Tower of Death

When Lamont Cranston first arrived at Montgard, he read the inscription on the floor of the turret entry. He noted an error in a single tile; the wrong figurine for the inscription. Despite his pretense to the contrary, Lamont Cranston was familiar with hieroglyphics. To his eyes, the error was plain.

When the floor of the entry was examined after the strange disappearance of Merton Helmsford, the proper figurine was in the inscription. A single tile could not have been removed. Therefore the entire floor must have been changed.

Waiting crooks were close by Montgard. Their purpose indicated that their leader expected word from within. The man who called himself Stokes Corvin was the latest arrival at Montgard.

Stokes Corvin had been in the library. The room warranted inspection. The volumes of Dumas were the clew that led to the discovery of the secret panel.

Reeves Lockwood and Merton Helmsford perished because they knew too much. Rags Wilkey — posing as Stokes Corvin — killed one and then the other because he feared that the lawyer had learned him to be an impostor and that the detective might press the investigation.

Those deaths were unfortunate. They came before the discovery of the secret panel that placed the guilt on the impostor. Had Sidney Richland used ordinary judgment he would not have become a third victim. His death came through his unfortunate actions.

The impostor, by inference, was Rags Wilkey — a crook whom only Joe Cardona could identify — one formerly associated with Mallet Haverly. His practice of tossing cigarette stumps upon the lawn near the kennel from which the hound had been removed was indication of his communications. Messages, wadded in the cigarette stumps, were his chosen method.

Windrop Raleigh had dealt in secret crime at Montgard. His tiled floor was secretly duplicated. One error only — that of a single figurine — was never discovered during his time.

Luskin knew the secret of the death trap. He also knew, in part, the existence of the hiding place near the top of the turret.

A servant in the household while Windrop Raleigh was installing these secret places, Luskin had managed to learn the truth.

The trap of doom, unused since the death of Windrop Raleigh, was brought into play by the new murderer who had found his way within the walls of Montgard. Wilkey did not know the error in the tile which had escaped the notice even of Windrop Raleigh. It remained for another to detect that one flaw in the trap — Windrop Raleigh’s legacy of death!