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.
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 back 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!”
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. Seymour 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 it 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 to have seen there before. Again, half unconsciously, he listened, and again he found the silence oppressive. He went back to his room, brought out some of the books which it had been his intention to study, and sat and read over the fire.
At ten o’clock he went to bed. As he threw open his window before undressing, it seemed to him that he could catch the sound of voices from the sea. He listened intently. A grey pall hung everywhere. To the left, with strange indistinctness, almost like something human struggling to assert itself, came the fitful flash from the light at the entrance to the tidal way. Once more he strained his ears. This time there was no doubt about it. He heard the sound of fishermen’s voices. He heard one of them say distinctly:
“Hard aport, Dave lad! That’s Fentolin’s light. Keep her out a bit. Steady, lad!”
Through a rift in the mist, he caught a glimpse of the brown sail of a fishing-boat, dangerously near the land. He watched it alter its course slightly and pass on. Then again there was silence. He undressed slowly and went to bed.
Later on he woke with a start and sat up in bed, listening intently, listening for he knew not what. Except for the backward scream of the pebbles, dragged down every few seconds by the receding waves, an unbroken silence seemed to prevail. He struck a match and looked at his watch. It was exactly three o’clock. He got out of bed. He was a man in perfect health, ignorant of the meaning of nerves, a man of proved courage. Yet he was conscious that his pulses were beating with absurd rapidity. A new feeling seemed to possess him. He could almost have declared that he was afraid. What sound had awakened him? He had no idea, yet he seemed to have a distinct and absolute conviction that it had been a real sound and no dream. He drew aside the curtains and looked out of the window. The mist now seemed to have become almost a fog, to have closed in upon sea and land. There was nothing whatever to be seen. As he stood there for a moment, listening, his face became moist with the drifting vapour. Suddenly upon the beach he saw what at first he imagined must be an optical illusion—a long shaft of light, invisible in itself except that it seemed to slightly change the density of the mist. He threw on an overcoat over his pyjamas, thrust on his slippers, and taking up his own electric torch, hastily descended the stairs. He opened the front door and stepped out on to the beach. He stood in the very place where the light had seemed to be, and looked inland. There was no sign of any human person, not a sound except the falling of the sea upon the pebbly beach. He raised his voice and called out. Somehow or other, speech seemed to be a relief.
“Hullo!”
There was no response. He tried again.
“Is any one there?”
Still no answer. He watched the veiled light from the harbour appear and disappear. It threw no shadow of illumination upon the spot to which he had gazed from his window. One window at St. David’s Hall was illuminated. The rest of the place was wrapped now in darkness. He walked up to the boat-house. The door was still locked. There was no sign that any one had been there. Reluctantly at last he re-entered the Tower and made his way up-stairs.
“Confound that fellow Kinsley!” he muttered, as he threw off his overcoat. “All his silly suggestions and melodramatic ideas have given me a fit of nerves. I am going to bed, and I am going to sleep. That couldn’t have been a light I saw at all. I couldn’t have heard anything. I am going to sleep.”