Free Death in the Tunnel by Miles Burton Page B

each with a few inches of flexible cord still attached to it. From their comparative cleanliness it was easy to see that they had not lain in the tunnel for very long.
    â€œWell, that settles it,” said Arnold. “There are the lights that Prentice and Haynes saw, or rather the remains of them.” He turned to the ganger. “How do you account for these? Do your men use red and green electric lights when they are working in here?”
    The ganger shook his head. “Not that kind, anyhow,” he replied. “The only way they can have got here is for somebody to have dropped them from a train. You’d be surprised if you could see some of the things that passengers do drop in tunnels.”
    â€œI dare say they drop all kinds of queer things,” said Arnold. “But, all the same, I don’t believe that these were dropped from a train. I believe they were brought in here by somebody, and thrown down when he had finished with them.”
    â€œWell, sir, you must have it your own way, I suppose,” replied the ganger, quite unconvinced. “We’d best be moving along. Perhaps one of you gentlemen will find the chap you’re after still hiding in one of the refuges.”
    They paid no attention to this sarcastic observation, but resumed their march in silence. But, in spite of redoubled watchfulness, they found no more. At last, a faint glimmer of daylight indicated the southern end of the tunnel. Before very long they were once more in the open air.
    Merrion drew several deep breaths, cleansing his lungs of the fumes he had inhaled. “My word!” he exclaimed. “That confounded tunnel must be as near an approach to hell as human ingenuity can devise. My classics are getting a bit rusty, but wasn’t it Hercules who went down into the infernal regions to rescue his pal’s wife? Alcestis, that was the girl’s name! I never realised before what a plucky chap he must have been. A dozen distressed damsels wouldn’t tempt me into that tunnel again. And here’s the other signal-box we heard about, I suppose?”
    Conditions at the southern end of the tunnel were very similar to those at the northern end. A deep cutting, with vertical walls, and a signal-box commanding the entrance. Here, too, the signalman was positive that nobody could enter or leave the tunnel unobserved.
    Arnold looked at his watch. It had taken them nearly two hours to traverse the two and a half miles of the tunnel.

VII
    The ganger, to whom tunnels were all part of the day’s work, went back to Blackdown by the way he had come. Arnold and Merrion, however, preferred a less hazardous, if longer, route. They made their way across the fields to a neighbouring main road, where they caught a bus. They were back at Scotland Yard shortly after six o’clock.
    Arnold laid upon the table the fragments which they had collected in the tunnel, and together they examined them. From their shape, it was easy to see that the bits of coloured glass were all that remained of two electric light bulbs, one red and the other green. The lamp-holders were of the ordinary type, and the flexible cord likewise. There was nothing distinctive about these.
    â€œSo there was a man in the tunnel, after all,” said Arnold at last. “I can’t imagine, after what we’ve seen this afternoon, how he got there. It’s ridiculous to suppose that he bribed the signalmen not to see him. He had those two lamps with him, and he switched on the red one first, then, when the train had slowed down sufficiently, he switched on the green. He wouldn’t want the train to come to a stop, for then investigations would have been made by the train-staff. He would have been found, and made to give some explanation of what he was up to.”
    Merrion nodded. “Those lamps prove that Prentice and Haynes are speaking the truth. If they were unshaded, they would show a light all round, instead of in one