Mr. Fentolin, on leaving the dining-room, steered his chair with great precision through the open, wrought-iron doors of a small lift at the further end of the hall, which Doctor Sarson, who stepped in with him, promptly directed to the second floor. Here they made their way to the room in which Mr. Dunster was lying. Doctor Sarson opened the door and looked in. Almost immediately he stood at one side, out of sight of Mr. Dunster, and nodded to Mr. Fentolin.
“If there is any trouble,” he whispered, “send for me. I am better away, for the present. My presence only excites him.”
Mr. Fentolin nodded.
“You are right,” he said. “Go down into the dining-room. I am not sure about that fellow Hamel, and Gerald is in a queer temper. Stay with them. See that they are not alone.”
The doctor silently withdrew, and Mr. Fentolin promptly glided past him into the room. Mr. John P. Dunster, in his night clothes, was sitting on the side of the bed. Standing within a few feet of him, watching him all the time with the subtle intentness of a cat watching a mouse, stood Meekins. Mr. Dunster’s head was still bound, although the bandage had slipped a little, apparently in some struggle. His face was chalklike, and he was breathing quickly.
“So you’ve come at last!” he exclaimed, a little truculently. “Are you Mr. Fentolin?”
Mr. Fentolin gravely admitted his identity. His eyes rested upon his guest with an air of tender interest. His face was almost beautiful.
“You are the owner of this house—I am underneath your roof—is that so?”
“This is certainly St. David’s Hall,” Mr. Fentolin replied. “It really appears as though your conclusions were correct.”
“Then will you tell me why I am kept a prisoner here?”
Mr. Fentolin’s expression was for a moment clouded. He seemed hurt.
“A prisoner,” he repeated softly. “My dear Mr. Dunster, you have surely forgotten the circumstances which procured for me the pleasure of this visit; the condition in which you arrived here—only, after all, a very few hours ago?”
“The circumstances,” Mr. Dunster declared drily, “are to me still inexplicable. At Liverpool Street Station I was accosted by a young man who informed me that his name was Gerald Fentolin, and that he was on his way to The Hague to play in a golf tournament. His story seemed entirely probable, and I permitted him a seat in the special train I had chartered for Harwich. There was an accident and I received this blow to my head—only a trifling affair, after all. I come to my senses to find myself here. I do not know exactly what part of the world you call this, but from the fact that I can see the sea from my window, it must be some considerable distance from the scene of the accident. I find that my dressing-case has been opened, my pocket-book examined, and I am apparently a prisoner. I ask you, Mr. Fentolin, for an explanation.”
Mr. Fentolin smiled reassuringly.
“My dear sir,” he said, “my dear Mr. Dunster, I believe I may have the pleasure of calling you—your conclusions seem to me just a little melodramatic. My nephew—Gerald Fentolin—did what I consider the natural thing, under the circumstances. You had been courteous to him, and he repaid the obligation to the best of his ability. The accident to your train happened in a dreary part of the country, some thirty miles from here. My nephew adopted a course which I think, under the circumstances, was the natural and hospitable one. He brought you to his home. There was no hospital or town of any importance nearer.”
“Very well,” Mr. Dunster decided. “I will accept your version of the affair. I will, then, up to this point acknowledge myself your debtor. But will you tell me why my dressing-case has been opened, my clothes removed, and a pocket-book containing papers of great importance to me has been tampered with?”
“My dear Mr. Dunster,” his host repelled calmly, “you surely cannot imagine that you are among thieves! Your dressing-case was opened and the contents of your pocket-book inspected with a view to ascertaining your address, or the names of some friends with whom we might communicate.”
“Am I to understand that they are to be restored to me, then?” Mr. Dunster demanded.
“Without a doubt, yes!” Mr. Fentolin assured him. “You, however, are not fit for anything, at the present moment, but to return to your bed, from which I understand you rose rather suddenly a few minutes ago.”
“On the contrary,” Mr. Dunster insisted, “I am feeling absolutely well enough to travel. I have an appointment on the Continent of great importance, as you may judge by the fact that at Liverpool Street I chartered a special train. I trust that nothing in my manner may have given you offence, but I am anxious to get through with the business which brought me over to this side of the water. I have sent for you to ask that my pocket-book, dressing-case, and clothes be at once restored to me, and that I be provided with the means of continuing my journey without a moment’s further delay.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head very gently, very regretfully, but also firmly.
“Mr. Dunster,” he pleaded, “do be reasonable. Think of all you have been through. I can quite sympathise with you in your impatience, but I am forced to tell you that the doctor who has been attending you since the moment you were brought into this house has absolutely forbidden anything of the sort.”
Mr. Dunster seemed, for a moment, to struggle for composure.
“I am an American citizen,” he declared. “I am willing to listen to the advice of any physician, but so long as I take the risk, I am not bound to follow it.
“In the present case I decline to follow it. I ask for facilities to leave this house at once.”
Mr. Fentolin sighed.
“In your own interests,” he said calmly, “they will not be granted to you.”
Mr. Dunster had spoken all the time like a man struggling to preserve his self-control. There were signs now that his will was ceasing to serve him. His eyes flashed fire, his voice was raised.
“Will not be granted to me?” he repeated. “Do you mean to say, then, that I am to be kept here against my will?”
Mr. Fentolin made no immediate reply. With the delicate fingers of his right hand he pushed back the hair from his forehead. He looked at his questioner soothingly, as one might look at a spoiled child.
“Against my will?” Mr. Dunster repeated, raising his voice still higher. “Mr. Fentolin, if the truth must be told, I have heard of you before and been warned against you. I decline to accept any longer the hospitality of your roof. I insist upon leaving it. If you will not provide me with any means of doing so, I will walk.”
He made a motion as though to rise from the bed. Meekins’ hand very gently closed upon his arm. One could judge that the grip was like a grip of iron.
“Dear me,” Mr. Fentolin said, “this is really very unreasonable of you! If you have heard of me, Mr. Dunster, you ought to understand that notwithstanding my unfortunate physical trouble, I am a person of consequence and position in this county. I am a magistrate, ex-high sheriff, and a great land-owner here. I think I may say without boasting that I represent one of the most ancient families in this country. Why, therefore, should you treat me as though it were to my interest to inveigle you under my roof and keep you there for some guilty purpose? Cannot you understand that it is for your own good I hesitate to part with you?”
“I understand nothing of the sort,” Mr. Dunster exclaimed angrily. “Let us bring this nonsense to an end. I want my clothes, and if you won’t lend me a car or a trap, I’ll walk to the nearest railway station.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head.
“I am quite sure,” he said, “that you are not in a position to travel. Even in the dining-room just now I heard a disturbance for which I was told that you were responsible.”
“I simply insisted upon having my clothes,” Mr. Dunster explained. “Your servant refused to fetch them. Perhaps I lost my temper. If so, I am sorry. I am not used to being thwarted.”
“A few days’ rest—” Mr. Fentolin began.
“A few days’ rest be hanged!” Mr. Dunster interrupted fiercely. “Listen, Mr. Fentolin,” he added, with the air of one making a last effort to preserve his temper, “the mission with which I am charged is one of greater importance than you can imagine. So much depends upon it that my own life, if that is in danger, would be a mere trifle in comparison with the issues involved. If I am not allowed to continue upon my journey at once, the consequences may be more serious than I can tell you, to you and yours, to your own country. There!—I am telling you a great deal, but I want you to understand that I am in earnest. I have a mission which I must perform, and which I must perform quickly.”
“You are very mysterious,” Mr. Fentolin murmured.
“I will leave nothing to chance,” Mr. Dunster continued. “Send this man who seems to have constituted himself my jailer out of earshot, and I will tell you even more.”
Mr. Fentolin turned to Meekins.
“You can leave the room for a moment,” he ordered. “Wait upon the threshold.”
Meekins very unwillingly turned to obey.
“You will excuse me, sir,” he objected doubtfully, “but I am not at all sure that he is safe.”
Mr. Fentolin smiled faintly.
“You need have no fear, Meekins,” he declared. “I am quite sure that you are mistaken. I think that Mr. Dunster is incapable of any act of violence towards a person in my unfortunate position. I am willing to trust myself with him—perfectly willing, Meekins.”
Meekins, with ponderous footsteps, left the room and closed the door behind him. Mr. Fentolin leaned a little forward in his chair. It seemed as though he were on springs. The fingers of his right hand had disappeared in the pocket of his black velvet dinner-coat. He was certainly prepared for all emergencies.
“Now, Mr. Dunster,” he said softly, “you can speak to me without reserve.”
Mr. Dunster dropped his voice. His tone became one of fierce eagerness.
“Look here,” he exclaimed, “I don’t think you ought to force me to give myself away like this, but, after all, you are an Englishman, with a stake in your country, and I presume you don’t want her to take a back seat for the next few generations. Listen here. It’s to save your country that I want to get to The Hague without a second’s delay. I tell you that if I don’t get there, if the message I convey doesn’t reach its destination, you may find an agreement signed between certain Powers which will mean the greatest diplomatic humiliation which Great Britain has ever known. Aye, and more than that!” Mr. Dunster continued. “It may be that the bogey you’ve been setting before yourself for all these years may trot out into life, and you may find St. David’s Hall a barrack for German soldiers before many months have passed.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head in gentle disbelief.
“You are speaking to one,” he declared, “who knows more of the political situation than you imagine. In my younger days I was in the Foreign Office. Since my unfortunate accident I have preserved the keenest interest in politics. I tell you frankly that I do not believe you. As the Powers are grouped at present, I do not believe in the possibility of a successful invasion of this country.”
“Perhaps not,” Mr. Dunster replied eagerly, “but the grouping of the Powers as it has existed during the last few years is on the eve of a great change. I cannot take you wholly into my confidence. I can only give you my word of honour as a friend to your country that the message I carry is her only salvation. Having told you as much as that, I do not think I am asking too much if I ask you for my clothes and dressing-case, and for the fastest motor-car you can furnish me with. I guess I can get from here to Yarmouth, and from there I can charter something which will take me to the other side.”
Mr. Fentolin raised the little gold whistle to his lips and blew it very softly. Meekins at once entered, closing the door behind him. He moved silently to the side of the man who had risen now from the bed, and who was standing with his hand grasping the post and his eyes fixed upon Mr. Fentolin, as though awaiting his answer.
“Our conversation,” the latter said calmly, “has reached a point, Mr. Dunster, at which I think we may leave it for the moment. You have told me some very surprising things. I perceive that you are a more interesting visitor even than I had thought.”
He raised his left hand, and Meekins, who seemed to have been waiting for some signal of the sort, suddenly, with a movement of his knee and right arm, flung Dunster back upon the bed. The man opened his mouth to shout, but already, with lightning-like dexterity, his assailant had inserted a gag between his teeth. Treating his struggles as the struggles of a baby, Meekins next proceeded to secure his wrists with handcuffs. He then held his feet together while he quietly wound a coil of cord around them. Mr. Fentolin watched the proceedings from his chair with an air of pleased and critical interest.
“Very well done, Meekins—very neatly done, indeed!” he exclaimed. “As I was saying, Mr. Dunster,” he continued, turning his chair, “our conversation has reached a point at which I think we may safely leave it for a time. We will discuss these matters again. Your pretext of a political mission is, of course, an absurd one, but fortunately you have fallen into good hands. Take good care of Mr. Dunster, Meekins. I can see that he is a very important personage. We must be careful not to lose sight of him.”
Mr. Fentolin steered his chair to the door, opened it, and passed out. On the landing he blew his whistle; the lift almost immediately ascended. A moment or two later he glided into the dining-room. The three men were still seated around the table. A decanter of wine, almost empty, was before Doctor Sarson, whose pallid cheeks, however, were as yet unflushed.
“At last, my dear guest,” Mr. Fentolin exclaimed, turning to Hamel, “I am able to return to you. If you will drink no more wine, let us have our coffee in the library, you and I. I want to talk to you about the Tower.”
Mr. Fentolin led the way to a delightful little corner of his library, where before the open grate, recently piled with hissing logs, an easy chair had been drawn. He wheeled himself up to the other side of the hearthrug and leaned back with a little air of exhaustion. The butler, who seemed to have appeared unsummoned from somewhere among the shadows, served coffee and poured some old brandy into large and wonderfully thin glasses.
“Why my house should be turned into an asylum to gratify the hospitable instincts of my young nephew, I cannot imagine,” Mr. Fentolin grumbled. “A most extraordinary person, our visitor, I can assure you. Quite violent, too, he was at first.”
“Have you had any outside advice about his condition?” Hamel inquired.
Mr. Fentolin glanced across those few feet of space and looked at Hamel with swift suspicion.
“Why should I?” he asked. “Doctor Sarson is fully qualified, and the case seems to present no unusual characteristics.”
Hamel sipped his brandy thoughtfully.
“I don’t know why I suggested it,” he admitted. “I only thought that an outside doctor might help you to get rid of the fellow.”
Mr. Fentolin shrugged his shoulders.
“After all,” he said, “the matter is of no real consequence. Doctor Sarson assures me that we shall be able to send him on his way very shortly. In the meantime, Mr. Hamel, what about the Tower?”
“What about it?” Hamel asked, selecting a cigar from the box which had been pushed to his side. “I am sure I haven’t any wish to inconvenience you.”
“I will be quite frank,” Mr. Fentolin declared. “I do not dispute your right for a moment. On the other hand, my few hours daily down there have become a habit with me. I do not wish to give them up. Stay here with us, Mr. Hamel. You will be doing us a great kindness. My nephew and niece have too little congenial society. Make up your mind to give us a fortnight of your time, and I can assure you that we will do our best to make yours a pleasant stay.”
Hamel was a little taken aback.
“Mr. Fentolin,” he said, “I couldn’t think of accepting your hospitality to such an extent. My idea in coming here was simply to fulfil an old promise to my father and to rough it at the Tower for a week or so, and when that was over, I don’t suppose I should ever be likely to come back again. You had better let me carry out that plan, and afterwards the place shall be entirely at your disposal.”
“You don’t quite understand,” Mr. Fentolin persisted, a little irritably. “I sit there every morning. I want, for instance, to be there to-morrow morning, and the next morning, and the morning afterwards, to finish a little seascape I have commenced. Nowhere else will do. Call it a whim or what you will I have begun the picture, and I want to finish it.”
“Well, you can sit there all right,” Hamel assured him. “I shall be out playing golf or fishing. I shall do nothing but sleep there.”
“And very uncomfortable you will be,” Mr. Fentolin pointed out. “You have no servant, I understand, and there is no one in the village fit to look after you. Think of my thirty-nine empty rooms, my books here, my gardens, my motor-cars, my young people, entirely at your service. You can have a suite to yourself. You can disappear when you like. To all effects and purposes you will be the master of St. David’s Hall. Be reasonable. Don’t you think, now, that you can spend a fortnight more pleasantly under such circumstances than by playing the misanthrope down at the Tower?”
“Please don’t think,” Hamel begged, “that I don’t appreciate your hospitality. I should feel uncomfortable, however, if I paid you a visit of the length you have suggested. Come, I don’t see,” he added, “why my occupation of the Tower should interfere with you. I should be away from it by about nine or ten o’clock every morning. I should probably only sleep there. Can’t you accept the use of it all the rest of the time? I can assure you that you will be welcome to come and go as though it were entirely your own.”
Mr. Fentolin had lit a cigarette and was watching the blue smoke curl upwards to the ceiling.
“You’re an obstinate man, Mr. Hamel,” he sighed, “but I suppose you must have your own way. By-the-by, you would only need to use the up-stairs room and the sitting-room. You will not need the outhouse—rather more than an outhouse, though isn’t it? I mean the shed which leads out from the kitchen, where the lifeboat used to be kept?”
“I don’t think I shall need that,” Hamel admitted, a little hesitatingly.
“To tell you the truth,” Mr. Fentolin continued, “among my other hobbies I have done a little inventing. I work sometimes at a model there. It is foolish, perhaps, but I wish no one to see it. Do you mind if I keep the keys of the place?”
“Not in the least,” Hamel replied. “Tell me, what direction do your inventions take, Mr. Fentolin?”
“Before you go,” Mr. Fentolin promised, “I will show you my little model at work. Until then we will not talk of it. Now come, be frank with me. Shall we exchange ideas for a little time? Will you talk of books? They are my daily friends. I have thousands of them, beloved companions on every side. Or will you talk of politics or travel? Or would you rather be frivolous with my niece and nephew? That, I think, is Esther playing.”
“To be quite frank,” Hamel declared bluntly, “I should like to talk to your niece.”
Mr. Fentolin smiled as though amused. His amusement, however, was perfectly good-natured.
“If you will open this door,” he said, “you will see another one exactly opposite to you. That is the drawing-room. You will find Esther there. Before you go, will you pass me the Quarterly Review? Thank you.”
Hamel crossed the hall, opened the door of the room to which he had been directed, and made his way towards the piano. Esther was there, playing softly to herself with eyes half closed. He came and stood by her side, and she stopped abruptly. Her eyes questioned him. Then her fingers stole once more over the keys, more softly still.
“I have just left your uncle,” Hamel said. “He told me that I might come in here.”
“Yes?” she murmured.
“He was very hospitable,” Hamel continued. “He wanted me to remain here as a guest and not go to the Tower at all.”
“And you?”
“I am going to the Tower,” he said. “I am going there to-morrow or the day after.”
The music swelled beneath her fingers.
“For how long?”
“For a week or so. I am just giving your uncle time to clear out his belongings. I am leaving him the outhouse.”
“He asked you to leave him that?” she whispered.
“Yes!”
“You are not going in there at all?”
“Not at all.”
Again she played a little more loudly for a few moments. Then the music died away once more.
“What reason did he give for keeping possession of that?”
“Another hobby,” Hamel replied. “He is an inventor, it seems. He has the model of something there; he would not tell me what.”
She shivered a little, and her music drifted away. She bent over the keys, her face hidden from him.
“You will not go away just yet?” she asked softly. “You are going to stay for a few days, at any rate?”
“Without a doubt,” he assured her. “I am altogether my own master.”
“Thank God,” she murmured.
He leaned with his elbow against the top of the piano, looking down at her. Since dinnertime she had fastened a large red rose in the front of her gown.
“Do you know that this is all rather mysterious?” he said calmly.
“What is mysterious?” she demanded.
“The atmosphere of the place: your uncle’s queer aversion to my having the Tower; your visitor up-stairs, who fights with the servants while we are at dinner; your uncle himself, whose will seems to be law not only to you but to your brother, who must be of age, I should think, and who seems to have plenty of spirit.”
“We live here, both of us,” she told him. “He is our guardian.”
“Naturally,” Hamel replied, “and yet, it may have been my fancy, of course, but at dinnertime I seemed to get a queer impression.”
“Tell it me?” she insisted, her fingers breaking suddenly into a livelier melody. “Tell it me at once? You were there all the time. I could see you watching. Tell me what you thought?”
She had turned her head now, and her eyes were fixed upon his. They were large and soft, capable, he knew, of infinite expression. Yet at that moment the light that shone from them was simply one of fear, half curious, half shrinking.
“My impression,” he said, “was that both of you disliked and feared Mr. Fentolin, yet for some reason or other that you were his abject slaves.”
Her fingers seemed suddenly inspired with diabolical strength and energy. Strange chords crashed and broke beneath them. She played some unfamiliar music with tense and fierce energy. Suddenly she paused and rose to her feet.
“Come out on to the terrace,” she invited. “You are not afraid of cold?”
He followed her without a word. She opened the French windows, and they stepped out on to the long, broad stone promenade. The night was dark, and there was little to be seen. The light was burning at the entrance to the waterway; a few lights were twinkling from the village. The soft moaning of the sea was distinctly audible. She moved to the edge of the palisading. He followed her closely.
“You are right, Mr. Hamel,” she said. “I think that I am more afraid of him than any woman ever was of any man in this world.”
“Then why do you live here?” he protested. “You must have other relations to whom you could go. And your brother—why doesn’t he do something—go into one of the professions? He could surely leave easily enough?”
“I will tell you a secret,” she answered calmly. “Perhaps it will help you to understand. You know my uncle’s condition. You know that it was the result of an accident?”
“I have heard so,” he replied gravely.
She clutched at his arm.
“Come,” she said.
Side by side they walked the entire length of the terrace. When they reached the corner, they were met with a fierce gust of wind. She battled along, and he followed her. They were looking inland now. There were no lights visible—nothing but dark, chaotic emptiness. From somewhere below him he could hear the wind in the tree-tops.
“This way,” she directed. “Be careful.”
They walked to the very edge of the palisading. It was scarcely more than a couple of feet high. She pointed downwards.
“Can you see?” she whispered.
By degrees his eyes faintly penetrated the darkness. It was as though they were looking down a precipice. The descent was perfectly sheer for nearly a hundred feet. At the bottom were the pine trees.
“Come here again in the morning,” she whispered. “You will see then. I brought you here to show you the place. It was here that the accident happened.”
“What accident?”
“Mr. Fentolin’s,” she continued. “It was here that he went over. He was picked up with both his legs broken. They never thought that he would live.”
Hamel shivered a little. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw more distinctly than ever the sheer fall, the tops of the bending trees below.
“What a horrible thing!” he exclaimed.
“It was more horrible than you know,” she continued, dropping her voice a little, almost whispering in his ear. “I do not know why I tell you this—you, a stranger—but if I do not tell some one, I think that the memory of it will drive me mad. It was no accident at all. Mr. Fentolin was thrown over!”
“By whom?” he asked.
She clung to his arm for a moment.
“Ah, don’t ask me!” she begged. “No one knows. My uncle gave out, as soon as he was conscious, that it was an accident.”
“That, at any rate, was fine of him,” Hamel declared.
She shivered.
“He was proud, at least, of our family name. Whatever credit he deserves for it, he must have. It was owing to that accident that we became his slaves: nothing but that—his absolute slaves, to wait upon him, if he would, hand and foot. You see, he has never been able to marry. His life was, of course, ruined. So the burden came to us. We took it up, little thinking what was in store for us. Five years ago we came here to live. Gerald wanted to go into the army; I wanted to travel with my mother. Gerald has done all the work secretly, but he has never been allowed to pass his examinations. I have never left England except to spend two years at the strictest boarding-school in Paris, to which I was taken and fetched away by one of his creatures. We live here, with the shadow of this thing always with us. We are his puppets. If we hesitate to do his bidding, he reminds us. So far, we have been his creatures, body and soul. Whether it will go on, I cannot say—oh, I cannot say! It is bad for us, but—there is mother, too. He makes her life a perfect hell!”
A roar of wind came booming once more across the marshes, bending the trees which grew so thickly beneath them and which ascended precipitately to the back of the house. The French windows behind rattled. She looked around nervously.
“I am afraid of him all the time,” she murmured. “He seems to overhear everything—he or his creatures. Listen!”
They were silent for several moments. He whispered in her ear so closely that through the darkness he could, see the fire in her eyes.
“You are telling me half,” he said. “Tell me everything. Who threw your uncle over the parapet?”
She stood by his side, motionless and trembling.
“It was the passion of a moment,” she said at last, speaking hoarsely. “I cannot tell you. Listen! Listen!”
“There is no one near,” Hamel assured her. “It is the wind which shakes the windows. I wish that you would tell me everything. I would like to be your friend. Believe me, I have that desire, really. There are so many things which I do not understand. That it is dull here for you, of course, is natural, but there is something more than that. You seem always to fear something. Your uncle is a selfish man, naturally, although to look at him he seems to have the disposition of an angel. But beyond that, is there anything of which you are afraid? You seem all the time to live in fear.”
She suddenly clutched his hand. There was nothing of affection in her touch, and yet he felt a thrill of delight.
“There are strange things which happen here,” she whispered, “things which neither Gerald nor I understand. Yet they terrify us. I think that very soon the end will come. Neither of us can stand it very much longer. We have no friends. Somehow or other, he seems to manage to keep us always isolated.”
“I shall not go away from here,” Hamel said firmly, “at present. Mind, I am not at all sure that, living this solitary life as you do, you have not become a little over-nervous; that you have not exaggerated the fear of some things. To me your uncle seems merely quixotic and egregiously selfish. However that may be, I am going to remain.” She clutched once more at his arm, her finger was upraised. They listened together. From somewhere behind them came the clear, low wailing of a violin.
“It is Mr. Fentolin,” she whispered. “Please come in; let us go in at once. He only plays when he is excited. I am afraid! Oh, I am afraid that something is going to happen!”
She was already round the corner and on her way to the main terrace. He followed her closely.
“Let us follow the example of all great golfers,” Hamel said. “Let us for this morning, at any rate, imagine that your whole world is encompassed within these eighteen holes. We have been sent here in a moment of good humour by your tyrant uncle. The sun shines, and the wind is from the west. Why not?”
“That is all very well for you,” she retorted, smiling, “but I have topped my drive.”
“Purely an incident,” he assured her. “The vicissitudes of the game do not enter into the question. I have driven a ball far above my usual form, but I am not gloating over it. I prefer to remember only that I am going to spend the next two hours with you.”
She played her shot, and they walked for a little way together. She was suddenly silent.
“Do you know,” she said finally, just a little gravely, “I am not at all used to speeches of this sort.”
“Then you ought to be,” he declared. “Nothing but the lonely life you have been living has kept you from hearing them continually.”
She laughed a little at the impotence of her rebuff and paused for a moment to make her next shot. Hamel, standing a little on one side, watched her appraisingly. Her short, grey tweed skirt was obviously the handiwork of an accomplished tailor. Her grey stockings and suede shoes were immaculate and showed a care for her appearance which pleased him. Her swing, too, revealed a grace, the grace of long arms and a supple body, at which previously he had only guessed. The sunshine seemed to have brought out a copper tinge from her abundant brown hair.
“Do you know,” he remarked, “I think I am beginning to like your uncle. Great idea of his, sending us off here directly after breakfast.”
Her face darkened for a moment, and he realised his error. The same thought, indeed, had been in both their minds. Mr. Fentolin’s courteous suggestion had been offered to them almost in the shape of a command. It was scarcely possible to escape from the reflection that he had desired to rid himself of their presence for the morning.
“Of course,” he went on, “I knew that these links were good—quite famous, aren’t they?”
“I have played on so few others,” she told him. “I learned my golf here with King, the professional.”
He took off his cap and handed it to his caddy. He himself was beginning already to look younger. The long blue waves came rippling up the creeks. The salt wind, soft with sunshine, blew in their faces. The marshes on the landward side were mauve with lavender blossom. In the distance, the red-tiled cottages nestled deep among a background of green trees and rising fields.
“This indeed is a land of peace,” he declared. “If I hadn’t to give you quite so many strokes, I should be really enjoying myself.”
“You don’t play like a man who has been living abroad for a great many years,” she remarked. “Tell me about some of the places you have visited?”
“Don’t let us talk seriously,” he begged. “I’ll tell you of them but let it be later on. This morning I feel that the spring air is getting into my head. I have an absurd desire to talk nonsense.”
“So far,” she admitted, “you haven’t been altogether unsuccessful.”
“If you are alluding,” he replied, “to the personal remarks I was emboldened to make on my way here, I can only say that they were excused by their truthfulness.”
“I am not at all sure that you have known me long enough to tell me what colours suit me,” she demurred.
“Then what will you say,” he enquired, “if I admire the angle of that quill in your hat?”
“Don’t do it,” she laughed. “If you continue like this, I may have to go home.”
“You have sent the car away,” he reminded her cheerfully. “You would simply have to sit upon the balcony and reflect upon your wasted morning.”
“I decline to talk upon the putting green,” she said. “It puts me off. If you will stand perfectly quiet and say nothing, I will play the like.”
They moved off presently to the next teeing ground.
“I don’t believe this nonsense is good for our golf,” she said.
“It is immensely good for us as human beings,” he protested.
They had played the ninth hole and turned for home. On their right now was a shimmering stretch of wet sand and a thin line of sea, in the distance. The tide, receding, had left little islands of virgin sand, grass tufted, the home of countless sea-gulls. A brown-sailed fishing boat was racing for the narrow entrance to the tidal way.
“I am beginning to understand what there is about this coast which fascinated my father so,” he remarked.
“Are you?” she answered gravely. “Years ago I used to love it, but not now.”
He tried to change the subject, but the gloom had settled upon her face once more.
“You don’t know what it is like,” she went on, as they walked side by side after their balls, “to live day and night in fear, with no one to talk to—no one, that is to say, who is not under the same shadow. Even the voices of the wind and the sea, and the screaming of the birds, seem to bring always an evil message. There is nothing kindly or hopeful even in the sunshine. At night, when the tide comes thundering in as it does so often at this time of the year, one is afraid. There is so much to make one afraid!”
She had turned pale again, notwithstanding the sunshine and the freshening wind. He laid his hand lightly upon her arm. She suffered his touch without appearing to notice it.
“Ah, you mustn’t talk like that!” he pleaded. “Do you know what you make me feel like?”
She came back from the world of her own unhappy imaginings.
“Really, I forgot myself,” she declared, with a little smile. “Never mind, it does one good sometimes. One up, are you? Henceforth, then, golf—all the rigour of the game, mind.”
He fell in with her mood, and their conversation touched only upon the game. On the last green he suffered defeat and acknowledged it with a little grimace.
“If I might say so, Miss Fentolin,” he protested, “you are a little too good for your handicap. I used to play a very reasonable scratch myself, but I can’t give you the strokes.”
She smiled.
“Doubtless your long absence abroad,” she began slowly, “has affected your game.”
“I was round in eighty-one,” he grumbled.
“You must have travelled in many countries,” she continued, “where golf was an impossibility.”
“Naturally,” he admitted. “Let us stay and have lunch and try again.”
She shook her head with a little sigh of regret.
“You see, the car is waiting,” she pointed out. “We are expected home. I shan’t be a minute putting my clubs away.”
They sped swiftly along the level road towards St. David’s Hall. Far in the distance they saw it, built upon that strange hill, with the sunlight flashing in its windows. He looked at it long and curiously.
“I think,” he said, “that yours is the most extraordinarily situated house I have ever seen. Fancy a gigantic mound like that in the midst of an absolutely flat marsh.”
She nodded.
“There is no other house quite like it in England,” she said. “I suppose it is really a wonderful place. Have you looked at the pictures?”
“Not carefully,” he told her.
“You must before you leave,” she insisted. “Mr. Fentolin is a great judge, and so was his father.”
Their road curved a little to the sea, and at its last bend they were close to the pebbly ridge on which the Tower was built. He touched the electric bell and stopped the car.
“Do let us walk along and have a look at my queer possession once more,” he begged. “Luncheon, you told me, is not till half-past one, and it is a quarter to now.”
She hesitated for a moment and then assented. They left the car and walked along the little track, bordered with white posts, which led on to the ridge. To their right was the village, separated from them only by one level stretch of meadowland; in the background, the hall. They turned along the raised dike just inside the pebbly beach, and she showed her companion the narrow waterway up to the village. At its entrance was a tall iron upright, with a ladder attached and a great lamp at the top.
“That is to show them the way in at night, isn’t it?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Yes,” she told him. “Mr. Fentolin had it placed there. And yet,” she went on, “curiously enough, since it was erected, there have been more wrecks than ever.”
“It doesn’t seem a dangerous beach,” he remarked.
She pointed to a spot about fifty yards from the Tower. It was the spot to which the woman whom he had met on the day of his arrival had pointed.
“You can’t see them,” she said; “they are always out of sight, even when the tide is at the lowest—but there are some hideous sunken rocks there. ‘The Daggers,’ they call them. One or two fishing boats have been lost on them, trying to make the village. When Mr. Fentolin put up the lamp, every one thought that it would be quite safe to try and get in at night. This winter, though, there have been three wrecks which no one could understand. It must be something in the currents, or a sort of optical illusion, because in the last shipwreck one man was saved, and he swore that at the time they struck the rock, they were headed straight for the light.”
They had reached the Tower now. Hamel became a little absorbed. They walked around it, and he tried the front door. He found, as he had expected, that it opened readily. He looked around him for several moments.
“Your uncle has been here this morning,” he remarked quietly.
“Very likely.”
“That outhouse,” he continued, “must be quite a large place. Have you any idea what it is he works upon there?”
“None,” she answered.
He looked around him once more.
“Mr. Fentolin has been preparing for my coming,” he observed. “I see that he has moved a few of his personal things.”
She made no reply, only she shivered a little as she stepped back into the sunshine.
“I don’t believe you like my little domicile,” he remarked, as they started off homeward.
“I don’t,” she admitted curtly.
“In the train,” he reminded her, “you seemed rather to discourage my coming here. Yet last night, after dinner—”
“I was wrong,” she interrupted. “I should have said nothing, and yet I couldn’t help it. I don’t suppose it will make any difference.”
“Make any difference to what?”
“I cannot tell you,” she confessed. “Only I have a strange antipathy to the place. I don’t like it. My uncle sometimes shuts himself up here for quite a long time. We have an idea, Gerald and I, that things happen here sometimes which no one knows of. When he comes back, he is moody and ill-tempered, or else half mad with excitement. He isn’t always the amiable creature whom you have met. He has the face of an angel, but there are times—”
“Well, don’t let’s talk about him,” Hamel begged, as her voice faltered. “Now that I am going to stay in the neighbourhood for a few days, you must please remember that it is partly your responsibility. You are not going to shut yourself up, are you? You’ll come and play golf again?”
“If he will let me,” she promised.
“I think he will let you, right enough,” Hamel observed. “Between you and me, I rather think he hates having me down at the Tower at all. He will encourage anything that takes me away, even as far as the Golf Club.”
They were approaching the Hall now. She was looking once more as she had looked last night. She had lost her colour, her walk was no longer buoyant. She had the air of a prisoner who, after a brief spell of liberty, enters once more the place of his confinement. Gerald came out to meet them as they climbed the stone steps which led on to the terrace. He glanced behind as he greeted them, and then almost stealthily took a telegram from his pocket.
“This came for you,” he remarked, handing it to Hamel. “I met the boy bringing it out of the office.”
Hamel tore it open, with a word of thanks. Gerald stood in front of him as he read.
“If you wouldn’t mind putting it away at once,” he asked, a little uncomfortably. “You see, the telegraph office is in the place, and my uncle has a queer rule that every telegram is brought to him before it is delivered.”
Hamel did not speak for a moment. He was looking at the few words scrawled across the pink sheet with a heavy black pencil: