"And so, no doubt, he did, building the Tower for that purpose. By bribes and threats he got two men to work for him. One was the uncle of my informant. But though he built that Tower, and inside it dug his grave, he never lay there, being, as things turned out, carried off by the Devil. Oh, yes, there was no doubt! He went home one night—a Saturday—very drunk, as usual. On the Sunday night a belated wayfarer—possibly also drunk—heard wild shrieks and saw a strange red glow through the window of the Tower—now, by the way, boarded up. And no doubt he'd have smelt brimstone if the wind hadn't set the wrong way! Anyhow Captain Duggle was never seen again by mortal eyes—at Inkston, at all events. After a time the landlord of the cottage screwed up his courage to resume possession—the Captain had only a lease of it, though he built the Tower at his own charges, and, I believe, without any permission, the landlord being much too frightened to interfere with him. He found everything in a sad mess there, while in the Tower itself every blessed stick had been burnt up. So the story looks pretty plausible."
"And the grave?" This question came eagerly from at least three of the company.
"In front of the fireplace there was a big oblong hole—six feet by three feet by four—planks at the bottom, the sides roughly lined with brick. Captain Duggle's grave; but he wasn't in it!"
"But what really became of him, Mr. Penrose?" cried Cynthia.
"The Rising Generation is very sceptical," said old Naylor. "You, of course, Penrose, believe the story?"
"I do," said Mr. Penrose composedly. "I believe that a devil carried him off—and that its name was delirium tremens. We can guess—can't we, Irechester?—why he smashed or burnt everything, and fled in mad terror into the darkness. Where to? Was he drowned at sea, or did he take his life, or did he rot to death in some filthy hole? Nobody knows. But the grave he dug is there in the Tower—unless it's been filled up since old Saffron has lived there."
"Why in the world wasn't it filled up before?" asked Alec Naylor, with a laugh. "People lived in the cottage, didn't they?"
"I've visited the cottage often," Irechester interposed, "when various people had it, but I never saw any signs of the Tower being used."
"It never was, I'm sure; and as for the grave—well, Alec, in country parts, to this day, you'd be thought a bold man if you filled up a grave that your neighbour had dug for himself—and such a neighbour as Captain Duggle! He might take it into his head some night to visit it, and if he found it filled up there'd be trouble—nasty trouble!" His laugh cackled out rather uncomfortably. Gertie shivered, and one of the subalterns gulped down his port.
"Old Saffron's a man of education, I believe. No doubt he pays no heed to such nonsense, and has had the thing covered up," said Naylor.