“Make every enquiry in your neighbourhoodfor an American, John P. Dunster, entrustedwith message of great importance, addressed toVon Dusenberg, The Hague. Is believed tohave been in railway accident near Wymondhamand to have been taken from inn by young manin motor-car. Suggest that he is beingimproperly detained.”
Hamel crumpled up the telegram and thrust it into his pocket.
“By-the-by,” he asked, as they ascended the steps, “what did you say the name of this poor fellow was who is lying ill up-stairs?”
Gerald hesitated for a moment. Then he answered as though a species of recklessness had seized him.
“He called himself Mr. John P. Dunster.”
Mr. Fentolin, having succeeded in getting rid of his niece and his somewhat embarrassing guest for at least two hours, was seated in his study, planning out a somewhat strenuous morning, when his privacy was invaded by Doctor Sarson.
“Our guest,” the latter announced, in his usual cold and measured tones, “has sent me to request that you will favour him with an interview.”
Mr. Fentolin laid his pen deliberately down.
“So soon,” he murmured. “Very well, Sarson, I am at his service. Say that I will come at once.”
Mr. Fentolin lost no time in paying this suggested visit. Mr. John P. Dunster, shaved and clothed, was seated in an easy-chair drawn up to the window of his room, smoking what he was forced to confess was a very excellent cigar. He turned his head as the door opened, and Mr. Fentolin waved his hand pleasantly.
“Really,” he declared, “this is most agreeable. I had an idea, Mr. Dunster, that I should find you a reasonable person. Men of your eminence in their profession usually are.”
Mr. Dunster looked at the speaker curiously.
“And what might my profession be, Mr. Fentolin?” he asked. “You seem to know a great deal about me.”
“It is true,” Mr. Fentolin admitted. “I do know a great deal.”
Mr. Dunster knocked the ash from his cigar.
“Well,” he said, “I have been the hearer of several important communications from my side of the Atlantic to England and to the Continent, and I have always known that there was a certain amount of risk in the business. Once I had an exceedingly narrow shave,” he continued reminiscently, “but this is the first time I have ever been dead up against it, and I don’t mind confessing that you’ve fairly got me puzzled. Who the mischief are you, Mr. Fentolin, and what are you interfering about?”
Mr. Fentolin smiled queerly.
“I am what you see,” he replied. “I am one of those unfortunate human beings who, by reason of their physical misfortunes, are cut off from the world of actual life. I have been compelled to seek distraction in strange quarters. I have wealth—great wealth I suppose I should say; an inordinate curiosity, a talent for intrigue. As to the direction in which I carry on my intrigues, or even as to the direct interests which I study, that is a matter, Mr. Dunster, upon which I shall not gratify your curiosity nor anybody else’s. But, you see, I am admitting freely that it does interest me to interfere in great affairs.”
“But how on earth did you get to know about me,” Mr. Dunster asked, “and my errand? You couldn’t possibly have got me here in an ordinary way. It was an entire fluke.”
“There, you speak with some show of reason. I have a nephew whom you have met, who is devoted to me.”
“Mr. Gerald Fentolin,” Mr. Dunster remarked drily.
“Precisely,” Mr. Fentolin declared. “Well, I admit frankly the truth of what you say. Your—shall we say capture, was by way of being a gigantic fluke. My nephew’s instructions simply were to travel down by the train to Harwich with you, to endeavour to make your acquaintance, to follow you on to your destination, and, if any chance to do so occurred, to relieve you of your pocket-book. That, however, I never ventured to expect. What really happened was, as you have yourself suggested, almost in the nature of a miracle. My nephew showed himself to be possessed of gifts which were a revelation to me. He not only succeeded in travelling with you by the special train, but after its wreck he was clever enough to bring you here, instead of delivering you over to the mercies of a village doctor. I really cannot find words to express my appreciation of my nephew’s conduct.”
“I could,” Mr. Dunster muttered, “very easily!”
Mr. Fentolin sighed gently.
“Perhaps our points of view might differ.”
“We have spent a very agreeable few minutes in explanations,” Mr. Dunster continued. “Would it be asking too much if I now suggest that we remove the buttons from our foils?”
“Why not?” Mr. Fentolin assented smoothly. “Your first question to yourself, under these circumstances, would naturally be: ‘What does Mr. Fentolin want with me?’ I will answer that question for you. All that I ask—it is really very little—is the word agreed upon.”
Mr. Dunster held his cigar a little way off and looked steadfastly at his host for a moment. “So you have interpreted my cipher?”
Mr. Fentolin spread out the palms of his hands in a delicate gesture.
“My dear Mr. Dunster,” he said, “one of the simplest, I think, that was ever strung together. I am somewhat of an authority upon ciphers.”
“I gather,” Mr. Dunster went on, although his cigar was burning itself out, “that you have broken the seal of my dispatches?”
Mr. Fentolin closed his eyes as though he had heard a discord.
“Nothing so clumsy as that, I hope,” he murmured gently. “I will not insult a person of your experience and intelligence by enumerating the various ways in which the seal of a dispatch may be liquefied. It is quite true that I have read with much pleasure the letter which you are carrying from a certain group of very distinguished men to a certain person now in The Hague. The letter, however, is replaced in its envelope; the seal is still there. You need have no fears whatever concerning it. All that I require is that one word from you.”
“And if I give you that one word?” Mr. Dunster asked.
“If you give it me, as I think you will,” Mr. Fentolin replied suavely, “I shall then telegraph to my agent, or rather I should say to a dear friend of mine who lives at The Hague, and that single word will be cabled by him from The Hague to New York.”
“And in that case,” Mr. Dunster enquired, “what would become of me?”
“You would give us the great pleasure of your company here for a very brief visit,” Mr. Fentolin answered. “We should, I can assure you, do our very best to entertain you.”
“And the dispatch which I am carrying to The Hague?”
“Would remain here with you.”
Mr. Dunster knocked the ash from his cigar. Without being a man of great parts, he was a shrewd person, possessed of an abundant stock of common sense. He applied himself, for a few moments, to a consideration of this affair, without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.
“Come, Mr. Fentolin,” he said at last, “you must really forgive me, but I can’t see what you’re driving at. You are an Englishman, are you not?”
“I am an Englishman,” Mr. Fentolin confessed “or rather,” he added, with ghastly humour, “I am half an Englishman.”
“You are, I am sure,” Mr. Dunster continued, “a person of intelligence, a well-read person, a person of perceptions. Surely you can see and appreciate the danger with which your country is threatened?”
“With regard to political affairs,” Mr. Fentolin admitted, “I consider myself unusually well posted—in fact, the study of the diplomatic methods of the various great Powers is rather a hobby of mine.”
“Yet,” Mr. Dunster persisted, “you do not wish this letter delivered to that little conference in The Hague, which you must be aware is now sitting practically to determine the fate of your nation?”
“I do not wish,” Mr. Fentolin replied, “I do not intend, that that letter shall be delivered. Why do you worry about my point of view? I may have a dozen reasons. I may believe that it will be good for my country to suffer a little chastisement.”
“Or you may,” Mr. Dunster suggested, glancing keenly at his host, “be the paid agent of some foreign Power.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head.
“My means,” he pointed out, “should place me above such suspicion. My income, I really believe, is rather more than fifty thousand pounds a year. I should not enter into these adventures, which naturally are not entirely dissociated from a certain amount of risk, for the purposes of financial gain.”
Mr. Dunster was still mystified.
“Granted that you do so from pure love of adventure,” he declared, “I still cannot see why you should range yourself on the side of your country’s enemies.
“In time,” Mr. Fentolin observed, “even that may become clear to you. At present, well—just that word, if you please?”
Mr. Dunster shook his head.
“No,” he decided, “I do not think so. I cannot make up my mind to tell you that word.”
Mr. Fentolin gave no sign of annoyance or even disappointment. He simply sighed. His eyes were full of a gentle sympathy, his face indicated a certain amount of concern.
“You distress me,” he declared. “Perhaps it is my fault. I have not made myself sufficiently clear. The knowledge of that word is a necessity to me. Without it I cannot complete my plans. Without it I very much fear, dear Mr. Dunster, that your sojourn among us may be longer than you have any idea of.”
Mr. Dunster laughed a little derisively.
“We’ve passed those days,” he remarked. “I’ve done my best to enter into the humour of this situation, but there are limits. You can’t keep prisoners in English country houses, nowadays. There are a dozen ways of communicating with the outside world, and when that’s once done, it seems to me that the position of Squire Fentolin of St. David’s Hall might be a little peculiar.”
Mr. Fentolin smiled, very slightly, still very blandly.
“Alas, my stalwart friend, I fear that you are by nature an optimist! I am not a betting man, but I am prepared to bet you a hundred pounds to one that you have made your last communication with the outside world until I say the word.”
Mr. Dunster was obviously plentifully supplied with either courage or bravado, for he only laughed.
“Then you had better make up your mind at once, Mr. Fentolin, how soon that word is to be spoken, or you may lose your money,” he remarked.
Mr. Fentolin sat very quietly in his chair.
“You mean, then,” he asked, “that you do not intend to humour me in this little matter?”
“I do not intend,” Mr. Dunster assured him, “to part with that word to you or to any one else in the the world. When my message has been presented to the person to whom it has been addressed, when my trust is discharged, then and then only shall I send that cablegram. That moment can only arrive at the end of my journey.”
Mr. Fentolin leaned now a little forward in his chair. His face was still smooth and expressionless, but there was a queer sort of meaning in his words.
“The end of your journey,” he said grimly, “may be nearer than you think.”
“If I am not heard of in The Hague to-morrow at the latest,” Mr. Dunster pointed out, “remember that before many more hours have passed, I shall be searched for, even to the far corners of the earth.”
“Let me assure you,” Mr. Fentolin promised serenely, “that though your friends search for you up in the skies or down in the bowels of the earth, they will not find you. My hiding-places are not as other people’s.”
Mr. Dunster beat lightly with his square, blunt forefinger upon the table which stood by his side.
“That’s not the sort of talk I understand,” he declared curtly. “Let us understand one another, if we can. What is to happen to me, if I refuse to give you that word?”
Mr. Fentolin held his hand in front of his eyes, as though to shut out some unwelcome vision.
“Dear me,” he exclaimed, “how unpleasant! Why should you force me to disclose my plans? Be content, dear Mr. Dunster, with the knowledge of this one fact: we cannot part with you. I have thought it over from every point of view, and I have come to that conclusion; always presuming,” he went on, “that the knowledge of that little word of which we have spoken remains in its secret chamber of your memory.”
Mr. Dunster smoked in silence for a few minutes.
“I am very comfortable here,” he remarked.
“You delight me,” Mr. Fentolin murmured.
“Your cook,” Mr. Dunster continued, “has won my heartfelt appreciation. Your cigars and wines are fit for any nobleman. Perhaps, after all, this little rest is good for me.”
Mr. Fentolin listened attentively.
“Do not forget,” he said, “that there is always a limit fixed, whether it be one day, two days, or three days.”
“A limit to your complacence, I presume?”
Mr. Fentolin assented.
“Obviously, then,” Mr. Dunster concluded, “you wish those who sent me to believe that my message has been delivered. Yet there I must confess that you puzzle me. What I cannot see is, to put it bluntly, where you come in. Any one of the countries represented at this little conference would only be the gainers by the miscarriage of my message, which is, without doubt, so far as they are concerned, of a distasteful nature. Your own country alone could be the sufferer. Now what interest in the world, then, is there left—what interest in the world can you possibly represent—which can be the gainer by your present action?”
Mr. Fentolin’s eyes grew suddenly a little brighter. There was a light upon his face strange to witness.
“The power which is to be the gainer,” he said quietly, “is the power encompassed by these walls.”
He touched his chest; his long, slim fingers were folded upon it.
“When I meet a man whom I like,” he continued softly, “I take him into my confidence. Picture me, if you will, as a kind of Puck. Haven’t you heard that with the decay of the body comes sometimes a malignant growth in the brain; a Caliban-like desire for evil to fall upon the world; a desire to escape from the loneliness of suffering, the isolation of black misery?”
Mr. John P. Dunster let his cigar burn out. He looked steadfastly at this strange little figure whose chair had imperceptibly moved a little nearer to his.
“You know what the withholding of this message you carry may mean,” Mr. Fentolin proceeded. “You come here, bearing to Europe the word of a great people, a people whose voice is powerful enough even to still the gathering furies. I have read your ciphered message. It is what I feared. It is my will, mine—Miles Fentolin’s—that that message be not delivered.”
“I wonder,” Mr. Dunster muttered under his breath, “whether you are in earnest.”
“In your heart,” Mr. Fentolin told him, “you know that I am. I can see the truth in your face. Now, for the first time, you begin to understand.”
“To a certain extent,” Mr. Dunster admitted. “Where I am still in the dark, however, is why you should expect that I should become your confederate. It is true that by holding me up and obstructing my message, you may bring about the evil you seek, but unless that word is cabled back to New York, and my senders believe that my message has been delivered, there can be no certainty. What has been trusted to me as the safest means of transmission, might, in an emergency, be committed to a cable.”
“Excellent reasoning,” Fentolin agreed. “For the very reasons you name that word will be given.”
Mr. Dunster’s face was momentarily troubled. There was something in the still, cold emphasis of this man’s voice which made him shiver.
“Do you think,” Mr. Fentolin went on, “that I spend a great fortune buying the secrets of the world, that I live from day to day with the risk of ignominious detection always hovering about me—do you think that I do this and am yet unprepared to run the final risks of life and death? Have you ever talked with a murderer, Mr. Dunster? Has curiosity ever taken you within the walls of Sing Sing? Have you sat within the cell of a doomed man and felt the thrill of his touch, of his close presence? Well, I will not ask you those questions. I will simply tell you that you are talking to one now.”
Mr. Dunster had forgotten his extinct cigar. He found it difficult to remove his eyes from Mr. Fentolin’s face. He was half fascinated, half stirred with a vague, mysterious fear. Underneath these wild words ran always that hard note of truth.
“You seem to be in earnest,” he muttered.
“I am,” Mr. Fentolin assured him quietly. “I have more than once been instrumental in bringing about the death of those who have crossed my purposes. I plead guilty to the weakness of Nero. Suffering and death are things of joy to me. There!”
“I am not sure,” Mr. Dunster said slowly, “that I ought not to wring your neck.”
Mr. Fentolin smiled. His chair receded an inch or two. There was never a time when his expression had seemed more seraphic.
“There is no emergency of that sort,” he remarked, “for which I am not prepared.”
His little revolver gleamed for a minute beneath his cuff. He backed his chair slowly and with wonderful skill towards the door.
“We will fix the period of your probation, Mr. Dunster, at—say, twenty-four hours,” he decided. “Please make yourself until then entirely at home. My cook, my cellar, my cigar cabinets, are at your disposal. If some happy impulse,” he concluded, “should show you the only reasonable course by dinnertime, it would give me the utmost pleasure to have you join us at that meal. I can promise you a cheque beneath your plate which even you might think worth considering, wine in your glass which kings might sigh for, cigars by your side which even your Mr. Pierpont Morgan could not buy. Au revoir!”
The door opened and closed. Mr. Dunster sat staring into the open space like a man still a little dazed.
The beautiful but somewhat austere front of St. David’s Hall seemed, in a sense, transformed, as Hamel and his companion climbed the worn grey steps which led on to the broad sweep of terrace. Evidently visitors had recently arrived. A dark, rather good-looking woman, with pleasant round face and a ceaseless flow of conversation, was chattering away to Mr. Fentolin. By her side stood another woman who was a stranger to Hamel—thin, still elegant, with tired, worn face, and the shadow of something in her eyes which reminded him at once of Esther. She wore a large picture hat and carried a little Pomeranian dog under her arm. In the background, an insignificant-looking man with grey side-whiskers and spectacles was beaming upon everybody. Mr. Fentolin waved his hand and beckoned to Hamel and Esther as they somewhat hesitatingly approached.
“This is one of my fortunate mornings, you see, Esther!” he exclaimed, smiling. “Lady Saxthorpe has brought her husband over to lunch. Lady Saxthorpe,” he added, turning to the woman at his side, “let me present to you the son of one of the first men to realise the elusive beauty of our coast. This is Mr. Hamel, son of Peter Hamel, R.A.—the Countess of Saxthorpe.”
Lady Saxthorpe, who had been engaged in greeting Esther, held out her hand and smiled good-humouredly at Hamel.
“I know your father’s work quite well,” she declared, “and I don’t wonder that you have made a pilgrimage here. They tell me that he painted nineteen pictures—pictures of importance, that is to say—within this little area of ten miles. Do you paint, Mr. Hamel?”
“Not at all,” Hamel answered.
“Our friend Hamel,” Mr. Fentolin intervened, “woos other and sterner muses. He fights nature in distant countries, spans her gorges with iron bridges, stems the fury of her rivers, and carries to the boundary of the world that little twin line of metal which brings men like ants to the work-heaps of the universe. My dear Florence,” he added, suddenly turning to the woman at his other side, “for the moment I had forgotten. You have not met our guest yet. Hamel, this is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Seymour Fentolin.”
She held out her hand to him, unnaturally thin and white, covered with jewels. Again he saw something in her eyes which stirred him vaguely.
“It is so nice that you are able to spend a few days with us, Mr. Hamel,” she said quietly. “I am sorry that I have been too indisposed to make your acquaintance earlier.”
“And,” Mr. Fentolin continued, “you must know my young friend here, too. Mr. Hamel—Lord Saxthorpe.”
The latter shook hands heartily with the young man.
“I knew your father quite well,” he announced. “Queer thing, he used to hang out for months at a time at that little shanty on the beach there. Hardest work in the world to get him away. He came over to dine with us once or twice, but we saw scarcely anything of him. I hope his son will not prove so obdurate.”
“You are very kind,” Hamel murmured.
“Mr. Hamel came into these parts to claim his father’s property,” Mr. Fentolin said. “However, I have persuaded him to spend a day or two up here before he transforms himself into a misanthrope. What of his golf, Esther, eh?”
“Mr. Hamel plays very well, indeed,” the girl replied.
“Your niece was too good for me,” Hamel confessed.
Mr. Fentolin smiled.
“The politeness of this younger generation,” he remarked, “keeps the truth sometimes hidden from us. I perceive that I shall not be told who won. Lady Saxthorpe, you are fortunate indeed in the morning you have chosen for your visit. There is no sun in the world like an April sun, and no corner of the earth where it shines with such effect as here. Look steadily to the eastward of that second dike and you will see the pink light upon the sands, which baffled every one until our friend Hamel came and caught it on his canvas.”
“I do see it,” Lady Saxthorpe murmured. “What eyes you have, Mr. Fentolin! What perception for colour!”
“Dear lady,” Mr. Fentolin said, “I am one of those who benefit by the law of compensations. On a morning like this I can spend hours merely feasting my eyes upon this prospect, and I can find, if not happiness, the next best thing. The world is full of beautiful places, but the strange part of it is that beauty has countless phases, and each phase differs in some subtle and unexplainable manner from all others. Look with me fixedly, dear Lady Saxthorpe. Look, indeed, with more than your eyes. Look at that flush of wild lavender, where it fades into the sands on one side, and strikes the emerald green of that wet seamoss on the other. Look at the liquid blue of that tongue of sea which creeps along its bed through the yellow sands, through the dark meadowland, which creeps and oozes and widens till in an hour’s time it will have become a river. Look at my sand islands, virgin from the foot of man, the home of sea-gulls, the islands of a day. There may be other and more beautiful places. There is none quite like this.”
“I pity you no longer,” Lady Saxthorpe asserted fervently. “The eyes of the artist are a finer possession than the limbs of the athlete.”
The butler announced luncheon, and they all trooped in. Hamel found himself next to Lady Saxthorpe.
“Dear Mr. Fentolin has been so kind,” she confided to him as they took their places. “I came in fear and trembling to ask for a very small cheque for my dear brother’s diocese. My brother is a colonial bishop, you know. Can you imagine what Mr. Fentolin has given me?”
Hamel wondered politely. Lady Saxthorpe continued with an air of triumph.
“A thousand pounds! Just fancy that—a thousand pounds! And some people say he is so difficult,” she went on, dropping her voice. “Mrs. Hungerford came all the way over from Norwich to beg for the infirmary there, and he gave her nothing.”
“What was his excuse?” Hamel asked.
“I think he told her that it was against his principles to give to hospitals,” Lady Saxthorpe replied. “He thinks that they should be supported out of the rates.”
“Some people have queer ideas of charity,” Hamel remarked. “Now I am afraid that if I had been Mr. Fentolin, I would have given the thousand pounds willingly to a hospital, but not a penny to a mission.”
Mr. Fentolin looked suddenly down the table. He was some distance away, but his hearing was wonderful.
“Ah, my dear Hamel,” he said, “believe me, missions are very wonderful things. It is only from a very careful study of their results that I have brought myself to be a considerable supporter of those where I have some personal knowledge of the organisation. Hospitals, on the other hand, provide for the poor what they ought to be able to provide for themselves. The one thing to avoid in the giving away of money is pauperisation. What do you think, Florence?”
His sister-in-law, who was seated at the other end of the table, looked across at him with a bright but stereotyped smile.
“I agree with you, of course, Miles. I always agree with you. Mr. Fentolin has the knack of being right about most things,” she continued, turning to Lord Saxthorpe. “His judgment is really wonderful.”
“Wish we could get him to come and sit on the bench sometimes, then,” Lord Saxthorpe remarked heartily. “Our neighbours in this part of the world are not overburdened with brains. By-the-by,” he went on, “that reminds me. You haven’t got such a thing as a mysterious invalid in the house, have you?”
There was a moment’s rather curious silence. Mr. Fentolin was sitting like a carved figure, with a glass of wine half raised to his lips. Gerald had broken off in the middle of a sentence and was staring at Lord Saxthorpe. Esther was sitting perfectly still, her face grave and calm, her eyes alone full of fear. Lord Saxthorpe was not an observant man and he continued, quite unconscious of the sensation which his question had aroused.
“Sounds a silly thing to ask you, doesn’t it? They’re all full of it at Wells, though. I sat on the bench this morning and went into the police-station for a moment first. Seems they’ve got a long dispatch from Scotland Yard about a missing man who is supposed to be in this part of the world. He came down in a special train on Tuesday night—the night of the great flood—and his train was wrecked at Wymondham. After that he was taken on by some one in a motor-car. Colonel Renshaw wanted me to allude to the matter from the bench, but it seemed to me that it was an affair entirely for the police.”
As though suddenly realising the unexpected interest which his words had caused, Lord Saxthorpe brought his sentence to a conclusion and glanced enquiringly around the table.
“A man could scarcely disappear in a civilised neighbourhood like this,” Mr. Fentolin remarked quietly, “but there is a certain amount of coincidence about your question. May I ask whether it was altogether a haphazard one?”
“Absolutely,” Lord Saxthorpe declared. “The idea seems to be that the fellow was brought to one of the houses in the neighbourhood, and we were all rather chaffing one another this morning about it. Inspector Yardley—the stout fellow with the beard, you know—was just starting off in his dog-cart to make enquiries round the neighbourhood. If any one in fiction wants a type of the ridiculous detective, there he is, ready-made.”
“The coincidence of your question,” Mr. Fentolin said smoothly, “is certainly a strange one. The mysterious stranger is within our gates.”
Lady Saxthorpe, who had been out of the conversation for far too long, laid down her knife and fork.
“My dear Mr. Fentolin!” she exclaimed. “My dear Mrs. Fentolin! This is really most exciting! Do tell us all about it at once. I thought that the man was supposed to have been decoyed away in a motor-car. Do you know his name and all about him?”
“There are a few minor points,” Mr. Fentolin murmured, “such as his religious convictions and his size in boots, which I could not swear about, but so far as regards his name and his occupation, I think I can gratify your curiosity. He is a Mr. John P. Dunster, and he appears to be the representative of an American firm of bankers, on his way to Germany to conclude a loan.”
“God bless my soul!” Lord Saxthorpe exclaimed wonderingly. “The fellow is actually here under this roof! But who brought him? How did he find his way?”
“Better ask Gerald,” Mr. Fentolin replied. “He is the abductor. It seems that they both missed the train from Liverpool Street, and Mr. Dunster invited Gerald to travel down in his special train. Very kind of him, but might have been very unlucky for Gerald. As you know, they got smashed up at Wymondham, and Gerald, feeling in a way responsible for him, brought him on here; quite properly, I think. Sarson has been looking after him, but I am afraid he has slight concussion of the brain.”
“I shall remember this all my life,” Lord Saxthorpe declared solemnly, “as one of the most singular coincidences which has ever come within my personal knowledge. Perhaps after lunch, Mr. Fentolin, you will let some of your people telephone to the police-station at Wells? There really is an important enquiry respecting this man. I should not be surprised,” he added, dropping his voice a little for the benefit of the servants, “to find that Scotland Yard needed him on their own account.”
“In that case,” Mr. Fentolin remarked, “he is quite safe, for Sarson tells me there is no chance of his being able to travel, at any rate for twenty-four hours.”
Lady Saxthorpe shivered.
“Aren’t you afraid to have him in the house?” she asked, “a man who is really and actually wanted by Scotland Yard? When one considers that nothing ever happens here except an occasional shipwreck in the winter and a flower-show in the summer, it does sound positively thrilling. I wonder what he has done.”
They discussed the subject of Mr. Dunster’s possible iniquities. Meanwhile, a young man carrying his hat in his hand had slipped in past the servants and was leaning over Mr. Fentolin’s chair. He laid two or three sheets of paper upon the table and waited while his employer glanced them through and dismissed him with a little nod.
“My wireless has been busy this morning,” Mr. Fentolin remarked. “We seem to have collected about forty messages from different battleships and cruisers. There must be a whole squadron barely thirty miles out.”
“You don’t really think,” Lady Saxthorpe asked, “that there is any fear of war, do you, Mr. Fentolin?”
He answered her with a certain amount of gravity. “Who can tell? The papers this morning were bad. This conference at The Hague is still unexplained. France’s attitude in the matter is especially mysterious.”
“I am a strong supporter of Lord Roberts,” Lord Saxthorpe said, “and I believe in the vital necessity of some scheme for national service. At the same time, I find it hard to believe that a successful invasion of this country is within the bounds of possibility.”
“I quite agree with you, Lord Saxthorpe,” Mr. Fentolin declared smoothly. “All the same, this Hague Conference is a most mysterious affair. The papers this morning are ominously silent about the fleet. From the tangle of messages we have picked up, I should say, without a doubt, that some form of mobilisation is going on in the North Sea. If Lady Saxthorpe thinks it warm enough, shall we take our coffee upon the terrace?”
“The terrace, by all means,” her ladyship assented, rising from her place. “What a wonderful man you are, Mr. Fentolin, with your wireless telegraphy, and your telegraph office in the house, and telephones. Does it really amuse you to be so modern?”
“To a certain extent, yes,” Mr. Fentolin sighed, as he guided his chair along the hall. “When my misfortune first came, I used to speculate a good deal upon the Stock Exchange. That was really the reason I went in for all these modern appliances.”
“And now?” she asked. “What use do you make of them now?”
Mr. Fentolin smiled quietly. He looked out sea-ward, beyond the sky-line, from whence had come to him, through the clouds, that tangle of messages.
“I like to feel,” he said, “that the turning wheel of life is not altogether out of earshot. I like to dabble just a little in the knowledge of these things.”
Lord Saxthorpe came strolling up to them.
“You won’t forget to telephone about this guest of yours?” he asked fussily.
“It is already done,” Mr. Fentolin assured him. “My dear sister, why so silent?”
Mrs. Fentolin turned slowly towards him. She, too, had been standing with her eyes fixed upon the distant sea-line. Her face seemed suddenly to have aged, her forced vivacity to have departed. Her little Pomeranian rubbed against her feet in vain. Yet at the sound of Mr. Fentolin’s voice, she seemed to come back to herself as though by magic.
“I was looking where you were looking,” she declared lightly, “just trying to see a little way beyond. So silly, isn’t it? Chow-Chow, you bad little dog, come and you shall have your dinner.”
She strolled off, humming a tune to herself. Lord Saxthorpe watched her with a shadow upon his plain, good-humoured face.
“Somehow or other,” he remarked quietly, “Mrs. Fentolin never seems to have got over the loss of her husband, does she? How long is it since he died?”
“Eight years,” Mr. Fentolin replied. “It was just six months after my own accident.”
“I am losing a great deal of sympathy for you, Mr. Fentolin,” Lady Saxthorpe confessed, coming over to his side. “You have so many resources, there is so much in life which you can do. You paint, as we all know, exquisitely. They tell me that you play the violin like a master. You have unlimited time for reading, and they say that you are one of the greatest living authorities upon the politics of Europe. Your morning paper must bring you so much that is interesting.”
“It is true,” Mr. Fentolin admitted, “that I have compensations which no one can guess at, compensations which appeal to me more as time steals on. And yet—”
He stopped short.
“And yet?” Lady Saxthorpe repeated interrogatively.
Mr. Fentolin was watching Gerald drive golf balls from the lawn beneath. He pointed downwards.
“I was like that when I was his age,” he said quietly.
Mr. Fentolin remained upon the terrace long after the departure of his guests. He had found a sunny corner out of the wind, and he sat there with a telescope by his side and a budget of newspapers upon his knee. On some pretext or another he had detained all the others of the household so that they formed a little court around him. Even Hamel, who had said something about a walk, had been induced to stop by an appealing glance from Esther. Mr. Fentolin was in one of his most loquacious moods. For some reason or other, the visit of the Saxthorpes seemed to have excited him. He talked continually, with the briefest pauses. Every now and then he gazed steadily across the marshes through his telescope.
“Lord Saxthorpe,” he remarked, “has, I must confess, greatly excited my curiosity as to the identity of our visitor. Such a harmless-looking person, he seems, to be causing such a commotion. Gerald, don’t you feel your responsibility in the matter?”
“Yes, sir, I do!” Gerald replied, with unexpected grimness. “I feel my responsibility deeply.”
Mr. Fentolin, who was holding the telescope to his eye, touched Hamel on the shoulder.
“My young friend,” he said, “your eyes are better than mine. You see the road there? Look along it, between the white posts, as far as you can. What do you make of that black speck?”
Hamel held the telescope to his eye and steadied it upon the little tripod stand.
“It looks like a horse and trap,” he announced. “Good!” Mr. Fentolin declared. “It seemed so to me, but I was not sure. My eyes are weak this afternoon. How many people are in the trap?”
“Two,” Hamel answered. “I can see them distinctly now. One man is driving, another is sitting by his side. They are coming this way.”
Mr. Fentolin blew his whistle. Meekins appeared almost directly. His master whispered a word in his ear. The man at once departed.
“Let me make use of your eyes once more,” Mr. Fentolin begged. “About these two men in the trap, Mr. Hamel. Is one of them, by any chance, wearing a uniform?”
“They both are,” Hamel replied. “The man who is driving is wearing a peaked hat. He looks like a police inspector. The man by his side is an ordinary policeman.”
Mr. Fentolin sighed gently.
“It is very interesting,” he said. “Let us hope that we shall not see an arrest under my roof. I should feel it a reflection upon my hospitality. I trust, I sincerely trust, that this visit does not bode any harm to Mr. John P. Dunster.”
Gerald rose impatiently to his feet and swung across the terrace. Mr. Fentolin, however, called him back.
“Gerald,” he advised, “better not go away. The inspector may desire to ask you questions. You will have nothing to conceal. It was a natural and delightful impulse of yours to bring the man who had befriended you, and who was your companion in that disaster, straight to your own home for treatment and care. It was an admirable impulse, my boy. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Shall I tell him, too—” Gerald began.
“Be careful, Gerald.”
Mr. Fentolin’s words seemed to be charged with a swift, rapier-like note. The boy broke off in his speech. He looked at Hamel and was silent.
“Dear me,” Mrs. Fentolin murmured, “I am sure there is no need for us to talk about this poor man as though anybody had done anything wrong in having him here. This, I suppose, must be the Inspector Yardley whom Lord Saxthorpe spoke of.”
“A very intelligent-looking officer, I am sure,” Mr. Fentolin remarked. “Gerald, go and meet him, if you please. I should like to speak to him out here.”
The dog-cart had drawn up at the front door, and the inspector had already alighted. Gerald intervened as he was in the act of questioning the butler.
“Mr. Fentolin would like to speak to you, inspector,” he said, “if you will come this way.”
The inspector followed Gerald and saluted the little group solemnly. Mr. Fentolin held out his hand.
“You got my telephone message, inspector?” he asked.
“We have not received any message that I know of, sir,” the inspector replied. “I have come over here in accordance with instructions received from headquarters—in fact from Scotland Yard.”
“Quite so,” Mr. Fentolin assented. “You’ve come over, I presume, to make enquiries concerning Mr. John P. Dunster?”
“That is the name of the gentleman, sir.”
“I only understood to-day from my friend Lord Saxthorpe,” Mr. Fentolin continued, “that Mr. Dunster was being enquired about as though he had disappeared. My nephew brought him here after the railway accident at Wymondham, since when he has been under the care of my own physician. I trust that you have nothing serious against him?”
“My first duty, sir,” the inspector pronounced, “is to see the gentleman in question.”
“By all means,” Mr. Fentolin agreed. “Gerald, will you take the inspector up to Mr. Dunster’s rooms? Or stop, I will go myself.”
Mr. Fentolin started his chair and beckoned the inspector to follow him. Meekins, who was waiting inside the hall, escorted them by means of the lift to the second floor. They made their way to Mr. Dunster’s room. Mr. Fentolin knocked softly at the door. It was opened by the nurse.
“How is the patient?” Mr. Fentolin enquired.
Doctor Sarson appeared from the interior of the room.
“Still unconscious,” he reported. “Otherwise, the symptoms are favourable. He is quite unfit,” the doctor added, looking steadily at the inspector, “to be removed or questioned.”
“There is no idea of anything of the sort,” Mr. Fentolin explained. “It is Inspector Yardley’s duty to satisfy himself that Mr. Dunster is here. It is necessary for the inspector to see your patient, so that he can make his report at headquarters.”
Doctor Sarson bowed.
“That is quite simple, sir,” he said. “Please step in.”
They all entered the room, which was large and handsomely furnished. Through the open windows came a gentle current of fresh air. Mr. Dunster lay in the midst of all the luxury of fine linen sheets and embroidered pillow-cases. The inspector looked at him stolidly.
“Is he asleep?” he asked.
The doctor shook his head.
“It is the third day of his concussion,” he whispered. “He is still unconscious. He will remain in the same condition for another two days. After that he will begin to recover.”
Mr. Fentolin touched the inspector on the arm.
“You see his clothing at the foot of the bed,” he pointed out. “His linen is marked with his name. That is his dressing-case with his name painted on it.”
“I am quite satisfied, sir,” the inspector announced. “I will not intrude any further.”
They left the room. Mr. Fentolin himself escorted the inspector into the library and ordered whisky and cigars.
“I don’t know whether I am unreasonably curious,” Mr. Fentolin remarked, “but is it really true that you have had enquiries from Scotland Yard about the poor fellow up-stairs?”
“We had a very important enquiry indeed, sir,” the inspector replied. “I have instructions to telegraph all I have been able to discover, immediately.”
“Pardon my putting it plainly,” Mr. Fentolin asked, “but is our friend a criminal?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as that, sir,” the inspector answered. “I know of no charge against him. I don’t know that I have the right to say so much,” he added, sipping his whisky and soda, “but putting two and two together, I should rather come to the conclusion that he was a person of some political importance.”
“Not a criminal at all?”
“Not as I know of,” the inspector assented. “That isn’t the way I read the enquiries at all.”
“You relieve me,” Mr. Fentolin declared. “Now what about his possessions?”
“There’s a man coming down shortly from Scotland Yard,” the inspector announced, a little gloomily. “My orders were to touch nothing, but to locate him.”
“Well, you’ve succeeded so far,” Mr. Fentolin remarked. “Here he is, and here I think he will stay until some days after your friend from Scotland Yard can get here.”
“It does seem so, indeed,” the inspector agreed. “To me he looks terrible ill. But there’s one thing sure, he’s having all the care and attention that’s possible. And now, sir, I’ll not intrude further upon your time. I’ll just make my report, and you’ll probably have a visit from the Scotland Yard man sometime within the next few days.”
Mr. Fentolin escorted the inspector to his dog-cart, shook hands with him, and watched him drive off. Only Mrs. Seymour Fentolin remained upon the terrace. He glided over to her side.
“My dear Florence,” he asked, “where are the others?”
“Mr. Hamel and Esther have gone for a walk,” she answered. “Gerald has disappeared somewhere. Has anything—is everything all right?”
“Naturally,” Mr. Fentolin replied easily. “All that the inspector desired was to see Mr. Dunster. He has seen him. The poor fellow was unfortunately unconscious, but our friend will at least be able to report that he was in good hands and well cared for.”
“Unconscious,” Mrs. Fentolin repeated. “I thought that he was better.”
“One is always subject to those slight relapses in an affair of concussion,” Mr. Fentolin explained.
Mrs. Fentolin laid down her work and leaned a little towards her brother-in-law. Her hand rested upon his. Her voice had fallen to a whisper.
“Miles,” she said, “forgive me, but are you sure that you are not getting a little out of your depth? Remember that there are some risks which are not worth while.”
“Quite true,” he answered. “And there are some risks, my dear Florence, which are worth every drop of blood in a man’s body, and every breath of life. The peace of Europe turns upon that man up-stairs. It is worth taking a little risk for, worth a little danger. I have made my plans, and I mean to carry them through. Tell me, when I was up-stairs, this fellow Hamel—was he talking confidentially to Gerald?”
“Not particularly.”
“I am not sure that I trust him,” Mr. Fentolin continued. “He had a telegram yesterday from a man in the Foreign Office, a telegram which I did not see. He took the trouble to walk three miles to send the reply to it from another office.”
“But after all,” Mrs. Fentolin protested, “you know who he is. You know that he is Peter Hamel’s son. He had a definite purpose in coming here.”
Mr. Fentolin nodded.
“Quite true,” he admitted. “But for that, Mr. Hamel would have found a little trouble before now. As it is, he must be watched. If any one comes between me and the things for which I am scheming to-day, they will risk death.”
Mrs. Fentolin sighed. She was watching the figures of Esther and Hamel far away in the distance, picking their way across the last strip of marshland which lay between them and the sea.
“Miles,” she said earnestly, “you take advice from no one. You will go your own way, I know. And yet, it seems to me that life holds so many compensations for you without your taking these terrible risks. I am not thinking of any one else. I am not pleading to you for the sake of any one else. I am thinking only of yourself. I have had a sort of feeling ever since this man was brought into the house, that trouble would come of it. To me the trouble seems to be gathering even now.”
Mr. Fentolin laughed softly, a little contemptuously.
“Presentiments,” he scoffed, “are the excuses of cowards. Don’t be afraid, Florence. Remember always that I look ahead. Do you think that I could stay here contented with what you call my compensations—my art, the study of beautiful things, the calm epicureanism of the sedate and simple life? You know very well that I could not do that. The craving for other things is in my heart and blood. The excitement which I cannot have in one way, I must find in another, and I think that before many nights have passed, I shall lie on my pillow and hear the guns roar, hear the footsteps of the great armies of the world moving into battle. It is for that I live, Florence.”
She took up her knitting again. Her eyes were fixed upon the sky-line. Twice she opened her lips, but twice no words came.
“You understand?” he whispered. “You begin to understand, don’t you?”
She looked at him only for a moment and back at her work.
“I suppose so,” she sighed.