The Vanished Messenger by E. Phillips Oppenheim (page 4)

way there, walking on tiptoe, although his feet fell noiselessly upon the thick carpet. A single light was burning from a bracket in the wall, insufficient to illuminate the empty spaces, but enough to keep him from stumbling. The corridor towards the south end gradually widened, terminating in a splendid high window with stained glass, a broad seat, and a table. On the right, the end room was Mr. Dunster’s apartment, and on the left a flight of stairs led to the floor above. Hamel stood quite still, listening. There was a light in the room, as he could see from under the door, but there was no sound of any one moving. Hamel listened intently, every sense strained. Then the sound of a stair creaking behind diverted his attention. He looked quickly around. Gerald was descending. The boy’s face was white, and his eyes were filled with fear. Hamel stepped softly back from the door and met him at the foot of the stairs.

“Did you hear that cry?” he whispered.

Gerald nodded.

“It woke me up. What do you suppose it was?” Hamel shook his head.

“Some one in pain,” he replied. “I don’t understand it. It came from this room.”

“You know who sleeps there?” Gerald asked hoarsely.

Hamel nodded.

“A man with concussion of the brain doesn’t cry out like that. Besides, did you hear the end of it? It sounded as though some one were choking him. Hush!”

They had spoken only in bated breath, but the door of the room before which they were standing was suddenly opened. Meekins stood there, fully dressed, his dark, heavy face full of somber warning. He started a little as he saw the two whispering together. Gerald addressed him almost apologetically.

“We both heard the same sound, Meekins. Is any one ill? It sounded like some one in pain.”

The man hesitated. Then from behind his shoulder came Mr. Fentolin’s still, soft voice. There was a little click, and Meekins, as though obeying an unseen gesture, stepped back. Mr. Fentolin glided on to the threshold. He was still dressed. He propelled his chair a few yards down the corridor and beckoned them to approach.

“I am so sorry,” he said softly, “that you should have been disturbed, Mr. Hamel. We have been a little anxious about our mysterious guest. Doctor Sarson fetched me an hour ago. He discovered that it was necessary to perform a very slight operation, merely the extraction of a splinter of wood. It is all over now, and I think that he will do very well.”

Notwithstanding this very plausible explanation, Hamel was conscious of the remains of an uneasiness which he scarcely knew how to put into words.

“It was a most distressing cry,” he observed doubtfully, “a cry of fear as well as of pain.”

“Poor fellow!” Mr. Fentolin remarked compassionately. “I am afraid that for a moment or two he must have suffered acutely. Doctor Sarson is very clever, however, and there is no doubt that what he did was for the best. His opinion is that by to-morrow morning there will be a marvellous change. Good night, Mr. Hamel. I am quite sure that you will not be disturbed again.”

Hamel neither felt nor showed any disposition to depart.

“Mr. Fentolin,” he said, “I hope that you will not think that I am officious or in any way abusing your hospitality, but I cannot help suggesting that as Dr. Sarson is purely your household physician, the relatives of this man Dunster might be better satisfied if some second opinion were called in. Might I suggest that you telephone to Norwich for a surgeon?”

Mr. Fentolin showed no signs of displeasure. He was silent for a moment, as though considering the matter.

“I am not at all sure, Mr. Hamel, that you are not right,” he admitted frankly. “I believe that the case is quite a simple one, but on the other hand it would perhaps be more satisfactory to have an outside opinion. If Mr. Dunster is not conscious in the morning, we will telephone to the Norwich Infirmary.”

“I think it would be advisable,” Hamel agreed.

“Good night!” Mr. Fentolin said once more. “I am sorry that your rest has been disturbed.”

Hamel, however, still refused to take the hint. His eyes were fixed upon that closed door.

“Mr. Fentolin,” he asked, “have you any objection to my seeing Mr. Dunster?”

There was a moment’s intense silence. A sudden light had burned in Mr. Fentolin’s eyes. His fingers gripped the side of his chair. Yet when he spoke there were no signs of anger in his tone. It was a marvellous effort of self-control.

“There is no reason, Mr. Hamel,” he said, “why your curiosity should not be gratified. Knock softly at the door, Gerald.”

The boy obeyed. In a moment or two Doctor Sarson appeared on the threshold.

“Our guest, Mr. Hamel,” Mr. Fentolin explained in a whisper, “has been awakened by this poor fellow’s cry. He would like to see him for a moment.”

Doctor Sarson opened the door. They all passed in on tiptoe. The doctor led the way towards the bed upon which Mr. Dunster was lying, quite still. His head was bandaged, and his eyes closed. His face was ghastly. Gerald gave vent to a little muttered exclamation. Mr. Fentolin turned to him quickly.

“Gerald!”

The boy stood still, trembling, speechless. Mr. Fentolin’s eyes were riveted upon him. The doctor was standing, still and dark, a motionless image.

“Is he asleep?” Hamel asked.

“He is under the influence of a mild anaesthetic,” Doctor Sarson explained. “He is doing very well. His case is quite simple. By to-morrow morning he will be able to sit up and walk about if he wishes to.”

Hamel looked steadily at the figure upon the bed. Mr. Dunster’s breathing was regular, and his eyes were closed, but his colour was ghastly.

“He doesn’t look like getting up for a good many days to come,” Hamel observed.

The doctor led the way towards the door.

“The man has a fine constitution,” he said. “I feel sure that if you wish you will be able to talk to him to-morrow.”

They separated outside in the passage. Mr. Fentolin bade his guest a somewhat restrained good night, and Gerald mounted the staircase to his room. Hamel, however, had scarcely reached his door before Gerald reappeared. He had descended the stair-case at the other end of the corridor. He stood for a moment looking down the passage. The doors were all closed. Even the light had been extinguished.

“May I come in for a moment, please?” he whispered.

Hamel nodded.

“With pleasure! Come in and have a cigarette if you will. I shan’t feel like sleep for some time.”

They entered the room, and Gerald threw himself into an easy-chair near the window. Hamel wheeled up another chair and produced a box of cigarettes.

“Queer thing your dropping across that fellow in the way you did,” he remarked. “Just shows how one may disappear from the world altogether, and no one be a bit the wiser.”

The boy was sitting with folded arms. His expression was one of deep gloom.

“I only wish I’d never brought him here,” he muttered. “I ought to have known better.”

Hamel raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t he as well off here as anywhere else?”

“Do you think that he is?” Gerald demanded, looking across at Hamel.

There was a brief silence.

“We can scarcely do your uncle the injustice,” Hamel remarked, “of imagining that he can possibly have any reason or any desire to deal with that man except as a guest.”

“Do you really believe that?” Gerald asked.

Hamel rose to his feet.

“Look here, young man,” he said, “this is getting serious. You and I are at cross-purposes. If you like, you shall have the truth from me.”

“Go on.”

“I was warned about your uncle before I came down into this part of the world,” Hamel continued quietly. “I was told that he is a dangerous conspirator, a man who sticks at nothing to gain his ends, a person altogether out of place in these days. It sounds melodramatic, but I had it straight from a friend. Since I have been here, I have had a telegram – you brought it to me yourself – asking for information about this man Dunster. It was I who wired to London that he was here. It was through me that Scotland Yard communicated with the police station at Wells, through me that a man is to be sent down from London. I didn’t come here as a spy – don’t think that; I was coming here, anyhow. On the other hand, I believe that your uncle is playing a dangerous game. I am going to have Mr. John P. Dunster put in charge of a Norwich physician to-morrow.”

“Thank God!” the boy murmured.

“Look here,” Hamel continued, “what are you doing in this business, anyway? You are old enough to know your own mind and to go your own way.”

“You say that because you don’t know,” Gerald declared bitterly.

“In a sense I don’t,” Hamel admitted, “and yet your sister hinted to me only this afternoon that you and she -“

“Oh, I know what she told you!” the boy interrupted. “We’ve worn the chains for the last eight years. They are breaking her. They’ve broken my mother. Sometimes I think they are breaking me. But, you know, there comes a time – there comes a time when one can’t go on. I’ve seen some strange things here, some that I’ve half understood, some that I haven’t understood at all. I’ve closed my eyes. I’ve kept my promise. I’ve done his bidding, where ever it has led me. But you know there is a time – there is a limit to all things. I can’t go on. I spied on this man Dunster. I brought him here. It is I who am responsible for anything that may happen to him. It’s the last time!”

Gerald’s face was white with pain. Hamel laid his hand upon his shoulder.

“My boy,” he said, “there are worse things in the world than breaking a promise. When you gave it, the conditions which were existing at the time made it, perhaps, a right and reasonable undertaking, but sometimes the whole of the conditions under which a promise was given, change. Then one must have courage enough to be false even to one’s word.”

“Have you talked to my sister like that?” Gerald asked eagerly.

“I have and I will again,” Hamel declared. “To-morrow morning I leave this house, but before I go I mean to have the affair of this man Dunster cleared up. Your uncle will be very angry with me, without a doubt. I don’t care. But I do want you to trust me, if you will, and your sister. I should like to be your friend.”

“God knows we need one!” the boy said simply. “Good night!”

Once more the house was quiet. Hamel pushed his window wide open and looked out into the night. The air was absolutely still, there was no wind. The only sound was the falling of the low waves upon the stony beach and the faint scrunching of the pebbles drawn back by the ebb. He looked along the row of windows, all dark and silent now. A rush of pleasant fancies suddenly chased away the grim depression of the last few minutes. Out of all this sordidness and mystery there remained at least something in life for him to do. A certain aimlessness of purpose which had troubled him during the last few months had disappeared. He had found an object in life.

CHAPTER XXI

“To-day,” Hamel declared, as he stood at the sideboard the following morning at breakfast-time and helped himself to bacon and eggs, “I am positively going to begin reading. I have a case full of books down at the Tower which I haven’t unpacked yet.”

Esther made a little grimace.

“Look at the sunshine,” she said. “There isn’t a breath of wind, either. I think to-day that I could play from the men’s tees.”

Hamel sighed as he returned to his place.

“My good intentions are already half dissipated,” he admitted.

She laughed.

“How can we attack the other half?” she asked.

Gerald, who was also on his way to the sideboard, suddenly stopped.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed, looking out of the window. “Who’s going away this morning, I wonder? There’s the Rolls-Royce at the door.”

Hamel, too, rose once more to his feet. The two exchanged swift glances. Moved by a common thought, they both started for the door, only to find it suddenly opened before them. Mr. Fentolin glided into the room.

“Uncle!” Gerald exclaimed.

Mr. Fentolin glanced keenly around the room.

“Good morning, everybody,” he said. “My appearance at this hour of the morning naturally surprises you. As a matter of fact, I have been up for quite a long time. Esther dear, give me some coffee, will you, and be sure that it is hot. If any of you want to say good-by to Mr. John P. Dunster, you’d better hurry out.”

“You mean that he is going?” Hamel asked incredulously.

“He is going,” Mr. Fentolin admitted. “I wash my hands of the man. He has given us an infinite amount of trouble, has monopolised Doctor Sarson when he ought to have been attending upon me – a little more hot milk, if you please, Esther – and now, although he really is not fit to leave his room, he insists upon hurrying off to keep an appointment somewhere on the Continent. The little operation we spoke of last night was successful, as Doctor Sarson prophesied, and Mr. Dunster was quite conscious and able to sit up early this morning. We telephoned at six o’clock to Norwich for a surgeon, who is now on his way over here, but he will not wait even to see him. What can you do with a man so obstinate!”

Neither Hamel nor Gerald had resumed their places. The former, after a moment’s hesitation, turned towards the door.

“I think,” he said, “that I should like to see the last of Mr. Dunster.”

“Pray do,” Mr. Fentolin begged. “I have said good-by to him myself, and all that I hope is that next time you offer a wayfarer the hospitality of St. David’s Hall, Gerald, he may be a more tractable person. This morning I shall give myself a treat. I shall eat an old-fashioned English breakfast. Close the door after you, if you please, Gerald.”

Hamel, with Gerald by his side, hurried out into the hall. Just as they crossed the threshold they saw Mr. Dunster, wrapped from head to foot in his long ulster, a soft hat upon his head and one of Mr. Fentolin’s cigars in his mouth, step from the bottom stair into the hall and make his way with somewhat uncertain footsteps towards the front door. Doctor Sarson walked on one side, and Meekins held him by the arm. He glanced towards Gerald and his companion and waved the hand which held his cigar.

“So long, my young friend!” he exclaimed. You see, I’ve got them to let me make a start. Next time we go about the country in a saloon car together, I hope we’ll have better luck. Say, but I’m groggy about the knees!”

“You’d better save your breath,” Doctor Sarson advised him grimly. “You haven’t any to spare now, and you’ll want more than you have before you get to the end of your journey. Carefully down the steps, mind.”

They helped him into the car. Hamel and Gerald stood under the great stone portico, watching.

“Well, I’m jiggered!” the boy exclaimed, under his breath.

Hamel was watching the proceedings with a puzzled frown. To his surprise, neither Doctor Sarson nor Meekins were accompanying the departing man.

“He’s off, right enough,” Hamel declared, as the car glided away. “Do you understand it? I don’t.”

Gerald did not speak for several moments. His eyes were still fixed upon the back of the disappearing car. Then he turned towards Hamel.

“There isn’t much,” he said softly, “that Mr. Fentolin doesn’t know. If that detective was really on his way here, there wasn’t any chance of keeping Mr. Dunster to himself. You see, the whole story is common property. And yet, there’s something about the affair that bothers me.”

“And me,” Hamel admitted, watching the car until it became a speck in the distance.

“He was fairly well cornered,” Gerald concluded, as they made their way back to the dining-room, “but it isn’t like him to let go of anything so easily.”

“So you’ve seen the last of our guest,” Mr. Fentolin remarked, as Hamel and Gerald re-entered the dining-room. “A queer fellow – almost a new type to me. Dogged and industrious, I should think. He hadn’t the least right to travel, you know, and I think so long as we had taken the trouble to telephone to Norwich, he might have waited to see the physician. Sarson was very angry about it, but what can you do with these fellows who are never ill? They scarcely know what physical disability means. Well, Mr. Hamel, and how are you going to amuse yourself to-day?”

“I had thought of commencing some reading I brought with me,” Hamel replied, “but Miss Esther has challenged me to another game of golf.”

“Excellent!” Mr. Fentolin declared. “It is very kind of you indeed, Mr. Hamel. It is always a matter of regret for me that society in these parts is so restricted. My nephew and niece have little opportunity for enjoying themselves. Play golf with Mr. Hamel, by all means, my dear child,” he continued, turning to his niece. “Make the most of this glorious spring weather. And what about you, Gerald? What are you doing to-day?”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet, sir,” the boy replied.

Mr. Fentolin sighed.

“Always that lack of initiative,” he remarked. “A lack of initiative is one of your worst faults, I am afraid, dear Gerald.”

The boy looked up quickly. For a moment it seemed as though he were about to make a fierce reply. He met Mr. Fentolin’s steady gaze, however, and the words died away upon his lips.

“I rather thought,” he said, “of going into Norwich, if you could spare me. Captain Holt has asked me to lunch at the Barracks.”

Mr. Fentolin shook his head gently.

“It is most unfortunate,” he declared. “I have a commission for you later in the day.”

Gerald continued his breakfast in silence. He bent over his plate so that his face was almost invisible. Mr. Fentolin was peeling a peach. A servant entered the room.

“Lieutenant Godfrey, sir,” he announced.

They all looked up. A trim, clean-shaven, hard-featured young man in naval uniform was standing upon the threshold. He bowed to Esther.

“Very sorry to intrude, sir, at this hour of the morning,” he said briskly. “Lieutenant Godfrey, my name. I am flag lieutenant of the Britannia. You can’t see her, but she’s not fifty miles off at this minute. I landed at Sheringham this morning, hired a car and made the best of my way here. Message from the Admiral, sir.”

Mr. Fentolin smiled genially.

“We are delighted to see you, Lieutenant Godfrey,” he said. “Have some breakfast.”

“You are very good, sir,” the officer answered. “Business first. I’ll breakfast afterwards, with pleasure, if I may. The Admiral’s compliments, and he would take it as a favour if you would haul down your wireless for a few days.”

“Had down my wireless,” Mr. Fentolin repeated slowly.

“We are doing a lot of manoeuvring within range of you, and likely to do a bit more,” the young man explained. “You are catching up our messages all the time. Of course, we know they’re quite safe with you, but things get about. As yours is only a private installation, we’d like you, if you don’t mind, sir, to shut up shop for a few days.”

Mr. Fentolin seemed puzzled.

“But, my dear sir,” he protested, “we are not at war, are we?”

“Not yet,” the young officer replied, “but God knows when we shall be! We are under sealed orders, anyway, and we don’t want any risk of our plans leaking out. That’s why we want your wireless disconnected.”

“You need say no more,” Mr. Fentolin assured him. “The matter is already arranged. Esther, let me present Lieutenant Godfrey – my niece, Miss Fentolin; Mr. Gerald Fentolin, my nephew; Mr. Hamel, a guest. See that Lieutenant Godfrey has some breakfast, Gerald. I will go myself and see my Marconi operator.”

“Awfully good of you, sir,” the young man declared, “and I am sure we are very sorry to trouble you. In a week or two’s time you can go into business again as much as you like. It’s only while we are fiddling around here that the Admiral’s jumpy about things. May my man have a cup of coffee, sir? I’d like to be on the way back in a quarter of an hour.”

Mr. Fentolin halted his chair by the side of the bell, and rang it.

“Pray make use of my house as your own, sir,” he said gravely. “From what you leave unsaid, I gather that things are more serious than the papers would have us believe. Under those circumstances, I need not assure you that any help we can render is entirely yours.”

Mr. Fentolin left the room. Lieutenant Godfrey was already attacking his breakfast. Gerald leaned towards him eagerly.

“Is there really going to be war?” he demanded.

“Ask those chaps at The Hague,” Lieutenant Godfrey answered. “Doing their best to freeze us out, or something. All I know is, if there’s going to be fighting, we are ready for them. By-the-by, what have you got wireless telegraphy for here, anyway?”

“It’s a fad of my uncle’s,” Gerald replied. “Since his accident he amuses himself in all sorts of queer ways.”

Lieutenant Godfrey nodded.

“Poor fellow!” he said. “I heard he was a cripple, or something of the sort. Forgive my asking, but – you people are English, aren’t you?”

“Rather!” Gerald answered. “The Fentolins have lived here for hundreds of years. Why do you ask that?”

Lieutenant Godfrey hesitated. He looked, for the moment, scarcely at his ease.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied. “The old man was very anxious I should find out. You see, a lot of information seems to have got over on the other side, and we couldn’t think where it had leaked out, except through your wireless. However, that isn’t likely, of course, unless you’ve got one of these beastly Germans in your receiving-room. Now if I can borrow a cigarette, a cigar, or a pipe of tobacco – any mortal thing to smoke – I’ll be off, if I may. The old man turned me out at an unearthly hour this morning, and in Sheringham all the shops were closed. Steady on, young fellow,” he laughed, as Gerald filled his pockets with cigarettes. “Well, here’s good morning to you, Miss Fentolin. Good morning, sir. How long ought it to take me to get to Sheringham?”

“About forty minutes,” Gerald told him, “if your car’s any good at all.”

“It isn’t much,” was the somewhat dubious reply. “However, we’ll shove along. You in the Service?” he enquired, as they walked down the hall together.

“Hope I shall be before long,” Gerald answered. I’m going into the army, though.”

“Have to hurry up, won’t you?”

Gerald sighed.

“It’s a little difficult for me. Here’s your car. Good luck to you!”

“My excuses to Mr. Fentolin,” Lieutenant Godfrey shouted, “and many thanks.”

He jumped into the automobile and was soon on his way back. Gerald watched him until he was nearly out of sight. On the knoll, two of the wireless operators were already at work. Mr. Fentolin sat in his chair below, watching. The blue sparks were flashing. A message was just being delivered. Presently Mr. Fentolin turned his chair, and with Meekins by his side, made his way back to the house. He passed along the hall and into his study. Gerald, who was on his way to the dining-room, heard the ring of the telephone bell and the call for the trunk special line. He hesitated for a moment. Then he made his way slowly down towards the study and stood outside the door, listening. In a moment he heard Mr. Fentolin’s clear voice, very low yet very penetrating.

“The Mediterranean Fleet will be forty-seven hours before it comes together,” was the message he heard. “The Channel Fleet will manoeuvre off Sheerness, waiting for it. The North Sea Fleet is seventeen units under nominal strength.”

Gerald turned the handle of the door slowly and entered. Mr. Fentolin was just replacing the receiver on its stand. He looked up at his nephew, and his eyebrows came together.

“What do you mean by this?” he demanded. “Don’t you know that I allow no one in here when I am telephoning on the private wire?”

Gerald closed the door behind him and summoned up all his courage.

“It is because I have heard what you were saying over the telephone that I am here,” he declared. “I want to know to whom you were sending that message which you have intercepted outside.”

CHAPTER XXII

Mr. Fentolin sat for a moment in his chair with immovable face. Then he pointed to the door, which Gerald had left open behind him.

“Close that door, Gerald.”

The boy obeyed. Mr. Fentolin waited until he had turned around again.

“Come and stand over here by the side of the table,” he directed.

Gerald came without hesitation. He stood before his uncle with folded arms. There was something else besides sullenness in his face this morning, something which Mr. Fentolin was quick to recognise.

“I do not quite understand the nature of your question, Gerald,” Mr. Fentolin began. “It is unlike you. You do not seem yourself. Is there anything in particular the matter?”

“Only this,” Gerald answered firmly. “I don’t understand why this naval fellow should come here and ask you to close up your wireless because secrets have been leaking out, and a few moments afterwards you should be picking up a message and telephoning to London information which was surely meant to be private. That’s all. I’ve come to ask you about it.”

“You heard the message, then?”

“I did.”

“You listened – at the keyhole?”

“I listened outside,” Gerald assented doggedly. “I am glad I listened. Do you mind answering my question?

“Do I mind!” Mr. Fentolin repeated softly. “Really, Gerald, your politeness, your consideration, your good manners, astound me. I am positively deprived of the power of speech.”

“I’ll wait here till it comes to you again, then,” the boy declared bluntly. “I’ve waited on you hand and foot, done dirty work for you, put up with your ill-humours and your tyranny, and never grumbled. But there is a limit! You’ve made a poor sort of creature of me, but even the worm turns, you know. When it comes to giving away secrets about the movements of our navy at a time when we are almost at war, I strike.”

“Melodramatic, almost dramatic, but, alas! so inaccurate,” Mr. Fentolin sighed. “Is this a fit of the heroics, boy, or what has come over you? Have you by any chance – forgotten?”

Mr. Fentolin’s voice seemed suddenly to have grown in volume. His eyes dilated, he himself seemed to have grown in size. Gerald stepped a little back. He was trembling, but his expression had not changed.

“No, I haven’t forgotten. There’s a great debt we are doing our best to pay, but there’s such a thing as asking top much, there’s such a thing as drawing the cords to snapping point. I’m speaking for Esther and mother as well as myself. We have been your slaves; in a way I suppose we are willing to go on being your slaves. It’s the burden that Fate has placed around our necks, and we’ll go through with it. All I want to point out is that there are limits, and it seems to me that we are up against them now.”

Mr. Fentolin nodded. He had the air of a man who wishes to be reasonable.

“You are very young, my boy,” he said, “very young indeed. Perhaps that is my fault for not having let you see more of the world. You have got some very queer ideas into your head. A little too much novel reading lately, eh? I might treat you differently. I might laugh at you and send you out of the room. I won’t. I’ll tell you what you ask. I’ll explain what you find so mysterious. The person to whom I have been speaking is my stockbroker.”

“Your stockbroker!” Gerald exclaimed.

Mr. Fentolin nodded.

“Mr. Bayliss,” he continued, “of the firm of Bayliss, Hundercombe & Dunn, Throgmorton Court. Mr. Bayliss is a man of keen perceptions. He understands exactly the effect of certain classes of news upon the market. The message which I have just sent to him is practically common property. It will be in the Daily Mail to-morrow morning. The only thing is that I have sent it to him just a few minutes sooner than any one else can get it. There is a good deal of value in that, Gerald. I do not mind telling you that I have made a large fortune through studying the political situation and securing advance information upon matters of this sort. That fortune some day will probably be yours. It will be you who will benefit. Meanwhile, I am enriching myself and doing no one any harm.”

“But how do you know,” Gerald persisted, “that this message would ever have found its way to the Press? It was simply a message from one battleship to another. It was not intended to be picked up on land. There is no other installation but ours that could have picked it up. Besides, it was in code. I know that you have the code, but the others haven’t.”

Mr. Fentolin yawned slightly.

“Ingenious, my dear Gerald, but inaccurate. You do not know that the message was in code, and in any case it was liable to be picked up by any steamer within the circle. You really do treat me, my boy, rather as though I were a weird, mischief-making person with a talent for intrigue and crime of every sort. Look at your suspicions last night. I believe that you and Mr. Hamel had quite made up your minds that I meant evil things for Mr. John P. Dunster. Well, I had my chance. You saw him depart.”

“What about his papers?”

“I will admit,” Mr. Fentolin replied, “that I read his papers. They were of no great consequence, however, and he has taken them away with him. Mr. Dunster. as a matter of fact, turned out to be rather a mare’s-nest. Now, come, since you are here, finish everything you have to say to me. I am not angry. I am willing to listen quite reasonably.”

Gerald shook his head.

“Oh, I can’t!” he declared bitterly. “You always get the best of it. I’ll only ask you one more question. Are you having the wireless hauled down?”

Mr. Fentolin pointed out of the window. Gerald followed his finger. Three men were at work upon the towering spars.

“You see,” Mr. Fentolin continued tolerantly, “that I am keeping my word to Lieutenant Godfrey. You are suffering from a little too much imagination, I am afraid. It is really quite a good fault. By-the-by, how do you get on with our friend Mr. Hamel?”

“Very well,” the boy replied. “I haven’t seen much of him.”

“He and Esther are together a great deal, eh?” Mr. Fentolin asked quickly.

“They seem to be quite friendly.”

“It isn’t Mr. Hamel, by any chance, who has been putting these ideas into your head?”

“No one has been putting any ideas into my head,” Gerald answered hotly. “It’s simply what I’ve seen and overheard. It’s simply what I feel around, the whole atmosphere of the place, the whole atmosphere you seem to create around you with these brutes Sarson and Meekins; and those white-faced, smooth-tongued Marconi men of yours, who can’t talk decent English; and the post-office man, who can’t look you in the face; and Miss Price, who looks as though she were one of the creatures, too, of your torture chamber. That’s all.”

Mr. Fentolin waited until he had finished. Then he waved him away.

“Go and take a long walk, Gerald,” he advised. “Fresh air is what you need, fresh air and a little vigorous exercise. Run along now and send Miss Price to me.”

Gerald overtook Hamel upon the stairs.

“By this time,” the latter remarked, “I suppose that our friend Mr. Dunster is upon the sea.”

Gerald nodded silently. They passed along the corridor. The door of the room which Mr. Dunster had occupied was ajar. As though by common consent, they both stopped and looked in. The windows were all wide open, the bed freshly made. The nurse was busy collecting some medicine bottles and fragments of lint. She looked at them in surprise.

“Mr. Dunster has left, sir,” she told them.

“We saw him go,” Gerald replied.

“Rather a quick recovery, wasn’t it, nurse?” Hamel asked.

“It wasn’t a recovery at all, sir,” the woman declared sharply. “He’d no right to have been taken away. It’s my opinion Doctor Sarson ought to be ashamed of himself to have permitted it.”

“They couldn’t exactly make a prison of the place, could they?” Hamel pointed out. “The man, after all, was only a guest.”

“That’s as it may be, sir,” the nurse replied. “All the same, those that won’t obey their doctors aren’t fit to be allowed about alone. That’s the way I look at it.”

Mrs. Fentolin was passing along the corridor as they issued from the room. She started a little as she saw them.

“What have you two been doing in there?” she asked quickly.

“We were just passing,” Hamel explained. “We stopped for a moment to speak to the nurse.”

“Mr. Dunster has gone,” she said. “You saw him go, Gerald. You saw him, too, didn’t you, Mr. Hamel?”

“I certainly did,” Hamel admitted.

Mrs. Fentolin pointed to the great north window near which they were standing, through which the clear sunlight streamed a little pitilessly upon her worn face and mass of dyed hair.

“You ought neither of you to be indoors for a minute on a morning like this,” she declared. “Esther is waiting for you in the car, I think, Mr. Hamel.”

Gerald passed on up the stairs to his room, but Hamel lingered. A curious impulse of pity towards his hostess stirred him. The morning sunlight seemed to have suddenly revealed the tragedy of her life. She stood there, a tired, worn woman, with the burden heavy upon her shoulders.

“Why not come out with Miss Fentolin and me?” he suggested. “We could lunch at the Golf Club, out on the balcony. I wish you would. Can’t you manage it?”

She shook her head.

“Thank you very much,” she said. “Mr. Fentolin does not like to be left.”

Something in the finality of her words seemed to him curiously eloquent of her state of mind. She did not move on. She seemed, indeed, to have the air of one anxious to say more. In that ruthless light, the advantages of her elegant clothes and graceful carriage were suddenly stripped away from her. She was the abject wreck of a beautiful woman, wizened, prematurely aged. Nothing remained but the eyes, which seemed somehow to have their message for him.

“Mr. Fentolin is a little peculiar, you know,” she went on, her voice shaking slightly with the effort she was making to keep it low. “He allows Esther so little liberty, she sees so few young people of her own age. I do not know why he allows you to be with her so much. Be careful, Mr. Hamel.”

Her voice seemed suddenly to vibrate with a curious note of suppressed fear. Almost as she finished her speech, she passed on. Her little gesture bade him remain silent. As she went up the stairs, she began to hum scraps of a little French air.

CHAPTER XXIII

Hamel sliced his ball at the ninth, and after waiting for a few minutes patiently, Esther came to help him look for it. He was standing down on the sands, a little apart from the two caddies who were beating out various tufts of long grass.

“Where did it go?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” he admitted.

“Why don’t you help look for it?”

“Searching for balls,” he insisted, “is a caddy’s occupation. Both the caddies are now busy. Let us sit down here. These sand hummocks are delightful. It is perfectly sheltered, and the sun is in our faces. Golf is an overrated pastime. Let us sit and watch that little streak of blue find its way up between the white posts.”

She hesitated for a moment.

“We shall lose our place.”

“There is no one behind.”

She sank on to the little knoll of sand to which he had pointed, with a resigned sigh.

“You really are a queer person,” she declared. “You have been playing golf this morning as though your very life depended upon it. You have scarcely missed a shot or spoken a word. And now, all of a sudden, you want to sit on a sand hummock and watch the tide.”

“I have been silent,” he told her, “because I have been thinking.”

“That may be truthful,” she remarked, “but you wouldn’t call it polite, would you?”

“The subject of my thoughts is my excuse. I have been thinking of you.”

For a single moment her eyes seemed to have caught something of that sympathetic light with which he was regarding her. Then she looked away.

“Was it my mashie shots you were worrying about?” she asked.

“It was not,” he replied simply. “It was you – you yourself.”

She laughed, not altogether naturally.

“How flattering!” she murmured. “By-the-by, you are rather a downright person, aren’t you, Mr. Hamel?”

“So much so,” he admitted, “that I am going to tell you one or two things now. I am going to be very frank indeed.”

She sat suddenly quite still. Her face was turned from him, but for the first time since he had known her there was a slight undertone of colour in her cheeks.

“A week ago,” he said, “I hadn’t the faintest idea of coming into Norfolk. I knew about this little shanty of my father’s, but I had forgotten all about it. I came as the result of a conversation I had with a friend who is in the Foreign Office.”

She looked at him with startled eyes.

“What do you mean?” she asked quickly. “You are Mr. Hamel, aren’t you?”

“Certainly,” he replied. “Not only am I Richard Hamel, mining engineer, but I really have all that reading to do I have spoken about, and I really was looking for a quiet spot to do it in. It is true that I had this part of the world in my mind, but I do not think that I should ever have really decided to come here if it had not been for my friend in London. He was very interested indeed directly I mentioned St. David’s Tower. Would you like to know what he told me?”

“Yes! Go on, please.”

“He told me a little of the history of your uncle, Mr. Fentolin, and what he did not tell me at the time, he has since supplemented. I suppose,” he added, hesitatingly, “that you yourself -“

“Please go on. Please speak as though I knew nothing.”

“Well, then,” Hamel continued, “he told me that your uncle was at one time in the Foreign Office himself. He seemed to have a most brilliant career before him when suddenly there was a terrible scandal. A political secret – I don’t know what it was – had leaked out. There were rumours that it had been acquired for a large sum of money by a foreign Power. Mr. Fentolin retired to Norfolk, pending an investigation. It was just as that time that he met with his terrible accident, and the matter was dropped.”

“Go on, please,” she murmured.

“My friend went on to say that during the last few years Mr. Fentolin has once again become an object of some suspicion to the head of our Secret Service Department. For a long time they have known that he was employing agents abroad, and that he was showing the liveliest interest in underground politics. They believed that it was a mere hobby, born of his useless condition, a taste ministered to, without doubt, by the occupation of his earlier life. Once or twice lately they have had reason to change their minds. You know, I dare say, in what a terribly disturbed state European affairs are just now. Well, my friend had an idea that Mr. Fentolin was showing an extraordinary amount of interest in a certain conference which we understand is to take place at The Hague. He begged me to come down, and to watch your uncle while I was down here, and report to him anything that seemed to me noteworthy. Since then I have had a message from him concerning the American whom you entertained – Mr. John P. Dunster. It appears that he was the bearer of very important dispatches for the Continent.”

“But he has gone,” she said quickly. “Nothing happened to him, after all. He went away without a word of complaint. We all saw him.”

“That is quite true,” Hamel admitted. “Mr. Dunster has certainly gone. It is rather a coincidence, however, that he should have taken his departure just as the enquiries concerning his whereabouts had reached such a stage that it had become quite impossible to keep him concealed any longer.”

She turned a little in her place and looked at him steadfastly.

“Mr. Hamel,” she said, “tell me – what of your mission? You have had an opportunity of studying my uncle. You have even lived under his roof. Tell me what you think.”

His face was troubled.

“Miss Fentolin,” he said, “I will tell you frankly that up to now I have not succeeded in solving the problem of your uncle’s character. To me personally he has been most courteous. He lives apparently a studious and an unselfish life. I have heard him even spoken of as a philanthropist. And yet you three – you, your mother, and your brother, who are nearest to him, who live in his house and under his protection, have the air of passing your days in mortal fear of him.”

“Mr. Hamel,” she exclaimed nervously, “you don’t believe that! He is always very kind.”

“Apparently,” Hamel observed drily. “And yet you must remember that you, too, are afraid of him. I need not remind you of our conversations, but there the truth is. You praise his virtues and his charities, you pity him, and yet you go about with a load of fear, and – forgive me – of secret terror in your heart, you and Gerald, too. As for your mother -“

“Don’t!” she interrupted suddenly. “Why do you bring me here to talk like this? You cannot alter things. Nothing can be altered.”

“Can’t it!” he replied. “Well, I will tell you the real reason of my having brought you here and of my having made this confession. I brought you here because I could not bear to go on living, if not under your roof, at any rate in the neighbourhood, without telling you the truth. Now you know it. I am here to watch Mr. Fentolin. I am going on watching him. You can put him on his guard, if you like; I shan’t complain. Or you can -“

He paused so long that she looked at him. He moved a little closer to her, his fingers suddenly gripped her hand.

“Or you can marry me and come away from it all,” he concluded quietly. “Forgive me, please – I mean it.”

For a moment the startled light in her eyes was followed by a delicious softness. Her lips were parted, she leaned a little towards him. Then suddenly she seemed to remember. She rose with swift alertness to her feet.

“I think,” she said, “that we had better play golf.”

“But I have asked you to marry me,” he protested, as he scrambled up.

“Your caddy has found your ball a long time ago,” she pointed out, walking swiftly on ahead.

He played his shot and caught her up.

“Miss Fentolin – Esther,” he pleaded eagerly, “do you think that I am not in earnest? Because I am. I mean it. Even if I have only known you for a few days, it has been enough. I think that I knew it was coming from the moment that you stepped into my railway carriage.”

“You knew that what was coming?” she asked, raising her eyes suddenly.

“That I should care for you.”

“It’s the first time you’ve told me,” she reminded him, with a queer little smile. “Oh, forgive me, please! I didn’t mean to say that. I don’t want to have you tell me so. It’s all too ridiculous and impossible.”

“Is it? And why?”

“I have only known you for three days.”

“We can make up for that.”

“But I don’t – care about you. I have never thought of any one in that way. It is absurd,” she went on.

“You’ll have to, sometime or other,” he declared. “I’ll take you travelling with me, show you the world, new worlds, unnamed rivers, untrodden mountains. Or do you want to go and see where the little brown people live among the mimosa and the cherry blossoms? I’ll take you so far away that this place and this life will seem like a dream.”

Her breath caught a little.

“Don’t, please,” she begged. “You know very well – or rather you don’t know, perhaps, but I must tell you – that I couldn’t. I am here, tied and bound, and I can’t escape.”

“Ah! dear, don’t believe it,” he went on earnestly. “There isn’t any bond so strong that I won’t break it for you, no knot I won’t untie, if you give me the right.”

They were climbing slowly on to the tee. He stepped forward and pulled her up. Her hand was cold. Her eyes were raised to his, very softly yet almost pleadingly.

“Please don’t say anything more,” she begged. “I can’t – quite bear it just now. You know, you must remember – there is my mother. Do you think that I could leave her to struggle alone?”

His caddy, who had teed the ball, and who had regarded the proceedings with a moderately tolerant air, felt called upon at last to interfere.

“We’d best get on,” he remarked, pointing to two figures in the distance, “or they’ll say we’ve cut in.”

Hamel smote his ball far and true. On a more moderate scale she followed his example. They descended the steps together.

“Love-making isn’t going to spoil our golf,” he whispered, smiling, as he touched her fingers once more.

She looked at him almost shyly.

“Is this love-making?” she asked.

They walked together from the eighteenth green towards the club-house. A curious silence seemed suddenly to have enveloped them. Hamel was conscious of a strange exhilaration, a queer upheaval of ideas, an excitement which nothing in his previous life had yet been able to yield him. The wonder of it amazed him, kept him silent. It was not until they reached the steps, indeed, that he spoke.

“On our way home -” he began.

She seemed suddenly to have stiffened. He looked at her, surprised. She was standing quite still, her hand gripping the post, her eyes fixed upon the waiting motor-car. The delicate softness had gone from her face. Once more that look of partly veiled suffering was there, suffering mingled with fear.

“Look!” she whispered, under her breath. “Look! It is Mr. Fentolin! He has come for us himself; he is there in the car.”

Mr. Fentolin, a strange little figure lying back among the cushions of the great Daimler, raised his hat and waved it to them.

“Come along, children,” he cried. “You see, I am here to fetch you myself. The sunshine has tempted me. What a heavenly morning! Come and sit by my side, Esther, and fight your battle all over again. That is one of the joys of golf, isn’t it?” he asked, turning to Hamel. “You need not be afraid of boring me. To-day is one of my bright days. I suppose that it is the sunshine and the warm wind. On the way here we passed some fields. I could swear that I smelt violets. Where are you going, Esther?

“To take my clubs to my locker and pay my caddy,” she replied.

“Mr. Hamel will do that for you,” Mr. Fentolin declared. “Come and take your seat by my side, and let us wait for him. I am tired of being alone.”

She gave up her clubs reluctantly. All the life seemed to have gone from her face.

“Why didn’t mother come with you?” she asked simply.

“To tell you the truth, dear Esther,” he answered, “when I started, I had a fancy to be alone. I think – in fact I am sure – that your mother wanted to come. The sunshine, too, was tempting her. Perhaps it was selfish of me not to bring her, but then, there is a great deal to be forgiven me, isn’t there, Esther?”

“A great deal,” she echoed, looking steadily ahead of her.

“I came,” he went on, “because it occurred to me that, after all, I had my duties as your guardian, dear Esther. I am not sure that we can permit flirtations, you know. Let me see, how old are you?”

“Twenty-one,” she replied.

“In a magazine I was reading the other day,” he continued, “I was interested to observe that the modern idea as regards marriage is a changed one. A woman, they say, should not marry until she is twenty-seven or twenty-eight – a very excellent idea. I think we agree, do we not, on that, Esther?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I have never thought about the matter.”

“Then,” he went on, “we will make up our minds to agree. Twenty-seven or twenty-eight, let us say. A very excellent age! A girl should know her own mind by then. And meanwhile, dear Esther, would it be wise, I wonder, to see a little less of our friend Mr. Hamel? He leaves us to-day, I think. He is very obstinate about that. If he were staying still in the house, well, it might be different. But if he persists in leaving us, you will not forget, dear, that association with a guest is one thing; association with a young man living out of the house is another. A great deal less of Mr. Hamel I think that we must see.”

She made no reply whatever. Hamel was coming now towards them.

“Really a very personable young man,” Mr. Fentolin remarked, studying him through his eyeglass. “Is it my fancy, I wonder, as an observant person, or is he just a little – just a little taken with you, Esther? A pity if it is so – a great pity.”

She said nothing, but her hand which rested upon the rug was trembling a little.

“If you have an opportunity,” Mr. Fentolin suggested, dropping his voice, “you might very delicately, you know – girls are so clever at that sort of thing-convey my views to Mr. Hamel as regards his leaving us and its effect upon your companionship. You understand me, I am sure?”

For the first time she turned her head towards him.

“I understand,” she said, “that you have some particular reason for not wishing Mr. Hamel to leave St. David’s Hall.”

He smiled benignly.

“You do my hospitable impulses full justice, dear Esther,” he declared. “Sometimes I think that you understand me almost as well as your dear mother. If, by any chance, Mr. Hamel should change his mind as to taking up his residence at the Tower, I think you would not find me in any sense of the word an obdurate or exacting guardian. Come along, Mr. Hamel. That seat opposite to us is quite comfortable. You see, I resign myself to the inevitable. I have come to fetch golfers home to luncheon, and I compose myself to listen. Which of you will begin the epic of missed putts and brassey shots which failed by a foot to carry?”

CHAPTER XXIV

Hamel sat alone upon the terrace, his afternoon coffee on a small table in front of him. His eyes were fixed upon a black speck at the end of the level roadway which led to the Tower. Only a few minutes before, Mr. Fentolin, in his little carriage, had shot out from the passage beneath the terrace, on his way to the Tower. Behind him came Meekins, bending over his bicycle. Hamel watched them both with thoughtful eyes. There were several little incidents in connection with their expedition which he scarcely understood.

Then there came at last the sound for which he had been listening, the rustle of a skirt along the terraced way. Hamel turned quickly around, half rising to his feet, and concealing his disappointment with difficulty. It was Mrs. Seymour Fentolin who stood there, a little dog under each arm; a large hat, gay with flowers, upon her head. She wore patent shoes with high heels, and white silk stockings. She had, indeed, the air of being dressed for luncheon at a fashionable restaurant. As she stooped to set the dogs down, a strong waft of perfume was shaken from her clothes.

“Are you entirely deserted, Mr. Hamel?” she asked.

“I am,” he replied. “Miss Esther went, I think, to look for you. My host,” he added, pointing to the black speck in the distance, “begged me to defer my occupation of the Tower for an hour or so, and has gone down there to collect some of his trifles.”

Her eyes followed his outstretched hand. She seemed to him to shiver for a moment.

“You really mean, then, that you are going to leave us?” she asked, accepting the chair which he had drawn up close to his.

He smiled.

“Well, I scarcely came on a visit to St. David’s Hall, did I?” he reminded her. “It has been delightfully hospitable of Mr. Fentolin to have insisted upon my staying on here for these few days, but I could not possibly inflict myself upon you all for an unlimited period.”

Mrs. Fentolin sat quite still for a time. In absolute repose, if one could forget her mass of unnaturally golden hair, the forced and constant smile, the too liberal use of rouge and powder, the nervous motions of her head, it was easily to be realised that there were still neglected attractions about her face and figure. Only, in these moments of repose, an intense and ageing weariness seemed to have crept into her eyes and face. It was as though she had dropped the mask of incessant gaiety and permitted a glimpse of her real self to steal to the surface.

“Mr. Hamel,” she said quietly, “I dare say that even during these few days you have realised that Mr. Fentolin is a very peculiar man.”

“I have certainly observed – eccentricities,” Hamel assented.

“My life, and the lives of my two children,” she went on, “is devoted to the task of ministering to his happiness.”

“Isn’t that rather a heavy sacrifice?” he asked. Mrs. Seymour Fentolin looked down the long, narrow way along which Mr. Fentolin had passed. He was out of sight now, inside the Tower. Somehow or other, the thought seemed to give her courage and dignity. She spoke differently, without nervousness or hurry.

“To you, Mr. Hamel,” she said, “it may seem so. We who make it know of its necessity.”

He bowed his head. It was not a subject for him to discuss with her.

“Mr. Fentolin has whims,” she went on, “violent whims. We all try to humour him. He has his own ideas about Gerald’s bringing up. I do not agree with them, but we submit. Esther, too, suffers, perhaps to a less extent. As for me,” – her voice broke a little -” Mr. Fentolin likes people around him who are always cheerful. He prefers even a certain style – of dress. I, too, have to do my little share.”

Hamel’s face grew darker.

“Has it ever occurred to you,” he demanded, “that Mr. Fentolin is a tyrant?”

She closed her eyes for a moment.

“There are reasons,” she declared, “why I cannot discuss that with you. He has these strong fancies, and it is our task in life to humour them. He has one now with regard to the Tower, with regard to you. You are, of course, your own master. You can do as you choose, and you will do as you choose. Neither I nor my children have any claim upon your consideration. But, Mr. Hamel, you have been so kind that I feel moved to tell you this. It would make it very much easier for all of us if you would give up this scheme of yours, if you would stay on here instead of going to reside at the Tower.”

Hamel threw away his cigarette. He was deeply interested.

“Mrs. Fentolin,” he said, “I am glad to have you speak so plainly. Let me answer you in the same spirit. I am leaving this house mainly because I have conceived certain suspicions with regard to Mr. Fentolin. I do not like him, I do not trust him, I do not believe in him. Therefore, I mean to remove myself from the burden of his hospitality. There are reasons,” he went on, “why I do not wish to leave the neighbourhood altogether. There are certain investigations which I wish to make. That is why I have decided to go to the Tower.”

“Miles was right, then!” she cried suddenly. “You are here to spy upon him!”

He turned towards her swiftly.

“To spy upon him, Mrs. Fentolin? For what reason? Why? Is he a criminal, then?”

She opened her lips and closed them again. There was a slight frown upon her forehead. It was obvious that the word had unintentionally escaped her.

“I only know what it is that he called you, what he suspects you of being,” she explained. “Mr. Fentolin is very clever, and he is generally at work upon something. We do not enquire into the purpose of his labours. The only thing I know is that he suspects you of wanting to steal one of his secrets.”

“Secrets? But what secrets has he?” Hamel demanded. “Is he an inventor?”

“You ask me idle questions,” she sighed. “We have gone, perhaps, a little further than I intended. I came to plead with you for all our sakes, if I could, to make things more comfortable by remaining here instead of insisting upon your claim to the Tower.”

“Mrs. Fentolin,” Hamel said firmly. “I like to do what I can to please and benefit my friends, especially those who have been kind to me. I will be quite frank with you. There is nothing you could ask me which I would not do for your daughter’s sake – if I were convinced that it was for her good.”

Mrs. Seymour Fentolin seemed to be trembling a little. Her hands were crossed upon her bosom.

“You have known her for so short a time,” she murmured.

Hamel smiled confidently.

“I will not weary you,” he said, “with the usual trite remarks. I will simply tell you that the time has been long enough. I love your daughter.”

Mrs. Fentolin sat quite still. Only in her eyes, fixed steadily seawards, there was the light of something new, as though some new thought was stirring in her brain. Her lips moved, although the sound which came was almost inaudible.

“Why not?” she murmured, as though arguing with some unseen critic of her thoughts. “Why not?”

“I am not a rich man,” Hamel went on, “but I am fairly well off. I could afford to be married at once, and I should like -“

She turned suddenly upon him and gripped his wrist.

“Listen,” she interrupted, “you are a traveller, are you not? You have been to distant countries, where white people go seldom; inaccessible countries, where even the arm of the law seldom reaches. Couldn’t you take her away there, take her right away, travel so fast that nothing could catch you, and hide – hide for a little time?”

Hamel stared at his companion, for a moment, blankly. Her attitude was so unexpected, her questioning so fierce.

“My dear Mrs. Fentolin,” he began -.

She suddenly relaxed her grip of his arm. Something of the old hopelessness was settling down upon her face. Her hands fell into her lap.

“No,” she interrupted, “I forgot! I mustn’t talk like that. She, too, is part of the sacrifice.”

“Part of the sacrifice,” Hamel repeated, frowning. “Is she, indeed! I don’t know what sacrifice you mean, but Esther is the girl whom sooner or later, somehow or other, I am going to make my wife, and when she is my wife, I shall see to it that she isn’t afraid of Miles Fentolin or of any other man breathing.”

A gleam of hopefulness shone through the stony misery of the woman’s face.

“Does Esther care?” she asked softly.

“How can I tell? I can only hope so. If she doesn’t yet, she shall some day. I suppose,” he added, with a sigh, “it is rather too soon yet to expect that she should. If it is necessary, I can Wait.”

Mrs. Fentolin’s eyes were once more fixed upon the Tower. The sun had caught the top of the telephone wire and played around it till it seemed like a long, thin shaft of silver.

“If you go down there,” she said, “Esther will not be allowed to see you at all. Mr. Fentolin has decided to take it as a personal affront. You will be ostracised from here.”

“Shall I?” he answered. “Well, it won’t be for long, at any rate. And as to not seeing Esther, you must remember that I come from outside this little domain, and I see nothing more in Mr. Fentolin than a bad-tempered, mischievous, tyrannical old invalid, who is fortunately prevented by his infirmities from doing as much mischief as he might. I am not afraid of your brother-in-law, or of the bully he takes about with him, and I am going to see your daughter somehow or other, and I am going to marry her before very long.”

She thrust out her hand suddenly and grasped his. The fingers were very thin, almost bony, and covered with rings. Their grip was feverish and he felt them tremble.

“You are a brave man, Mr. Hamel,” she declared speaking in a low, quick undertone. “Perhaps you are right. The shadow isn’t over your head. You haven’t lived in the terror of it. You may find a way. God grant it!”

She wrung his fingers and rose to her feet. Her voice suddenly changed into another key. Hamel knew instinctively that she wished him to understand that their conversation was over.

“Chow-Chow,” she cried, “come along, dear, we must have our walk. Come along, Koto; come along, little dogs.”

Hamel strolled down the terrace steps and wandered for a time in the gardens behind the house. Here, in the shelter of the great building, he found himself suddenly in an atmosphere of springtime. There were beds of crocuses and hyacinths, fragrant clumps of violets, borders of snowdrops, masses of primroses and early anemones. He slowly climbed one or two steep paths until he reached a sort of plateau, level with the top of the house. The flowers here grew more sparsely, the track of the salt wind lay like a withering band across the flower-beds. The garden below was like a little oasis of colour and perfume. Arrived at the bordering red brick wall, he turned around and looked along the narrow road which led to the sea. There was no sign of Mr. Fentolin’s return. Then to his left he saw a gate open and heard the clamour of dogs. Esther appeared, walking swiftly towards the little stretch of road which led to the village. He hurried after her.

“Unsociable person!” he exclaimed, as he caught her up. “Didn’t you know that I was longing for a walk?”

“How should I read your thoughts?” she answered. “Besides, a few minutes ago I saw you on the terrace, talking to mother. I am only going as far as the village.”

“May I come?” he asked. “I have business there myself.”

She laughed.

“There are nine cottages, three farmhouses, and a general shop in St. David’s,” she remarked. “Also about fifteen fishermen’s cottages dotted about the marsh. Your business, I presume, is with the general shop?”

He shook his head, falling into step with her.

“What I want,” he explained, “is to find a woman to come in and look after me at the Tower. Your servant who valets me has given me two names.”

Something of the lightness faded from her face.

“So you have quite made up your mind to leave us?” she asked slowly. “Mother wasn’t able to persuade you to stay?”

He shook his head.

“She was very kind,” he said, “but there are really grave reasons why I feel that I must not accept Mr. Fentolin’s hospitality any longer. I had,” he went on, “a very interesting talk with your mother.”

She turned quickly towards him. The slightest possible tinge of additional colour was in her cheeks. She was walking on the top of a green bank, with the wind blowing her skirts around her. The turn of her head was a little diffident, almost shy. Her eyes were asking him questions. At that moment she seemed to him, with her slim body, her gently parted lips and soft, tremulous eyes, almost like a child. He drew a little nearer to her.

“I told your mother,” he continued, “all that I have told you, and more. I told her, dear, that I cared for you, that I wanted you to be my wife.”

She was caught in a little gust of wind. Both her hands went up to her hat; her face was hidden. She stepped down from the bank.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said quietly.

“Why not?” he demanded. “It was the truth.”

He stooped forward, intent upon looking into her face. The mystic softness was still in her eyes, but her general expression was inscrutable. It seemed to him that there was fear there.

“What did mother say?” she whispered.

“Nothing discouraging,” he replied. “I don’t think she minded at all. I have decided, if you give me permission, to go and talk to Mr. Fentolin this evening.”

She shook her head very emphatically.

“Don’t!” she implored. “Don’t! Don’t give him another whip to lash us with. Keep silent. Let me just have the memory for a few days all to myself.”

Her words came to him like numb things. There was little expression in them, and yet he felt that somehow they meant so much.

“Esther dear,” he said, “I shall do just as you ask me. At the same time, please listen. I think that you are all absurdly frightened of Mr. Fentolin. Living here alone with him, you have all grown under his dominance to an unreasonable extent. Because of his horrible infirmity, you have let yourselves become his slaves. There are limits to this sort of thing, Esther. I come here as a stranger, and I see nothing more in Mr. Fentolin than a very selfish, irritable, domineering, and capricious old man. Humour him, by all means. I am willing to do the same myself. But when it comes to the great things in life, neither he nor any living person is going to keep from me the woman I love.”

She walked by his side in silence. Her breath was coming a little quicker, her fingers lay passive in his. Then for a moment he felt the grip of them almost burn into his flesh. Still she said nothing.

“I want your permission, dear,” he went on, “to go to him. I suppose he calls himself your guardian. If he says no, you are of age. I just want you to believe that I am strong enough to put my arms, around you and to carry you away to my own world and keep you there, although an army of Mr. Fentolin’s creatures followed us.”

She turned, and he saw the great transformation. Her face was brilliant, her eyes shone with wonderful things.

“Please,” she begged, “will you say or do nothing at all for a little time, until I tell you when? I want just a few days peace. You have said such beautiful things to me that I want them to lie there in my thoughts, in my heart, undisturbed, for just a little time. You see, we are at the village now. I am going to call at this third cottage. While I am inside, you can go and make what enquiries you like. Come and knock at the door for me when you are ready.”

“And we will walk back together?”

“We will walk back together,” she promised him.

“I will take you home another way. I will take you over what they call the Common, and come down behind the Hall into the gardens.”

She dismissed him with a little smile. He strolled along the village street and plunged into the mysterious recesses of the one tiny shop.

CHAPTER XXV

Hamel met Kinsley shortly before one o’clock the following afternoon, in the lounge of the Royal Hotel at Norwich.

“You got my wire, then?” the latter asked, as he held out his hand. “I had it sent by special messenger from Wells.”

“It arrived directly after breakfast,” Hamel replied. “It wasn’t the easiest matter to get here, even then, for there are only about two trains a day, and I didn’t want to borrow a car from Mr. Fentolin.”

“Quite right,” Kinsley agreed. “I wanted you to come absolutely on your own. Let’s get into the coffee-room and have some lunch now. I want to catch the afternoon train hack to town.”

“Do you mean to say that you’ve come all the way down here to talk to me for half an hour or so?” Hamel demanded, as they took their places at a table.

“All the way from town,” Kinsley assented, “and up to the eyes in work we are, too. Dick, what do you think of Miles Fentolin?”

“Hanged if I know!” Hamel answered, with a sigh.

“Nothing definite to tell us, then?” Nothing!”

“What about Mr. John P. Dunster?”

“He left yesterday morning,” Hamel said. “I saw him go. He looked very shaky. I understood that Mr. Fentolin sent him to Yarmouth.”

“Did Mr. Fentolin know that there was an enquiry on foot about this man’s disappearance?” Kinsley asked.

“Certainly. I heard Lord Saxthorpe tell him that the police had received orders to scour the country for him, and that they were coming to St. David’s Hall.”

Kinsley, for a moment, was singularly and eloquently profane.

“That’s why Mr. Fentolin let him go, then. If Saxthorpe had only held his tongue, or if those infernal police hadn’t got chattering with the magistrates, we might have made a coup. As it is, the game’s up. Mr. Dunster left for Yarmouth, you say, yesterday morning?”

“I saw him go myself. He looked very shaky and ill, but he was able to smoke a big cigar and walk down-stairs leaning on the doctor’s arm.”

“I don’t doubt,” Kinsley remarked, “but that you saw what you say you saw. At the same time, you may be surprised to hear that Mr. Dunster has disappeared again.”

“Disappeared again?” Hamel muttered.

“It looks very much,” Kinsley continued, “as though your friend Miles Fentolin has been playing with him like a cat with a mouse. He has been obliged to turn him out of one hiding-place, and he has simply transferred him to another.”

Hamel looked doubtful.

“Mr. Dunster left quite alone in the car,” he said. “He was on his guard too, for Mr. Fentolin and he had had words. I really can’t see how it was possible for him to have got into any more trouble.”

“Where is he, then?” Kinsley demanded. “Come, I will let you a little further into our confidence. We have reason to believe that he carries with him a written message which is practically the only chance we have of avoiding disaster during the next few days. That written message is addressed to the delegates at The Hague, who are now sitting. Nothing had been heard of Dunster or the document he carries. No word has come from him of any sort since he left St. David’s Hall.”

“Have you tried to trace him from there?” Hamel asked.

“Trace him?” Kinsley repeated. “By heavens, you don’t seem to understand, Dick, the immense, the extraordinary importance of this man to us! The cleverest detective in England spent yesterday under your nose at St. David’s Hall. There are a dozen others working upon the job as hard as they can. All the reports confirm what you say – that Dunster left St. David’s Hall at half-past nine yesterday morning, and he certainly arrived in Yarmouth at a little before twelve. From there he seems, however, to have completely disappeared. The car went back to St. David’s Hall empty; the man only stayed long enough in Yarmouth, in fact, to have his dinner. We cannot find a single smack owner who was approached in any way for the hire of a boat. Yarmouth has been ransacked in vain. He certainly has not arrived at The Hague or we should have heard news at once. As a last resource, I ran down here to see you on the chance of your having picked up any information.”

Hamel shook his head.

“You seem to know a good deal more than I do, already,” he said.

“What do you think of Mr. Fentolin? You have stayed in his house. You have had an opportunity of studying him.”

“So far as my impressions go,” Hamel replied, “everything which you have suggested might very well be true. I think that either out of sheer love of mischief, or from some subtler motive, he is capable of anything. Every one in the place, except one poor woman, seems to look upon him as a sort of supernatural being. He gives money away to worthless people with both hands. Yet I share your opinion of him. I believe that he is a creature without conscience or morals. I have sat at his table and shivered when he has smiled.”

“Are you staying at St. David’s Hall now?”

“I left yesterday.”

“Where are you now, then?”

“I am at St. David’s Tower – the little place I told you of that belonged to my father – but I don’t know whether I shall be able to stop there. Mr. Fentolin, for some reason or other, very much resented my leaving the Hall and was very annoyed at my insisting upon claiming the Tower. When I went down to the village to get some one to come up and look after me, there wasn’t a woman there who would come. It didn’t matter what I offered, they were all the same. They all muttered some excuse or other, and seemed only anxious to show me out. At the village shop they seemed to hate to serve me with anything. It was all I could do to get a packet of tobacco yesterday afternoon. You would really think that I was the most unpopular person who ever lived, and it can only be because of Mr. Fentolin’s influence.”

“Mr. Fentolin evidently doesn’t like to have you in the locality,” Kinsley remarked thoughtfully.

“He was all right so long as I was at St. David’s Hall,” Hamel observed.

“What’s this little place like – St. David’s Tower, you call it?” Kinsley asked.

“Just a little stone building actually on the beach,” Hamel explained. “There is a large shed which Mr. Fentolin keeps locked up, and the habitable portion consists just of a bedroom and sitting-room. From what I can see, Mr. Fentolin has been making a sort of hobby of the place. There is telephonic communication with the house, and he seems to have used the sitting-room as a sort of studio. He paints sea pictures and really paints them very well.”

A man came into the coffee-room, made some enquiry of the waiter and went out again. Hamel stared at him in a puzzled manner. For the moment he could only remember that the face was familiar. Then he suddenly gave vent to a little exclamation.

“Any one would think that I had been followed,” he remarked. “The man who has just looked into the room is one of Mr. Fentolin’s parasites or bodyguards, or whatever you call them.”

“You probably have,” Kinsley agreed. “What post does he hold in the household?”

“I have no idea,” Hamel replied. “I saw him the first day I arrived and not since. Sort of secretary, I should think.”

“He is a queer-looking fellow, anyway,” Kinsley muttered. “Look out, Dick. Here he comes back again.”

Mr. Ryan approached the table a little diffidently.

“I hope you will forgive the liberty, sir,” he said to Hamel. “You remember me, I trust – Mr. Ryan. I am the librarian at St. David’s Hall.”

Hamel nodded.

“I thought I’d seen you there.”

“I was wondering,” the man continued, “whether you had a car of Mr. Fentolin’s in Norwich to-day, and if so, whether I might beg a seat back in case you were returning before the five o’clock train? I came in early this morning to go through some manuscripts at a second-hand bookseller’s here, and I have unfortunately missed the train back.”

Hamel shook his head.

“I came in by train myself, or I would have given you a lift back, with pleasure,” he said.

Mr. Ryan expressed his thanks briefly and left the room. Kinsley watched him from over the top of a newspaper.

“So that is one of Mr. Fentolin’s creatures, too,” he remarked. “Keeping his eye on you in Norwich, eh? Tell me, Dick, by-the-by, how do you get on with the rest of Mr. Fentolin’s household, and exactly of whom does it consist?”

“There is his sister-in-law,” Hamel replied, “Mrs. Seymour Fentolin. She is a strange, tired-looking woman who seems to stand in mortal fear of Mr. Fentolin. She is always overdressed and never natural, but it seems to me that nearly everything she does is done to suit his whims, or at his instigation.”

Kinsley nodded thoughtfully.

“I remember Seymour Fentolin,” he said; “a really fine fellow he was. Well, who else?”

“Just the nephew and niece. The boy is half sullen, half discontented, yet he, too, seems to obey his uncle blindly. The three of them seem to be his slaves. It’s a thing you can’t live in the house without noticing.”

“It seems to be a cheerful sort of household,” Kinsley observed. “You read the papers, I suppose, Dick?” he asked, after a moment’s pause.

“On and off, the last few days. I seem to have been busy doing all sorts of things.”

“Well, I’ll tell you something,” Kinsley continued. “The whole of our available fleet is engaged in carrying out what they call a demonstration in the North Sea. They have patrol boats out in every direction, and only the short distance wireless signals are being used. Everything, of course, is in code, yet we know this for a fact: a good deal of private information passing between the Admiral and his commanders was known in Germany three hours after the signals themselves had been given. It is suspected – more than suspected, in fact – that these messages were picked up by Mr. Fentolin’s wireless installation.”

“I don’t suppose he could help receiving them,” Hamel remarked.

“He could help decoding them and sending them through to Germany, though,” Kinsley retorted grimly. “The worst of it is, he has a private telephone wire in his house to London. If he isn’t up to mischief, what does he need all these things for – private telegraph line, private telephone, private wireless? We have given the postmaster a hint to have the telegraph office moved down into the village, but I don’t know that that will help us much.”

“So far as regards the wireless,” Hamel said, “I rather believe that it is temporarily dismantled. We had a sailor-man over, the morning before yesterday, to complain of his messages having been picked up. Mr. Fentolin promised at once to put his installation out of work for a time.”

“He has done plenty of mischief with it already,” Kinsley groaned. “However, it was Dunster I came down to make enquiries about. I couldn’t help hoping that you might have been able to put us on the right track.”

Hamel sighed.

“I know nothing beyond what I have told you.”

“How did he look when he went away?”

“Very ill indeed,” Hamel declared. “I afterwards saw the nurse who had been attending him, and she admitted that he was not fit to travel. I should say the probabilities are that he is laid up again somewhere.”

“Did you actually speak to him?”

“Just a word or two.”

“And you saw him go off in the car?”

“Gerald Fentolin and I both saw him and wished him good-by.”

Kinsley glanced at the clock and rose to his feet. “Walk down to the station with me,” he suggested. “I needn’t tell you, I am sure,” he went on, as they left the hotel a few minutes later, “that if anything does turn up, or if you get the glimmering of an idea, you’ll let me know? We’ve a small army looking for the fellow, but it does seem as though he had disappeared off the face of the earth. If he doesn’t turn up before the end of the Conference, we are done.”

“Tell me,” Hamel asked, after they had walked for some distance in silence, “exactly why is our fleet demonstrating to such an extent?”

“That Conference I have spoken of,” Kinsley replied, “which is being held at The Hague, is being held, we know, purposely to discuss certain matters in which we are interested. It is meeting for their discussion without any invitation having been sent to this country. There is only one reply possible to such a course. It is there in the North Sea. But unfortunately -“

Kinsley paused. His tone and his expression had alike become gloomier.

“Go on,” Hamel begged.

“Our reply, after all, is a miserable affair,” Kinsley concluded. “You remember the outcry over the withdrawal of our Mediterranean Fleet? Now you see its sequel. We haven’t a ship worth a snap of the fingers from Gibraltar to Suez. If France deserts us, it’s good-by to Malta, good-by to Egypt, good-by to India. It’s the disruption of the British Empire. And all this,” he wound up, as he paused before taking his seat in the railway carriage, “all this might even now be avoided if only we could lay our hands upon the message which that man Dunster was bringing from New York!”

CHAPTER XXVI

Once more Hamel descended from the little train, and, turning away from St. David’s Hall, made his way across the marshes, seawards. The sunshine of the last few days had departed. The twilight was made gloomy by a floating veil of white mist, which hung about in wet patches. Hamel turned up his coat collar as he walked and shivered a little. The thought of his solitary night and uncomfortable surroundings, after all the luxury of St. David’s Hall, was scarcely inspiring. Yet, on the whole, he was splendidly cheerful. The glamour of a host of new sensations was upon him. There was a new love of living in his heart. He forgot the cold east wind which blew in his face, bringing with it little puffs of damp grey mist. He forgot the cheerlessness which he was about to face, the lonely night before him. For the first time in his life a woman reigned in his thoughts.

It was not until he actually reached the very side of the Tower that he came back to earth. As he opened the door, he found a surprise in store for him. A fire was burning in the sitting-room, smoke was ascending from the kitchen chimney. The little round table was laid with a white cloth. There was a faint odour of cooking from the back premises. His lamp was lit, there were logs hissing and crackling upon the fire. As he stood there looking wonderingly about him, the door from the back was opened. Hannah Cox came quietly into the room.

“What time would you like your dinner, sir ?” she enquired.

Hamel stared at her.

“Why, are you going to keep house for me, Mrs. Cox?” he asked.

“If you please, sir. I heard that you had been in the village, looking for some one. I am sorry that I was away. There is no one else who would come to you.”

“So I discovered,” he remarked, a little grimly.

“No one else,” she went on, “would come to you because of Mr. Fentolin. He does not wish to have you here. They love him so much in the village that he had only to breathe the word. It was enough.”

“Yet you are here,” he reminded her.

“I do not count,” she answered. “I am outside all these things.”

Hamel gave a little sigh of satisfaction.

“Well, I am glad you could come, anyhow. If you have something for dinner, I should like it in about half an hour.”

He climbed the narrow stairs which led to his bedroom. To his surprise, there were many things there for his comfort which he had forgotten to order – clean bed-linen, towels, even a curtain upon the window.

“Where did you get all the linen up-stairs from, Mrs. Cox?” he asked her, when he descended. “The room was almost empty yesterday, and I forgot nearly all the things I meant to bring home from Norwich.”

“Mrs. Seymore Fentolin sent down a hamper for you,” the woman replied, “with a message from Mr. Fentolin. He said that nothing among the oddments left by your father had been preserved, but that you were welcome to anything you desired, if you would let them know at the Hall.”

“It is very kind of both of them,” Hamel said thoughtfully.

The woman stood still for a moment, looking at him. Then she drew a step nearer.

“Has Mr. Fentolin given you the key of the shed?” she asked, very quietly.

Hamel shook his head.

“We don’t need the place, do we?”

“He did not give you the key?” she persisted.

“Mr. Fentolin said that he had some things in there which he wished to keep locked up,” he explained.

She remained thoughtful for several moments. Then she turned away.

“No,” she said, “it was not likely he would not give you that key!”

Hamel dined simply but comfortably. Mrs. Cox cleared away the things, brought him his coffee, and appeared a few minutes later, her shawl wrapped around her, ready for departure.

“I shall be here at seven o’clock in the morning, sir,” she announced.

Hamel was a little startled. He withdrew the pip from his mouth and looked at her.

“Why, of course,” he remarked. “I’d forgotten. There is no place for you to stay here.”

“I shall go back to my brother’s.” she said.

Hamel put some money upon the table.

“Please get anything that is necessary,” he directed. “I shall leave you to do the housekeeping for a few days.”

“Shall you be staying here long, sir?” she asked.

“I am not sure,” he replied.

“I do not suppose,” she said, “that you will stay for very long. I shall get only the things that you require from day to day. Good night, sir.”

She left the room. Hamel looked after her for a moment with a frown. In some indescribable way, the woman half impressed, half irritated him. She had always the air of keeping something in the background. He followed her out on to the little ridge of beach, a few minutes after she had left. The mist was still drifting about. Only a few yards away the sea rolled in, filling the air with dull thunder. The marshland was half obscured. St. David’s Hall was invisible, but like strangely-hung lanterns in an empty space he saw the line of lights from the great house gleam through the obscurity. There was no sound save the sound of the sea. He shivered slightly. It was like an empty land, this.

Then, moved by some instinct of curiosity, he made his way round to the closed door of the boat-house, only to find it, as he had expected, locked. He shook Lt slightly, without result. Then he strolled round to the back, entered his own little abode by the kitchen, and tried the other door which led into the boat-house. It was not only locked, but a staple had been put in, and it was fastened with a padlock of curious design which he did not remember