?" He hesitated, then glared angrily: "I guess she couldn't have, or you would know that our engagement was broken!"

"I know about that, too," declared Lucille. "I have read all about both of you, in the society columns. You are a very wealthy young man, but a notorious spendthrift. She, it is said, is wealthy and spoiled, also quite prankish."

"That's the dirt they've dished up," snapped Roderick. "It's true, all right, but it's none of their business! Wait a moment, though. Why did you particularly mention that Olive was prankish?""Because," replied Lucille, "she has brought you to a place where no one knows her, and where, I feel certain, she has never been."

LUCILLE'S words convinced Roderick. Angrily, he brought out the telegram. He showed it to Lucille, and the girl decided that Olive Huxton could have sent it from the Sunnyside station.

"She could have sent some one there, you know," said Lucille. "The ticket agent is never in his office. He just picks up whatever telegrams are waiting, and sends them."

Roderick already knew that. He decided that Lucille was right.

Sheepishly, he was thinking of departure, when he happened to remember about his ditched car. Before he could tell Lucille about it, there was a ring at the front door. Lucille looked up gladly, as a stocky young man stepped into the room.

The arrival was a good-looking fellow, with a square-jawed face and darkish eyes that had a firm glitter. Lucille introduced him as George Brendaw, the owner of Five Towers. She did not explain why Roderick had arrived, and it proved unnecessary.

"I suppose that is your car down in the gully," said Brendaw, to Roderick. "Mighty sorry you had an accident. Not hurt, I hope?"

"Not at all," replied Roderick. "I hope, though, that I haven't inconvenienced traffic between here and town."