Mr. Fentolin sighed.
“In your own interests,” he said calmly, “they will not be granted to you.”
Mr. Dunster had spoken all the time like a man struggling to preserve his self-control. There were signs now that his will was ceasing to serve him. His eyes flashed fire, his voice was raised.
“Will not be granted to me?” he repeated. “Do you mean to say, then, that I am to be kept here against my will?”
Mr. Fentolin made no immediate reply. With the delicate fingers of his right hand he pushed back the hair from his forehead. He looked at his questioner soothingly, as one might look at a spoiled child.
“Against my will?” Mr. Dunster repeated, raising his voice still higher. “Mr. Fentolin, if the truth must be told, I have heard of you before and been warned against you. I decline to accept any longer the hospitality of your roof. I insist upon leaving it. If you will not provide me with any means of doing so, I will walk.”
He made a motion as though to rise from the bed. Meekins’ hand very gently closed upon his arm. One could judge that the grip was like a grip of iron.
“Dear me,” Mr. Fentolin said, “this is really very unreasonable of you! If you have heard of me, Mr. Dunster, you ought to understand that notwithstanding my unfortunate physical trouble, I am a person of consequence and position in this county. I am a magistrate, ex-high sheriff, and a great land-owner here. I think I may say without boasting that I represent one of the most ancient families in this country. Why, therefore, should you treat me as though it were to my interest to inveigle you under my roof and keep you there for some guilty purpose? Cannot you understand that it is for your own good I hesitate to part with you?”
“I understand nothing of the sort,” Mr. Dunster exclaimed angrily. “Let us bring this nonsense to an end. I want my clothes, and if you won’t lend me a car or a trap, I’ll walk to the nearest railway station.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head.
“I am quite sure,” he said, “that you are not in a position to travel. Even in the dining-room just now I heard a disturbance for which I was told that you were responsible.”
“I simply insisted upon having my clothes,” Mr. Dunster explained. “Your servant refused to fetch them. Perhaps I lost my temper. If so, I am sorry. I am not used to being thwarted.”
“A few days’ rest—” Mr. Fentolin began.
“A few days’ rest be hanged!” Mr. Dunster interrupted fiercely. “Listen, Mr. Fentolin,” he added, with the air of one making a last effort to preserve his temper, “the mission with which I am charged is one of greater importance than you can imagine. So much depends upon it that my own life, if that is in danger, would be a mere trifle in comparison with the issues involved. If I am not allowed to continue upon my journey at once, the consequences may be more serious than I can tell you, to you and yours, to your own country. There!—I am telling you a great deal, but I want you to understand that I am in earnest. I have a mission which I must perform, and which I must perform quickly.”
“You are very mysterious,” Mr. Fentolin murmured.
“I will leave nothing to chance,” Mr. Dunster continued. “Send this man who seems to have constituted himself my jailer out of earshot, and I will tell you even more.”
Mr. Fentolin turned to Meekins.
“You can leave the room for a moment,” he ordered. “Wait upon the threshold.”
Meekins very unwillingly turned to obey.
“You will excuse me, sir,” he objected doubtfully, “but I am not at all sure that he is safe.”
Mr. Fentolin smiled faintly.
“You need have no fear, Meekins,” he declared. “I am quite sure that you are mistaken. I think that Mr. Dunster is incapable of any act of violence towards a person in my unfortunate position. I am willing to trust myself with him—perfectly willing, Meekins.”
Meekins, with ponderous footsteps, left the room and closed the door behind him. Mr. Fentolin leaned a little forward in his chair. It seemed as though he were on springs. The fingers of his right hand had disappeared in the pocket of his black velvet dinner-coat. He was certainly prepared for all emergencies.
“Now, Mr. Dunster,” he said softly, “you can speak to me without reserve.”
Mr. Dunster dropped his voice. His tone became one of fierce eagerness.
“Look here,” he exclaimed, “I don’t think you ought to force me to give myself away like this, but, after all, you are an Englishman, with a stake in your country, and I presume you don’t want her to take a back seat for the next few generations. Listen here. It’s to save your country that I want to get to The Hague without a second’s delay. I tell you that if I don’t get there, if the message I convey doesn’t reach its destination, you may find an agreement signed between certain Powers which will mean the greatest diplomatic humiliation which Great Britain has ever known. Aye, and more than that!” Mr. Dunster continued. “It may be that the bogey you’ve been setting before yourself for all these years may trot out into life, and you may find St. David’s Hall a barrack for German soldiers before many months have passed.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head in gentle disbelief.
“You are speaking to one,” he declared, “who knows more of the political situation than you imagine. In my younger days I was in the Foreign Office. Since my unfortunate accident I have preserved the keenest interest in politics. I tell you frankly that I do not believe you. As the Powers are grouped at present, I do not believe in the possibility of a successful invasion of this country.”
“Perhaps not,” Mr. Dunster replied eagerly, “but the grouping of the Powers as it has existed during the last few years is on the eve of a great change. I cannot take you wholly into my confidence. I can only give you my word of honour as a friend to your country that the message I carry is her only salvation. Having told you as much as that, I do not think I am asking too much if I ask you for my clothes and dressing-case, and for the fastest motor-car you can furnish me with. I guess I can get from here to Yarmouth, and from there I can charter something which will take me to the other side.”
Mr. Fentolin raised the little gold whistle to his lips and blew it very softly. Meekins at once entered, closing the door behind him. He moved silently to the side of the man who had risen now from the bed, and who was standing with his hand grasping the post and his eyes fixed upon Mr. Fentolin, as though awaiting his answer.
“Our conversation,” the latter said calmly, “has reached a point, Mr. Dunster, at which I think we may leave it for the moment. You have told me some very surprising things. I perceive that you are a more interesting visitor even than I had thought.”
He raised his left hand, and Meekins, who seemed to have been waiting for some signal of the sort, suddenly, with a movement of his knee and right arm, flung Dunster hack upon the bed. The man opened his mouth to shout, but already, with lightning-like dexterity, his assailant had inserted a gag between his teeth. Treating his struggles as the struggles of a baby, Meekins next proceeded to secure his wrists with handcuffs. He then held his feet together while he quietly wound a coil of cord around them. Mr. Fentolin watched the proceedings from his chair with an air of pleased and critical interest.
“Very well done, Meekins—very neatly done, indeed!” he exclaimed. “As I was saying, Mr. Dunster,” he continued, turning his chair, “our conversation has reached a point at which I think we may safely leave it for a time. We will discuss these matters again. Your pretext of a political mission is, of course, an absurd one, but fortunately you have fallen into good hands. Take good care of Mr. Dunster, Meekins. I can see that he is a very important personage. We must be careful not to lose sight of him.”
Mr. Fentolin steered his chair to the door, opened it, and passed out. On the landing he blew his whistle; the lift almost immediately ascended. A moment or two later he glided into the dining-room. The three men were still seated around the table. A decanter of wine, almost empty, was before Doctor Sarson, whose p
allid cheeks, however, were as yet unflushed.
“At last, my dear guest,” Mr. Fentolin exclaimed, turning to Hamel, “I am able to return to you. If you will drink no more wine, let us have our coffee in the library, you and I. I want to talk to you about the Tower.”
CHAPTER XV
Table of Contents
Mr. Fentolin led the way to a delightful little corner of his library, where before the open grate, recently piled with hissing logs, an easy chair had been drawn. He wheeled himself up to the other side of the hearthrug and leaned back with a little air of exhaustion. The butler, who seemed to have appeared unsummoned from somewhere among the shadows, served coffee and poured some old brandy into large and wonderfully thin glasses.
“Why my house should be turned into an asylum to gratify the hospitable instincts of my young nephew, I cannot imagine,” Mr. Fentolin grumbled. “A most extraordinary person, our visitor, I can assure you. Quite violent, too, he was at first.”
“Have you had any outside advice about his condition?” Hamel inquired.
Mr. Fentolin glanced across those few feet of space and looked at Hamel with swift suspicion.
“Why should I?” he asked. “Doctor Sarson is fully qualified, and the case seems to present no unusual characteristics.”
Hamel sipped his brandy thoughtfully.
“I don’t know why I suggested it,” he admitted. “I only thought that an outside doctor might help you to get rid of the fellow.”
Mr. Fentolin shrugged his shoulders.
“After all,” he said, “the matter is of no real consequence. Doctor Sarson assures me that we shall be able to send him on his way very shortly. In the meantime, Mr. Hamel, what about the Tower?”
“What about it?” Hamel asked, selecting a cigar from the box which had been pushed to his side. “I am sure I haven’t any wish to inconvenience you.”
“I will be quite frank,” Mr. Fentolin declared. “I do not dispute your right for a moment. On the other hand, my few hours daily down there have become a habit with me. I do not wish to give them up. Stay here with us, Mr. Hamel. You will be doing us a great kindness. My nephew and niece have too little congenial society. Make up your mind to give us a fortnight of your time, and I can assure you that we will do our best to make yours a pleasant stay.”
Hamel was a little taken aback.
“Mr. Fentolin,” he said, “I couldn’t think of accepting your hospitality to such an extent. My idea in coming here was simply to fulfil an old promise to my father and to rough it at the Tower for a week or so, and when that was over, I don’t suppose I should ever be likely to come back again. You had better let me carry out that plan, and afterwards the place shall be entirely at your disposal.”
“You don’t quite understand,” Mr. Fentolin persisted, a little irritably. “I sit there every morning. I want, for instance, to be there to-morrow morning, and the next morning, and the morning afterwards, to finish a little seascape I have commenced. Nowhere else will do. Call it a whim or what you will I have begun the picture, and I want to finish it.”
“Well, you can sit there all right,” Hamel assured him. “I shall be out playing golf or fishing. I shall do nothing but sleep there.”
“And very uncomfortable you will be,” Mr. Fentolin pointed out. “You have no servant, I understand, and there is no one in the village fit to look after you. Think of my thirty-nine empty rooms, my books here, my gardens, my motor-cars, my young people, entirely at your service. You can have a suite to yourself. You can disappear when you like. To all effects and purposes you will be the master of St. David’s Hall. Be reasonable. Don’t you think, now, that you can spend a fortnight more pleasantly under such circumstances than by playing the misanthrope down at the Tower?”
“Please don’t think,” Hamel begged, “that I don’t appreciate your hospitality. I should feel uncomfortable, however, if I paid you a visit of the length you have suggested. Come, I don’t see,” he added, “why my occupation of the Tower should interfere with you. I should be away from it by about nine or ten o’clock every morning. I should probably only sleep there. Can’t you accept the use of it all the rest of the time? I can assure you that you will be welcome to come and go as though it were entirely your own.”
Mr. Fentolin had lit a cigarette and was watching the blue smoke curl upwards to the ceiling.
“You’re an obstinate man, Mr. Hamel,” he sighed, “but I suppose you must have your own way. By-the-by, you would only need to use the up-stairs room and the sitting-room. You will not need the outhouse—rather more than an outhouse, though isn’t it? I mean the shed which leads out from the kitchen, where the lifeboat used to be kept?”
“I don’t think I shall need that,” Hamel admitted, a little hesitatingly.
“To tell you the truth,” Mr. Fentolin continued, “among my other hobbies I have done a little inventing. I work sometimes at a model there. It is foolish, perhaps, but I wish no one to see it. Do you mind if I keep the keys of the place?”
“Not in the least,” Hamel replied. “Tell me, what direction do your inventions take, Mr. Fentolin?”
“Before you go,” Mr. Fentolin promised, “I will show you my little model at work. Until then we will not talk of it. Now come, be frank with me. Shall we exchange ideas for a little time? Will you talk of books? They are my daily friends. I have thousands of them, beloved companions on every side. Or will you talk of politics or travel? Or would you rather be frivolous with my niece and nephew? That, I think, is Esther playing.”
“To be quite frank,” Hamel declared bluntly, “I should like to talk to your niece.”
Mr. Fentolin smiled as though amused. His amusement, however, was perfectly good-natured.
“If you will open this door,” he said, “you will see another one exactly opposite to you. That is the drawing-room. You will find Esther there. Before you go, will you pass me the Quarterly Review? Thank you.”
Hamel crossed the hail, opened the door of the room to which he had been directed, and made his way towards the piano. Esther was there, playing softly to herself with eyes half closed. He came and stood by her side, and she stopped abruptly. Her eyes questioned him. Then her fingers stole once more over the keys, more softly still.
“I have just left your uncle,” Hamel said. “He told me that I might come in here.”
“Yes?” she murmured.
“He was very hospitable,” Hamel continued. “He wanted me to remain here as a guest and not go to the Tower at all.”
“And you?”
“I am going to the Tower,” he said. “I am going there to-morrow or the day after.”
The music swelled beneath her fingers.
“For how long?”
“For a week or so. I am just giving your uncle time to clear out his belongings. I am leaving him the outhouse.”
“He asked you to leave him that?” she whispered.
“Yes!”
“You are not going in there at all?”
“Not at all.”
Again she played a little more loudly for a few moments. Then the music died away once more.
“What reason did he give for keeping possession of that?”
“Another hobby,” Hamel replied. “He is an inventor, it seems. He has the model of something there; he would not tell me what.”
She shivered a little, and her music drifted away. She bent over the keys, her face hidden from him.
“You will not go away just yet?” she asked softly. “You are going to stay for a few days, at any rate?”
“Without a doubt,” he assured her. “I am altogether my own master.”
“Thank God,” she murmured.
He leaned with his elbow against the top of the piano, looking down at her. Since dinnertime she had fastened a large red rose in the front of her gown.
“Do you know that this is all rather mysterious?” he said calmly.
“What is mysterious?” she demanded.
“Th
e atmosphere of the place: your uncle’s queer aversion to my having the Tower; your visitor up-stairs, who fights with the servants while we are at dinner; your uncle himself, whose will seems to be law not only to you but to your brother, who must be of age, I should think, and who seems to have plenty of spirit.”
“We live here, both of us,” she told him. “He is our guardian.”
“Naturally,” Hamel replied, “and yet, it may have been my fancy, of course, but at dinnertime I seemed to get a queer impression.”
“Tell it me?” she insisted, her fingers breaking suddenly into a livelier melody. “Tell it me at once? You were there all the time. I could see you watching. Tell me what you thought?”
She had turned her head now, and her eyes were fixed upon his. They were large and soft, capable, he knew, of infinite expression. Yet at that moment the light that shone from them was simply one of fear, half curious, half shrinking.
“My impression,” he said, “was that both of you disliked and feared Mr. Fentolin, yet for some reason or other that you were his abject slaves.”
Her fingers seemed suddenly inspired with diabolical strength and energy. Strange chords crashed and broke beneath them. She played some unfamiliar music with tense and fierce energy. Suddenly she paused and rose to her feet.
“Come out on to the terrace,” she invited. “You are not afraid of cold?”
He followed her without a word. She opened the French windows, and they stepped out on to the long, broad stone promenade. The night was dark, and there was little to be seen. The light was burning at the entrance to the waterway; a few lights were twinkling from the village. The soft moaning of the sea was distinctly audible. She moved to the edge of the palisading. He followed her closely.
“You are right, Mr. Hamel,” she said. “I think that I am more afraid of him than any woman ever was of any man in this world.”
“Then why do you live here?” he protested. “You must have other relations to whom you could go. And your brother—why doesn’t he do something—go into one of the professions? He could surely leave easily enough?”
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