Peter Cheyney 
The Stars are Dark [EPUB ebook] 

A FILM director, seeking a ghostly scene for some macabre film, would have acclaimed the location of the Box of Compasses.
It stood, set back fifty yards from the deserted cross-roads, one arm of which dwindled away past the wooded crest of the hill; turned itself into a footpath and disappeared amongst the scrub on the cliff top. One arm ran into the moorland; the other wound past the inn and broadened on its way to the town. There was no shelter from the wind. The ramshackle building stood on a bare plateau surrounded by scrubland. On the other side of the woods the cliffs descended steeply, disappearing into sand-dunes running down to the long shelving beach of the bay.