The Fanshawe Murder, Page 2

  Chapter 2

  "You had better come into the dining room," Violet Milton said to the little bearded man with deep-set, honest eyes, and led the way through the veranda and turned up the lights.

  "Now, Mr. Winterbotham," she began, "you said a very strange thing just now. Please explain yourself at greater length."

  "Thank ye, miss. It's like this. Just before Sir William died he began to suspect that there was very queer things going on in the works at night. He told me about it, for he trusted me, miss, and I set about to watch. No one else knows anything at all of the matter. I felt it my duty to try and see ye in private, so I come by way of t'water."

  "I never knew my uncle, Mr. Winterbotham. I wish I had. But as he saw fit to leave me his great possessions, and the great responsibilities attaching to them, I only want to do what he would have done."

  "That's the right spirit, miss, if I may say so," Winterbotham answered. "Now I'll tell ye. There's a certain building in the works which hardly anyone is allowed to enter. It's called the Experiment House. Mister Fanshawe has the keys. It's where Mister Fanshawe invents new processes and secrets connected with the trade."

  Violet nodded. She was listening carefully.

  Winterbotham hesitated for a moment and flushed. At last he burst out into a torrent of speech. "Ye'll think it ill becomes me, a mere works foreman, to have a word to say about anyone so highly placed as Mister Fanshawe, who's director of these mills and knows more about paper-making than anyone else in the world. Mebbe I am going against my own interests in telling ye, miss, but I can't help that. Sir William trusted me, and now he's dead I must go on just the same as if he were alive."

  "You need not have the slightest fear in saying anything to me," Violet answered.

  The wiry little foreman heaved a sigh of relief. "Well, then, I'll put it bluntly. Mister Fanshawe is a rogue. Night after night, when the works are empty except for the two night watchmen, Mister Fanshawe is at work in the Experiment House. It's never been his custom to work at night, for Mister Fanshawe is a well-known man of pleasure. But there's more than that. No accounts of what is being done in that building ever come to Sir William. It was his rule to have reports of all experiments made to him. He never got none. When Sir William died we had only just found this out, and his death stopped any further investigations. Mister Fanshawe sacked me at once. He never liked me at any time, though I don't think that he suspects that Sir William and I were beginning to watch him."

  "I don't quite see," Violet interrupted, "that there is anything to be alarmed about. Surely, if Mr. Fanshawe prefers to carry out experiments by night instead of daytime, there is nothing very strange in that."

  "Ye haven't heard all, miss," Winterbotham went on. "When Sir William was away on a holiday in Switzerland, about two months before he died, a quantity of new machinery was put in the Experiment House. I saw some of t'parts, and they set me thinking, for I am accustomed to machinery, miss, as you may suppose. Then, enormous quantities of raw material -- the very finest Alfa grass and bale after bale of high-priced linen rag -- poured into the Experiment House. There has been hundreds of tons of material and yet nothing whatever has come out. Now, I know for a fact, miss, that there's operations going on there on a large scale. Yet none of the men of the works ever go to the Experiment House at night. I've made myself certain of that. To work the machinery in there and to do anything in a large way there must be several hands. Mister Fanshawe, with all his knowledge, couldn't do anything by himself."

  Violet was beginning to be a little impressed. The man's manner was in deadly earnest. She did not quite understand at what he was driving, but she began to be affected by him. The lateness of the hour, the stealthy urgency of his arrival, the constant recurrence of her uncle's name -- that uncle to whom she owed her vast possessions -- all had their influence upon her.

  "Then you think, Mr. Winterbotham, that Mr. Fanshawe is conducting some secret operations and is assisted by unknown people?"

  "I'm sure of it, miss."

  "But how do the other people get there, then?"

  "Same way as I come t'ye tonight, miss. By water. I've seen them!"

  Violet started. The plot was thickening.

  "Aye, I've made it my business to watch, miss. I can manage a boat with anyone on the Mersey. I were brought up in the docks. For several nights now I've been lying off our own wharf -- just round the corner of your garden, miss. There's generally one or two of the steamers lying there, and it has been easy to keep my dinghy in the shadow. At half-past eleven every night, miss, there's a little steam launch, painted invisible-green, comes up river from Birkenhead way. It comes to the far end of our wharf, and five men get out and walk to the Experiment House close by. Mister Fanshawe lets them in. At three o'clock in the morning they go back."

  Violet considered, sorting out facts from impressions, determining on a line of action with her quick business training.

  "It amounts to this," she said, "that Mr. Fanshawe is conducting experiments in my works -- experiments which it is obvious he wants to shroud in profound secrecy. It certainly looks very strange, Mr. Winterbotham."

  "Sir William thought it were worse than that, miss," the little man interrupted.

  "Well, if Mr. Fanshawe is doing anything underhand, and against the interests of the firm, I can deal with Mr. Fanshawe, no doubt. But at the same time, his position here is practically absolute, and he may have a hundred reasons for wishing to keep his invention, or whatever it is, till the right time comes."

  Winterbotham pursed his lips and shook his head. "You don't know Mister Fanshawe, miss," he answered. "Mister Fanshawe keeps a racing stable at Aintree. He has one of the biggest houses in Birkenhead and his dinner parties are famous. He has a couple of motorcars. He is up in London half the week -- a man doesn't do that on a salary of three thousand a year, miss. And it was common talk in Lancashire that he dropped ten thousand pounds over the Grand National of last year."

  "Then you mean to imply?"

  "I'll tell ye what Sir William said to me, miss. 'Winterbotham,' he says, 'I've been learning a lot about that damned scoundrel.' Sir William was an outspoken gentleman and never cared to mince his words. Then he told me about Mister Fanshawe's goings-on. I've only touched the fringe of them in what I've told you, miss. There's no need to go into the whole story. 'If I had known a few years ago what I know about that rascal now, he would not be at the head of my works, Winterbotham. It is my belief,' he says, 'that Fanshawe is enriching himself at my expense. What he is at, I don't know, but you and I'll find out. He is one of the cleverest chemists and milling engineers in Europe,' he said, 'and for that I shall be loath to lose him, though I believe that Mr. Gerald Boynton will be as good as him in a few years. Well, we will be as cunning as Mister Fanshawe!' Those were almost the last words I heard Sir William say, miss. The next morning when I come to t'works there was my master dead in his sleep from heart disease."

  "The simple solution is to keep on looking till we do find out," Violet answered.

  "No time like the present, miss, if I may make so bold," the little man replied. "Could you bring yourself to come out into t'works with me tonight? They are still at it, I can swear to that."

  Violet was absolutely without fear of any kind. She loved an adventure above all things. After all, she was mistress of her surroundings. There was no one to say her nay. She would commence her reign in helping to carry out her uncle's wishes.

  "I believe you, Mr. Winterbotham," she said; "and I will go with you. Shall we knock at the door and make Mr. Fanshawe let us in? He will have to give an explanation if I demand one."

  Winterbotham shook his head vigorously. "Nay, nay, miss, that's not t'way to go to work with a man like Mister Fanshawe. He might explain things to you easily enough. He'll not be unprovided with a story, and you won't be able to understand what's going on in there, even if he does conduct you round. On the other hand, if it's anything really big, as Sir William thought, there might
be danger for you."

  Violet laughed. "We're not on a desert island, Mr. Winterbotham," she said.

  "You would talk differently if you knew as much as I do about Mr. Fanshawe in the first place, and industrial secrets in the second," the foreman said dryly. "No, miss, you be guided by me. I've a better plan."

  "And what is that?"

  Winterbotham withdrew a bunch of keys from his pocket. "There's a key to every door in the works here," he said, "except the key to the Experiment House. The building is lighted from the roof, miss. There are no windows in the walls at all. Clapped to the wall at one side -- the side farthest away from the river -- the steel fire escape ladder still remains. At one time the building was a sorting house with several floors. That was before the windows were all blocked up to ensure privacy in experimental work."

  "Yes?"

  "We can get up this ladder quite easily, miss, or at least I can. There's a handrail and no danger at all. I had no idea until this very day that the escape had not been removed. It's against the wall of the building, which is quite close to the main wall that encircles the works. There's only two or three yards between them. Consequently, no one ever goes there, and I don't suppose that Mister Fanshawe has any idea that the thing exists. We can get up it quite easily, and it's long odds that we don't see something when we look down through the glass of the roof."

  "Then let us go," Violet said eagerly. "We will get to the very heart of this affair if we can."

  For the first time since their meeting, the foreman smiled. "Eh," he said, relapsing into broader Lancashire, "ye favour your uncle! Thou art a gradely lass! I'll see that no harm comes to thee, miss."

  Violet smiled inwardly. The little man took an electric torch from one pocket and a short, stick-like object, terminating in a large bulb at one end, from the other.

  "That's cane bound round with leather and the knob at the top is filled with lead. That's what I carry with me, miss."

  "Wait here till I come back," Violet said. She was away a couple of minutes, and when she returned was wearing tennis shoes with rubber soles, a dark blouse instead of a light one and the tweed shooting hat she had worn coming over on board the steamer when it was rough.

  Then they went quietly out of the house through the front door, traversed the beautifully laid-out garden and came to the door in the wall. Violet unlocked it with a little Yale key and they stood in the works themselves.

  The immense vista of silent buildings, the tall shafts of the chimneys, the central space, almost as big as the parade ground of a barracks, were all washed in moonlight. Seen thus, there was something strangely romantic, and even beautiful, about this sleeping citadel of toil.

  Not a soul was stirring. The lines of the miniature railway which ran through every part of the works shone like rods of silver. A little breeze eddied up from the river, fresh and cool.

  Violet stopped for a moment and surveyed the scene. She must have unconsciously communicated something of what she felt to the quick-witted man at her side.

  "Aye," he said solemnly, and as a father might speak to a daughter, "aye, it's a big responsibility and a heavy weight for one pair of shoulders, and they young!":

  Violet was beginning to like the reinstated foreman immensely. His unconventional manner of speech, no less than his transparent earnestness and sincerity, pleased the girl fresh from the easier conventions of America and ever responsive to all that was sincere.

  "You are right," she answered, in a low voice. "It makes me realize it as I look round tonight."

  "There's nearly three thousand human beings dependent upon ye for their daily bread, miss. But talking won't get on with our job. This way, if you please."

  He went off with a light, springy step for all his fifty odd years, and Violet followed. First of all they crossed an angle of the great square and then plunged into a labyrinth of lanes and streets made by the gigantic buildings on every side. Violet felt it was like walking in a city of the dead.

  They came to an immense building which threw a black, enveloping shadow as they drew near. Winterbotham selected a key and opened a small door. A gush of hot air came out to them.

  "This is the boiler shed, miss," the foreman whispered. ''The fires are all banked up till the first shift comes on at four o'clock in the morning. But I would like to show ye something."

  Holding Winterbotham by the hand, Violet descended into a cave of warm blackness. She seemed to hear gentle, sighing murmurs all around her, as if a multitude of people slept. Then a switch clicked and a light sprang up.

  She stood by the first of an immense range of boilers. The riveted monster before her towered up into the gloom. It was like the entrance of a tunnel closed by steel doors.

  Winterbotham switched on his little electric torch and focused it upon a brass-framed dial, where a handle trembled.

  "Look at that, miss," he said in a hoarse whisper. "It's been so for many nights. There's a big head of steam going to the Experiment House."

  There was a soft roar and a low, hissing noise. It seemed to Violet that she had wandered into the secret home of gigantic forces, the terrible lair of the god Steam, who has changed the modern world.

  They went out again into the cool night air.

  "All yours, miss," said Winterbotham.

  Then, for nearly five minutes, they twisted in and out among the caverns of shadow and valleys of moonlight, until Winterbotham touched her upon the arm and pointed straight ahead. "That's it, miss," he said.

  She saw before her a high, narrow building of blackened brick. There was a certain sinister suggestion about it, because no windows lightened its gaunt sides. It was immense but furtive -- one could indeed imagine that curious things went on within.

  Winterbotham began to walk so rapidly that Violet had a difficulty in following him. They approached the building, turned to the right and were confronted by a high wedge of deepest shadow. To the right was the encircling wall of the works -- as high as the wall of a prison. To the left, and only three yards away from it, was the side of the Experiment House. To the girl who had lived so much of her life in America it suggested the entrance of the canon of Colorado. There was a sound of dripping water.

  "Can ye manage it, miss?" Winterbotham said in a hoarse whisper.

  Violet gave the little man a prod in the back. "I can do all that you can do," she said, and she heard a little chuckle of satisfaction in front of her.

  It was frightfully cold as they entered this appalling alley. The ground was covered with half bricks, an empty can or two, the debris of a forgotten place. Now and again the electric lamp flashed out for an instant to guide them, until Winterbotham stopped at the foot of a steel ladder reaching up into the darkness.

  "This is about twelve feet high, miss, and then we get on to the first platform. After that there are steps of open ironwork going up in a zigzag, with a handrail. It'll be covered with rust, but ye mustn't mind that."

  "Go on, Mr. Winterbotham," said Violet, and the words had hardly left her lips when the little man was halfway up the ladder, climbing like a monkey. She followed and found him waiting for her upon a little landing of open iron grid. Then she clasped the hand­rail to her left and felt the wall of the building with her right hand. It was easy going, though the sensation of mounting through the dark upon this flimsy structure might well have unnerved a great many people.

  Still they climbed on, with an occasional rest, until a faint moonlight fell upon them from above, and they could look down upon the black-velvet void through which they had come. More than once they heard a dull thud from within the building. At last they came into a brighter light. They were now level with the top of the out­side wall, and looking over it from her high perch Violet could see the glittering Mersey stretching away to the horizon, and the red, green and yellow lights of the boats moored in the centre of the stream. She could even see the roof of her own house, the private quay and the sunk Dutch garden -- looking like squares upon a chess-board. Th
en, gazing upwards, she saw that they were within six feet of the roof itself.

  "Be careful, miss," came to her from Winterbotham. "There's a broad space on top, but there's no rail of any sort. You'll want your head now, miss, and we mustn't make any noise."

  She followed him, took a hazardous step and stood upon the top of the coping, high up in the silver night. The vision was wonderful -- an immense vista of river and city, with the black stump of the growing cathedral in silhouette against the sky. For a moment the glory of it drove all other thoughts from her mind, until she saw Winterbotham, on his hands and knees, crawling towards the oblong dome of glass, which was lit with a blue-white radiance. She fell upon her knees and followed him, and the instinct of the hunt awoke in her. In ten seconds she was crouching by the side of her guide and peering downwards.

  At first she could see nothing. Rays of steely brightness crossed and re-crossed themselves below. They came from the high power electric arc lamps which were hung from the centre of the glass roof and illuminated the space below. Gradually, however, her eyes became accustomed to the glare, and she stared downwards, with beating heart and a fascination of every nerve such as she had never known before. She could distinguish figures moving about amid a complicated mass of machinery. At this height they were, of course, foreshortened -- grotesque little objects from whom arose a murmur of voices, now and then punctuated by an order in a louder key, and followed by the creak and clank of steel or iron. She counted six or seven people in all.

  "They are rare busy, miss," Winterbotham whispered. "Men don't work at that rate in the middle of the night for nothing! It's piecework, and very highly paid too."

  His face was grim and he was trembling with excitement. Violet was irresistibly reminded of a hunting dog straining at the leash, waiting for the moment of freedom and pursuit.

  She looked down again. Things became clearer. As far as she could see, there was a series of great presses along the far side of the wall -- at least so she imagined the objects to be. Winterbotham, she knew, would explain later. Then she saw that in the very centre of the floor there was a square object. The men were clustering round it. It appeared to be an immense box or bale, larger than any bale or packing case Violet had ever seen or heard of.

  "It's like two bathing machines taken off their wheels and made into one," she thought. She felt Winterbotham touch her hand.

  "There's Mister Fanshawe, right enough," he muttered.

  Violet saw one of the figures look upwards, straight towards her. In the little pink oval she distinctly recognized the director.

  "Has he seen us?" she whispered, in a moment of sickening fear.

  "Nay, miss; no one could see us out here. He's but looking at the crane. See, it's begun to travel!"

  Violet watched on with such intensity of observation that it was almost pain. She saw that the overhead crane was travelling along its girders like a giant spider, until it came to rest some ten feet below their own height and some thirty or forty feet above the floor. A heavy chain cable slowly descended from the machine.

  Almost simultaneously, from part of the building they could not see, two men appeared. They were pushing a large four-wheeled trolley which ran on steel rails.

  "They are going to hoist that big thing down there on to the trolley, miss," Winterbotham hissed, and there was something so peculiar in his voice that Violet turned to him in alarm.

  "So I thought," she said.

  "Think again, miss. Look at the size of that thing there and the size of the trolley. Wouldn't ye suppose that any ordinary trolley would break down under its weight?"

  He said no more, and Violet was conscious of a growing sense of mystery and an excitement which only increased as the seconds ticked away, but she asked for no explanation. She knew that would come after.

  She saw the hook of the crane attached to the square object. She saw it rise easily into the air; the arm of the crane moving until the box was immediately over the trolley, and then it fell gently into its place without a sound.

  She was disturbed by a sudden gasp at her side, followed by a low, suppressed growl, like the growl of a great dog. Winterbotham had risen erect and had snatched the life-preserver from his pocket. Going round the lighted back of the dome was the figure of a man. He was walking the parapet as noiselessly as a cat, when he caught sight of Winterbotham.

  Instantly he stopped and turned a little, and as he did so the moonlight fell full upon his face.

  It was Gerald Boynton, and he held a glittering revolver in his hand.