“Without a doubt,” the doctor replied. “Mr. Fentolin desired me to ask you if there was any one whom you would like to apprise of your safety.”
Again the man upon the bed lay quite still, with knitted brows. There was surely something familiar about that name. Was it his fevered fancy or was there also something a little sinister?
The nurse, who had glided from the room, came back presently with some telegraph forms. Mr. Dunster held out his hand for them and then hesitated.
“Can you tell me any date, Doctor, upon which I can rely upon leaving here?”
“You will probably be well enough to travel on the third day from now,” the doctor assured him.
“The third day,” Mr. Dunster muttered. “Very well.”
He wrote out three telegrams and passed them over.
“One,” he said, “is to New York, one to The Hague, and one to London. There was plenty of money in my pocket. Perhaps you will find it and pay for these.”
“Is there anything more,” the doctor asked, “that can be done for your comfort?”
“Nothing at present,” Mr. Dunster replied. “My head aches now, but I think that I shall want to leave before three days are up. Are you the doctor in the neighbourhood?”
Sarson shook his head.
“I am physician to Mr. Fentolin’s household,” he answered quietly. “I live here. Mr. Fentolin is himself somewhat of an invalid and requires constant medical attention.”
Mr. Dunster contemplated the speaker steadfastly.
“You will forgive me,” he said. “I am an American and I am used to plain speech. I am quite unused to being attended by strange doctors. I understand that you are not in general practice now. Might I ask if you are fully qualified?”
“I am an M.D. of London,” the doctor replied. “You can make yourself quite easy as to my qualifications. It would not suit Mr. Fentolin’s purpose to entrust himself to the care of any one without a reputation.”
He left the room, and Mr. Dunster closed his eyes. His slumbers, however, were not altogether peaceful ones. All the time there seemed to be a hammering inside his head, and from somewhere back in his obscured memory the name of Fentolin seemed to be continually asserting itself. From somewhere or other, the amazing sense which sometimes gives warning of danger to men of adventure, seemed to have opened its feelers. He rested because he was exhausted, but even in his sleep he was ill at ease.
The doctor, with the telegrams in his hand, made his way down a splendid staircase, past the long picture gallery where masterpieces of Van Dyck and Rubens frowned and leered down upon him; descended the final stretch of broad oak stairs, crossed the hail, and entered his master’s rooms. Mr. Fentolin was sitting before the open window, an easel in front of him, a palette in his left hand, painting with deft, swift touches.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, without looking around, “it is my friend the doctor, my friend Sarson, M.D. of London, L.R.C.P. and all the rest of it. He brings with him the odour of the sick room. For a moment or two, just for a moment, dear friend, do not disturb me. Do not bring any alien thoughts into my brain. I am absorbed, you see—absorbed. It is a strange problem of colour, this.”
He was silent for several moments, glancing repeatedly out of the window and back to his canvas, painting all the time with swift and delicate precision.
“Meekins, who stands behind my chair,” Mr. Fentolin continued, “even Meekins is entranced. He has a soul, my friend Sarson, although you might not think it. He, too, sees sometimes the colour in the skies, the glitter upon the sands, the clear, sweet purity of those long stretches of virgin water. Meekins, I believe, has a soul, only he likes better to see these things grow under his master’s touch than to wander about and solve their riddles for himself.”
The man remained perfectly immovable. Not a feature twitched. Yet it was a fact that, although he stood where Mr. Fentolin could not possibly observe him, he never removed his gaze from the canvas.
“You see, my medical friend, that there has been a great tide in the night, following upon the flood? Even our small landmarks are shifted. Soon, in my little carriage, I shall ride down to the Tower. I shall sit there, and I shall watch the sea. I think that this evening, with the turn of the tide, the spray may reach even to my windows there. I shall paint again. There is always something fresh in the sea, you know—always something fresh in the sea. Like a human face—angry or pleased, sullen or joyful. Some people like to paint the sea at its calmest and most beautiful. Some people like to see happy faces around them. It is not every one who appreciates the other things. It is not quite like that with me, eh, Sarson?”
His hand fell to his side. Momentarily he had finished his work. He turned around and eyed the doctor, who stood in taciturn silence.
“Answer. Answer me,” he insisted.
The doctor’s gloomy face seemed darker still.
“You have spoken the truth, Mr. Fentolin,” he admitted. “You are not one of the vulgar herd who love to consort with pleasure and happiness. You are one of those who understand the beauty of unhappiness—in others,” he added, with faint emphasis.
Mr. Fentolin smiled. His face became almost like the face of one of those angels of the great Italian master.
“How well you know me!” he murmured. “My humble effort, Doctor—how do you like it?”
The doctor bent over the canvas.
“I know nothing about art,” he said, a little roughly. “Your work seems to me clever—a little grotesque, perhaps; a little straining after the hard, plain things which threaten. Nothing of the idealist in your work, Mr. Fentolin.”
Mr. Fentolin studied the canvas himself for a moment.
“A clever man, Sarson,” he remarked coolly, “but no courtier. Never mind, my work pleases me. It gives me a passing sensation of happiness. Now, what about our patient?”
“He recovers,” the doctor pronounced. “From my short examination, I should say that he had the constitution of an ox. I have told him that he will be up in three days. As a matter of fact, he will be able, if he wants to, to walk out of the house to-morrow.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head.
“We cannot spare him quite so soon,” he declared. “We must avail ourselves of this wonderful chance afforded us by my brilliant young nephew. We must keep him with us for a little time. What is it that you have in your hands, Doctor? Telegrams, I think. Let me look at them.”
The doctor held them out. Mr. Fentolin took them eagerly between his thin, delicate fingers. Suddenly his face darkened, and became like the face of a spoilt and angry child.
“Cipher!” he exclaimed furiously. “A cipher which he knows so well as to remember it, too! Never mind, it will be easy to decode. It will amuse me during the afternoon. Very good, Sarson. I will take charge of these.”
“You do not wish anything dispatched?”
“Nothing at present,” Mr. Fentolin sighed. “It will be well, I think, for the poor man to remain undisturbed by any communications from his friends. Is he restless at all?”
“He wants to get on with his journey.”
“We shall see,” Mr. Fentolin remarked. “Now feel my pulse, Sarson. How am I this morning?”
The doctor held the thin wrist for a moment between his fingers, and let it go.
“In perfect health, as usual,” he announced grimly.
“Ah, but you cannot be sure!” Mr. Fentolin protested. “My tongue, if you please.”
He put it out.
“Excellent!”
“We must make quite certain,” Mr. Fentolin continued. “There are so many people who would miss me. My place in the world would not be easily filed. Undo my waistcoat, Sarson. Feel my heart, please. Feel carefully. I can see the end of your stethoscope in your pocket. Don’t scamp it. I fancied this morning, when I was lying here alone, that there was something almost like a palpitation—a quicker beat. Be very careful, Sarson. Now.”
The doctor made his examination with impassive face. Then he step
ped back.
“There is no change in your condition, Mr. Fentolin,” he announced. “The palpitation you spoke of is a mistake. You are in perfect health.”
Mr. Fentolin sighed gently.
“Then,” he said, “I will now amuse myself by a gentle ride down to the Tower. You are entirely satisfied, Sarson? You are keeping nothing back from me?”
The doctor looked at him with grim, impassive face. “There is nothing to keep back,” he declared. “You have the constitution of a cowboy. There is no reason why you should not live for another thirty years.”
Mr. Fentolin sighed, as though a weight had been removed from his heart.
“I will now,” he decided, reaching forward for the handle of his carriage, “go down to the Tower. It is just possible that a few days’ seclusion might be good for our guest.”
The doctor turned silently away. There was no one there to see his expression as he walked towards the door.
CHAPTER VII
Table of Contents
The two men who were supping together in the grillroom at the Cafe Milan were talking with a seriousness which seemed a little out of keeping with the rose-shaded lamps and the swaying music of the band from the distant restaurant. Their conversation had started some hours before in the club smoking-room and had continued intermittently throughout the evening. It had received a further stimulus when Richard Hamel, who had bought an Evening Standard on their way from the theatre a few minutes ago, came across a certain paragraph in it which he read aloud.
“Hanged if I understand things over here, nowadays, Reggie!” he declared, laying the paper down. “Here’s another Englishman imprisoned in Germany—this time at a place no one ever heard of before. I won’t try to pronounce it. What does it all mean? It’s all very well to shrug your shoulders, but when there are eighteen arrests within one week on a charge of espionage, there must be something up.”
For the first time Reginald Kinsley seemed inclined to discuss the subject seriously. He drew the paper towards him and read the little paragraph, word by word. Then he gave some further order to an attentive maitre d’hotel and glanced around to be sure that they were not overheard.
“Look here, Dick, old chap,” he said, “you are just back from abroad and you are not quite in the hang of things yet. Let me ask you a plain question. What do you think of us all?”
“Think of you?” Hamel repeated, a little doubtfully. “Do you mean personally?”
“Take it any way you like,” Kinsley replied. “Look at me. Nine years ago we played cricket in the same eleven. I don’t look much like cricket now, do I?”
Hamel looked at his companion thoughtfully. For a man who was doubtless still young, Kinsley had certainly an aged appearance. The hair about his temples was grey; there were lines about his mouth and forehead. He had the air of one who lived in an atmosphere of anxiety.
“To me,” Hamel declared frankly, “you look worried. If I hadn’t heard so much of the success of your political career and all the rest of it, I should have thought that things were going badly with you.”
“They’ve gone well enough with me personally,” Kinsley admitted, “but I’m only one of many. Politics isn’t the game it was. The Foreign Office especially is ageing its men fast these few years. We’ve been going through hell, Hamel, and we are up against it now, hard up against it.”
The slight smile passed from the lips of Hamel’s sunburnt, good-natured face. He himself seemed to become infected with something of his companion’s anxiety.
“There’s nothing seriously wrong, is there, Reggie?” he asked.
“Dick,” said Kinsley, with a sigh, “I am afraid there is. It’s very seldom I talk as plainly as this to any, one but you are just the person one can unburden oneself to a little; and to tell you the truth, it’s rather a relief. As you say, these eighteen arrests in one week do mean something. Half of the Englishmen who have been arrested are, to my certain knowledge, connected with our Secret Service, and they have been arrested, in many cases, where there are no fortifications worth speaking of within fifty miles, on one pretext or another. The fact of the matter is that things are going on in Germany, just at the present moment, the knowledge of which is of vital interest to us.”
“Then these arrests,” Hamel remarked, “are really bona fide?”
“Without a doubt,” his companion agreed. “I only wonder there have not been more. I am telling you what is a pretty open secret when I tell you that there is a conference due to be held this week at some place or another on the continent—I don’t know where, myself—which will have a very important bearing upon our future. We know just as much as that and not much more.”
“A conference between whom?” Hamel asked.
Kinsley dropped his voice almost to a whisper.
“We know,” he replied, “that a very great man from Russia, a greater still from France, a minister from Austria, a statesman from Italy, and an envoy from Japan, have been invited to meet a German minister whose name I will not mention, even to you. The subject of their proposed discussion has never been breathed. One can only suspect. When I tell you that no one from this country was invited to the conference, I think you will be able, broadly speaking, to divine its purpose. The clouds have been gathering for a good many years, and we have only buried our heads a little deeper in the sands. We have had our chances and wilfully chucked them away. National Service or three more army corps four years ago would have brought us an alliance which would have meant absolute safety for twenty-one years. You know what happened. We have lived through many rumours and escaped, more narrowly than most people realise, a great many dangers, but there is every indication this time that the end is really coming.”
“And what will the end be?” Hamel enquired eagerly.
Kinsley shrugged his shoulders and paused while their glasses were filled with wine.
“It will be in the nature of a diplomatic coup,” he said presently. “Of that much I feel sure. England will be forced into such a position that she will have no alternative left but to declare war. That, of course, will be the end of us. With our ridiculously small army and absolutely no sane scheme for home defence, we shall lose all that we have worth fighting for—our colonies—without being able to strike a blow. The thing is so ridiculously obvious. It has been admitted time after time by every sea lord and every commander-in-chief. We have listened to it, and that’s all. Our fleet is needed under present conditions to protect our own shores. There isn’t a single battleship which could be safely spared. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, India, must take care of themselves. I wonder when a nation of the world ever played fast and loose with great possessions as we have done!”
“This is a nice sort of thing to hear almost one’s first night in England,” Hamel remarked a little gloomily. “Tell me some more about this conference. Are you sure that your information is reliable?”
“Our information is miserably scanty,” Kinsley admitted. “Curiously enough, the man who must know most about the whole thing is an Englishman, one of the most curious mortals in the British Empire. A spy of his succeeded in learning more than any of our people, and without being arrested, too.”
“And who is this singular person?” Hamel asked.
“A man of whom you, I suppose, never heard,” Kinsley replied. “His name is Fentolin—Miles Fentolin—and he lives somewhere down in Norfolk. He is one of the strangest characters that ever lived, stranger than any effort of fiction I ever met with. He was in the Foreign Office once, and every one was predicting for him a brilliant career. Then there was an accident—let me see, it must have been some six or seven years ago—and he had to have both his legs amputated. No one knows exactly how the accident happened, and there was always a certain amount of mystery connected with it. Since then he has buried himself in the country. I don’t think, in fact, that he ever moves outside his place; but somehow or other he has managed to keep in touch with all the political movements of t
he day.”
“Fentolin,” Hamel repeated softly to himself. “Tell me, whereabouts does he live?”
“Quite a wonderful place in Norfolk, I believe, somewhere near the sea. I’ve forgotten the name, for the moment. He has had wireless telegraphy installed; he has a telegraph office in the house, half-a-dozen private wires, and they say that he spends an immense amount of money keeping in touch with foreign politics. His excuse is that he speculates largely, as I dare say he does; but just lately,” Kinsley went on more slowly, “he has been an object of anxiety to all of us. It was he who sent the first agent out to Germany, to try and discover at least where this conference was to be held. His man returned in safety, and he has one over there now who has not been arrested. We seem to have lost nearly all of ours.”
“Do you mean to say that this man Fentolin actually possesses information which the Government hasn’t as to the intentions of foreign Powers?” Hamel asked.
Kinsley nodded. There was a slight flush upon his pallid cheeks.
“He not only has it, but he doesn’t mean to part with it. A few hundred years ago, when the rulers of this country were men with blood in their veins, he’d have been given just one chance to tell all he knew, and hung as a traitor if he hesitated. We don’t do that sort of thing nowadays. We rather go in for preserving traitors. We permit them even in our own House of Commons. However, I don’t want to depress you and play the alarmist so soon after your return to London. I dare say the old country’ll muddle along through our time.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Hamel begged. “There’s no other subject of conversation could interest me half as much. Have you formed any idea yourself as to the nature of this conference?”
“We all have an idea,” Kinsley replied grimly; “India for Russia; a large slice of China for Japan, with probably Australia thrown in; Alsace-Lorraine for France’s neutrality. There’s bribery for you. What’s to become of poor England then? Our friends are only human, after all, and it’s merely a question of handing over to them sufficient spoil. They must consider themselves first: that’s the first duty of their politicians towards their country.”
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