The Tower

When Thomas was a little boy his parents always took him to the seaside on their holidays. When he was three years old he realised that they always stayed in the same place. This didn’t worry him at all as he enjoyed playing on the beach making sand castles and the weather always seemed sunny.

Mum and dad stayed at the Guest house that stood at the end of the road leading to the seaside every year. Tom enjoyed his visits there. The man who owned it had several small boats for hire to his guests and soon dad taught him how to row properly and then went on to show him how to sail. Then when he was aged 10 he began to look around the building in a bit more detail.

The Guest House was an old property built in the 1800’s. It looked like an ordinary large house the most unusual feature being a tower at one end that overlooked the sea. He asked dad what this tower was for.

“It’s an old observation tower that was built so that the owner could go up there in bad weather and look out at the sea without getting cold or wet!”

Tom’s mum and dad had once asked the owners of the Guest house why the stairs up to the tower had been blocked.

“When we bought the place we were told there was an accident about 100 years ago,” they replied. “The story is that an old man went up the steps and slipped coming down dying when he got to the bottom. The owners at the time locked the door to the observation room and nobody has been there since.”

Tom was listening as his dad was told the story, but he knew he wasn’t an old man and being naturally inquisitive he soon found the stairs that led up to the tower. There was a heavy wooden door with a large iron lock at the top of the stairs with an old notice nailed on it.

“DANGER KEEP OUT” said the notice.

There was nothing a 10 year old could do to get in, so for some considerable time Tom didn’t investigate the mystery any further. However he always kept the question in the back of his mind.

His life progressed normally and he left school, completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith and set up his own business. He became fairly successful in his work and eventually got married. Then the question of where to go on his honeymoon came up. He told his bride of the wonderful holidays he’d always had in the old Guest House in Essex.

“We both like sailing and there’s lots of lovely walks in the countryside. If you like to go there I think we’d have a wonderful time!”

His new wife agreed, as new wives do, and in due course they arrived at Tom’s childhood holiday spot. The owners were much older now, but they still remembered Tom and went through the usual ‘Old friends’ routine of saying how much he’d grown since they’d last seen him and wasn’t his new wife lovely!

Then after the first week Tom suddenly remembered the stairs to the observation tower. That day it was raining quite heavily outside and he suggested that now would be a good time to go up to explore the observation room at the top of the tower. He and his wife had climbed up as far as the door before his wife got a bit frightened and said it felt too spooky. She went down again to wait for him in the guest’s lounge.

Tom had his first good look at the door as an adult. It didn’t seem quite as strong as he remembered as a 10 year old. He looked at the lock with a professionals’ eye and smiled at its simplicity. Among the many gadgets on his pocket knife there was a simple lock pick fitted. It had often enabled him to gain potential customers who’d got into trouble by forgetting their keys.

Ten seconds later the door swung open on well oiled hinges and he walked into the forbidden room. The first thing that struck him was despite the fact that the room had been closed for 100 years, how new and well cared for everything seemed. The floor was firm underfoot and the sunlight was streaming through clean windows. There was hardly any furniture in the room apart from a comfortable looking chair and an old fashioned telescope on a tripod pointing out to sea.

Well that was a challenge not to be missed! He glanced at the view as he crossed the room to the chair. Not too much difference from the usual outlook at sea level. A yacht race was going on in the estuary, the boats coming in from the sea and heading towards him.

There was something a little unfamiliar about the rig of the boats, it almost appeared that there was a race for veteran boats going on. There had been no notification that Tom had seen for such a race, but the answer was at hand, he sat down in the chair and swivelled the telescope to focus on the boats.

He couldn’t believe what his eyes were telling him. The sailing vessels were antiques alright. They were smothered in clouds of sail and were manned by smartly uniformed large crews. They were foaming through the water at a good pace and were coming nearer quite rapidly. He began to feel a bit uneasy, the last time he’d seen this type of yacht was in black and white photographs taken in the late 1800’s. Certainly pre first war! Yet here were several of them, they were brightly coloured in shiny enamel paints and creamy new canvas.

Then a much more serious thought came into his head. It had been pouring with rain when he’d suggested investigating the tower, while since he’d been up there the weather had been bright and sunny, not only that but he’d left his wife downstairs. He checked his watch to see how long he’d been away but it had stopped for some reason.

He reluctantly left the room, closing the door behind him. He must have been there longer than he’d thought. As he went down the stairs he began feeling more and more tired, then just when he reached the ground floor he collapsed completely!

The police interviewed everybody in the Guest house at the time. Each of the people staying there tried to identify the old man without success. It was only the new bride who noticed that coincidentally the old man was dressed in clothes identical to those of her missing husband.