“A tomb!” echoed Denver in surprise. “In what way a tomb?”
“Has my wife never told you the story?” said Garling. “It’s one of the stock things about this place. I can just remember when my father made the discovery. The tower, of course, is hollow, and it had been used as a sort of box-room. There were some rough steps going spirally round it which finished abruptly in the brick roof. And one day it struck my father that it was somewhat peculiar to make steps right up to a ceiling, and he took some measurements. And he found that there was a space of about ten feet to be accounted for at the top of the tower. You can understand, of course, that it was very rare indeed that any one went there, or such an obvious thing would have been discovered before. So he got in some workmen and proceeded to remove the bricks from the roof. And the mystery was solved. The steps which apparently disappeared into the ceiling were now found to communicate with a room. And in that room the remnants of two skeletons were found. They had been there for at least a hundred years, but there was enough to prove that one had been a man and the other a woman.”
“How very interesting!” said Denver. “Did your father ever find out what had happened?”
“Not for absolutely certain,” answered his host. “But I have no doubt in my own mind that it was the truth. Apparently this house, at the time when the man and woman died, belonged to a man called Shaw. And Mrs. Shaw was a very lovely lady—a fact which other men beside Mr. Shaw appreciated. Moreover, it appeared that Mrs. Shaw was not insensible to the admiration of those other men—especially to that of a young Lord Greyton. Possibly she was flattered by the attentions of a member of the aristocracy, since her husband, though an eminently worthy man, was distinctly middle-class. At any rate, she and Lord Greyton disappeared, and were never heard of again. Mr. Shaw gave out that his wife had eloped with him, and forbade her name ever to be mentioned in his presence again. But I think there can be little doubt that somehow or other he trapped them both into the room at the top of the tower, and then proceeded to brick them in. The details, of course, will never be known. Presumably he must have drugged them first, leaving them to regain consciousness in the black darkness—because there were no windows of any sort in the tower. One thing is certain: they were not dead when they were put there. The marks are plainly visible where they had endeavoured to scratch away the brickwork with their fingers.”
“What an extraordinarily gruesome story!” said Denver. “Why, Mrs. Garling—you’ve gone quite pale.”
“I think it’s a horrible story,” she said, in a low voice.
“Horrible—and yet full of poetic justice,” remarked her husband, sipping his port.
“And what do you use the tower for now?” asked Denver.
“My father, who was a keen astronomer, had it made into a small observatory. I’ve left it much as it was, except that I’ve removed the telescope and carried out a few small improvements. In fact, the workmen have only just finished. My father, for instance, had a sliding roof; I’ve had that removed. There is now merely a small dome with thick glass at the top, through which one can get a gay wonderful view of the heavens.”
He glanced at Denver’s glass.