22447.11.22.7

TAS
HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY


RE


THE VANISHED MESSENGER


D
enne






With every muscle of his body and neck he strained
and strained.
FRONTISPIECE. See page 318


సంభోగం లో
ANA
0.00
THE WORKS OF
E. PHILLIPS
OPPENHEIM
THE VANISHED MESSENGER
సూటో సి సి సి డి పిండి పిసికి పిసికి మణి
సూకంలో సిసి డి డి డి పిసికి పిసికి పిసికి పిసికి పిసికి ఈ
New York
The Review of Reviews Co.
- 1920
కు వ్యర్థ పదార్యం త్వర త త ర తర రం పం పం పం పర ర త త వరలక్ష్మి,


22 Lotto ny. Il
HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY/
Copyright, 1914
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
All rights reserved


THE VANISHED MESSENGER
CHAPTER I
There were very few people upon Platform Number
Twenty-one of Liverpool Street Station at a quarter
to nine on the evening of April 2-possibly because
the platform in question is one of the most remote and
least used in the great terminus. The station-master,
however, was there himself, with an inspector in at-
tendance. A dark, thick-set man, wearing a long
travelling ulster and a Homburg hat, and carrying in
his hand a brown leather dressing-case, across which
was painted in black letters the name MR. JOHN P.
DUNSTER, was standing a few yards away, smoking
a long cigar, and to all appearance absorbed in
studying the advertisements which decorated the
grimy wall on the other side of the single track. A
couple of porters were seated upon a barrow which
contained one solitary portmanteau. There were no
signs of other passengers, no other luggage. As a
matter of fact, according to the time-table, no train
was due to leave the station or to arrive at it, on this
particular platform, for several hours.
Down at the other end of the platform the wooden


2 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
barrier was thrust back, and a porter with some lug-
gage upon a barrow made his noisy approach. He
was followed by a tall young man in a grey tweed suit
and a straw hat on which were the colours of a famous
cricket club.
The inspector watched them curiously. “Lost his
way, I should think,” he observed.
The station-master nodded. “ It looks like the
young man who missed the boat train,” he remarked.
“ Perhaps he has come to beg a lift."
The young man in question made steady progress
up the platform. His hands were thrust deep into
the pockets of his coat, and his forehead was con-
tracted in a frown. As he approached more closely,
he singled out Mr. John P. Dunster, and motioning
his porter to wait, crossed to the edge of the track
and addressed him.
“ Can I speak to you for a moment, sir?"
Mr. John P. Dunster turned at once and faced his
questioner. He did so without haste — with a certain
deliberation, in fact — yet his eyes were suddenly
bright and keen. He was neatly dressed, with the
quiet precision which seems as a rule to characterise
the travelling American. He was apparently of a
little less than middle-age, clean-shaven, broad-
shouldered, with every appearance of physical
strength. He seemed like a man on wires, a man on
the alert, likely to miss nothing.
“ Are you Mr. John P. Dunster? " the youth asked.
“I carry my visiting-card in my hand, sir,” the
other replied, swinging his dressing-case around.
“My name is John P. Dunster."
The young man's expression was scarcely ingrati-
a
.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 3
ating. To a natural sullenness was added now the
nervous distaste of one who approaches a disagreeable
task.
“ I want, if I may, to ask you a favour," he con-
tinued. “ If you don't feel like granting it, please
say no and I'll be off at once. I am on my way to The
Hague. I was to have gone by the boat train which
left half an hour ago. I had taken a seat, and they
assured me that the train would not leave for at least
ten minutes, as the mails weren't in. I went down the
platform to buy some papers and stood talking for a
moment or two with a man whom I know. I suppose
I must have been longer than I thought, or they must
have been quicker than they expected with the mail-
bags. Anyhow, when I came back the train was mov-
ing. They would not let me jump in. I could have
done it easily, but that fool of an inspector over there
held me.”
“ They are very strict in this country, I know,"
Mr. Dunster agreed, without change of expression.
“ Please go on.”
“I saw you arrive — just too late for the train.
While I was swearing at the inspector, I heard you
speak to the station-master. Since then I have made
inquiries. I understand that you have ordered a
special train to Harwich."
Mr. John P. Dunster said nothing, only his keen,
clear eyes seemed all the time to be questioning this
gloomy-looking but apparently harmless young man.
“I went to the station-master's office," the latter
continued, “and tried to persuade them to let me
ride in the guard's van of your special, but he made
a stupid fuss about it, so I thought I'd better come


4 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
to you. Can I beg a seat in your compartment, o
anywhere in the train, as far as Harwich ? "
Mr. Dunster avoided, for the moment, a direct re
ply. He had the air of a man who, whether reason-
ably or unreasonably, disliked the request which had
been made to him.
“ You are particularly anxious to cross to-night?”
he asked.
“I am," the youth admitted emphatically. “I
never ought to have risked missing the train. I am
due at The Hague to-morrow."
Mr. John P. Dunster moved his position a little.
The light from a rain-splashed gas lamp shone now
full upon the face of his suppliant: a boy's face,
which would have been pleasant and even handsome
but for the discontented mouth, the lowering fore-
head, and a shadow in the eyes, as though, boy though
he certainly was in years, he had already, at some
time or another, looked upon the serious things of
life. His nervousness, too, was almost grotesque.
He had the air of disliking immensely this asking
a favour from a stranger. Mr. Dunster appreciated
all these things, but there were reasons which made
him slow in granting the young man's request.
“What is the nature of your pressing business at
The Hague?” he asked.
The youth hesitated.
“I am afraid,” he said grimly, “ that you will not
think it of much importance. I am on my way to
play in a golf tournament there."
“A golf tournament at The Hague!” Mr. Dunster
repeated, in a slightly altered tone. "What is your
name?»


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 5
6 Gerald Fentolin.”
Mr. Dunster stood quite still for a moment. He
was possessed of a wonderful memory, and he was
conscious at that moment of a subtle appeal to it.
Fentolin! There was something in the name which
seemed to him somehow associated with the things
against which he was on guard. He stood with puz-
zled frown, reminiscent for several minutes, unsuc-
cessful. Then he suddenly smiled, and moving under-
neath the gas lamp, shook open an evening paper
which he had been carrying. He turned over the
pages until he arrived at the sporting items. Here,
in almost the first paragraph, he saw the name
which had happened to catch his eye a moment or
two before:
GOLF AT THE HAGUE
Among the entrants for the tournament which com-
mences to-morrow, are several well-known English
players, including Mr. Barwin, Mr. Parrott, Mr. Hillard
and Mr. Gerald Fentolin.
Mr. Dunster folded up the newspaper and replaced
it in his pocket. He turned towards the young man.
“ So you're a golfer, are you?”
“I play a bit," was the somewhat indifferent reply.
Mr. Dunster turned to another part of the paper
and pointed to the great black head-lines.
“Seems a queer thing for a young fellow like you
to be worrying about games," he remarked. “I
haven't been in this country more than a few hours,
but I expected to find all the young men getting
ready."
“Getting ready for what? ”


6 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
-
“Why, to fight, of course,” Mr. Dunster replied.
6. Seems pretty clear that there's an expeditionary
force being fitted out, according to this evening's
paper, somewhere up in the North Sea. The only
Englishman I've spoken to on this side was willing to
lay me odds that war would be declared within a
week.”
The young man's lack of interest was curious.
“I am not in the army," he said. “It really
doesn't affect me."
Mr. Dunster stared at him.
“ You'll forgive my curiosity,” he said, “but say,
is there nothing you could get into and fight if this
thing came along?"
“Nothing at all, that I know of,” the youth replied
coolly. “War is an affair which concerns only the
military and naval part of two countries. The civil
population
“Plays golf, I suppose,” Mr. Dunster interrupted.
“ Young man, I haven't been in England for some
years, and you rather take my breath away. All the
same, you can come along with me as far as Harwich."
The young man showed signs of some satisfaction.
“I am very much obliged to you, sir,” he de-
clared. “I promise you I won't be in the way.”
The station-master, who had been looking through
a little pile of telegrams brought to him by a clerk
from his office, now turned towards them. His ex-
pression was a little grave.
“ Your special will be backing down directly, sir,"
he announced, " but I am sorry to say that we hear
very bad accounts of the line. They say that this is
only the fag-end of the storm that we are getting


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 7
here, and that it's been raging for nearly twenty-
four hours on the east coast. I doubt whether the
Harwich boat will be able to put off.”
“We must take our chance about that,” Dunster
remarked. “If the mail boat doesn't run, I presume
there will be something else we can charter.”
The station-master looked the curiosity which he
did not actually express in words.
“ Money will buy most things, nowadays, sir,” he
observed, “but if it isn't fit for our mail boat, it cer-
tainly isn't fit for anything else that can come into
Harwich Harbour. However, you'll hear what they
say when you get there."
Mr. Dunster nodded and relapsed into a taciturn-
ity which was obviously one of his peculiarities. The
young man strolled down the platform, and catching
up with the inspector, touched him on the shoulder.
“ Do you know who the fellow is? ” he asked curi-
ously. “It's awfully decent of him to let me go with
him, but he didn't seem very keen about it."
The inspector shook his head.
“ No idea, sir," he replied. “He drove up just
two minutes after the train had gone, came straight
into the office and ordered a special. Paid for it,
too, in Bank of England notes before he went out.
I fancy he's an American, and he gave his name as
John P. Dunster.”
The young man paused to light a cigarette.
“If he's an American, I suppose that accounts for
it,” he observed. “He must be in a precious hurry
to get somewhere, though.”
“ A night like this, too!” the inspector remarked,
with a shiver. “I wouldn't leave London myself un-


8 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
less I had to. They say there's a tremendous storm
blowing on the east coast. Here comes the train, sir
- just one saloon and the guard's van.”
The little train backed slowly along the platform
side. The engine was splashed with mud and soak-
ing wet. The faces of the engine-driver and his com-
panion shone from the dripping rain. The station-
master held open the door of the saloon.
6 You've a rough journey before you, sir," he said.
“ You'll catch the boat all right, though -- if it goes.
The mail train was very heavy to-night. You
should catch her up this side of Colchester."
Mr. Dunster nodded.
“ I am taking this young gentleman with me,” he
announced shortly. “ It seems that he, too, missed
the train. I am much obliged to you, station-master,
for your attention. Good night!”
They were about to start when Mr. Dunster once
more let down the window.
"By the way," he said, “as it is such a wild night,
you will oblige me very much if you will tell the en-
gine-driver that there will be a five pound note for
himself and his companion if we catch the mail. In-
spector!”
The inspector touched his hat. The station-master
had turned discreetly away. He had been an in-
spector himself once, and sovereigns had been useful
to him, too. Then the train glided from the platform
side, plunged with a scream through a succession of
black tunnels, and with rapidly increasing speed faced
the storm.


CHAPTER II
The young man sat on one side of the saloon and
Mr. John P. Dunster on the other. Although both of
them were provided with a certain amount of rail-
way literature, neither of them made any pretence at
reading. The older man, with his feet upon the op-
posite seat and his arms folded, was looking pensively
through the rain-splashed window-pane into the im-
penetrable darkness. The young man, although he
could not ignore his companion's unsociable instincts,
was fidgety.
“ There will be some floods out to-morrow," he
remarked.
Mr. Dunster turned his head and looked across the
saloon. There was something in the deliberate man-
ner of his doing so, and his hesitation before he spoke,
which seemed intended to further impress upon the
young man the fact that he was not disposed for
conversation.
“ Very likely," was his sole reply. .
Gerald Fentolin sighed as though he regretted his
companion's taciturnity and a few minutes later
strolled to the farther end of the saloon. He spent
some time trying to peer through the streaming win-
dow into the darkness. He chatted for a few minutes
with the guard, who was, however, in a bad temper
at having had to turn out and who found little to say.
at having no to turnout ja muun m
Then he took one of his golf clubs from the bag and
ua


10 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
indulged in several half swings. Finally he stretched
himself out upon one of the seats and closed his eyes.
“May as well try to get a nap,” he yawned.
“ There won't be much chance on the steamer, if it
blows like this.”
Mr. Dunster said nothing. His face was set, his
eyes were looking somewhere beyond the confines of
the saloon in which he was seated. So they travelled
for over an hour. The young man seemed to be doz-
ing in earnest when, with a succession of jerks, the
train rapidly slackened speed. Mr. Dunster let down
the window. The interior of the carriage was at
once thrown into confusion. A couple of newspapers
were caught up and whirled around, a torrent of rain
beat in. Mr. Dunster rapidly closed the window and
rang the bell. The guard came in after a moment
or two. His clothes were shiny from the wet; rain-
drops hung from his beard.
" What is the matter? " Mr. Dunster demanded.
6 Why are we waiting here?”
" There's a block on the line somewhere, sir,” the
man replied. “ Can't tell where exactly. The sig-
nals are against us; that's all we know at present.”
They crawled on again in about ten minutes,
stopped, and resumed their progress at an even slower
rate. Mr. Dunster once more summoned the guard.
“ Why are we travelling like this ? ” he asked im-
patiently. “We shall never catch the boat.”
“ We shall catch the boat all right if it runs, sir,"
the man assured him. “ The mail is only a mile or
two ahead of us; that's one reason why we have to
go so slowly. Then the water is right over the line
where we are now, and we can't get any news at all


THE VANISHED MESSENGER I
from the other side of Ipswich. If it goes on like
this, some of the bridges will be down; that's what
I'm afraid of.”
Mr. Dunster frowned. For the first time he showed
some signs of uneasiness.
“ Perhaps," he muttered, half to himself, “ a motor-
car would have been better."
“ Not on your life,” his young companion inter-
vened. “ All the roads to the coast here cross no
end of small bridges — much weaker affairs than the
railway bridges. I bet there are some of those down
already. Besides, you wouldn't be able to see where
you were going, on a night like this."
“ There appears to be a chance," Mr. Dunster re-
marked drily," that you will have to scratch for your
competition to-morrow.”
“Also," the young man observed, “ that you will
have taken this special train for nothing. I can't
fancy the Harwich boat going out a night like this."
Mr. Dunster relapsed into stony but anxious silence.
The train continued its erratic progress, sometimes
stopping altogether for a time, with whistle blowing
repeatedly; sometimes creeping along the metals as
though feeling its way to safety. At last, after a
somewhat prolonged wait, the guard, whose hoarse
voice they had heard on the platform of the small sta-
tion in which they were standing, entered the carriage.
With him came a gust of wind, once more sending the
papers flying around the compartment. The rain
dripped from his clothes on to the carpet. He had
lost his hat, his hair was tossed with the wind, his
face was bleeding from a slight wound on the temple.
“ The boat train's just ahead of us, sir," he an-


12 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
nounced. “She can't get on any better than we can.
We've just heard that there's a bridge down on the
line between Ipswich and Harwich.”
“What are we going to do, then? ” Mr. Dunster
demanded.
“That's just what I've come to ask you, sir,” the
guard replied. “The mail's going slowly on as far
as Ipswich. I fancy they'll lie by there until the
morning. The best thing that I can see is, if you're
agreeable, to take you back to London. We can
very likely do that all right, if we start at once.”
Mr. Dunster, ignoring the man's suggestion, drew
from one of the voluminous pockets of his ulster a
small map. He spread it open upon the table before
him and studied it attentively.
“If I cannot get to Harwich," he asked, “ is there
any possibility of keeping straight on and reaching
Yarmouth?”
The guard hesitated.
“ We haven't heard anything about the line from
Ipswich to Norwich, sir," he replied, “but we can't
very well change our course without definite instruc-
tions.”
“Your definite instructions," Mr. Dunster reminded
him drily, “ were to take me to Harwich. You have
been forced to depart from them. I see no harm
in your adopting any suggestions I may have to make
concerning our altered destination. I will pay the
extra mileage, naturally.”
“ How far did you wish to go, sir? " the guard en-
quired.
“ To Yarmouth,” Mr. Dunster replied firmly. “If
there are bridges down, and communication with Har-


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 13
wich is blocked, Yarmouth would suit me better than
anywhere.”
The guard shook his head.
“I couldn't go on that way, sir, without instruc-
tions."
" Is there a telegraph office at this station? ” Mr.
Dunster inquired.
“We can speak anywhere on the line," the guard
replied.
“ Then wire to the station-master at Liverpool
Street,” Mr. Dunster instructed. “You can get a
reply from him in the course of a few minutes. Ex-
plain the situation and tell him what my wishes are.”
The guard hesitated.
“It's a goodish way from here to Norwich," he
observed, “ and for all we know _"
“ When we left Liverpool Street Station," Mr.
Dunster interrupted, “I promised five pounds each
to you, the engine-driver, and his mate. That five
pounds shall be made twenty-five if you succeed in
getting me to the coast. Do your best for me."
The guard raised his hat and departed without an-
other word.
“ It will probably suit you better,” Mr. Dunster
continued, turning to his companion, “ to leave me at
Ipswich and join the mail.”
The latter shook his head.
“I don't see that there's any chance, anyway, of
my getting over in time now," he remarked. “If
you'll take me on with you as far as Norwich, I can
go quietly home from there."
“You live in this part of the world, then? ” Mr.
Dunster asked.


14 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
The young man assented. Again there was a cer-
tain amount of hesitation in his manner.
“I live some distance the other side of Norwich,"
he said. “I don't want to sponge on you too much,"
he went on, “but if you're really going to stick
it out and try and get there, I'd like to go on, too.
I am afraid I can't offer to share the expense, but
I'd work my passage if there was anything to be
done."
Mr. Dunster drummed for a moment upon the table
with his fingers. All the time the young man had been
speaking, his eyes had been studying his face. He
turned now once more to his map.
“ It was my idea,” he said, “ to hire a steam trawler
from Yarmouth. If I do so, you can, if you wish, ac-
company me so far as the port at which we may land
in Holland. On the other hand, to be perfectly frank
with you, I should prefer to go alone. There will be,
no doubt, a certain amount of risk in crossing to-
night. My own business is of importance. A golf
tournament, however, is scarcely worth risking your
life for, is it?"
“Oh, I don't know about that!” the young man
replied grimly. “I fancy I should rather like it
Let's see whether we can get on to Norwich, any-
how, shall we? We may find that there are bridges
down on that line.”
They relapsed once more into silence. Presently
the guard reappeared.
“ Instructions to take you on to Yarmouth, if pos-
sible, sir,” he announced," and to collect the mileage
at our destination."
“That will be quite satisfactory,” Mr. Dunster


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 15
agreed. “Let us be off, then, as soon as possible.”
Presently they crawled on. They passed the boat
train in Ipswich Station, where they stayed for a
few moments. Mr. Dunster bought wine and sand-
wiches, and his companion followed his example.
Then they continued their journey. An hour or
more passed; the storm showed no signs of abate-
ment. Their speed now rarely exceeded ten or fif-
teen miles an hour. Mr. Dunster smoked all the
time, occasionally rubbing the window-pane and try-
ing to look out. Gerald Fentolin slept fitfully.
“Have you any idea where we are? ” Mr. Dunster
asked once.
The boy cautiously let down the window a little
way. With the noise of the storm came another
sound, to which he listened for a moment with puz-
zled face: a dull, rumbling sound like the falling of
water. He closed the window, breathless.
“I don't think we are far from Norwich. We
passed Forncett, anyhow, some time ago.”
“ Still raining?”
“ In torrents! I can't see a yard ahead of me.
I bet we get some floods after this. I expect they
are out now, if one could only see.”
They crept on. Suddenly, above the storm, they
heard what sounded at first like the booming of a
gun, and then a shrill whistle from some distance
ahead. They felt the jerk as their brakes were hast-
ily applied, the swaying of the little train, and then
the crunching of earth beneath them, the roar of es-
caping steam as their engine ploughed its way on into
the road bed.
“Off the rails ! ” the boy cried, springing to his


16 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
feet. “Hold on tightly, sir. I'd keep away from
the window.”
The carriage swayed and rocked. Suddenly a tele-
graph post seemed to come crashing through the
window and the polished mahogany panels. The
young man escaped it by leaping to one side. It
caught Mr. Dunster, who had just risen to his feet,
upon the forehead. There was a crash all around of
splitting glass, a further shock. They were both
thrown off their feet. The light was suddenly ex-
tinguished. With the crashing of glass, the splitting
of timber — a hideous, tearing sound — the wrecked
saloon, dragging the engine half-way over with it,
slipped down a low embankment and lay on its side,
what remained of it, in a field of turnips.
caught Mr escaped it by binogany panels


18 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
gloomily. “We weren't expecting anything else
through to-night. We'd a man along the line with
a lantern, but he's just been found blown over the
embankment, with his head in a pool of water. Any
one else in your carriage?”
“ One gentleman travelling with me," Gerald an-
swered. “We'd better try to get him out. What
about the guard and engine-driver?"
“ The engine-driver and stoker are both alive,"
the porter told him. “I came across them before I
saw you. They're both knocked sort of sillylike, but
they aren't much hurt. The guard's stone dead."
" Where are we?”
“ A few hundred yards from Wymondham. Let's
have a look for the other gentleman."
Mr. John P. Dunster was lying quite still, his
right leg doubled up, and a huge block of telegraph
post, which the saloon had carried with it in its fall,
still pressing against his forehead. He groaned as
they dragged him out and laid him down upon a
cushion in the shelter of the wreckage.
“He's alive all right," the porter remarked.
" There's a doctor on the way. Let's cover him up
quick and wait.”
“ Can't we carry him to shelter of some sort? "
Gerald proposed.
The man shook his head. Speech of any sort was
difficult. Even with his lips close to the other's ears,
he had almost to shout.
“ Couldn't be done,” he replied. “It's all one can
do to walk alone when you get out in the middle of
the field, away from the shelter of the embankment
here. There's bits of trees flying all down the lane.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 19
Never was such a night! Folks is fair afraid of the
morning to see what's happened. There's a mill
blown right over on its side in the next field, and the
man in charge of it lying dead. This poor chap's
bad enough.”
Gerald, on all fours, had crept back into the com-
partment. The bottle of wine was smashed into
atoms. He came out, dragging the small dressing-
case which his companion had kept on the table be-
fore him. One side of it was dented in, but the lock,
which was of great strength, still held.
“ Perhaps there's a flask somewhere in this dressing-
case," Gerald said. “Lend me a knife.”
Strong though it had been, the lock was already
almost torn out from its foundation. They forced
the spring and opened it. The porter turned his lan-
tern on the widening space. Just as Gerald was
raising the lid very slowly to save the contents from
being scattered by the wind, the man turned his head
to answer an approaching hail. Gerald raised the
lid a little higher and suddenly closed it with a bang.
“There's folks coming at last!" the porter ex-
claimed, turning around excitedly. “They've been
a time and no mistake. The village isn't a quarter
of a mile away. Did you find a flask, sir?"
Gerald made no answer. The dressing-case once
more was closed, and his hand pressed upon the lid.
The porter turned the light upon his face and whis-
tled softly.
“ You're about done yourself, sir,” he remarked.
“ Hold up."
He caught the young man in his arms. There was
another roar in Gerald's ears besides the roar of the


20 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
wina. He had never fainted in his life, but the feel-
ing was upon him now — a deadly sickness, a sway-
ing of the earth. The porter suddenly gave a little
cry.
“If I'm not a born idiot!” he exclaimed, drawing
a bottle from the pocket of his coat with his disen-
gaged hand. “There's whisky here. I was taking
it home to the missis for her rheumatism. Now,
then."
He drew the cork from the bottle with his teeth
and forced some of the liquid between the lips of the
young man. The voices now were coming nearer
and nearer. Gerald made a desperate effort.
“I am all right,” he declared. “Let's look after
him.”
They groped their way towards the unconscious
man, Gerald still gripping the dressing-case with both
hands. There were no signs of any change in his con-
dition, but he was still breathing heavily. Then they
heard a shout behind, almost in their ears. The por-
ter staggered to his feet.
.“ It's all right now, sir!” he exclaimed. “They've
brought blankets and a stretcher and brandy. Here's
a doctor, sir.”
A powerful-looking man, hatless, and wrapped in
a great ulster, moved towards them.
“ How many are there of you?” he asked, as he
bent over Mr. Dunster.
“Only we two,” Gerald replied. “Is my friend
badly hurt? "
“ Concussion,” the doctor announced. “We'll take
him to the village. What about you, young man?
Your face is bleeding, I see.”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 21
6 Just a cut,” Gerald faltered; “ nothing else.”
“ Lucky chap," the doctor remarked. “Let's get
him to shelter of some sort. Come along. There's
an inn at the corner of the lane there."
They all staggered along, Gerald still clutching the
dressing-case, and supported on the other side by an
excited and somewhat incoherent villager.
“ Such a storm as never was,” the latter volun-
teered. “ The telegraph wires are all down for miles
and miles. There won't be no trains running along
this line come many a week, and as for trees — why,
it's as though some one had been playing ninepins
in Squire Fellowes's park. When the morning do
come, for sure there will be things to be seen. This
way, sir. Be careful of the gate.”
They staggered along down the lane, climbing once
over a tree which lay across the lane and far into the
adjoining field. Soon they were joined by more of
the villagers, roused from their beds by rumours of
terrible happenings. The little, single-storey, ivy-
covered inn was all lit up and the door held firmly
open. They passed through the narrow entrance
and into the stone-flagged barroom, where the men laid
down their stretcher. As many of the villagers as
could crowd in filled the pássage. Gerald sank into
a chair. The sudden absence of wind was almost dis-
concerting. He felt himself once more in danger of
fainting. He was only vaguely conscious of drinking
hot milk, poured from a jug by a red-faced and sym-
pathetic woman. Its restorative effect, however, was
immediate and wonderful. The mist cleared from be-
fore his eyes, his brain began to work. Always in the
background the horror and the shame were there, the


22 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
shame which kept his hand pressed with unnatural
strength upon the broken lock of that dressing-case.
He sat a little apart from the others and listened.
Above the confused murmur of voices he could hear
the doctor's comment and brief orders, as he rose to
his feet after examining the unconscious man.
“ An ordinary concussion,” he declared. “I must
get round and see the engine-driver now. They have
got him in a shed by the embankment. I'll call in
again later on. Let's have one more look at you,
young man.”
He glanced at the cut on Gerald's forehead, noted
the access of colour in his cheeks, and nodded.
“ Born to be hanged, you were," he pronounced.
“ You've had a marvellous escape. I'll be in again
presently. No need to worry about your friend.
He looks as though he'd got a mighty constitution.
Light my lantern, Brown. Two of you had better
come with me to the shed. It's no night for a man
to be wandering about alone.”
He departed, and many of the villagers with him.
The landlady sat down and began to weep.
“ Such a night! Such a night!” she exclaimed,
wringing her hands. “And there's the doctor talks
about putting the poor gentleman to bed! Why, the
roof's off the back part of the house, and not a bed-
room in the place but mine and John's, and the rain
coming in there in torrents. Such a night! It's the
judgment of the Lord upon us! That's what it is -
the judgment of the Lord!”
“ Judgment of the fiddlesticks!” her husband
growled. “ Can't you light the fire, woman? What's
the good of sitting there whining?"


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 23
“Light the fire,” she repeated bitterly, “ and the
chimney lying out in the road! Do you want to suf-
focate us all, or is the beer still in your head? It's
your evil doings, Richard Budden, and others like
you, that have brought this upon us. If Mr. Wem-
bley would but come in and pray!”.
Her husband scoffed. He was dressed only in his
shirt and trousers, his hair rough, his braces hanging
down behind.
“ Come in and pray!” he repeated. “ Not he!
Not Mr. Wembley! He's safe tucked up in his bed,
shivering with fear, I'll bet you. He's not getting
his feet wet to save a body or lend a hand here. Souls
are his job. You let the preacher alone, mother, and
tell us what we're going to do with this gentleman.”
“ The Lord only knows !” she cried, wringing her
hands.
“ Can I hire a motor-car from anywhere near?”
Gerald asked.
“ There's motor-cars, right enough,” the innkeeper
replied, “but not many as would be fools enough to
take one out. You couldn't see the road, and I doubt
if one of them plaguey things would stir in this
storm.”
“ Such nonsense as you talk, Richard Budden!” his
wife exclaimed sharply. “It's twenty minutes past
three of the clock, and there's light coming on us
fast. If so be as the young gentleman knows folks
round about here, or happens to live nigh, why
shouldn't he take one of them motor-cars and get
away to some decent place? It'll be better for the
poor gentleman than lying here in a house smitten by
the Lord.”
so be as inand there's lichty minutes


24 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
Gerald rose stiffly to his feet. An idea was forme
ing in his brain. His eyes were bright. He looked
at the body of John Dunster upon the floor, and felt
once more in his pocket,
“ How far off is the garage?” he asked.
“It's right across the way," the innkeeper replied,
66 a speculation of Neighbour Martin's, and a foolish
one it do seem to me. He's two cars there, and one
he lets to the Government for delivering the
mails.”
Gerald felt in his pocket and produced a sover-
eign.
“Give this,” he said, “ to any man you can find
who will go across there and bring me a car - the
most powerful they've got, if there's any difference.
Tell them I'll pay well. This —- my friend will be
much better at home with me than in a strange place
when he comes to his senses."
" It's sound common sense,” the woman declared.
“Be off with you, Richard.”
The man was looking at the coin covetously, but
his wife pushed him away.
“ It's not a sovereign .you'll be taking from the
gentleman for a little errand like that,” she insisted
sharply. “He shall pay us for what he's had when
he goes, and welcome, and if so be that he's willing
to make it a sovereign, to include the milk and the
brandy and the confusion we've been put to this night,
well and good. It's a heavy reckoning, maybe, but
the night calls for it. We'll see about that after-
wards. Get along with you, I say, Richard."
“I'll be wet through," the man muttered.
“ And serve you right!” the woman exclaimed.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 25
“ If there's a man in this village to-night whose
clothes are dry, it's a thing for him to be ashamed
of.”
The innkeeper reluctantly departed. They heard
the roar of the wind as the door was opened and
closed. The woman poured out another glass of milk
and brought it to Gerald.
“A godless man, mine," she said grimly. “If so
happen as Mr. Wembley had come to these parts years
ago, I'd have seen myself in my grave before I'd have
married a publican. But it's too late now. We're
mostly too late about the things that count in this
world. So it's your friend that's been stricken down,
young man. A well-living man, I hope ? "
Gerald shivered ever so slightly. He drank the
milk, however. He felt that he might need his
strength.
“What train might you have been on?” the woman
continued. “There's none due on this line that we
knew of. David Bass, the station-master, was here
but two hours ago and said he'd finished for the night,
and praised the Lord for that. The goods trains
had all been stopped at Ipswich, and the first passen-
ger train was not due till six o'clock."
Gerald shook his head with an affectation of weari-
ness.
“I don't know," he replied. “I don't remember
anything about it. We were hours late, I think.”
The woman was looking down at the unconscious
man. Gerald rose slowly to his feet and stood by her
side. The face of Mr. John P. Dunster, even in un-
consciousness, had something in it of strength and
purpose. The shape of his head, the squareness of
topped at Ipswihat. The or the night,


26 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
his jaws, the straightness of his thick lips, all seemed
to speak of a hard and inflexible disposition. His
hair was coal black, coarse, and without the slightest
sprinkling of grey. He had the neck and throat of a
fighter. But for that single, livid, blue mark across
his forehead, he carried with him no signs of his acci-
dent. He was a little inclined to be stout. There
was a heavy gold chain stretched across his waist-
coat. From where he lay, the shining handle of his
revolver protruded from his hip pocket.
“ Sakes alive!” the woman muttered, as she looked
down. “What does he carry a thing like that for —
in a peaceful country, too!”
“ It was just an idea of his," Gerald answered.
“We were going abroad in a day or two. He was al-
ways nervous. If you like, I'll take it away."
He stooped down and withdrew it from the uncon-
scious man's pocket. He started as he discovered that
it was loaded in every chamber.
“I can't bear the sight of them things," the woman
declared. “It's the men" of evil ways, who've no
trust in the Lord, who need that sort of protec-
tion.”
They heard the door pushed open, the howl of wind
down the passage, and the beating of rain upon
the stone flags. Then it was softly closed again.
The landlord staggered into the room, followed by a
young man.
“ This 'ere is Mr. Martin's chaffer,” he announced.
“ You can tell him what you want yerself.”
Gerald turned almost eagerly towards the new-
comer.
“ I want to go to the other side of Holt," he said,


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 27
" and get my friend — get this gentleman away from
here - get him home, if possible. Can you take
me?”
The chauffeur looked doubtful.
“ I'm afraid of the roads, sir," he replied.
“ There's talk about many bridges down, and trees,
and there's floods out everywhere. There's half a
foot of water, even, across the village street now.
I'm afraid we shouldn't get very far.”
“Look here,” Gerald begged eagerly, “ let's make
a shot at it. I'll pay you double the hire of the car,
and I'll be responsible for any damage. I want to
get out of this beastly place. Let's get somewhere,
at any rate, towards a civilised country. I'll see
you don't lose anything. I'll give you a five pound
note for yourself if we get as far as Holt.”
" I'm on,” the young man agreed shortly. “It's
an open car, you know.”
“ It doesn't matter," Gerald replied. “I can
stick it in front with you, and we can cover - him
up in the tonneau."
“ You'll wait until the doctor comes back?” the
landlord asked.
“ And why should they?” his wife interposed
sharply. “ Them doctors are all the same. He'll
try and keep the poor gentleman here for the sake
of a few extra guineas, and a miserable place for
him to open his eyes upon, even if the rest of the roof
holds, which for my part I'm beginning to doubt.
They'd have to move him from here with the day-
light, anyhow. He can't lie in the bar parlour all
day, can he ? "
“ It don't seem right, somehow," the man com-
They'd have for my part I'm in the rest of the roof


28 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
-
-
-
-
-
- -
-
-- -
-
-
plained doggedly. “ The doctor didn't say anything
about having him moved.”
“ You get the car,” Gerald ordered the young man.
“ I'll take the whole responsibility.”
The chauffeur silently left the room. Gerald put
a couple of sovereigns upon the mantelpiece.
“ My friend is a man of somewhat peculiar tem-
perament,” he said quietly. “If he finds himself at
home in a comfortable room when he comes to his
senses, I am quite sure that he will have a better
chance of recovery. He cannot possibly be made
comfortable here, and he will feel the shock of what
has happened all the more if he finds himself still in
the neighbourhood when he opens his eyes. If there is
any change in his condition, we can easily stop some-
where on the way.”
The woman pocketed the two sovereigns.
“ That's common sense, sir,” she agreed heartily,
“and I'm sure we are very much obliged to you. If
we had a decent room, and a roof above it, you'd be
heartily welcome, but as it is, this is no place for
a sick man, and those that say different don't know
what they are talking about. That's a real careful
young man who's going to take you along in the
motor-car. He'll get you there safe, if any one will."
“What I say is,” her husband protested sullenly,
“ that we ought to wait for the doctor's orders.
I'm against seeing a poor body like that jolted across
the country in an open motor-car, in his state. I'm
not sure that it's for his good.”
“ And what business is it of yours, I should like to
know?” the woman demanded sharply. “You get
up-stairs and begin moving the furniture from where


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 29
the rain's coming sopping in. And if so be you can
remember while you do it that this is a judgment
that's come upon us, why, so much the better. We
are evil-doers, all of us, though them as likes the easy
ways generally manage to forget it.”
The man retreated silently. The woman sat down
upon a stool and waited. Gerald sat opposite to her,
the battered dressing-case upon his knees. Between
them was stretched the body of the unconscious man.
“ Are you used to prayer, young sir?” the woman
asked.
Gerald shook his head, and the woman did not
pursue the subject. Only once her eyes were half
closed and her words drifted across the room.
66 The Lord have mercy on this man, a sinner!”


CHAPTER IV
“My advice to you, sir, is to chuck it ! ”
Gerald turned towards the chauffeur by whose side
he was seated a little stiffly, for his limbs were numbed
with the cold and exhaustion. The morning had
broken with a grey and uncertain light. A vapor-
ous veil of mist seemed to have taken the place of the
darkness. Even from the top of the hill where the
car had come to a standstill, there was little to be
seen.
“ We must have come forty miles already," the
chauffeur continued, “what with going out of our
way all the time because of the broken bridges.
I'm pretty well frozen through, and as for him,"
he added, jerking his thumb across his shoulder, “ it
seems to me you're taking a bit of a risk.”
“ The doctor said he would remain in exactly the
same condition for twenty-four hours,” Gerald de-
clared.
“ Yes, but he didn't say anything about shaking
him up over forty miles of rough road,” the other
protested. “You'll excuse me, sir,” he continued,
in a slightly changed tone; “it isn't my business, of
course, but I'm fairly done. It don't seem reasonable
to stick at it like this. There's Holt village not a
mile away, and a comfortable inn and a fire waiting.
I thought that was as far as you wanted to come.
We might lie up there for a few hours, at any rate."


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 31
His passenger slipped down from his place, and,
lifting the rug, peered into the tonneau of the car,
over which they had tied a hood. To all appear-
ance, the condition of the man who lay there was
unchanged. There was a slightly added blueness
about the lips but his breathing was still perceptible.
It seemed even a little stronger. Gerald resumed his
seat.
“ It isn't worth while to stay at Holt,” he said
quietly. “We are scarcely seven miles from home
now. Sit still for a few minutes and get your
wind.”
“ Only seven miles,” the chauffeur repeated more
cheerfully. “That's something, anyway.”
“ And all downhill.”
“ Towards the sea, then ? "
“ Straight to the sea,” Gerald told him. “The
place we are making for is St. David's Hall, near
Salthouse.”
The chauffeur seemed a little startled.
" Why, that's Squire Fentolin's house ! ”
Gerald nodded.
“ That is where we are going. You follow this
road almost straight ahead.”
The chauffeur slipped in the clutch.
“Oh, I know the way now, sir, right enough!”
he exclaimed. “There's Salthouse marsh to cross,
though. I don't know about that.”
“We shall manage that all right,” Gerald de-
clared. “We've more light now, too."
They both looked around. During the last few
minutes the late morning seemed to have forced its
way through the clouds. They had a dim, phan-


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 33
to have come suddenly upon a huge plain of waters,
an immense lake reaching as far as they could see
on either side. The road before them stretched like
a ribbon for the next three miles. Here and there
it disappeared and reappeared again. In many places
it was • lapped by little waves. Everywhere the
hedges were either altogether or half under water. In
the distance was one farmhouse, only the roof of
which was visible, and from which the inhabitants
were clambering into a boat. And beyond, with
scarcely a break save for the rising of one strangely-
shaped hill, was the sea. Gerald pointed with his
finger.
“ There's St. David's Hall,” he said, “ on the other
side of the hill.' The road seems all right.”
6.Does it !” the chauffeur grunted. “It's under
water more than half the way, and Heaven knows how
deep it is at the sides! I'm not going to risk my
life along there. I am going to take the car back
to Holt.”
His hand was already upon the reverse lever, but
Gerald gripped it.
“Look here,” he protested, “ we haven't come all
this way to turn back. You don't look like a cow-
ard.”
“I am not a coward, sir," was the quiet answer.
“ Neither am I a fool. I don't see any use in risking
our lives and my master's motor-car, because you
want to get home.”
“ Naturally,” Gerald answered calmly, “but re
member this. I am responsible for your car — not
you. Mr. Fentolin is my uncle."
The chauffeur nodded shortly.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 35
guide them. The chauffeur muttered to himself as
he changed to his first speed.
“ If the engine gets stopped,” he said, “I don't
know how we shall get out of this.”
They emerged on the other side. For some time
they had a clear run. Then suddenly the driver
clapped on his brakes.
“My God!” he cried. “We can't get through
that!”
In front of them for more than a hundred yards
the water seemed suddenly to have flowed across the
road. Still a mile distant, perched on a ridge of that
strangely-placed hill, was their destination.
“ It can't be done, sir!” the man groaned.
“ There isn't a car ever built could get through that.
See, it's nearly up to the top of those posts. I must
put her in the reverse and get back, even if we have
to wait on the higher part of the road for a boat.”
He glanced behind, and a second cry broke from
his kips. Gerald stood up in his place. Already the
road which had been clear a few minutes before was
hidden. The water was washing almost over the tops
of the white posts behind them. Little waves were
breaking against the summit of the raised bank.
“We're cut off !” the chauffeur exclaimed.
“ What a fool I was to try this! There's the tide
coming in as well!”
Gerald sat down in his place.
“Look here," he said, “ we can't go back, whether
we want to or not. It's much worse behind there
than it is in front. There's only one chance. Go
for it straight ahead in your first speed. It may not
stop the engine. In any case, it will be worse pres-


36 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
ently. There's no use funking it. If the worst hap-
pens, we can sit in the car. The water won't be
above our heads and there are some boats about.
Blow your horn well first, in case there's any one
within hearing, and then go for it."
The chauffeur obeyed. They hissed and splut-
tered into the water. Soon all trace of the road was
completely lost. They steered only by the tops of
the white posts.
“ It's getting deeper," the man declared. “It's
within an inch or two of the bonnet now. Hold on."
A wave broke almost over them but the engine con-
tinued its beat.
“ If we stop now," he gasped, “ we're done! ”
The engine began to knock.
“Stick at it,” Gerald cried, rising in his place a
little. “Look, there's only one post lower than the
last one that we passed. They get higher all the
time, ahead. You can almost see the road in front
there. Now, in with your gear again, and stick at
it.”
Another wave broke, this time completely over them.
They listened with strained ears - the engine con-
tinued to beat. They still moved slowly. Then there
was a shock. The wheel had struck something in the
road - a great stone or rock. The chauffeur thrust
the car out of gear. The engine still beat. Gerald
leaped from the car. The water was over his knees.
He crossed in front of the bonnet and stooped down.
“ I've got it!” he exclaimed, tugging hard. “It's
a stone."
He moved it, rolled it on one side, and pushed at
the wheel of the car as his companion put in the


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 37
first speed. They started again. He jumped back
into his place.
“ We've done it, all right!” he cried. “Don't you
see? It's getting lower all the time.”
The chauffeur had lost his nerve. His cheeks were
pale, his teeth were chattering. The engine, however,
was still beating. Gradually the pressure of the
water grew less. In front of them they caught a
glimpse of the road. They drew up at the top of a
little bridge over one of the dikes. Gerald uttered
a brief exclamation of triumph.
“ We're safe!” he almost sobbed. “There's the
road, straight ahead and round to the right. There's
no more water anywhere near.”
They had left the main part of the flood behind
them. There were still great pools in the side of the
road, and huge masses of seaweed had been carried
up and were lying in their track. There was no more
water, however. At every moment they drew nearer
to the strangely-shaped hill with its crown of trees.
“ The house is on the other side,” Gerald pointed
out. “We can go through the lodge gates at the
back here. The ascent isn't so steep.”
They turned sharply to the right, along another
stretch of straight road set with white posts, ending
before a red brick lodge and a closed gate. They
blew the horn and a gardener came out. He gazed
at them in amazement.
“ It's all right," Gerald cried. “Let us through
quickly, Foulds. We've a gentleman in behind who's
ill.”
The man swung open the gate with a respectful
salute. They made their way up a winding drive


38 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
of considerable length, and at last they came to a
broad, open space almost like a platform. On their
left were the marshes, and beyond, the sea. Along
their right stretched the long front of an Elizabethan
mansion. They drew up in front of the hall door.
Their coming had been observed, and servants were
already waiting. Gerald sprang to the ground.
• There's a gentleman in behind who's ill,” he ex-
plained to the butler. “He has met with an accident
on the way. Three or four of you had better carry
him up to a bedroom — any one that is ready. And
you, George," he added, turning to a boy, “ get into
the car and show this man the way round to the ga-
rage, and then take him to the servants' hall.”
Several of the servants hastened to do his bidding,
and Gerald did his best to answer the eager but re-
spectful stream of questions. And then, just as they
were in the act of lifting the still unconscious man on
to the floor of the hall, came a queer sound -- a shrill,
reverberating whistle. They all looked up the stairs.
« The master is awake," Henderson, the butler, re-
marked, dropping his voice a little.
Gerald nodded.
“I will go to him at once," he said.


CHAPTER V
Accustomed though he was to the sight which he
was about to face, Gerald shivered slightly as he
opened the door of Mr. Fentolin's room. A strange
sort of fear seemed to have crept into his bearing and
expression, a fear of which there had been no traces
whatever during those terrible hours through which
he had passed — not even during that last reckless
journey across the marshes. He walked with hesitat-
ing footsteps across the spacious and lofty room.
He had the air of some frightened creature approach-
ing his master. Yet all that was visible of the despot
who ruled his whole household in deadly fear was the
kindly and beautiful face of an elderly man, whose
stunted limbs and body were mercifully concealed.
He sat in a little carriage, with a rug drawn closely
across his chest and up to his armpits. His beauti-
fully shaped hands were exposed, and his face; noth-
ing else. His hair was a silvery white; his complex-
ion parchment-like, pallid, entirely colourless. His
eyes were a soft shade of blue. His features were so
finely cut and chiselled that they resembled some ex-
quisite piece of statuary. He smiled as his nephew
came slowly towards him. One might almost have
fancied that the young man's abject state was a source
of pleasure to him.
“ So you are back again, my dear Gerald. A


40 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
pleasant surprise, indeed, but what is the meaning of
it? And what of my little commission, eh?”
The young man's face was dark and sullen. He
spoke quickly but without any sign of eagerness or
interest in the information he vouchsafed.
“ The storm has stopped all the trains," he said.
“ The boat did not cross last night, and in any case
I couldn't have reached Harwich. As for your com-
mission, I travelled down from London alone with the
man you told me to spy upon. I could have stolen
anything he had if I had been used to the work. As
it was — I brought the man himself.”
Mr. Fentolin's delicate fingers played with the han-
dle of his chair. The smile had passed from his
lips. He looked at his nephew in gentle bewilder-
ment.
“My dear boy,” he protested, “come, come, be
careful what you are saying. You have brought the
man himself! So far as my information goes, Mr.:
John P. Dunster is charged with a very important
diplomatic commission. He is on his way to Cologne,
and from what I know about the man, I think that it
would require more than your persuasions to induce
him to break off his journey. You do not really wish
me to believe that you have brought him here as a
guest ? »
“I was at Liverpool Street Station last night,"
Gerald declared. “I had no idea how to accost him,
and as to stealing any of his belongings, I couldn't
have done it. You must hear how fortune helped me,
though. Mr. Dunster missed the train; so did I -
purposely. He ordered a special. I asked permis-
sion to travel with him. I told him a lie as to how


42 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
doctor said he would remain so for at least twenty-
four hours, and it didn't seem to me that the journey
would do him any particular harm. The roof had
been stripped off the inn where we were, and the place
was quite uninhabitable, so we should have had to
have moved him somewhere. We put him in the ton-
neau of the car and covered him up. They have
carried him now into a bedroom, and Sarson is look-
ing after him.”
Mr. Fentolin sat quite silent. His eyes blinked
once or twice, and there was a curious curve about
his lips.
“ You have done well, my boy,” he pronounced
slowly. “ Your scheme of bringing him here sounds
a little primitive, but success justifies everything."
Mr. Fentolin raised to his lips and blew softly a
little gold whistle which hung from a chain attached
to his waistcoat. Almost immediately the door
opened. A man entered, dressed somberly in black,
whose bearing and demeanour alike denoted the serv-
ant, but whose physique was the physique of a prize-
fighter. He was scarcely more than five feet six in
height, but his shoulders were extraordinarily broad.
He had a short, bull neck and long, mighty arms.
His face, with the heavy jaw and small eyes, was the
face of the typical fighting man, yet his features
seemed to have become disposed by habit into an ex-
pression of gentle, almost servile civility.
“ Meekins," Mr. Fentolin said, “ a visitor has ar-
rived. Do you happen to have noticed what luggage
he brought? "
“ There is one small dressing-case, sir,” the man re-
plied; “ nothing else that I have seen.”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 43
“ That is all we brought,” Gerald interposed.
“ You will bring the dressing-case here at once,"
Mr. Fentolin directed, “ and also my compliments to
Doctor Sarson, and any pocket-book or papers which
may help us to send a message to the gentleman's
friends."
Meekins closed the door and departed. Mr. Fen-
tolin turned back towards his nephew.
“My dear boy,” he said, “ tell me why you look
as though there were ghosts flitting about the room?
You are not ill, I trust? ”
“ Tired, perhaps,” Gerald answered shortly. “We
were many hours in the car. I have had no sleep.”
Mr. Fentolin's face was full of kindly sympathy.
“My dear fellow," he exclaimed, “ I am selfish, in-
deed! I should not have kept you here for a moment.
You had better go and lie down.”
“ I'll go directly,” Gerald promised. “ Can I
speak to you for one moment first?”
“Speak to me?" Mr. Fentolin repeated, a little
wonderingly. “My dear Gerald, is there ever a mo-
ment when I am not wholly at your service? ”.
" That fellow Dunster, on the platform, the first
moment I spoke to him, made me feel like a cur,” the
boy said, with a sudden access of vigour in his tone.
“I told him I was on my way to a golf tournament,
and he pointed to the news about the war. Is it true,
uncle, that we may be at war at any moment?”
Mr. Fentolin sighed.
“A terrible reflection, my dear boy,” he admitted
softly, “but, alas ! the finger of probability points
that way."
“ Then what about me?” Gerald exclaimed. “I


44 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
don't want to complain, but listen. You dragged me
home from a public school before I could even join
my cadet corps. You've kept me hanging around
here with a tutor. You wouldn't let me go to the
university. You've stopped my entering either of the
services. I am nineteen years old and useless. Do
you know what I should do to-morrow if war broke
out? Enlist! It's the only thing left for me."
Mr. Fentolin was shocked.
“My dear boy!” he exclaimed. “You must not
talk like that! I am quite sure that it would break
your mother's heart. Enlist, indeed! Nothing of
the sort. You are part of the civilian population of
the country.”
“ Civilian population be d-d!” the boy suddenly
cried, white with rage. “Uncle, forgive me, I have
stood all I can bear. If you won't let me go in for
the army - I could pass my exams to-morrow — I'm
off. I'll enlist without waiting for the war. I can't
bear this idle life any longer."
Mr. Fentolin leaned a little forward in his chair.
“ Gerald !” he said softly.
The boy turned his head, turned it unwillingly.
He had the air of a caged animal obeying the word of
his keeper. A certain savage uncouthness seemed to
have fallen upon him during the last few minutes.
There was something almost like a snarl in his ex-
pression.
" Gerald ! ” Mr. Fentolin repeated.
Then it was obvious that there was something be-
tween those two, some memory or some living thing,
seldom, if ever, to be spoken of, and yet always
present. The boy began to tremble.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 45
66 You're a little overwrought, Gerald,” Mr. Fen-
tolin declared. “ Sit quietly in my easy-chair for a
few moments. Wait until I have examined Mr. Dun-
ster's belongings. Ah! Meekins has been prompt, in-
deed.”
There was a stealthy tap at the door. Meekins
entered with the small dressing-case in his hand. He
brought it over to his master's chair. Mr. Fentolin
pointed to the floor.
« Open it there, Meekins," he directed. “I fancy
that the pocket-book you are carrying will prove more
interesting. We will just glance through the dres-
sing-case first. Thank you. Yes, you can lay the
things upon the floor. A man of Spartan-like life,
I should imagine Mr. Dunster. A spare toothbrush,
though, I am glad to see. Pyjamas of most unat-
tractive pattern. And what a taste in shirts !
Nothing but wearing apparel and singularly little of
that, I fancy."
The dressing-case was empty, its contents upon the
floor. Mr. Fentolin held out his hand and took the
pocket-book which Meekins had been carrying. It
was an ordinary morocco affair, similar to those is-
sued by American banking houses to enclose letters of
credit. One side of it was filled with notes. Mr.
Tentolin withdrew them and glanced them through.
“ Dear me!.. he murmured. “No wonder our
friend engages special trains! He travels like a
prince, indeed. Two thousand pounds, or near it,
in this little compartment. And here, I see, a letter,
a sealed letter with no address.”
He held it out in front of him. It was a long
commercial envelope of ordinary type, and although


46 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
the flap was secured with a blob of sealing wax, there
was no particular impression upon it.
“ We can match this envelope, I think,” Mr. Fen-
tolin said softly. “The seal we can copy. I think
that, for the sake of others, we must discover the
cause for this hurried journey on the part of Mr.
John P. Dunster.”
With his long, delicate forefinger Mr. Fentolin slit
the envelope and withdrew the single sheet of paper
which it contained. There were a dozen lines of writ-
ten matter, and what appeared to be a dozen signa-
tures appended. Mr. Fentolin read it, at first with
ordinary interest. Then a change came. The look
of a man drawn out of himself, drawn out of all
knowledge of his surroundings or his present state,
stole into his face. Literally he became transfixed.
The delicate fingers of his left hand gripped the sides
of his little carriage. His eyes shone as though
those few written lines upon which they were riveted
were indeed some message from an unknown, an un-
imagined world. Yet no word ever passed his lips.
There came a time when the tension seemed a little
relaxed. With fingers which still trembled, he folded
up the sheet and replaced it in the envelope. He
guarded it with both his hands and sat quite still.
Neither Gerald nor his servant moved. Somehow,
the sense of Mr. Fentolin's suppressed excitement
seemed to have become communicated to them. It
was a little tableau, broken at last by Mr. Fentolin
himself.
“I should like," he said, turning to Gerald, “ to
be alone. It may interest you to know that this docu-
ment which Mr. Dunster has brought across the seas,


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 47
and which I hold in my hands, is the most amazing
message of modern times.”
Gerald rose to his feet.
66 What are you going to do about it?” he asked
abruptly. “Do you want any one in from the tele-
graph room ? "
Mr. Fentolin shook his head slowly.
“At present,” he announced, “I am going to re-
flect. Meekins, my chair to the north window — so.
I am going to sit here,” he went on, “and I am going
to look across the sea and reflect. A very fortunate
storm, after all, I think, which kept Mr. John P.
Dunster from the Harwich boat last night! Leave
me, Gerald, for a time. Stand behind my chair,
Meekins, and see that no one enters.”
Mr. Fentolin sat in his chair, his hands still grip-
ping the wonderful document, his eyes travelling over
the ocean now flecked with sunlight. His eyes were
fixed upon the horizon. He looked steadily east-
ward.


CHAPTER VI
Mr. John P. Dunster opened his eyes upon strange
surroundings. He found himself lying upon a bed
deliciously soft, with lace-edged sheets and lavender-
perfumed bed hangings. Through the discreetly
opened upper window came a pleasant and ozone-
laden breeze. The furniture in the room was mostly
of an old-fashioned type, some of it of oak, curiously
carved, and most of it surmounted with a coat of
arms. The apartment was lofty and of almost
palatial proportions. The whole atmosphere of the
place breathed comfort and refinement. The only
thing of which he did not wholly approve was the face
of the nurse who rose silently to her feet at his mur-
mured question:
“Where am I?”
She felt his forehead, altered a bandage for a mo-
ment, and took his wrist between her fingers.
6 You have been ill," she said. " There was a rail-
way accident. You are to lie quite still and not say
a word. I am going to fetch the doctor now. He
wished to see you directly you spoke.”
Mr. Dunster dozed again for several moments.
When he reopened his eyes, a man was standing by
his bedside, a short man with a black beard and gold-
rimmed glasses. Mr. Dunster, in this first stage of
his convalescence, was perhaps difficult to please, for
he did not like the look of the doctor, either.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 49
“ Please tell me where I am ? ” he begged.
“ You have been in a railway accident,” the doctor
told him, “ and you were brought here afterwards.”
“In a railway accident,” Mr. Dunster repeated.
“ Ah, yes, I remember! I took a special to Harwich
- I remember now. Where is my dressing-bag?”
“ It is here by the side of your bed.”
“.And my pocket-book ? "
“ It is on your dressing-table.”
“ Have any of my things been looked at?"
“ Only so far as was necessary to discover your
identity,” the doctor assured him. “Don't talk too
much. The nurse is bringing you some beef tea.”
“ When,” Mr. Dunster enquired, “ shall I be able to
continue my journey?”
“ That depends upon many things," the doctor
replied.
Mr. Dunster drank his beef tea and felt consider-
ably stronger. His head still ached, but his memory
was returning.
“ There was a young man in the carriage with me,"
he asked presently. “Mr. Gerald something or other
I think he said his name was?”
“ Fentolin,” the doctor said. “He is unhurt.
This is his relative's house to which you have been
brought.”
Mr. Dunster lay for a time with knitted brows.
Once more the name of Fentolin seemed somehow
familiar to him, seemed somehow to bring with it
to his memory a note of warning. He looked around
the room fretfully. He looked into the nurse's face,
which he disliked exceedingly, and he looked at the
doctor, whom he was beginning to detest.


50 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“ Whose house exactly is this? " he demanded.
“ This is St. David's Hall — the home of Mr. Miles
Fentolin,” the doctor told him. “ The young gentle-
man with whom you were travelling is his nephew.”
“ Can I send a telegram? ” Mr. Dunster asked, a
little abruptly.
“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 hesi-
tated.
“ 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


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 51
to leave before three days are up. Are you the doc-
tor 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 Amer-
ican and I am used to plain speech. I am quite un-
used to being attended by strange doctors. I under-
stand 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 quali-
fications. 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 ob-
scured memory the name of Fentolin seemed to be
continually asserting itself. From somewhere or
other, the amazing sense which sometimes gives warn-
ing of danger to men of adventure, seemed to have
opened its feelers. He rested because he was ex-
hausted, 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 pic-
ture gallery where masterpieces of Van Dyck and
Rubens frowned and leered down upon him; descended
the final stretch of broad oak stairs, crossed the hall,


52 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
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 repeat-
edly out of the window and back to his canvas, paint-
ing 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


54 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“ 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 dur-
ing 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 un-
disturbed 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 VANISHED MESSENGER 55
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 pro-
tested. “My tongue, if you please.”
He put it out.
“ Excellent ! ”
“ We must make quite certain,” Mr. Fentolin con-
tinued. " There are so many people who would miss
me. My place in the world would not be easily filled.
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 stepped back.
“ There is no change in your condition, Mr. Fento-
lin,” 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 sati
isfied, Sarson? You are keeping nothing back from
me ? »
The doctor looked at him with grim, impassive
face.
66 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."


56 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
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
The two men who were supping together in the
grillroom at the Café Milan were talking with a se-
riousness 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 even-
ing. 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, nowa-
days, 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 at-
tentive maître d'hôtel 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


58 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
of things yet. Let me ask you a plain question
What do you think of us all ? "
“ Think of you?” Hamel repeated, a little doubt-
fully. “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 cer-
tainly an aged appearance. The hair about his tem-
ples was grey; there were lines about his mouth and
forehead. He had the air of one who lived in an at-
mosphere 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. Pol-
itics 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, Reg-
gie?” 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 un-
son one can un.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 59
burden 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 English-
men who have been arrested are, to my certain knowl-
edge, connected with our Secret Service, and they have
been arrested, in many cases, where there are no forti-
fications 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
ister 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 con-
ference, I think you will be able, broadly speaking, to
divine its purpose. The clouds have been gathering ·


60 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
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 con-
ditions to protect our own shores. There isn't a
single battleship which could be safely spared. Can-
ada, 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 posses-
sions as we have done!”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 61
ried our
nad our
ational
rs ago
I have
You
many
most
re is
eally
“ 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 confer-
ence. Are you sure that your information is re-
liable? ”
“Our information is miserably scanty,” Kinsley ad-
mitted. “ 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 ac-
cident 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 some-
how or other he has managed to keep in touch with
all the political movements of the 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 in-


62 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
stalled; 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 re-
turned 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 actu-
ally 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 de-
press 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?"


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 63
“ 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.”
“You mean to say,” Hamel asked, “ that you seri-
ously believe that a conference is on the point of
being held at which France and Russia are to be in-
vited to consider suggestions like this?”
“I am afraid there's no doubt about it,” Kinsley
declared. * Their ambassadors in London profess to
know nothing. That, of course, is their reasonable
attitude, but there's no doubt whatever that the con-
ference has been planned. I should say that to-night
we are nearer war, if we can summon enough spirit to
fight, than we have been since Fashoda.”
" Queer if I have returned just in time for the
scrap," Hamel remarked thoughtfully. “I was in
the Militia once, so I expect I can get a job, if there's
any fighting.”
“I can get you a better job than fighting — one
you can start on to-morrow, too,” Kinsley announced
abruptly, “ that is if you really want to help? "
“Of course I do," Hamel insisted. “ I'm on for
anything.”
“ You say that you are entirely your own master
for the next six months ? "
" Or as much longer as I like," Hamel assented.
“No plans at all, except that I might drift round to


64. THE VANISHED MESSENGER
the Norfolk coast and look up some of the places
where the governor used to paint. There's a queer
little house — St. David's Tower, I believe they call it
- which really belongs to me. It was given to my
father, or rather he bought it, from a man who I
think must have been some relative of your friend. I
feel sure the name was Fentolin.”
Reginald Kinsley set down his wine-glass.
“ Is your St. David's Tower anywhere near a place
called Salthouse?” he asked reflectively.
“ That's the name of the village,” Hamel admitted.
My father used to spend quite a lot of time in those
parts, and painted at least a dozen pictures down
there."
“ This is a coincidence,” Reginald Kinsley declared,
lighting a cigarette. “I think, if I were you, Dick,
I'd go down and claim my property."
“ Tired of me already?" Hamel asked, smiling.
Reginald Kinsley knocked the ash from his ciga-
rette.
“ It isn't that. The fact is, that job I was speak-
ing to you about was simply this. We want some one
to go down to Salthouse ~ not exactly as a spy, you
know, but some one who has his wits about him. We
are all of us very curious about this man Fentolin.
There are no end of rumours which I won't mention to
you, for they might only put you off the scent. But
the man seems to be always intriguing. It wouldn't
matter so much if he were our friend, or if he were sim-
ply a financier, but to tell you the truth, we have cause
to suspect him."
“ But he's an Englishman, surely? " Hamel asked.
* The Fentolin who was my father's friend was just a


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 65
very wealthy Norfolk squire - one of the best, from
all I have heard.”
“ Miles Fentolin is an Englishman,” Kinsley ad-
mitted. “ It is true, too, that he comes of a very
ancient Norfolk family. It doesn't do, however, to
build too much upon that. From all I can learn of
him, he is a sort of Puck, a professional mischief-
maker. I don't suppose there's anything an outsider
could find out which would be really useful to us, but
all the same, if I had the time, I should certainly go
down to Norfolk myself.”
The conversation drifted away for a while. Mu-
tual acquaintances entered, there were several intro-
ductions, and it was not until the two found themselves
together in Kinsley's rooms for a few minutes before
parting that they were alone again. Hamel returned
then once more to the subject.
“Reggie,” he said, “ if you think it would be of
the slightest use, I'll go down to Salthouse to-morrow.
I am rather keen on going there, anyway. I am abso-
lutely fed up with life here already.”
“ It's just what I want you to do,” Kinsley said.
“ I am afraid Fentolin is a little too clever for you to
get on the right side of him, but if you could only get
an idea as to what his game is down there, it would be
a great help. You see, the fellow can't have gone
into all this sort of thing blindfold. We've lost sev-
eral very useful agents abroad and two from New
York who've gone into his pay. There must be a -
method in it somewhere. If it really ends with his
financial operations — why, all right. That's very
likely what it'll come to, but we should like to know.
The merest hint would be useful."


66 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“ I'll do my best,” Hamel promised. “In any
case, it will be just the few days' holiday I was looking
forward to."
Kinsley helped himself to whisky and soda and
turned towards his friend.
“Here's luck to you, Dick! Take care of yourself.
All sorts of things may happen, you know. Old man
Fentolin may take a fancy to you and tell you secrets
that any statesman in Europe would be glad to hear.
He may tell you why this conference is being held and
what the result will be. You may be the first to
hear of our coming fall. Well, here's to you, any-
way! Drop me a line, if you've anything to report.”
“ Cheero!” Hamel answered, as he set down his
empty tumbler. “ Astonishing how keen I feel about
this little adventure. I'm perfectly sick of the hum-
drum life I have been leading the last week, and you
do sort of take one back to the Arabian Nights, you
know, Reggie. I am never quite sure whether to take
you seriously or not."
Kinsley smiled as he held his friend's hand for a
moment.
“ Dick,” he said earnestly, “ if only you'd believe
it, the adventures in the Arabian Nights were as noth-
ing compared with the present-day drama of foreign
politics. You see, we've learned to conceal things
nowadays — to smooth them over, to play the part of
ordinary citizens to the world while we tug at the un-
derhand levers in our secret moments. Good night!
Good luck!”


CHAPTER VIII
Richard Hamel, although he certainly had not the
appearance of a person afflicted with nerves, gave a
slight start. For the last half-hour, during which
time the train had made no stop, he had been alone
in his compartment. Yet, to his surprise, he was sud-
denly aware that the seat opposite to him had been
noiselessly taken by a girl whose eyes, also, were fixed
with curious intentness upon the broad expanse of
marshland and sands across which the train was slowly
making its way. Hamel had spent a great many
years abroad, and his first impulse was to speak with
the unexpected stranger. He forgot for a moment
that he was in England, travelling in a first-class car-
riage, and pointed with his left hand towards the
sea.
“Queer country this, isn't it?" he remarked pleas-
antly. “ Do you know, I never heard you come in.
It gave me quite a start when I found that I had a
fellow-passenger.”
She looked at him with a certain amount of still sur-
prise, a look which he returned just as steadfastly,
because even in those few seconds he was conscious of
that strange selective interest, certainly unaccounted
for by his own impressions of her appearance. She
seemed to him, at that first glance, very far indeed
from being good-looking, according to any of the
standards by which he had measured good looks. She


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 69
Now, I wonder, is it low tide or high? Low, I should
think, because of the sea-shine on the sand there."
She glanced out of the window.
“ The tide,” she told him, " is almost at its lowest.”
“ You live in this neighbourhood, perhaps? ” he en-
quired.
“I do," she assented.
“ Sort of country one might get very fond of,” he
ventured.
She glanced at him from the depths of her grey
eyes.
“ Do you think so ? ” she rejoined coldly. “For
my part, I hate it.”
He was surprised at the unexpected emphasis of her
tone — the first time, indeed, that she had shown any
signs of interest in the conversation.
“ Kind of dull I suppose you find it,” he remarked
pensively, looking out across the waste of lavender-
grown marshes, sand hummocks piled with seaweed,
and a far distant line of pebbled shore. “And yet,
I don't know. I have lived by the sea a good deal,
and however monotonous it may seem at first, there's
always plenty of change, really. Tide and wind do
such wonderful work.”
She, too, was looking out now towards the sea.
“Oh, it isn't exactly that,” she said quietly. “I
am quite willing to admit what all the tourists and
chance visitors call the fascination of these places. I
happen to dislike them, that is all. Perhaps it is be-
cause I live here, because I see them day by day; per-
haps because the sight of them and the thought of
them have become woven into my life.”
She was talking half to herself. For a moment,


70 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
even the knowledge of his presence had escaped her,
Hamel, however, did not realise that fact. He wel-
comed her confidence as a sign of relaxation from the
frigidity of her earlier demeanour.
“ That seems hard,” he observed sympathetically.
“ It seems odd to hear you talk like that, too. Your
life, surely, ought to be pleasant enough.”
She looked away from the sea into his face. Al-
though the genuine interest which she saw there and
the kindly expression of his eyes disarmed annoyance,
she still stiffened slightly.
“ Why ought it?”
The question was a little bewildering.
“ Why, because you are young and a girl," he re-
plied. “It's natural to be cheerful, isn't it?"
“ Is it?" she answered listlessly. “I cannot tell.
I have not had much experience.”
“How old are you?” he asked bluntly.
This time it certainly seemed as though her reply
would contain some rebuke for his curiosity. She
glanced once more into his face, however, and the in-
stinctive desire to administer that well-deserved snub
passed away. He was so obviously interested, his
question was asked so naturally, that its spice of im-
pertinence was as though it had not existed.
“ I am twenty-one,” she told him.
“ And how long have you lived here?”
“ Since I left boarding-school, four years ago.”
“ Anywhere near where I am going to bury myself
for a time, I wonder? " he went on.
“ That depends," she replied. “Our only neigh-
bours are the Lorneybrookes of Market Burnham.
Are you going there?”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 71
He shook his head.
“ I've got a little shanty of my own,” he explained,
“ quite close to St. David's Station. I've never even
seen it yet.”
She vouchsafed some slight show of curiosity.
“ Where is this shanty, as you call it? " she asked
him.
“I really haven't the faintest idea,” he replied.
“ I am looking for it now. All I can tell you is that it
stands just out of reach of the full tides, on a piece of
rock, dead on the beach and about a mile from the
station. It was built originally for a coastguard sta-
tion and meant to hold a lifeboat, but they found they
could never launch the lifeboat when they had it, so
the man to whom all the foreshore and most of the
land around here belongs — a Mr. Fentolin, I believe
— sold it to my father. I expect the place has
tumbled to pieces by this time, but I thought I'd have
a look at it.”
She was gazing at him steadfastly now, with parted
lips.
“ What is your name? ” she demanded.
“ Richard Hamel.”
66 Hamel.”
She repeated it lingeringly. It seemed quite un-
familiar.
“ Was your father a great friend of Mr. Fentolin's,
then? " she asked.
“I believe so, in a sort of way,” he answered.
“My father was Hamel the artist, you know. They
made him an R.A. some time before he died. He used
to come out here and live in a tent. Then Mr. Fento-
lin let him use this place and finally sold it to him.


72 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
My father used often to speak to me about it before
he died.”
“ Tell me,” she enquired, “I do not know much
about these matters, but have you any papers to prove
that it was sold to your father and that you have the
right to occupy it now when you choose ? "
He smiled.
“Of course I have,” he assured her. “ As a matter
of fact, as none of us have been here for so long, I
thought I'd better bring the title-deed, or whatever
they call it, along with me. It's with the rest of my
traps at Norwich. Oh, the place belongs to me, right
enough!” he went on, smiling. “Don't tell me that
any one's pulled it down, or that it's disappeared
from the face of the earth?”
“ No,” she said, “it still remains there. When
we are round the next curve, I think I can show it to
you. But every one has forgotten, I think, that it
doesn't belong to Mr. Fentolin still. He uses it him-
self very often.”
“ What for?”
She looked at her questioner quite steadfastly,
quite quietly, speechlessly. A curious uneasiness
crept into his thoughts. There were mysterious
things in her face. He knew from that moment that
she, too, directly or indirectly, was concerned with
those strange happenings at which Kinsley had hinted.
He knew that there were things which she was keeping
from him now.
“ Mr. Fentolin uses one of the rooms as a studio.
He likes to paint there and be near the sea," she ex-
plained. “ But for the rest, I do not know. I never
go near the place."


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 73
m
“I am afraid,” he remarked, after a few moments of
silence," that I shall be a little unpopular with Mr.
Fentolin. Perhaps I ought to have written first, but
then, of course, I had no idea that any one was mak-
ing use of the place.”
“I do not understand,” she said, “ how you can
possibly expect to come down like this and live there,
without any preparation."
“ Why not?”
“ You haven't any servants nor any furniture nor
things to cook with.”
He laughed.
“ Oh! I am an old campaigner,” he assured her.
“I meant to pick up a few oddments in the village. I
don't suppose I shall stay very long, anyhow, but I
thought I'd like to have a look at the placc, By-the-
by, what sort of a man is Mr. Fentolin?”
Again' there was that curious expression in her
eyes, an expression almost of secret terror, this time
not wholly concealed. He could have sworn that her
hands were cold.
“He met with an accident many years ago," she
said slowly. “ Both his legs were amputated. He
spends his life in a little carriage which he wheels
about himself.”
“ Poor fellow!” Hamel exclaimed, with a strong
man's ready sympathy for suffering. “ That is just
as much as I have heard about him. Is he a decent
sort of fellow in other ways? I suppose, anyhow, if
he has really taken a fancy to my little shanty, I shall
have to give it up."
Then, as it seemed to him, for the first time real life
leaped into her face. She leaned towards him. Her


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 75
selt token the seat oppolish request,” sh.
It was
She seemed suddenly to have reverted to her former
self — the cold and colourless young woman who had
first taken the seat opposite to his.
“Mine was a very foolish request,” she admitted
quietly. “I am sorry that I ever made it. It was
just an impulse, because the little building we were
speaking of has been connected with one or two very
disagreeable episodes. Nevertheless, it was foolish of
me. How long did you think of staying there — that
is,” she added, with a faint smile,“ providing that you
find it possible to prove your claim and take up pos-
session?"
“Oh, just for a week or so,” he answered lightly,
“and as to regaining possession of it,” he went on, a
slightly pugnacious instinct stirring him, “ I don't
imagine that there'll be any difficulty about that.”
“Really!” she murmured.
“Not that I want to make myself disagreeable,” he
continued,“ but the Tower is mine, right enough, even
if I have let it remain unoccupied for some time.”
She let down the window — a task in which he
hastened to assist her. A rush of salt, cold air swept
into the compartment. He sniffed it eagerly.
“ Wonderful!” he exclaimed.
She stretched out a long arm and pointed. Away
in the distance, on the summit of a line of pebbled
shore, standing, as it seemed, sheer over the sea, was a
little black speck.
66 That,” she said, “ is the Tower.”
He changed his position and leaned out of the
window.
“Well, it's a queer little place,” he remarked. “It
doesn't look worth quarrelling over, does it?"


76 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
“ And that,” she went on, directing his attention to
the hill,“ is Mr. Fentolin's home, St. David's Hall.”
For several moments he made no remark at all.
There was something curiously impressive in that sud-
den sweep up from the sea-line; the strange, miniature
mountain standing in the middle of the marshes, with
its tree-crowned background; and the long, weather-
beaten front of the house turned bravely to the sea.
“I never saw anything like it,” he declared.
“ Why, it's barely a quarter of a mile from the sea,
isn't it?"
“ A little more than that. It is a strangely situ-
ated abode, isn't it?”
“ Wonderful!” he agreed, with emphasis. “I
must study the geological formation of that hill,” he
continued, with interest. “ Why, it looks almost like
an island now.”
“ That is because of the floods,” she told him.
“Even at high tide the creeks never reach so far as the
back there. All the water you see stretching away
inland is flood water -- the result of the storm, I sup-
pose. This is where you get out,” she concluded, ris-
ing to her feet.
She turned away with the slightest nod. A maid
was already awaiting her at the door of the compart-
ment. Hamel was suddenly conscious of the fact that
he disliked her going immensely.
“We shall, perhaps, meet again during the next
few days,” he remarked.
She half turned her head. Her expression was
scarcely encouraging.
: "I hope,” she said, “ that you will not be disap-
pointed in your quarters."


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 77
Hamel followed her slowly on to the platform, saw
her escorted to a very handsome motor-car by an obse-
quious station-master, and watched the former disap-
pear down the stretch of straight road which led to the
hill. Then, with a stick in one hand, and the hand-
bag which was his sole luggage in the other, he left
the station and turned seaward.


CHAPTER IX
Mr. Fentolin, surrounded by his satellites, was
seated in his chair before the writing-table. There
were present in the room most of the people important
to him in his somewhat singular life. A few feet
away, in characteristic attitude, stood Meekins.
Doctor Sarson, with his hands behind him, was looking
out of the window. At the further end of the table
stood a confidential telegraph clerk, who was just de-
parting with a little sheaf of messages. By his side,
with a notebook in her hand, stood Mr. Fentolin's
private secretary — a white-haired woman, with a
strangely transparent skin and light brown eyes,
dressed in somber black, a woman who might have been
of any age from thirty to fifty. Behind her was a
middle-aged man whose position in the household no
one was quite sure about — a clean-shaven man whose
name was Ryan, and who might very well have been
once an actor or a clergyman. In the background
stood Henderson, the perfect butler.
“ It is perhaps opportune,” Mr. Fentolin said
quietly,“ that you all whom I trust should be present
here together. I wish you to understand one thing.
You have, I believe, in my employ learned the gift of
silence. It is to be exercised with regard to a certain
visitor brought here by my nephew, a visitor whom I
regret to say is now lying seriously ill.”
There was absolute silence. Doctor Sarson alone


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 79
turned from the window as though about to speak, but
met Mr. Fentolin's eye and at once resumed his po-
sition.
“I rely upon you all,” Mr. Fentolin continued
softly. “ Henderson, you, perhaps, have the most
difficult task, for you have the servants to control.
Nevertheless, I rely upon you, also. If one word of
this visitor's presence here leaks out even so far as the
village, out they go, every one of them. I will not
have a servant in the place who does not respect my
wishes. You can give any reason you like for my
orders. It is a whim. I have whims, and I choose to
pay for them. You are all better paid than any
man breathing could pay you. In return I ask only
for your implicit obedience.”
He stretched out his hand and took a cigarette from
a curiously carved ivory box which stood by his side.
He tapped it gently upon the table and looked up.
“ I think, sir,” Henderson said respectfully, “ that
I can answer for the servants. Being mostly foreign-
ers, they see little or nothing of the village peo-
ple.”
No one else made any remark. It was strange to
see how dominated they all were by that queer little
fragment of humanity, whose head scarcely reached a
foot above the table before which he sat. They de-
parted silently, almost abjectly, dismissed with a
single wave of the hand. Mr. Fentolin beckoned his
secretary to remain. She came a little nearer.
“ Sit down, Lucy,” he ordered.
She seated herself a few feet away from him. Mr.
Fentolin watched her for several moments. He him-
self had his back to the light. The woman, on the


80 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
other hand, was facing it. The windows were high,
and the curtains were drawn back to their fullest ex-
tent. A cold stream of northern light fell upon her
face. Mr. Fentolin gazed at her and nodded his
head slightly.
“My dear Lucy,” he declared, “ you are wonder-
ful — a perfect cameo, a gem. To look at you now,
with your delightful white hair and your flawless
skin, one would never believe that you had ever
spoken a single angry word, that you had ever felt
the blood flow through your veins, or that your eyes
had ever looked upon the gentle things of life.”
She looked at him, still without speech. The im-
mobility of her face was indeed a marvellous thing.
Mr. Fentolin's expression darkened.
“Sometimes,” he murmured softly, “I think that
if I had strong fingers — really strong fingers, you
know, Lucy - I should want to take you by the
throat and hold you tighter and tighter, until your
breath came fast, and your eyes came out from their
shadows.”.
She turned over a few pages of her notebook. To
all appearance she had not heard a word.
“ To-day,” she announced, “is the fourth of
April. Shall I send out the various checks to those
men in Paris, New York, Frankfort, St. Petersburg,
and Tokio?"
“ You can send the checks," he told her. “ Be
sure that you draw them, as usual, upon the Crédit
Lyonaise and in the name you know of. Say to
Lebonaitre of Paris that you consider his last re-
ports faulty. No mention was made of Monsieur
C's visit to the Russian Embassy, or of the supper


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 81
party given to the Baron von Erlstein by a certain
Russian gentleman. Warn him, if you please, that
reports with such omissions are useless to me.”
She wrote a few words in her book.
“ You made a note of that?"
She raised her head.
“ I do not make mistakes,” she said.
His eyebrows were drawn together. This was his
work, he told himself, this magnificent physical sub-
jection. Yet his inability to stir her sometimes mad-
dened him.
“ You know who is in this house?” he asked.
“ You know the name of my unknown guest?”
“I know nothing,” she replied. “ His presence
does not interest me."
“ Supposing I desire you to know ? ” he persisted,
leaning a little forward. “ Supposing I tell you that
it is your duty to know? ”
“ Then,” she said, “ I should tell you that I be-
lieve him to be the special envoy from New York
to The Hague, or whatever place on the Continent
this coming conference is to be held at."
“Right, woman!” Mr. Fentolin answered sharply.
“ Right! It is the special envoy. He has his man-
date with him. I have them both — the man and his
mandate. Can you guess what I am going to do
with them?”
“ It is not difficult,” she replied. “ Your methods
are scarcely original. His mandate to the flames,
and his body to the sea!”
She raised her eyes as she spoke and looked over
Mr. Fentolin's shoulder, across the marshland to the
grey stretch of ocean. Her eyes became fixed. It


82 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
was not possible to say that they held any expres-
sion, and yet one felt that she saw beneath the grey
waves, even to the rocks and caverns below.
“ It does not terrify you, then,” he asked curiously,
“ to think that a man under this roof is about to
die?”
“Why should it?" she retorted. “Death does
not frighten me — my own or anybody else's. Does
it frighten you?”
His face was suddenly livid, his eyes full of fierce
anger. His lips twitched. He struck the table be-
fore him.
“ Beast of a woman!” he shouted. “You ghoul !
How dare you! How dare you --"
He stopped short. He passed his hand across his
forehead. All the time the woman remained un-
moved. .
“ Do you know,” he muttered, his voice still shak-
ing a little, “ that I believe sometimes I am afraid
of you? How would you like to see me there, eh,
down at the bottom of that hungry sea ? You watch
sometimes so fixedly. You'd miss me, wouldn't you?
I am a good master, you know. I pay well. You've
been with me a good many years. You were a dif-
ferent sort of woman when you first came."
“ Yes,” she admitted, “I was a different sort of
woman.”
“ You don't remember those days, I suppose," he
went on, “ the days when you had brown hair, when
you used to carry roses about and sing to yourself
while you beat your work out of that wretched type-
writer? "
“No," she answered, “I do not remember those


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 83
days. They do not belong to me. It is some other
woman you are thinking of.”
Their eyes met. Mr. Fentolin turned away first.
He struck the bell at his elbow. She rose at once.
“ Be off !” he ordered. “When you look at me
like that, you send shivers through me! You'll have
to go; I can see you'll have to go. I can't keep you
any longer. You are the only person on the face of
the earth who dares to say things to me which make
me think, the only person who doesn't shrink at the
sound of my voice. You'll have to go. Send Sar-
son to me at once. You've upset me!”
She listened to his words in expressionless silence.
When he had finished, carrying her book in her
hand, she very quietly moved towards the door. He
watched her, leaning a little forward in his chair, his
lips parted, his eyes threatening. She walked with
steady, even footsteps. She carried herself with al-
most machine-like erectness; her skirts were noiseless.
She had the trick of turning the handle of the door in
perfect silence. He heard her calm voice in the
hall.
“ Doctor Sarson is to go to Mr. Fentolin.”
Mr. Fentolin sat quite still, feeling his own pulse.
“ That woman,” he muttered to himself, “ that
woman — some day I shouldn't be surprised if she
really _”
He paused. The doctor had entered the room.
“I am upset, Sarson,” he declared. « Come and
feel my pulse quickly. That woman has upset nie.”
“ Miss Price?"
“Miss Price, d-n it! Lucy — yes ! ”
“ It seems unlike her,” the doctor remarked. “I


84 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
have never heard her utter a useless syllable in my
life.”
Mr. Fentolin held out his wrist.
“ It's what she doesn't say,” he muttered.
The doctor produced his watch. In less than a
minute he put it away.
“ This is quite unnecessary,” he pronounced.
“ Your pulse is wonderful.”
“ Not hurried? No signs of palpitation?"
“ You have seven or eight footmen, all young
men,” Doctor Sarson replied drily. “I will wager
that there isn't one of them has a pulse so vigorous
as yours.”
Mr. Fentolin leaned a little back in his chair. An
expression of satisfaction crept over his face.
“ You reassure me, my dear Sarson. That is ex-
cellent. What of our patient ? "
“ There is no change.”
“I am afraid,” Mr. Fentolin sighed, “ that we
shall have trouble with him. These strong people
always, give trouble.”
“ It will be just the same in the long run," the
doctor remarked, shrugging his shoulders.
Mr. Fentolin held up his finger.
“ Listen! A motor-car, I believe? "
“ It is Miss Fentolin who is just arriving,” the
doctor announced. “I saw the car coming as I
crossed the hall.”
Mr. Fentolin nodded gently.
“ Indeed?” he replied. “Indeed? So my dear
niece has returned. Open the door, friend Sarson.
Open the door, if you please. She will be anxious
to see me. We must summon her."


86 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“ Your mother, my dear Esther, is, I regret to say,
suffering from a slight indisposition," he remarked.
“ She has been confined to her room for the last few
days. Just a trifling affair of the nerves; nothing
more, Doctor Sarson assures me. But my dear
child," he went on, “ your fingers are as cold as ice.
You look at me so strangely, too. Alas! you have
not the affectionate disposition of your dear mother.
One would scarcely believe that we have been parted
for more than a week.”
“For more than a week,” she repeated, under her
breath.
“Stoop down, my dear. I must kiss your fore-
head -- there! Now bring up a chair to my side.
You seem frightened — alarmed. Have you ill news
for me?”
“I have no news,” she answered, gradually re-
covering herself.
“ The gaieties of London, I fear,” he protested
gently, “ have proved a little unsettling."
6 There were no gaieties for me," the girl replied
bitterly. “Mrs. Sargent obeyed your orders very
faithfully. I was not allowed to move out except
with her.”
6 My dear child, you would not go about London
unchaperoned!”
66 There is a difference," she retorted, “ between a
chaperon and a jailer.”
Mr. Fentolin sighed. He shook his head slowly.
He seemed pained.
“I am not sure that you repay my care as it de-
serves, Esther,” he declared. “There is something
in your deportment which disappoints me. Never


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 87
mind, your brother has made some atonement. I en-
trusted him with a little mission in which I am glad
to say that he has been brilliantly successful.”
“I cannot say that I am glad to hear it,” Esther
replied quietly.
Mr. Fentolin sat back in his chair. His long
fingers played nervously together, he looked at her
gravely.
“My dear child,” he exclaimed, in a tone of pained
surprise, “ your attitude distresses me!”
“I cannot help it. I have told you what I think
about Gerald and the life he is compelled to live here.
I don't mind so much for myself, but for him I think
it is abominable.”
“ The same as ever,” Mr. Fentolin sighed. “I fear
that this little change has done you no good, dear
niece.”
“ Change!” she echoed. “ It was only a change
of prisons.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head slowly — a distress-
ful gesture. Yet all the time he had somehow the
air of a man secretly gratified.
“You are beginning to depress me,” he announced.
“ I think that you can go away. No, stop for just
one moment. Stand there in the light. Dear me,
how unfortunate! Who would have thought that
so beautiful a mother could have so plain a daugh-
ter!”
She stood quite still before him, her hands crossed
in front of her, something of the look of the nun
from whom the power of suffering has gone in her
still, cold face and steadfast eyes.
“ Not a touch of colour,” he continued meditatively,


88 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“a figure straight as my walking-stick. What a
pity! And all the taste, nowadays, they tell me, is
in the other direction. The lank damsels have gone
completely out. We buried them with Oscar Wilde.
Run along, my dear child. You do not amuse me.
You can take Gerald with you, if you will. I have
nothing to say to Gerald just now. He is in my good
books. Is there anything I can do for you, Gerald?
Your allowance, for instance — a trifling increase or
an advance? I am in a generous humour.”
" Then grant me what I begged for the other day,”
the boy answered quickly. “Let me go to Sand-
hurst. I could enter my name next week for the ex-
aminations, and I could pass to-morrow.”
Mr. Fentolin tapped the table thoughtfully with his
forefinger.
“A little ungrateful, my dear boy,” he declared,
“ a little ungrateful that, I think. Your confidence
in yourself pleases me, though. You think you could
pass your examinations? "
"I did a 'set of papers last week,” the boy replied.
66 On the given percentages I came out twelfth or
better. Mr. Brown assured me that I could go in for
them at any moment. He promised to write you
about it before he left.”
Mr. Fentolin nodded gently.
“ Now I come to think of it, I did have a letter from
Mr. Brown,” he remarked. “ Rather an impertinence
for a tutor, I thought it. He devoted three pages
towards impressing upon me the necessity of your
adopting some sort of a career.".
“ He wrote because he thought it was his duty,"
the boy said doggedly.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 89
“ So you want to be a soldier,” Mr. Fentolin con-
tinued musingly. “Well, well, why not? Our pic-
ture galleries are full of them. There has been a
Fentolin in every great battle for the last five hun-
dred years. Sailors, too — plenty of them — and
just a few diplomatists. Brave fellows! Not one, I
fancy,” he added, “ like me — not one condemned to
pass their days in a perambulator. You are a fine
fellow, Gerald — a regular Fentolin. Getting on for
six feet, aren't you?”
“ Six feet two, sir."
“A very fine fellow," Mr. Fentolin repeated. “I
am not so sure about the army, Gerald. You see,
there are some people who say, like your American
friend, that we are even now almost on the brink of
war."
“ All the more reason for me to hurry,” the boy
begged.
Mr. Fentolin closed his eyes.
“ Don't!” he insisted. “Have you ever stopped
to think what war means — the war you speak of so
lightly? The suffering, the misery of it! All the
pageantry and music and heroism in front; and be-
hind, a blackened world, a trail of writhing corpses,
a world of weeping women for whom the sun shall
never rise again. Ugh! An ugly thing war, Gerald.
I am not sure that you are not better at home here.
Why not practise golf a little more assiduously? I
see from the local paper that you are still playing at
two handicap. Now with your physique, I should
have thought you would have been a scratch player
long before now.”
“I play cricket, sir,” the boy reminded him, a


90 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
little impatiently, “and, after all, there are other
things in the world besides games.”
Mr. Fentolin's long finger shot suddenly out. He
gentle immobility had passed away. His face was
stern, almost stony.
“ You have spoken the truth, Gerald,” he said.
“ There are other things in the world besides games.
There is the real, the tragical side of life, the duties
one takes up, the obligations of honour. You have
not forgotten, young man, the burden you carry? "
The boy was paler, but he had drawn himself to
his full height.
“ I have not forgotten, sir," he answered bitterly.
“ Do I show any signs of forgetting? Haven't I done
your bidding year by year? Aren't I here now to
do it? "
“ Then do it!” Mr. Fentolin retorted sharply,
“When I am ready for you to leave here, you shall
leave. Until then, you are mine. Remember that.
Ah! this is Doctor Sarson who comes, I believe. That
must mean that it is five o'clock. Come in, Doctor.
I am not engaged. You see, I am alone with my dear
niece and nephew. We have been having a little
pleasant conversation.”
Doctor Sarson bowed to Esther, who scarcely
glanced at him. He remained in the background,
quietly waiting.
"A very delightful little conversation,” Mr. Fen-
tolin concluded. “I have been congratulating my
nephew, Doctor, upon his wisdom in preferring the
quiet country life down here to the wearisome routine
of a profession. He escapes the embarrassing choice


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 91
of a career by preferring to devote his life to my com-
fort. I shall not forget it. I shall not be ungrate-
ful. I may have my faults, but I am not ungrateful.
Run away now, both of you. Dear children you are,
but one wearies, you know, of everything. I am
going out. You see, the twilight is coming. The
tide is changing. I am going down to meet the sea."
His little carriage moved towards the door. The
brother and sister passed out. Esther led Gerald into
the great dining-room, and from there, through the
open windows, out on to the terrace. She gripped his
shoulder and pointed down to the Tower.
“Something," she whispered in his ear, “ is going
to happen there."


CHAPTER XI
The little station at which Hamel alighted was like
an oasis in the middle of a flat stretch of sand and
marsh. It consisted only of a few raised planks
and a rude shelter — built, indeed, for the convenience
of St. David's Hall alone, for the nearest village was
two miles away. The station-master, on his return
from escorting the young lady to her car, stared at
this other passenger in some surprise.
“ Which way to the sea ? " Hamel asked.
The man pointed to the white gates of the crossing.
“ You can take any of those paths you like, sir,”
he said. “If you want to get to Salthouse, though,
you should have got out at the next station."
“ This will do for me,” Hamel replied cheerfully.
“ Be careful of the dikes," the station-master ad-
vised him. “Some of them are pretty deep."
Hamel nodded, and passing through the white
gates, made his way by a raised cattle track towards
the sea. On either side of him flowed a narrow dike
filled with salt-water. Beyond stretched the flat
marshland, its mossy turf leavened with cracks and
creeks of all widths, filled also with sea-slime and sea-
water. A slight grey mist rested upon the more dis-
tant parts of the wilderness which he was crossing,
a mist which seemed to be blown in from the sea in
little puffs, resting for a time upon the earth, and then
drifting up and fading away like soap bubbles.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 93
More than once where the dikes had overflown he
was compelled to change his course, but he arrived
at last at the little ridge of pebbled beach bordering
the sea. Straight ahead of him now was that strange-
looking building towards which he had all the time
been directing his footsteps. As he approached it, his
firmation before him of the truth of his fellow-pas-
senger's words. The place, left to itself for so many
years, without any attention from its actual owner,
was neither deserted nor in ruins. Its solid grey
stone walls were sea-stained and a trifle worn, but
the arched wooden doors leading into the lifeboat
shelter, which occupied one side of the building, had
been newly painted, and in the front the window was
hung with a curtain, now closely drawn, of some dark
red material. The lock from the door had been re-
moved altogether, and in its place was the aperture
for a Yale latch-key. The last note of modernity
was supplied by the telephone wire attached to the
roof of the lifeboat shelter. He walked all round
the building, seeking in vain for some other means
of ingress. Then he stood for a few moments in
front of the curtained window. He was a man of
somewhat determined disposition, and he found him-
self vaguely irritated by the liberties which had been
taken with his property. He hammered gently upon
the framework with his fist, and the windows opened
readily inwards, pushing back the curtain with them.
He drew himself up on to the sill, and, squeezing him-
self through the opening, landed on his feet and
looked around him, a little breathless.
He found himself in a simply furnished man's sit-


94 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
ting-room. An easel was standing close to the win-
dow. There were reams of drawing paper and several
unfinished sketches leaning against the wall. There
was a small oak table in the middle of the room;
against the wall stood an exquisite chiffonier, on which
were resting some cut-glass decanters and goblets.
There was a Turkey carpet upon the floor which
matched the curtains, but to his surprise there was
not a single chair of any sort to be seen. The walls
had been distempered and were hung with one or two
engravings which, although he was no judge, he was
quite sure were good. He wandered into the back
room, where he found a stove, a tea-service upon a
deal table, and several other cooking utensils, all spot-
lessly clean and of the most expensive description.
The walls here were plainly whitewashed, and the floor
was of hard stone. He then tried the door on the
left, which led into the larger portion of the building
— the shed in which the lifeboat had once been kept.
Not only was the door locked, but he saw at once
that the lock was modern, and the door itself was
secured with heavy iron clamps. He returned to the
sitting-room.
“ The girl with the grey eyes was right enough,”
he remarked to himself. “Mr. Fentolin has been
making himself very much at home with my prop-
erty."
He withdrew the curtains, noticing, to his surprise,
the heavy shutters which their folds had partly con-
cealed. Then he made his way out along the passage
to the front door, which from the inside he was able
to open easily enough. Leaving it carefully ajar, he
went out with the intention of making an examination


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 95
of the outside of the place. Instead, however, he
paused at the corner of the building with his face
turned landwards. Exactly fronting him now, about
three-quarters of a mile away, on the summit of that
strange hill which stood out like a gigantic rock
in the wilderness, was St. David's Hall. He looked
at it steadily and with increasing admiration. Its
long, red brick front with its masses of clustering
chimneys, a little bare and weather-beaten, impressed
him with a sense of dignity due as much to the purity
of its architecture as the singularity of its situation.
Behind — a wonderfully effective background — were
the steep gardens from which, even in this uncertain
light, he caught faint glimpses of colouring subdued
from brilliancy by the twilight. These were encir-
cled by a brick wall of great height, the whole of
the southern portion of which was enclosed with glass.
From the fragment of rock upon which he had seated
himself, to the raised stone terrace in front of the
house, was an absolutely straight path, beautifully
kept like an avenue, with white posts on either side,
and built up to a considerable height above the broad
tidal way which ran for some distance by its side.
It had almost the appearance of a racing track, and
its state of preservation in the midst of the wilderness
was little short of remarkable.
“ This,” Hamel said to himself, as he slowly pro-
duced a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it with
tobacco from a battered silver box, “is a queer fix.
Looks rather like the inn for me!”
“And who might you be, gentleman ? "
He turned abruptly around towards his unseen
questioner. A woman was standing by the side of


96 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
the rock upon which he was sitting, a woman from the
village, apparently, who must have come with noise-
less footsteps along the sandy way. She was dressed
in rusty black, and in place of a hat she wore a black
woolen scarf tied around her head and underneath
her chin. Her face was lined, her hair of a deep
brown plentifully besprinkled with grey. She had a
curious habit of moving her lips, even when she was
not speaking. She stood there smiling at him, but
there was something about that smile and about her
look which puzzled him.
“I am just a visitor," he replied. “Who are
you?"
She shook her head.
“I saw you come out of the Tower," she said,
speaking with a strong local accent and yet with a
certain unusual correctness, “in at the window and
out of the door. You're a brave man."
“ Why brave?” he asked.
She turned her head very slowly towards St. David's
Hall. A gleam of sunshine had caught one of the
windows, which shone like fire. She pointed towards
it with her head.
“He's looking at you,” she muttered. “He don't
like strangers poking around here, that I can tell
you."
5 And who is he?" Hamel enquired.
“ Squire Fentolin,” she answered, dropping her
voice a little. “He's a very kind-hearted gentleman,
Squire Fentolin, but he don't like strangers hanging
around.”
« Well, I am not exactly a stranger, you see,"
Hamel remarked. “My father used to stay for


98 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
ignorant. I have fancies, perhaps the Lord be
praised for them!- and I tell you it's true. You
look at a spot in the sea and you see nothing - a
gleam of blue, a fleck of white foam, one day; a gleam
of green with a black line, another; and a grey little
sob, the next, perhaps. But you go on looking.
You look day by day and hour by hour, and the
chasms of the sea will open, and their voices will
come to you. Listen!”
She clutched his arm.
“ Couldn't you hear that? ” she half whispered.
6. The light!' It was David's voice! The light!'”
Hamel was speechless. The woman's face was sud-
denly strangely transformed. Her mood, however,
swiftly changed. She turned once more towards the
hall.
“ You'll know him soon,” she went on, " the kindest
man in these parts, they say. It's not much that
he gives away, but he's a kind heart. You see that
great post at the entrance to the river there?" she
went on, pointing to it. “He had that set up and
a lamp hung from there. Fentolin's light, they call
it. It was to save men's lives. It was burning, they
say, the night I lost my lads. Fentolin's light!”
“ They were wrecked ?” he asked her gently.
“ Wrecked," she answered. “Bad steering it must
have been. James would steer, and they say that he
drank a bit. Bad steering! Yes, you'll meet Squire
Fentolin before long. He's queer to look at -- a
small body but a great, kind heart. A miserable life,
his, but it will be made up to him. It will be made
up to him!”
She turned away. Her lips were moving all the


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 99
time. She walked about a dozen steps, and then she
returned.
“ You're Hamel's son, the painter,” she said.
“ You'll be welcome down here. He'll have you to
stay at the Hall -- a brave place. Don't let him be
too kind to you. Sometimes kindness hurts."
She passed on, walking with a curious, shambling
gait, and soon she disappeared on her way to the
village. Hamel watched her for a moment and then
turned his head towards St. David's Hall. He felt
somehow that her abrupt departure was due to some-
thing which she had seen in that direction. He rose
to his feet. His instinct had been a true one.


CHAPTER XII
From where Hamel stood a queer object came
strangely into sight. Below the terrace of St.
David's Hall — from a spot, in fact, at the base of
the solid wall - it seemed as though a gate had been
opened, and there came towards him what he at first
took to be a tricycle. As it came nearer, it presented
even a weirder appearance. Mr. Fentolin, in a black
cape and black skull cap, sat a little forward in his
electric carriage, with his hand upon the guiding
lever. His head came scarcely above the back of the
little vehicle, his hands and body were motionless.
He seemed to be progressing without the slightest ef-
fort, personal or mechanical, as though he rode, in-
deed, in some ghostly vehicle. From the same place
in the wall had issued, a moment or two later, a man
upon a bicycle, who was also coming towards him.
Hamel was scarcely conscious of this secondary fig-
ure. His eyes were fixed upon the strange personage
now rapidly approaching him. There was something
which seemed scarcely human in that shrunken frag-
ment of body, the pale face with its waving white hair,
the strange expression with which he was being re-
garded. The little vehicle came to a standstill only a
few feet away. Mr. Fentolin leaned forward. His
features had lost their delicately benevolent aspect;
his words were minatory.
“I am under the impression, sir," he said, “ that


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 101
I saw you with my glasses from the window,
attempting to force an entrance into that build-
ing.”
Hamel nodded.
“I not only tried but I succeeded,” he remarked..
“I got in through the window.”
Mr. Fentolin's eyes glittered for a moment. Hamel,
who had resumed his place upon the rock close at
hand, had been mixed up during his lifetime in many
wild escapades. Yet at that moment he had a sudden
feeling that there were dangers in life which as yet.
he had not faced.
“May I ask for your explanation or your ex-
cuse ? »
“ You can call it an explanation or an excuse,
whichever you like,” Hamel replied steadily, “ but the
fact is that this little building, which some one else
seems to have appropriated, is mine. If I had not
been a good-natured person, I should be engaged, at
the present moment, in turning out its furniture on.
to the beach.”
“ What is your name? ” Mr. Fentolin asked sud-
denly.
6 My name is Hamel — Richard Hamel.”
For several moments there was silence. Mr. Fen-
tolin was still leaning forward in his strange little ve-
hicle. The colour seemed to have left even his lips.
The hard glitter in his eyes had given place to an
expression almost like fear. He looked at Richard.
Hamel as though he were some strange sea-monster
come up from underneath the sands..
“ Richard Hamel,” he repeated. “Do you mean
that you are the son of Hamel, the R.A., who used


102 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
to be in these parts so often? He was my brother's
friend."
“I am his son.”
“ But his son was killed in the San Francisco earth-
quake. I saw his name in all the lists. It was
copied into the local papers here."
Hamel knocked the ashes from his pipe.
“ I take a lot of killing," he observed. “I was in
that earthquake, right enough, and in the hospital
afterwards, but it was a man named Hamel of Phil-
adelphia who died.”
Mr. Fentolin sat quite motionless for several mo
ments. He seemed, if possible, to have shrunken
into something smaller still. A few yards behind,
Meekins had alighted from his bicycle and was stand-
ing waiting
..“ So you are Richard Hamel,” Mr. Fentolin said
at last very softly. “Welcome back to England,
Richard Hamel! I knew your father slightly, al-
though we were never very friendly.”
He stretched out his hand from underneath the
coverlet of his little vehicle — a hand with long, white
fingers, slim and white and shapely as a woman's. A
single ring with a dull green stone was on his fourth
finger. Hamel shook hands with him as he would
have shaken hands with a woman. Afterwards he
rubbed his fingers slowly together. There was some-
thing about the touch which worried him.
“ You have been making use of this little shanty,
haven't you?” he asked bluntly.
Mr. Fentolin nodded. He was apparently begin-
ning to recover himself.
“ You must remember," he explained suavely, “ that


104 THE VA:NISHED MESSENGER
“I have had a light fixed there for the benefit of
the fishermen,” he said, “ a light which I work from
my own dynamo. Between where we are sitting now
and there — only a little way out to sea — is a
jagged cluster of cruel rocks. You can see them if
you care to swim out in calm weather. Fishermen
who tried to come in by night were often trapped
there and, in a rough sea, drowned. That is why I
had that pillar of light built. On stormy nights it
shows the exact entrance to the water causeway."
“ Very kind of you indeed,” Hamel remarked,
“ very benevolent."
Mr. Fentolin sighed.
“ So few people have any real feeling for sailors,"
he continued. “The fishermen around here are cer-
tainly rather a casual class. Do you know that there
is scarcely one of them who can swim? There isn't
one of them who isn't too lazy to learn even the sim-
plest stroke. My brother used to say — dear Gerald
- that it served them right if they were drowned. I
have never been able to feel like that, Mr. Hamel.
Life is such a wonderful thing. One night," he went
on, dropping his voice and leaning a little forward in
his carriage —“ it was just before, or was it just after
I had fixed that light ~ I was down here one dark
winter night. There was a great north wind and a
huge sea running. It was as black as pitch, but I
heard a boat making for St. David's causeway strike
on those rocks just hidden in front there. I heard
those fishermen shriek as they went under. I heard
their shouts for help, I heard their death cries. Very
terrible, Mr. Hamel! Very terrible!”
Hamel looked at the speaker curiously. Mr. Fen.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 105
tolin seemed absorbed in his subject. He had spoken
with relish, as one who loves the things he speaks
about. Quite unaccountably, Hamel found himself
shivering.
“ It was their mother,” Mr. Fentolin continued,
leaning again a little forward in his chair, “ their
mother whom I saw pass along the beach just now —
a widow, too, poor thing. She comes here often —
a morbid taste. She spoke to you, I think?"
“ She spoke to me strangely," Hamel admitted.
“She gave me the impression of a woman whose brain
had been turned with grief.”
“ Too true,” Mr. Fentolin sighed. “ The poor
creature! I offered her a small pension, but she would
have none of it. A superior woman in her way once,
filled now with queer fancies," he went on, eyeing
Hamel steadily," the very strangest fancies. She
spends her life prowling about here. No one in the
village even knows how she lives. Did she speak of
me, by-the-by?”
“ She spoke of you as being a very kind-hearted
man."
Mr. Fentolin sighed.
“ The poor creature! Well, well, let us revert to
the object of your coming here. Do you really wish
to occupy this little shanty, Mr. Hamel?”
“ That was my idea,” Hamel confessed. “I only
came back from Mexico last month, and I very soon
got fed up with life in town. I am going abroad
again next year. Till then, I am rather at a loose
end. My father was always very keen indeed about
this place, and very anxious that I should come and
stay here for a little time, so I made up my mind to ·


106 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
run down. I've got some things waiting at Norwich.
I thought I might hire a woman to look after me and
spend a few weeks here. They tell me that the early
spring is almost the best time for this coast.”
Mr. Fentolin nodded slowly. He moistened his lips
for a moment. One might have imagined that he was
anxious.
“Mr. Hamel," he said softly, “ you are quite right.
It is the best time to visit this coast. But why make
a hermit of yourself? You are a family friend.
Come and stay with us at the Hall for as long as
you like. It will give me the utmost pleasure to wel-
come you there,” he went on earnestly," and as for
this little place, of what use is it to you? Let me
buy it from you. You are a man of the world, I can
see. You may be rich, yet money has a definite value.
To me it has none. That little place, as it stands, is
probably worth — say a hundred pounds. Your
father gave, if I remember rightly, a five pound note
for it. I will give you a thousand for it sooner than
be disturbed.”
Hamel frowned slightly.
“I could not possibly think,” he said, “ of selling
what was practically a gift to my father. You are
welcome to occupy the place during my absence in
any way you wish. On the other hand, I do not think
that I care to part with it altogether, and I should
really like to spend just a day or so here. I am used
to roughing it under all sorts of conditions — much
more used to roughing it than I am to staying at
country houses.”
Mr. Fentolin leaned a little out of his carriage. He
reached the younger man's shoulder with his hand.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 107
" Ah! Mr. Hamel,” he pleaded, “ don't make up
your mind too suddenly. Am I a little spoilt, I
wonder? Well, you see what sort of a creature I
am. I have to go through life as best I may, and peo-
ple are kind to me. It is very seldom I am crossed.
It is quite astonishing how often people let me have
my own way. Do not make up your mind too sud-
denly. I have a niece and a nephew whom you must
meet. There are some treasures, too, at St. David's
Hall. Look at it. There isn't another house quite
like it in England. It is worth looking over."
“ It is most impressive," Hamel agreed, “and
wonderfully beautiful. It seems odd,” he added, with
a laugh," that you should care about this little shanty
here, with all the beautiful rooms you must have of
your own."
“It's Naboth's vineyard,” Mr. Fentolin groaned.
“ Now, Mr. Hamel, you are going to be gracious,
aren't you? Let us leave the question of your little
habitation here alone for the present. Come back
with me. My niece shall give you some tea, and
you shall choose your room from forty. You can
sleep in a haunted chamber, or a historical chamber,
in Queen Elizabeth's room, a Victorian chamber, or
a Louis Quinze room. All my people have spent
their substance in furniture. Don't look at your
bag. Clothes are unnecessary. I can supply you
with everything. Or, if you prefer it, I can send a
fast car into Norwich for your own things. Come
and be my guest, please.”
Hamel hesitated. He had not the slightest desire
to go to St. David's Hall, and though he strove to
ignore it, he was conscious of an aversion of which


108 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
he was heartily ashamed for this strange fragment of
humanity. On the other hand, his mission, the ac-
tual mission which had brought him down to these
parts, could certainly best be served by an entrée
into the Hall itself — and there was the girl, whom
he 'felt sure belonged there. He had never for a
moment been able to dismiss her from his thoughts.
Her still, cold face, the delicate perfection of her
clothes and figure, the grey eyes which had rested
upon his so curiously, haunted him. He was des-
perately anxious to see her again. If he refused
this invitation, if he rejected Mr. Fentolin's proffered
friendship, it would be all the more difficult.
“ You are really very kind," he began hesita-
tingly -
“It is settled,” Mr. Fentolin interrupted, “ set-
tled. Meekins, you can ride back again. I shall
not paint to-day. Mr. Hamel, you will walk by my
side, will you not? I can run my little machine
quite slowly. You see, I have an electric battery.
It needs charging often, but I have a dynamo of my
own. You never saw a vehicle like this in all your
travellings, did you?”
Hamel shook his head.
“An electrical bath-chair," Mr. Fentolin con-
tinued. “Practice has made me remarkably skil-
ful in its manipulation. You see, I can steer to an
inch.”
He was already turning around. Hamel rose to
his feet.
“ You are really very kind,” he said. “ I should
like to come up and see the Hall, at any rate, but in
the meantime, as we are here, could I just look over
:


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 109
the inside of this little place? I found the large
shed where the lifeboat used to be kept, locked up."
Mr. Fentolin was manœuvring his carriage. His
back was towards Hamel.
“ By all means,” he declared. “We will go in
together. I have had the entrance widened so that
I can ride straight into the sitting-room. But
wait.”
He paused suddenly. He felt in all his pockets.
“ Dear me,” he exclaimed, “ I find that I have left
the keys! We will come down a little later, if you
do not mind, Mr. Hamel. Or to-morrow, perhaps.
You will not mind? It is very careless of me, but
seeing you about the place and imagining that you
were an intruder, made me angry, and I started off in
a hurry. Now walk by my side up to the house,
please, and talk to me. It is so interesting for me
to meet men,” he went on, as they started along the
straight path, “ who do things in life; who go to for-
eign countries, meet strange people, and have new ex-
periences. I have been a good many years like this,
you know.”
“ It is a great affliction,” Hamel murmured sym-
pathetically.
“ In my youth I was an athlete,” Mr. Fentolin con-
tinued. "I played cricket for the Varsity and for
my county. I hunted, too, and shot. I did all the
things a man loves to do. I might still shoot, they
tell me, but my strength has ebbed away. I am too
weak to lift a gun, too weak even to handle a fishing-
rod. I have just a few hobbies in life which keep me
alive. Are you a politician, Mr. Hamel?”
“ Not in the least,” Hamel replied. “I have been


110 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
out of England too long to keep in touch with poli-
tics."
“ Naturally,” Mr. Fentolin agreed. “ It amuses
me to follow the course of events. I have a good
many friends in London and abroad who are kind to
me, who keep me informed, send me odd bits of infor-
mation not available for every one, and it amuses me
to put these things together in my mind and to try
and play the prophet. I was in the Foreign Office
once, you know. I take up my paper every morning,
and it is one of my chief interests to see how near
my own speculations come to the truth. Just now,
for example, there are strange things doing on the
Continent."
“In America,” Hamel remarked, “ they affect to
look upon England as a doomed Power.”
“ Not altogether supine yet," Mr. Fentolin ob-
served, “yet even this last generation has seen a
weakening. We have lost so much self-reliance.
Perhaps it is having these grown-up children who we
think can take care of us — Canada and Australia,
and the others. However, we will not talk of poli-
tics. It bores you, I can see. We will try and
find some other subject. Now tell me, don't you
think this is ingenious ? "
They had reached the foot of the hill upon which
the Hall was situated. In front of them, under-
neath the terrace, was a little iron gate, held open
now by Meekins, who had gone on ahead and dis-
mounted from his bicycle.
“ I have a subterranean way from here into the
Hall,” Mr. Fentolin explained. “ Come with me.
You will only have to stoop a little, and it may


THE VANISHED MESSENGER III
amuse you. You need not be afraid. There are
electric lights every ten yards. I turn them on with
this switch — see.”
Mr. Fentolin touched a button in the wall, and
the place was at once brilliantly illuminated. A little
row of lights from the ceiling and the walls stretched
away as far os one could see. They passed through
the iron gates, which shut behind them with a click.
Stooping a little, Hamel was still able to walk by the
side of the man in the chair. They traversed about
a hundred yards of subterranean way. Here and
there a fungus hung down from the wall, otherwise
it was beautifully kept and dry. By and by, with a
little turn, they came to an incline and another iron
gate, held open for them by a footman. Mr. Fen-
tolin sped up the last few feet into the great hall,
which seemed more imposing than ever by reason of
this unexpected entrance. Hamel, blinking a little,
stepped to his side.
“Welcome !” Mr. Fentolin cried gaily. “Wel-
come, my friend Mr. Hamel, to St. David's Hall!”


CHAPTER XIII
During the next half-hour, Hamel was introduced
to luxuries to which, in a general way, he was en-
tirely unaccustomed. One man-servant was busy pre-
paring his bath in a room leading out of his sleeping
apartment, while another brought him a choice of
evening clothes and superintended his disrobing.
Hamel, always observant, studied his surroundings
with keen interest. He found himself in a queerly
mixed atmosphere of luxurious modernity and stately
antiquity. His four-poster, the huge couch at the
foot of his bed, and all the furniture about the room,
was of the Queen Anne period. The bathroom
which communicated with his apartment was the latest
triumph of the plumber's art — a room with floor
and walls of white tiles, the bath itself a little sunken
and twice the ordinary size. He dispensed so far
as he could with the services of the men and de-
scended, as soon as he was dressed, into the hall.
Meekins was waiting at the bottom of the stairs,
dressed now in somber black.
“Mr. Fentolin will be glad if you will step into his
room, sir,” he announced, leading the way.
Mr. Fentolin was seated in his chair, reading the
Times in a corner of his library. Shaped blocks
had been placed behind and in front of the wheels of
his little vehicle, to prevent it from moving. A
shaded reading-lamp stood on the table by his side.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 113
He did not at once look up, and Hamel glanced
around with genuine admiration. The shelves which
lined the walls and the winged cases which protruded
into the room were filled with books. There was a
large oak table with beautifully carved legs, piled with
all sorts of modern reviews and magazines. A log
fire was burning in the big oaken grate. The per-
fume from a great bowl of lavender seemed to mingle
curiously yet pleasantly with the half musty odour
of the old leather-bound volumes. The massive chim-
neypiece was of black oak, and above it were carved
the arms of the House of Fentolin. The walls were
oak-panelled to the ceiling.
“ Refreshed, I hope, by your bath and change, my
dear visitor? " the head of the house remarked, as he
laid down his paper. “ Draw a chair up here and
join me in a glass of vermouth. You need not be
afraid of it. It comes to me from the maker as a
special favour.”
Hamel accepted a quaintly-cut wine-glass full of
the amber liquid. Mr. Fentolin sipped his with the
air of a connoisseur.
66 This," he continued, " is one of our informal
days. There is no one in the house save my sister-in-
law, niece, and nephew, and a poor invalid gentleman
who, I am sorry to say, is confined to his bed. My
sister-in-law is also, I regret to say, indisposed. She
desired me to present her excuses to you and say how
greatly she is looking forward to making your ac-
quaintance during the next few days."
Hamel bowed.
“ It is very kind of Mrs. Fentolin,” he murmured.
“ On these occasions,” Mr. Fentolin continued, “ we


114 'THE VANISHED MESSENGER
do not make use of a drawing-room. My niece will
come in here presently. You are looking at my
books, I see. Are you, by any chance, a bibliophile?
I have a case of manuscripts here which might interest
you."
Hamel shook his head.
“ Only in the abstract, I fear," he answered. “I
have scarcely opened a serious book since I was at
Oxford.”
“ What was your year?” Mr. Fentolin asked.
“ Fourteen years ago I left Magdalen," Hamel re-
plied. “I had made up my mind to be an engineer,
and I went over to the Boston Institute of Tech-
nology."
Mr. Fentolin nodded appreciatively.
“ A magnificent profession,” he murmured. “A
healthy one, too, I should judge from your appear-
ance. You are a strong mạn, Mr. Hamel.”
“I have had reason to be," Hamel rejoined. “ Dur-
ing nearly the whole of the time I have been abroad, I
have been practically pioneering. Building railways
in the far West, with gangs of Chinese and Italians
and Hungarians and scarcely a foreman who isn't
terrified of his job, isn't exactly drawing-room work."
6 You are going back there?” Mr. Fentolin asked,
with interest.
Hamel shook his head.
“I have no plans,” he declared. “I have been
fortunate enough, or shall I some day say unfortu-
nate enough, I wonder, to have inherited a large leg-
acy.”
Mr. Fentolin smiled.
“ Don't ever doubt your good fortune," he said


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 115
earnestly. “ The longer I live — and in my limited
way I do see a good deal of life — the more I appre-
ciate the fact that there isn't anything in this world
that compares with the power of money. I distrust
a poor man. He may mean to be honest, but he is
at all times' subject to temptation. Ah! here is my.
niece."
Mr. Fentolin turned towards the door. Hamel
rose at once to his feet. His surmise, then, had been
correct. She was coming towards them very quietly.
In her soft grey dinner-gown, her brown hair smoothly
brushed back, a pearl necklace around her long, deli-
cate neck, she seemed to him a very exquisite embodi-
about throughout the afternoon.
“Here, Mr. Hamel,” his host said, “ is a member of
my family who has been a deserter for a short time.
This is Mr. Richard Hamel, Esther; my niece, Miss
Esther Fentolin.”
She held out her hand with the faintest possible
smile, which might have been of greeting or recogni-
tion.
“I travelled for some distance in the train with
Mr. Hamel this afternoon, I think,” she remarked.
“ Indeed?” Mr. Fentolin exclaimed. “Dear me,
that is very interesting — very interesting, indeed!
Mr. Hamel, I am sure, did not tell you of his destina-
tion?”
He watched them keenly. Hamel, though he
scarcely understood, was quick to appreciate the pos-
sible significance of that tentative question.
“We did not exchange confidences,” he observed.
“ Miss Fentolin only changed into my carriage during


116 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
the last few minutes of her journey. Besides," he
continued, “ to tell you the truth, my ideas as to my
destination were a little hazy. To come and look
for some queer sort of building by the side of the sea,
which has been unoccupied for a dozen years or so,
scarcely seems a reasonable quest, does it?"
“ Scarcely, indeed,” Mr. Fentolin assented. “You
may thank me, Mr. Hamel, for the fact that the place
is not in ruins. My blatant trespassing has saved
you from that, at least. After dinner we must talk
further about the Tower. To tell you the truth,
I have grown accustomed to the use of the little
place."
The sound of the dinner gong boomed through the
house. A moment later Gerald entered, followed by
a butler announcing dinner.
“ The only remaining member of my family," Mr.
Fentolin remarked, indicating his nephew. “Gerald,
you will be pleased, I know, to meet Mr. Hamel. Mr.
Hamel has been a great traveller. Long before you
can remember, his father used to paint wonderful
pictures of this coast."
Gerald shook hands with his visitor. His face,
for a moment, lighted up. He was looking pale,
though, and singularly sullen and dejected.
“ There are two of your father's pictures in the
modern side of the gallery up-stairs,” he remarked,
a little diffidently. “ They are great favourites with
everybody here."
They all went in to dinner together. Meekins, who
had appeared silently, had glided unnoticed behind his
master's chair and wheeled it across the hall.
“ A partie carrée to-night,” Mr. Fentolin declared.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 117
“ I have a resident doctor here, a very delightful per-
son, who often dines with us, but to-night I thought
not. Five is an awkward number. I want to get
to know you better, Mr. Hamel, and quickly. I want
you, too, to make friends with my niece and nephew.
Mr. Hamel's father,” he went on, addressing the two
latter," and your father were great friends. By-the-
by, have I told you both exactly why Mr. Hamel is a
guest here to-night — why he came to these parts at
all? No? Listen, then. He came to take posses-
sion of the Tower. The worst of it is that it belongs
to him, too. His father bought it from your father
more years ago than we should care to talk about.
I have really been a trespasser all this time.”
They took their places at a small round table in
the middle of the dining-room. The shaded lights
thrown downwards upon the table seemed to leave
most of the rest of the apartment in semi-darkness.
The gloomy faces of the men and women whose pic-
tures hung upon the walls were almost invisible. The
servants themselves, standing a little outside the halo
of light, were like shadows passing swiftly and noise-
lessly back and forth. At the far end of the room
was an organ, and to the left a little balcony, built
out as though for an orchestra. Hamel looked about
him almost in wonderment. There was something
curiously impressive in the size of the apartment and
its emptiness.
“ A trespasser,” Mr. Fentolin continued, as he took
up the menu and criticised it through his horn-
rimmed eyeglass, " that is what I have been, without
a doubt.”
“But for your interest and consequent trespass,"


118 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
Hamel remarked, “ I should probably have found the
roof off and the whole place in ruins."
“ Instead of which you found the door locked
against you,” Mr. Fentolin pointed out. “ Well, we
shall see. I might, at any rate, have lost the oppor-
tunity of entertaining you here this evening. I am
particularly glad to have an opportunity of making
you known to my niece and nephew. I think you will
agree with me that here are two young people who
are highly to be commended. I cannot offer them a
cheerful life here. There is little society, no gaiety,
no sort of excitement. Yet they never leave me.
They seem to have no other interest in life but to be
always at my beck and call. A case, Mr. Hamel,
of really touching devotion. If anything could recon-
cile me to my miserable condition, it would be the kind-
ness and consideration of those by whom I am sur-
rounded.”
Hamel murmured a few words of cordial agree-
ment. Yet he found himself, in a sense, embarrassed.
Gerald was looking down upon his plate and his face
was hidden. Esther's features had suddenly become
stony and expressionless. Hamel felt instinctively
that something was wrong.
“ There are compensations," Mr. Fentolin con-
tinued, with the air of one enjoying speech, " which
find their way into even the gloomiest of lives. As I
lie on my back, hour after hour, I feel all the more
conscious of this. The world is a school of compensa-
tions, Mr. Hamel. The interests - the mental in-
terests, I mean - of unfortunate people like myself,
come to possess in time a peculiar significance and to
yield a peculiar pleasure. I have hobbies, Mr. Hamel.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 119
I frankly admit it. Without my hobbies, I shudder to
think what might become of me. I might become a
selfish, cruel, misanthropical person. Hobbies are in-
deed a great thing."
The brother and sister sat still in stony silence.
Hamel, looking across the little table with its glitter-
ing load of cut glass and silver and scarlet flowers,
caught something in Esther's eyes, so rarely expres-
sive of any emotion whatever, which puzzled him. He
looked swiftly back at his host. Mr. Fentolin's face,
at that moment, was like a beautiful cameo. His ex-
pression was one of gentle benevolence.
“ Let me be quite frank with you,” Mr. Fentolin
murmured. .“ My occupation of the Tower is one of
these hobbies. I love to sit there within a few yards
of the sea and watch the tide come in. I catch some-
thing of the spirit, I think, which caught your father,
Mr. Hamel, and kept him a prisoner here. In my
small way I, too, paint while I am down there, paint
and dream. These things may not appeal to you, but
you must remember that there are few things left
to me in life, and that those, therefore, which I can
make use of, are dear to me. Gerald, you are silent
to-night. How is it that you say nothing?"
“I am tired, sir,” the boy answered quietly.
Mr. Fentolin nodded gravely.
“ It is inexcusable of me,” he declared smoothly, “ to
have forgotten even for a moment. My nephew, Mr.
Hamel,” he went on, “had quite an exciting expe-
rience last night — or rather a series of experiences.
He wys first of all in a railway accident, and then,
for the sake of a poor fellow who was with him and
who was badly hurt, he motored back here in the


120 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
grey hours of the morning and ran, they tell me, con-
siderable risk of being drowned on the marshes. A
very wonderful and praiseworthy adventure, I con-
sider it. I trust that our friend up-stairs, when he
recovers, will be properly grateful.”
Gerald rose to his feet precipitately. The service
of dinner was almost concluded, and he muttered some-
thing which sounded like an excuse. Mr. Fentolin,
however, stretched out his hand and motioned him to
resume his seat.
: “My dear Gerald!” he exclaimed reprovingly.
“ You would leave us so abruptly? Before your sis-
ter, too! What will Mr. Hamel think of our country
ways? Pray resume your seat.”
For a moment the boy stood quite still, then he
slowly subsided into his chair. Mr. Fentolin passed
around a decanter of wine which had been placed upon
the table by the butler. The servants had now left
the room.
“ You must excuse my nephew, if you please, Mr.
Hamel,” he begged. “Gerald has a boy's curious
aversion to praise in any form. I am looking forward
to hearing your verdict upon my port. The col-
lection of wine and pictures was a hobby of my grand-
father's, for which we, his descendants, can never be
sufficiently grateful.”
Hamel praised his wine, as indeed he had every
reason to, but for a few moments the smooth conversa-
tion of his host fell upon deaf ears. He looked from
the boy's face, pale and wrinkled as though with some
sort of suppressed pain, to the girl's still, stony ex-
pression. This was indeed a house of mysteries!
There was something here incomprehensible, some


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 121
thing about the relations of these three and their
knowledge of one another, utterly baffling. It was
the queerest household, surely, into which any
stranger had ever been precipitated.
“ The planting of trees and the laying down of
port are two virtues in our ancestors which have
never been properly appreciated,” Mr. Fentolin con-
tinued. “Let us, at any rate, free ourselves from
the reproach of ingratitude so far as regards my
grandfather — Gerald Fentolin — to whom I believe
we are indebted for this wine. We will drink —”
Mr. Fentolin broke off in the middle of his sentence.
The august calm of the great house had been sud-
denly broken. From up-stairs came the tumult of
raised voices, the slamming of a door, the falling of
something heavy upon the floor. Mr. Fentolin lis-
tened with a grim change in his expression. His
smile had departed, his lower lip was thrust out,
his eyebrows met. He raised the little whistle which
hung from his chain. At that moment, however, the
door was opened. Doctor Sarson appeared.
“I am sorry to disturb you, Mr. Fentolin,” he said,
“ but our patient is becoming a little difficult. The
concussion has left him, as I feared it might, in a
state of nervous excitability. He insists upon an
interview with you."
Mr. Fentolin backed his little chair from the table.
The doctor came over and laid his hand upon the
handle.
“ You will, I am sure, excuse me for a few mo-
ments, Mr. Hamel,” his host begged. “My niece
and nephew will do their best to entertain you. Now,
Sarson, I am ready."


122 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
Mr. Fentolin glided across the dim, empty spaces
of the splendid apartment, followed by the doctor;
a ghostly little procession it seemed. The door was
closed behind them. For a few moments a curious
silence ensued. Gerald remained tense and appar-
ently suffering from some sort of suppressed emo-
tion. Esther for the first time moved in her place.
She leaned towards Hamel. Her lips were slowly
parted, her eyes sought the door as though in terror.
Her voice, although save for themselves there was
no one else in the whole of that great apartment, had
sunk to the lowest of whispers.
“ Are you a brave man, Mr. Hamel?” she asked.
He was staggered but he answered her promptly.
“I believe so."
“ Don't give up the Tower — just yet. That is
what — he has brought you here for. He wants you
to give it up and go back. Don't!”
The earnestness of her words was unmistakable.
Hamel felt the thrill of coming events.
“ Why not?”
“Don't ask me,” she begged. “ Only if you are
brave, if you have feeling for others, keep the Tower,
if it be for only a week. Hush!”
The door had been noiselessly opened. The doc-
tor appeared and advanced to the table with a
grave little bow.
“Mr. Fentolin," he said, “ has been kind enough
to suggest that I take a glass of wine with you.
My presence is not needed up-stairs. Mr. Hamel,”
he added, “I am glad, sir, to make your acquaint-
ance. I have for a long time been a great admirer
of your father's work."


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 123
He took his place at the head of the table and, fill-
ing his glass, bowed towards Hamel. Once more Ger-
ald and his sister relapsed almost automatically into
an indifferent and cultivated silence. Hamel found
civility towards the newcomer difficult. Uncon-
sciously his attitude became that of the other two.
He resented the intrusion. He found himself re-
garding the advent of Doctor Sarson as possess-
ing some secondary significance. It was almost as
though Mr. Fentolin preferred not to leave him alone
with his niece and nephew.


CHAPTER XIV
Mr. Fentolin, on leaving the dining-room, steered
his chair with great precision through the open,
wrought-iron doors of a small lift at the further end
of the hall, which Doctor Sarson, who stepped in
with him, promptly directed to the second floor.
Here they made their way to the room in which Mr.
Dunster was lying. Doctor Sarson opened the door
and looked in. Almost immediately he stood at one
Fentolin.
“ If there is any trouble,” he whispered, “ send
for me. I am better away, for the present. My
presence only excites him.”
Mr. Fentolin nodded.
“ You are right,” he said. “Go down into the
dining-room. I am not sure about that fellow Hamel,
and Gerald is in a queer temper. Stay with them.
See that they are not alone."
The doctor silently withdrew, and Mr. Fentolin
promptly glided past him into the room. Mr. John
P. Dunster, in his night clothes, was sitting on the
side of the bed. Standing within a few feet of him,
watching him all the time with the subtle intentness
of a cat watching a mouse, stood Meekins. Mr.
Dunster's head was still bound, although the bandage
had slipped a little, apparently in some struggle.
His face was chalklike, and he was breathing quickly.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 125
Nevertheless, his voice, when he spoke, was clear and
firm.
“So you've come at last!” he exclaimed, a little
truculently. “ Are you Mr. Fentolin ? "
Mr. Fentolin gravely admitted his identity. His
eyes rested upon his guest with an air of tender in-
terest. His face was almost beautiful.
“ You are the owner of this house — I am under-
neath your roof — is that so?”
“ This is certainly St. David's Hall,” Mr. Fentolin
replied. “It really appears as though your con-
clusions were correct.”
“ Then will you tell me why I am kept a prisoner
here? "
· Mr. Fentolin's expression was for a moment
clouded. He seemed hurt.
“A prisoner,” he repeated softly. “My dear Mr.
Dunster, you have surely forgotten the circumstances
which procured for me the pleasure of this visit; the
condition in which you arrived here — only, after all,
a very few hours ago? ”
“ The circumstances,” Mr. Dunster declared drily,
“are to me still inexplicable. At Liverpool Street
Station I was accosted by a young man who informed
me that his name was Gerald Fentolin, and that he
was on his way to The Hague to play in a golf tour-
nament. His story seemed entirely probable, and I
permitted him a seat in the special train I had char-
tered for Harwich. There was an accident and I re-
ceived this blow to my head - only a trilling affair,
after all. I come to my senses to find myself here. I
do not know exactly what part of the world you
call this, but from tha fact that I can see the sea from


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 127
“ Am I to understand that they are to be restored
to me, then ? " Mr. Dunster demanded.
“ Without a doubt, yes ! ” Mr. Fentolin assured
him. “ You, however, are not fit for anything, at
the present moment, but to return to your bed, from
which I understand you rose rather suddenly a few
minutes ago.”
“On the contrary,” Mr. Dunster insisted, “I am
feeling absolutely well enough to travel. I have an
appointment on the Continent of great importance, as
you may judge by the fact that at Liverpool Street I
chartered a special train. I trust that nothing in my
manner may have given you offence, but I am anx-
ious to get through with the business which brought
me over to this side of the water. I have sent for you
to ask that my pocket-book, dressing-case, and clothes
be at once restored to me, and that I be provided with
the means of continuing my journey without a mo-
ment's further delay.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head very gently, very re-
gretfully, but also firmly.
“Mr. Dunster,” he pleaded, “ do be reasonable.
Think of all you have been through. I can quite
sympathise with you in your impatience, but I am
forced to tell you that the doctor who has been at-
tending you since the moment you were brought into
this house has absolutely forbidden anything of the
sort."
Mr. Dunster seemed, for a moment, to struggle for
composure.
“ I am an American citizen,” he declared. “I am
willing to listen to the advice of any physician, but
so long as I take the risk, I am not bound to follow it.


128 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
In the present case I decline to follow it. I ask for
facilities to leave this house at once."
Mr. Fentolin sighed.
“In your own interests,” he said calmly, “ they
will not be granted to you."
Mr. Dunster had spoken all the time like a man
struggling to preserve his self-control. There were
signs now that his will was ceasing to serve him. His
eyes flashed fire, his voice was raised.
6 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 notwithstand-
ing 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


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 129
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 in-
terrupted 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.
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


130 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
in earnest. I have a mission which I must perform,
and which I must perform quickly.”
“ You are very mysterious," Mr. Fentolin mur-
mured.
“ I will leave nothing to chance," Mr. Dunster con-
tinued. “ Send this man who seems to have consti-
tuted 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,
6 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,


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 131
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 im-
agine. In my younger days I was in the Foreign
Office. Since my unfortunate accident I have pre;
served 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 pos-
sibility 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 salva-
tion. 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


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 133
is, of course, an absurd one, but fortunately you have
fallen into good hands. Take good care of Mr. Dun-
ster, Meekins. I can see that he is a very important
personage. We must be careful not to lose sight of
him.”
· Mr. Fentolin steered his chair to the door, opened
it, and passed out. On the landing he blew his whistle ;
the lift almost immediately ascended. A moment or
two later he glided into the dining-room. The three
men were still seated around the table. A decanter
of wine, almost empty, was before Doctor Sarson,
whose pallid cheeks, however, were as yet unflushed.
“ At last, my dear guest,” Mr. Fentolin exclaimed,
turning to Hamel, “ I am able to return to you. If
you will drink no more wine, let us have our coffee
in the library, you and I. I want to talk to you about
the Tower.”


CHAPTER XV
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 hearth-
rug 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 as-
sure you. Quite violent, too, he was at first.”
“ Have you had any outside advice about his con-
dition?" 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 un-
usual 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 con-


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 135
sequence. 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 ci-
gar 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 be-
come 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 ac-
cepting 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 per-
sisted, 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.”


136 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“ Well, you can sit there all right,” Hamel as
sured him. “I shall be out playing golf or fishing.
I shall do nothing but sleep there."
“And very uncomfortable you will be,” Mr. Fen-
tolin pointed out. “You have no servant, I under-
stand, 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 misan-
thrope down at the Tower?"
“ Please don't think,” Hamel begged, “ that I
don't appreciate your hospitality. I should feel un-
comfortable, 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 in-
terfere with you. I should be away from it by about
nine or ten o'clock every morning. I should prob-
ably 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,


138 THE VANISHED. MESSENGER
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.
6. He was very hospitable,” Hamel continued.
66 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 whis-
pered.
" 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 in-
ventor, 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


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 139
:
“ You are going to stay for a few days, at any rate?"
“Without a doubt,” he assured her. “I am al-
together my own master.”
66 Thank God," she murmured.
He leaned with his elbow against the top of the
piano, looking down at her. Since dinnertime she
had fastened a large red rose in the front of her
gown.
“Do you know that this is all rather mysterious ? "
he said calmly.
“ What is mysterious ? ” she demanded.
“ The atmosphere of the place: your uncle's queer
aversion to my having the Tower; your visitor up-
stairs, who fights with the servants while we are at
dinner; your uncle himself, whose will seems to be
law not only to you but to your brother, who must be
of age, I should think, and who seems to have plenty
of spirit.”
" We live here, both of us,” she told him. “ He
is our guardian.”
“Naturally,” Hamel replied, “ and yet, it may
have been my fancy, of course, but at dinnertime I
seemed to get a queer impression.”
“ Tell it me? " she insisted, her fingers breaking
suddenly into a livelier melody. Tell it me at once?
You were there all the time. I could see you watch-
ing. 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


140 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
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 some-
thing — go into one of the professions? He could
surely leave easily enough?”
“I will tell you a secret,” she answered calmly.
“ Perhaps it will help you to understand. You know
my uncle's condition. You know that it was the re-
sult of an accident ? "
“I have heard so," he replied gravely.
She clutched at his arm.
“ Come," she said.
Side by side they walked the entire length of the


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 141
terrace. When they reached the corner, they were
met with a fierce gust of wind. She battled along,
and he followed her. They were looking inland now.
There were no lights visible —- nothing but dark,
chaotic emptiness. From somewhere below him he
could hear the wind in the tree-tops.
* This way,” she directed. “Be careful.”
They walked to the very edge of the palisading.
It was scarcely more than a couple of feet high. She
pointed downwards.
“ Can you see?” she whispered.
By degrees his eyes faintly penetrated the dark-
ness. It was as though they were looking down a
precipice. The descent was perfectly sheer for nearly
A hundred feet. At the bottom were the pine
trees.
" Come here again in the morning,” she whispered.
“ You will see then. I brought you here to show you
the place. It was here. that the accident happened.”
" What accident?”
“ Mr. Fentolin's,” she continued. “It was here
that he went over. He was picked up with both his
legs broken. They never thought that he would live.”
Hamel shivered a little. As his eyes grew accus-
tomed to the darkness, he saw more distinctly than
ever the sheer fall, the tops of the bending trees
below.
“ What a horrible thing!” he exclaimed.
“ It was more horrible than you know," she con-
tinued, dropping her voice a little, almost whispering
in his ear. “I do not know why I tell you this —
you, a stranger — but if I do not tell some one, I
think that the memory of it will drive me mad. It was


142 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
no accident at all. Mr. Fentolin was thrown over!"
“ By whom?" he asked.
She clung to his arm for a moment.
“ Ah, don't ask me!” she begged. “No one
knows. My uncle gave out, as soon as he was con-
scious, that it was an accident."
“ That, at any rate, was fine of him," Hamel de-
clared.
She shivered.
“ He was proud, at least, of our family name.
Whatever credit he deserves for it, he must have.
It was owing to that accident that we became his
slaves : nothing but that — his absolute slaves, to wait
upon him, if he would, hand and foot. You see, he
has never been able to marry. His life was, of course,
ruined: So the burden came to us. We took it up,
little thinking what was in store for us. Five years
ago we came here to live, Gerald wanted to go into
the army; I wanted to travel with my mother. Ger-
ald has done all the work secretly, but he has never
been allowed to pass his examinations. I have never
left England except to spend two years at the strictest
boarding-school in Paris, to which I was taken and
fetched away by one of his creatures. We live here,
with the shadow of this thing always with us. We
are his puppets. If we hesitate to do his bidding, he
reminds us. So far, we have been his creatures, body
and soul. Whether it will go on, I cannot say - oh,
I cannot say! It is bad for us, but — there is mother,
too. He makes her life a perfect hell! ”
A roar of wind came booming once more across
the marshes, bending the trees which grew so thickly
beneath them and which ascended precipitately to


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 143
the back of the house. The French windows behind
rattled. She looked around nervously.
“I am afraid of him all the time,” she murmured.
“ He seems to overhear everything — he or his crea-
tures. Listen!”
They were silent for several moments. He whis-
pered in her ear so closely that through the darkness
he could see the fire in her eyes.
“You are telling me half,” he said. “ Tell me
everything. Who threw your uncle over the para-
pet? ”
She stood by his side, motionless and trembling.
“It was the passion of a moment,” she said at
last, speaking hoarsely. “I cannot tell you. Lis-
ten! Listen!”
“ There is no one near," Hamel assured her. “It
is the wind which shakes the windows. I wish that
you would tell me everything. I would like to be
your friend. Believe me, I have that desire, really.
There are so many things which I do not under-
stand. That it is dull here for you, of course, is
natural, but there is something more than that.
You seem always to fear something. Your uncle is
a selfish man, naturally, although to look at him he
seems to have the disposition of an angel. But be-
yond that, is there anything of which you are afraid?
You seem all the time to live in fear.”
She suddenly clutched his hand. There was noth-
ing of affection in her touch, and yet he felt a thrill
of delight.
“ There are strange things which happen here,”
understand.
Yet they terrify us.
I think that very


144 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
soon the end will come. Neither of us can stand
it very much longer. We have no friends. Some-
how or other, he seems to manage to keep us always
isolated.”
“ I shall not go away from here,” Hamel said
firmly, “ at present. Mind, I am not at all sure that,
living this solitary life as you do, you have not be
come a little over-nervous; that you have not ex-
aggerated the fear of some things. To me your
uncle seems merely quixotic and egregiously selfish.
However that may be, I am going to remain."
She clutched once more at his arm, her finger was
upraised. They listened together. From some-
where behind them came the clear, low wailing of a
violin.
“It is Mr. Fentolin,” she whispered. “ Please
come in; let us go in at once. He only plays when
he is excited. I am afraid! Oh, I am afraid that
something is going to happen!”
She was already round the corner and on her way
to the main terrace. He followed her closely.


146 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
ously the handiwork of an accomplished tailor. Her
grey stockings and suède shoes were immaculate and
showed a care for her appearance which pleased him.
Her swing, too, revealed a grace, the grace of long
arms and a supple body, at which previously he had
only guessed. The sunshine seemed to have brought
out a copper tinge from her abundant brown hair.
“Do you know," he remarked, “I think I am be-
ginning to like your uncle. Great idea of his, sending
us off here directly after breakfast."
Her face darkened for a moment, and he realised
his error. The same thought, indeed, had been in
both their minds. Mr. Fentolin's courteous sugges-
tion had been offered to them almost in the shape of a
command. It was scarcely possible to escape from the
reflection that he had desired to rid himself of their
presence for the morning.
“Of course," he went on, “ I knew that these links
were good — quite famous, aren't they? "
“I have played on so few others,” she told him.
“I learned my golf here with King, the professional."
He took off his cap and handed it to his caddy.
He himself was beginning already to look younger.
The long blue waves came rippling up the creeks.
The salt wind, soft with sunshine, blew in their faces.
The marshes on the landward side were mauve with
lavender blossom. In the distance, the red-tiled cot-
tages nestled deep among a background of green trees
and rising fields.
“ This indeed is a land of peace,” he declared. “If
I hadn't to give you quite so many strokes, I should
be really enjoying myself.”
66 You don't play like a man who has been living


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 147
abroad for a great many years," she remarked.
“ Tell me about some of the places you have visited ? "
“ Don't let us talk seriously,” he begged. “I'll
tell you of them but let it be later on. This morning
I feel that the spring air is getting into my head.
I have an absurd desire to talk nonsense.”
“ So far,” she admitted, “ you haven't been al-
together unsuccessful.”
“ If you are alluding,” he replied, “ to the personal
remarks I was emboldened to make on my way here,
I can only say that they were excused by their truth-
fulness.”
“ I am not at all sure that you have known me long
enough to tell me what colours suit me," she de-
murred.
“ Then what will you say,” he enquired, “ if I
admire the angle of that quill in your hat?”
“ Don't do it,” she laughed. “If you continue
like this, I may have to go home.”
“ You have sent the car away,” he reminded her
cheerfully. “ You would simply have to sit upon the
balcony and reflect upon your wasted morning.”
“I decline to talk upon the putting green,” she
said. “ It puts me off. If you will stand perfectly
quiet and say nothing, I will play the like.”
They moved off presently to the next teeing ground.
“ I don't believe this nonsense is good for our golf,”
she said.
“ It is immensely good for us as human beings,"
he protested.
They had played the ninth hole and turned for
home. On their right now was a shimmering stretch
of wet sand and a thin line of sea in the distance.


148 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
The tide, receding, had left little islands of virgin
sand, grass tufted, the home of countless sea-gulls.
A brown-sailed fishing boat was racing for the narrow
entrance to the tidal way.
“I am beginning to understand what there is about
this coast which fascinated my father so," he re-
marked.
“ Are you?" she answered gravely. “ Years ago I
used to love it, but not now.”
He tried to change the subject, but the gloom had
settled upon her face once more.
“ You don't know what it is like," she went on, as
they walked side by side after their balls, “ to live
day and night in fear, with no one to talk to – no
one, that is to say, who is not under the same shadow.
Even the voices of the wind and the sea, and the
screaming of the birds, seem to bring always an evil
message. There is nothing kindly or hopeful even in
the sunshine. At night, when the tide comes thunder-
ing in as it does so often at this time of the year, one
is afraid. There is so much to make one afraid!”
She had turned pale again, notwithstanding the
sunshine and the freshening wind. He laid his hand
lightly upon her arm. : She suffered his touch without
appearing to notice it.
“Ah, you mustn't talk like that!” he pleaded,
“Do you know what you make me feel like?”
She came back from the world of her own unhappy
imaginings.
6 Really, I forgot myself,” she declared, with a lit-
tle smile. “ Never mind, it does one good sometimes.
One up, are you? Henceforth, then, golf - all the
rigour of the game, mind.”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 149
- He fell in with her mood, and their conversation
touched only upon the game. On the last green he
suffered defeat and acknowledged it with a little
grimace.
“If I might say so, Miss Fentolin,” he protested,
66 you are a little too good for your handicap. I used
to play a very reasonable scratch myself, but I can't
give you the strokes."
She smiled.
“ Doubtless your long absence abroad,” she began
slowly, “ has affected your game.”
“I was round in eighty-one,” he grumbled.
6 You must have travelled in many countries," she
continued, “ where golf was an impossibility.”
“ Naturally,” he admitted. “ Let us stay and
have lunch and try again."
She shook her head with a little sigh of regret.
“ You see, the car is waiting,” she pointed out.
“ We are expected home. I shan't be a minute put-
ting my clubs away.”
They sped swiftly along the level road towards St.
David's Hall. Far in the distance they saw it, built
upon that strange hill, with the sunlight flashing in its
windows. He looked at it long and curiously.
“I think,” he said, “ that yours is the most ex-
traordinarily situated house I have ever seen. Fancy
a gigantic mound like that in the midst of an abso-
lutely flat marsh.”
She nodded.
“ There is no other house quite like it in England,"
she said. “I suppose it is really a wonderful place.
Have you looked at the pictures?"
“ Not carefully,” he told her.


150 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“ You must before you leave,” she insisted. “Mr.
Fentolin is a great judge, and so was his father.”
Their road curved a little to the sea, and at its last
bend they were close to the pebbly ridge on which the
Tower was built. He touched the electric bell and
stopped the car.
“Do let us walk along and have a look at my queer
possession once more,” he begged. “ Luncheon, you
told me, is not till half-past one, and it is a quarter to
now."
She hesitated for a moment and then assented.
They left the car and walked along the little track,
bordered with white posts, which led on to the ridge.
To their right was the village, separated from them
only by one level stretch of meadowland; in the back-
ground, the hall. They turned along the raised dike
just inside the pebbly beach, and she showed her com-
panion the narrow waterway up to the village. At its
entrance was a tall iron upright, with a ladder at-
tached and a great lamp at the top.
“ That is to show them the way in at night, isn't
it?” he asked.
She nodded.
“ Yes,” she told him. “Mr. Fentolin had it placed
there. And yet,” she went on, “ curiously enough,
since it was erected, there have been more wrecks than
ever.”
“ It doesn't seem a dangerous beach,” he remarked.
She pointed to a spot about fifty yards from the
Tower. It was the spot to which the woman whom
he had met on the day of his arrival had pointed.
“ You can't see them,” she said ; “ they are always
out of sight, even when the tide is at the lowest - but


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 151
there are some hideous sunken rocks there. "The
Daggers, they call them. One or two fishing boats
have been lost on them, trying to make the village.
When Mr. Fentolin put up the lamp, every one thought
that it would be quite safe to try and get in at night.
This winter, though, there have been three wrecks
which no one could understand. It must be something
in the currents, or a sort of optical illusion, because
in the last shipwreck one man was saved, and he swore
that at the time they struck the rock, they were
headed straight for the light.”
They had reached the Tower now. Hamel became
a little absorbed. They walked around it, and he
that it opened readily. He looked around him for
several moments.
marked quietly.
“ Very likely.”
.66 That outhouse,” he continued, “must be quite a
large place. Have you any idea what it is he works
upon there?”
“ None,” she answered.
He looked around him once more.
“ Mr. Fentolin has been preparing for my coming,”
he observed. “I see that he has moved a few of his
personal things.”
She made no reply, only she shivered a little as she
stepped back into the sunshine.
“ I don't believe you like my little domicile,” he re-
marked, as they started off homeward.
“I don't," she admitted curtly.
“In the train," he reminded her, “ you seemed


152 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
rather to discourage my coming here. Yet last night,
after dinner —”
“I was wrong," she interrupted. “I should have
said nothing, and yet I couldn't help it. I don't sup-
pose it will make any difference.”
“Make any difference to what?”
“I cannot tell you," she confessed. “Only I have
a strange antipathy to the place. I don't like it.
My uncle sometimes shuts himself up here for quite a
long time. We have an idea, Gerald and I, that
things happen here sometimes which no one knows of.
When he comes back, he is moody and ill-tempered, or
else half mad with excitement. He isn't always the
amiable creature whom you have met. He has the
face of an angel, but there are times —"
“Well, don't let's talk about him,” Hamel begged,
as her voice faltered. “ Now that I am going to stay
in the neighbourhood for a few days, you must please
remember that it is partly your responsibility. You
are not going to shut yourself up, are you? You'll
come and play golf again?”
“ If he will let me,” she promised.
“ I think he will let you, right enough,” Hamel ob-
served. “ Between you and me, I rather think he
hates having me down at the Tower at all. He will
encourage anything that takes me away, even as far
as the Golf Club.”
They were approaching the Hall now. She was
looking once more as she had looked last night. She
had lost her colour, her walk was no longer buoyant.
She had the air of a prisoner who, after a brief spell of
liberty, enters once more the place of his confinement.
Gerald came out to meet them as they climbed the


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 153
stone steps which led on to the terrace. He glanced
behind as he greeted them, and then almost stealthily
took a telegram from his pocket.
“ This came for you," he remarked, handing it
to Hamel. “I met the boy bringing it out of the
office.”
Hamel tore it open, with a word of thanks. Gerald
stood in front of him as he read.
“ If you wouldn't mind putting it away at once," he
asked, a little uncomfortably. “You see, the tele-
graph office is in the place, and my uncle has a queer
rule that every telegram is brought to him before it is
delivered.”
Hamel did not speak for a moment. He was look-
ing at the few words scrawled across the pink sheet
with a heavy black pencil:
“Make every enquiry in your neighbourhood
for an American, John P. Dunster, entrusted
with message of great importance, addressed to
Von Dusenberg, The Hague. Is believed to
have been in railway accident near Wymondham
and to have been taken from inn by young man
in motor-car. Suggest that he is being im-
properly 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.”


CHAPTER XVII
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. Fento-
lin? ” he asked. “You seem to know a great deal
about me.”
“ It is true," Mr. Fentolin admitted. “I do know
a great deal."


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 155
worly
Mr. Dunster knocked the ash from his cigar.
“ Well," he said, “ I have been the bearer of several
important communications from my side of the At-
lantic 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 distrac-
tion in strange quarters. I have wealth — great
wealth I suppose I should say; an inordinate curios-
ity, a talent for intrigue. As to the direction in which
I carry on my intrigues, or even as to the direct in-
terests 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.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 157
“ 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 mur-
mured 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. Fento-
lin 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


158 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
company here for a very brief visit,” Mr. Fentolin
answered. “We should, I can assure you, do our
very best to entertain you."
6 And the dispatch which I am carrying to The
Hague ? "
66 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;
6 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 prac-
tically 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


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 159
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 nat-
urally 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 ad-
venture," 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 dis-
appointment. He simply sighed. His eyes were full
of a gentle sympathy, his face indicated a certain
amount of concern.
“ You distress me,” he declared. 6 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."
99


160 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
Mr. Dunster laughed a little derisively.
6 We've passed those days,” he remarked. “I've
done my best to enter into the humour of this situa-
tion, 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 out-
side 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 in-
tend 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,


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 161
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 se-
renely, “ 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 fore-
finger upon the table which stood by his side.
“ That's not the sort of talk I understand," he de-
clared 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.


162 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“Your cook," Mr. Dunster continued, “ has wor
my heartfelt appreciation. Your cigars and wines
are fit for any nobleman. Perhaps, after all, this lit-
tle 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
puzzle me. What I cannot see is, to put it bluntly,
where you come in. Any one of the countries repre-
sented at this little conference would only be the gain-
ers by the miscarriage of my message, which is, with-
out doubt, so far as they are concerned, of a distaste-
ful nature. Your own country alone could be the sui-
ferer. Now what interest in the world, then, is there
left — what interest in the world can you possibly rep-
resent — which can be the gainer by your present ac-
tion ? "
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
monit
6 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


164 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
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 igno-
minious 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 curi-
osity 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 sim-
ply 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. Fento-
lin'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 pur-
poses. I plead guilty to the weakness of Nero. Suf-
fering 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 re-
marked, “ for which I am not prepared.”
His little revolver gleamed for a minute beneath his


CHAPTER XVIII
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. Ev-
idently 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 Pom-
eranian dog under her arm. In the background,
an insignificant-looking man with grey side-
whiskers and spectacles was beaming upon every-
body. 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


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 167
Esther, held out her hand and smiled good-humour-
edly at Hamel.
“I know your father's work quite well,” she de-
clared, “ and I don't wonder that you have made a
pilgrimage here. They tell me that he painted nine-
teen 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,
swoos 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 ac-
quaintance earlier."
“ And, Saxthorpe,” 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.


168 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“Queer thing, he used to hang out for months at a
time at that little shanty on the beach there. Hard-
est work in the world to get him away. He came over
to dine with us once or twice, but we saw scarcely any-
thing of him. I hope his son will not prove so ob-
durate."
“ 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 re-
plied.
“ Your niece was too good for me,” Hamel con-
fessed.
Mr. Fentolin smiled.
66 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!”
6 Dear lady,” Mr. Fentolin said, “I am one of
those who benefit by the law of compensations. On


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 169
a morning like this I can spend hours merely feasting
my eyes upon this prospect, and I can find, if not hap-
piness, 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
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. sea-
moss 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 pos-
session than the limbs of the athlete.”.
The butler announced luncheon, and they all
trooped in. Hamel found himself next to Lady Sax-
thorpe.
“ 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 con-
tinued with an air of triumph.
“ A thousand pounds! Just fancy that — a thou-


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 171
66 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 con-
tinued, 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 sup-
posed 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 Wy-
mondham. 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 inter-
est which his words had caused, Lord Saxthorpe
brought his sentence to a conclusion and glanced en-
quiringly around the table.
“A man could scarcely disappear in a civilised


172 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
neighbourhood like this,” Mr. Fentolin remarked
quietly, “ but there is a certain amount of coincidence
about your question. May I ask whether it was alto-
gether 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 dogcart 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 conversa-
tion 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 mur-
mured,“ 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 Ameri-
can firm of bankers, on his way to Germany to con-
clude a loan."
6 God bless my soul!” Lord Saxthorpe exclaimed


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 173
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 co-
incidences 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 en-
quiry respecting this man. I should not be sur-
prised,” 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, she 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


174 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
sound positively thrilling. I wonder what he has
done."
They discussed the subject of Mr. Dunster's pos-
sible 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 dis-
missed 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,
6 that there is any fear of war, do you, Mr. Fento-
lin? »
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 unex-
plained. 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


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 175
mobilisation is going on in the North Sea. If Lady
Saxthorpe thinks it warm enough, shall we take our
“ 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.
of life is not altogether out of earshot. I like to dab-
ble 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.


176 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“I was looking where you were looking,” she des
clared 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, compensa-
tions which appeal to me more as time steals on.
And yet "
He stopped short.
“ And yet? " Lady Saxthorpe repeated interrog-
atively.
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.


CHAPTER XIX
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 tele-
scope by his side and a budget of newspapers upon
his knee. On some pretext or another he had de-
tained 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 in-
duced 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 tele-
scope.
“ Lord Saxthorpe," he remarked, “has, I must
confess, greatly excited my curiosity as to the iden-
tity of our visitor. Such a harmless-looking per-
son, he seems, to be causing such a commotion.
Gerald, don't you feel your responsibility in the mat-
ter?”
“ 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,


178 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
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 dis-
tinctly 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


180 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
in accordance with instructions received from head-
quarters — 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. Dun-
ster was being enquired about as though he had dis-
appeared. 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. Dun-
ster'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


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 181
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 whis-
pered. “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,”


182 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
the inspector replied. “I have instructions to teles
graph 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 put-
ting 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 Scot-
land Yard,” the inspector announced, a little gloom-
ily. “My orders were to touch nothing, but to locate
him.”
“ Well, you've succeeded so far,” Mr. Fentolin re-
marked. “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.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 183
Only Mrs. Seymour Fentolin remained upon the ter-
race. He glided over to her side.
“My dear Florence,” he asked, “ where are the
others? "
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.”
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
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 Ger-
ald? "
“ Not particularly."


184. THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“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 be-
tween me and the things for which I am scheming
to-day, they will risk death.”
Mrs. Fentolin sighed. She was watching the fig-
ures 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 compensa-
tions 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 contemptu-
ously.
“ Presentiments," he scoffed, “ are the excuses of
cowards. Don't be afraid, Florence, Remember al-
ways that I look ahead. Do you think that I could


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 185
stay here contented with what you call my compensa-
tions — 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 ex-
citement 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.


)
CHAPTER XX
In the middle of that night Hamel sat up in bed,
awakened with a sudden start by some sound, only the
faintest echo of which remained in his consciousness.
His nerves were tingling with a sense of excitement.
He sat up in bed and listened. Suddenly it came
again — a long, low moan of pain, stifled at the end
as though repressed by some outside agency. He
leaped from his bed, hurried on a few clothes, and
stepped out on to the landing. The cry had seemed
to him to come from the further end of the long cor-
ridor — in the direction, indeed, of the room where
Mr. Dunster lay. He made his way there, walking
on tiptoe, although his feet fell noiselessly upon the
thick carpet. A single light was burning from a
bracket in the wall, insufficient to illuminate the empty
spaces, but enough to keep him from stumbling. The
corridor towards the south end gradually widened,
terminating in a splendid high window with stained
glass, a broad seat, and a table. On the right, the
end room was Mr. Dunster's apartment, and on the
left a flight of stairs led to the floor above. Hamel
stood quite still, listening. There was a light in the
room, as he could see from under the door, but there
was no sound of any one moving. Hamel listened in-
tently, every sense strained. Then the sound of a
stair creaking behind diverted his attention. He
looked quickly around. Gerald was descending.


188 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
little anxious about our mysterious guest. Doctor
Sarson fetched me an hour ago. He discovered that
it was necessary to perform a very slight operation,
over now, and I think that he will do very well.”
Notwithstanding this very plausible explanation,
Hamel was conscious of the remains of an uneasiness
which he scarcely knew how to put into words.
“ It was a most distressing cry," he observed doubt-
fully, “a cry of fear as well as of pain." .
“Poor fellow!” Mr. Fentolin remarked compas-
sionately. “I am afraid that for a moment or two
he must have suffered acutely. Doctor Sarson is
very clever, however, and there is no doubt that what
he did was for the best. His opinion is that by
to-morrow morning there will be a marvellous change.
Good night, Mr. Hamel. I am quite sure that you
will not be disturbed again.”
Hamel neither felt nor showed any disposition to
depart.
“ Mr. Fentolin,” he said, “I hope that you will
not think that I am officious or in any way abusing
your hospitality, but I cannot help suggesting that
as Dr. Sarson is purely your household physician,
the relatives of this man Dunster might be better
satisfied if some second opinion were called in. Might
I suggest that you telephone to Norwich for a sur-
geon ? »
Mr. Fentolin showed no signs of displeasure. He
was silent for a moment, as though considering the
matter.
“I am not at all sure, Mr. Hamel, that you are
not right,” he admitted frankly. “I believe that the:


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 189
case is quite a simple one, but on the other hand it
would perhaps be more satisfactory to have an out-
side opinion. If Mr. Dunster is not conscious in the
morning, we will telephone to the Norwich Infirm-
ary.”
“I think it would be advisable,” Hamel agreed.
“Good night!” Mr. Fentolin said once more. “I
am sorry that your rest has been disturbed.”
Hamel, however, still refused to take the hint.
His eyes were fixed upon that closed door.
“ Mr. Fentolin,” he asked, “ have you any ob-
jection to my seeing Mr. Dunster?”
There was a moment's intense silence. A sudden
light had burned in Mr. Fentolin's eyes. His fingers
gripped the side of his chair. Yet when he spoke
there were no signs of anger in his tone. It was a
marvellous effort of self-control.
“ There is no reason, Mr. Hamel,” he said, “why.
your curiosity should not be gratified. Knock softly
at the door, Gerald.”
The boy obeyed. In a moment or two Doctor
Sarson appeared on the threshold.
“Our guest, Mr. Hamel,” Mr. Fentolin explained
in a whisper, “has been awakened by this poor fel-
low's cry. He would like to see him for a moment."
Doctor Sarson opened the door. . They all passed
in on tiptoe. The doctor led the way towards the
bed upon which Mr. Dunster was lying, quite still.
face was ghastly. Gerald gave vent to a little mut-
tered exclamation. Mr. Fentolin turned to him
quickly.
“ Gerald!”


192 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
me that Scotland Yard communicated with the police-
station at Wells, through me that a man is to be sent
down from London. I didn't come here as a spy —
don't think that; I was coming here, anyhow. On
the other hand, I believe that your uncle is playing
a dangerous game. I am going to have Mr. John P.
Dunster put in charge of a Norwich physician to
morrow.”
“ Thank God!” the boy murmured.
“ Look here,” Hamel continued, “what are you
doing in this business, anyway? You are old enough
to know your own mind and to go your own way.”
“ You say that because you don't know," Gerald
declared bitterly.
“In a sense I don't," Hamel admitted, “ and yet
your sister hinted to me only this afternoon that
you and she —”
“Oh, I know what she told you!” the boy inter-
rupted. “We've worn the chains for the last eight
years. They are breaking her. They've broken my
mother. Sometimes I think they are breaking me.
But, you know, there comes a time — there comes a
time when one can't go on. I've seen some strange
things here, some that I've half understood, some that
I haven't understood at all. I've closed my eyes.
I've kept my promise. I've done his bidding, wher-
ever it has led me. But you know there is a time —
there is a limit to all things. I can't go on. I spied
on this man Dunster. I brought him here. It is I
who am responsible for anything that may happen to
him. It's the last time!”
Gerald's face was white with pain. Hamel laid his
hand upon his shoulder.


CHAPTER XXI
“ To-day,” Hamel declared, as he stood at the
sideboard the following morning at breakfast-time
and helped himself to bacon and eggs, “ I am posi-
tively going to begin reading. I have a case full of
books down at the Tower which I haven't unpacked
yet.”
Esther made a little grimace.
“ Look at the sunshine," she said. “There isn't
a breath of wind, either. I think to-day that I could
play from the men's tees."
Hamel sighed as he returned to his place.
“My good intentions are already half dissipated,"
he admitted.
She laughed.
“How can we attack the other half? " she asked.
Gerald, who was also on his way to the sideboard,
suddenly stopped.
“Hullo!” he exclaimed, looking out of the win-
dow. “Who's going away this morning, I wonder?
There's the Rolls-Royce at the door.”
Hamel, too, rose once more to his feet. The two
exchanged swift glances. Moved by a common
thought, they both started for the door, only to find
it suddenly opened before them. Mr. Fentolin glided
into the room.
“ Uncle !” Gerald exclaimed.
Mr. Fentolin glanced keenly around the room.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 195
“Good morning, everybody," he said. “My ap-
pearance at this hour of the morning naturally sur-
prises you. As a matter of fact, I have been up for
quite a long time. Esther dear, give me some coffee,
will you, and be sure that it is hot. If any of you
want to say good-by to Mr. John P. Dunster, you'd
better hurry out."
“ You mean that he is going?” Hamel asked in-
credulously.
“He is going,” Mr. Fentolin admitted. “I wash
my hands of the man. He has given us an infinite
amount of trouble, has monopolised Doctor Sarson
when he ought to have been attending upon me
a little more hot milk, if you please, Esther -- and
now, although he really is not fit to leave his room,
he insists upon hurrying off to keep an appointment
somewhere on the Continent. The little operation
we spoke of last night was successful, as Doctor Sar-
son prophesied, and Mr. Dunster was quite con-
scious and able to sit up early this morning. We
telephoned at six o'clock to Norwich for a surgeon,
who is now on his way over here, but he will not wait
even to see him. What can you do with a man so
obstinate!”
Neither Hamel nor Gerald had resumed their places.
The former, after a moment's hesitation, turned to-
wards the door.
“I think,” he said, “ that I should like to see the
last of Mr. Dunster.”
“Pray do," Mr. Fentolin begged. “I have said
good-by to him myself, and all that I hope is that
next time you offer a wayfarer the hospitality of
St. David's Hall, Gerald, he may be a more trac-


196 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
table person. This morning I shall give myself a
treat. I shall eat an old-fashioned English breakfast.
Close the door after you, if you please, Gerald.”
the hall. Just as they crossed the threshold they
saw Mr. Dunster, wrapped from head to foot in his
long ulster, a soft hat upon his head and one of Mr.
Fentolin's cigars in his mouth, step from the bottom
stair into the hall and make his way with somewhat
uncertain footsteps towards the front door. Doc-
tor Sarson walked on one side, and Meekins held him
by the arm. He glanced towards Gerald and his
companion and waved the hand which held his cigar.
“So long, my young friend!” he exclaimed.
Next time we go about the country in a saloon car
together, I hope we'll have better luck. Say, but
I'm groggy about the knees!”
“ You'd better save your breath,” Doctor Sarson
advised him grimly. “You haven't any to spare
now, and you'll want more than you have before you
get to the end of your journey. Carefully down the
steps, mind.”
They helped him into the car. Hamel and Gerald
stood under the great stone portico, watching.
“Well, I'm jiggered!” the boy exclaimed, under
Hamel was watching the proceedings with a puzzled
frown. To his surprise, neither Doctor Sarson nor
Meekins were accompanying the departing man.
“ He's off, right enough,” Hamel declared, as the
car glided away. “ Do you understand it? I don't.”
Gerald did not speak for several moments. His


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 197
eyes were still fixed upon the back of the disappearing
car. Then he turned towards Hamel.
“ There isn't much,” he said softly, “ that Mr.
Fentolin doesn't know. If that detective was really
on his way here, there wasn't any chance of keeping
Mr. Dunster to himself. You see, the whole story
is common property. And yet, there's something
about the affair that bothers me.”
“ And me,” Hamel admitted, watching the car until
it became a speck in the distance.
“He was fairly well cornered,” Gerald concluded,
as they made their way back to the dining-room,
“ but it isn't like him to let go of anything so
easily.”
“ So you've seen the last of our guest,” Mr. Fen-
tolin remarked, as Hamel and Gerald re-entered the
dining-room. “A queer fellow — almost a new type
to me. Dogged and industrious, I should think. He
hadn't the least right to travel, you know, and I
think so long as we had taken the trouble to telephone
to Norwich, he might have waited to see the physi-
cian. Sarson was very angry about it, but what can
you do with these fellows who are never ill? They
scarcely know what physical disability means. Well,
Mr. Hamel, and how are you going to amuse your-
self to-day?"
“I had thought of commencing some reading I
brought with me," Hamel replied, “but Miss Esther
has challenged me to another game of golf.”
“ Excellent !” Mr. Fentolin declared. “It is very
kind of you indeed, Mr. Hamel. It is always a matter
of regret for me that society in these parts is so re-
stricted. My nephew and niece have little oppor-


198 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
tunity for enjoying themselves. Play golf with Mr.
Hamel, by all means, my dear child,” he continued,
turning to his niece. “ Make the most of this glo-
rious spring weather. And what about you, Geraldi
What are you doing to-day? "
.“ I haven't made up my mind yet, sir,” the boy
replied.
Mr. Fentolin sighed.
“ Always that lack of initiative," he remarked.
“ A lack of initiative is one of your worst faults, I
am afraid, dear Gerald."
The boy looked up quickly. For a moment it
seemed as though he were about to make a fierce re-
ply. He met Mr. Fentolin's steady gaze, however,
and the words died away upon his lips.
“I rather thought,” he said, “ of going into Nor-
wich, if you could spare me. Captain Holt has asked
me to lunch at the Barracks.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head gently.
“ It is most unfortunate," he declared. “I have
a commission for you later in the day.”
Gerald continued his breakfast in silence. He bent
over his plate so that his face was almost invisible.
Mr. Fentolin was peeling a peach. A servant entered
the room.
“ Lieutenant Godfrey, sir," he announced.
They all looked up. A trim, clean-shaven, hard-
featured young man in naval uniform was standing
upon the threshold. He bowed to Esther.
6 Very sorry to intrude, sir, at this hour of the
morning,” he said briskly. “ Lieutenant Godfrey,
my name. I am flag lieutenant of the Britannia.
You can't see her, but she's not fifty miles off at this


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 199
minute. I landed at Sheringham this morning, hired
a car and made the best of my way here. Message
from the Admiral, sir.”
Mr. Fentolin smiled genially.
“We are delighted to see you, Lieutenant God-
frey," he said. “Have some breakfast.”
“ You are very good, sir," the officer answered.
5 Business first. I'll breakfast afterwards, with
pleasure, if I may. The Admiral's compliments, and
he would take it as a favour if you would haul down
your wireless for a few days.”
“ Haul down my wireless,” Mr. Fentolin repeated
slowly.
“ We are doing a lot of manoeuvring within range
of you, and likely to do a bit more,” the young man
explained. “You are catching up our messages all
the time. Of course, we know they're quite safe with
you, but things get about. As yours is only a
private installation, we'd like you, if you don't mind,
sir, to shut up shop for a few days."
Mr. Fentolin seemed puzzled.
“But, my dear sir,” he protested, “ we are not at
war, are we?”
“ Not yet,” the young officer replied, “but God
knows when we shall be! We are under sealed or-
ders, anyway, and we don't want any risk of our
plans leaking out. That's why we want your wire-
less disconnected.”
“ You need say no more,” Mr. Fentolin assured
him. 6 The matter is already arranged. Esther,
let me present Lieutenant Godfrey — my niece, Miss
Fentolin; Mr. Gerald Fentolin, my nephew; Mr.
Hamel, a guest. See that Lieutenant Godfrey has


200 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
some breakfast, Gerald. I will go myself and see
my Marconi operator.”
“ Awfully good of you, sir,” the young man de
clared, “ and I am sure we are very sorry to trouble
you. In a week or two's time you can go into busi-
ness again as much as you like. It's only while we
are fiddling around here that the Admiral's jumpy
about things. May my man have a cup of coffee,
sir? I'd like to be on the way back in a quarter of
an hour.”
Mr. Fentolin halted his chair by the side of the
bell, and rang it.
“Pray make use of my house as your own, sir,"
he said gravely. “ From what you leave unsaid, I
gather that things are more serious than the papers
would have us believe. Under those circumstances,
I need not assure you that any help we can render
is entirely yours.”
Mr. Fentolin left the room. Lieutenant Godfrey
was already attacking his breakfast. Gerald leaned
towards him eagerly.
“Is there really going to be war?” he de-
manded.
“ Ask those chaps at The Hague," Lieutenant
Godfrey answered. “Doing their best to freeze us
out, or something. All I know is, if there's going to
be fighting, we are ready for them. By-the-by, what
have you got wireless telegraphy for here, any-
way? ”
“It's a fad of my uncle's,” Gerald replied,
6. Since his accident he amuses himself in all sorts of
queer ways."
Lieutenant Godfrey nodded.


202 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
Gerald sighed.
“ It's a little difficult for me. Here's your car.
Good luck to you!”
“My excuses to Mr. Fentolin,” Lieutenant God-
frey shouted, “ and many thanks.”
He jumped into the automobile and was soon on
his way back. Gerald watched him until he was
nearly out of sight. On the knoll, two of the wireless
operators were already at work. Mr. Fentolin sat
in his chair below, watching. The blue sparks were
flashing. A message was just being delivered. Pres-
ently Mr. Fentolin turned his chair, and with Meekins
by his side, made his way back to the house. He
passed along the hall and into his study. Gerald,
who was on his way to the dining-room, heard the ring
of the telephone bell and the call for the trunk spe-
cial line. He hesitated for a moment. Then he made
his way slowly down towards the study and stood
outside the door, listening. In a moment he heard
Mr. Fentolin's clear voice, very low yet very pene-
trating. :
“ The Mediterranean Fleet will be forty-seven
hours before it comes together," was the message he
heard. “The Channel Fleet will maneuvre off
Sheerness, waiting for it. The North Sea Fleet is
seventeen units under nominal strength."
Gerald turned the handle of the door slowly and
entered. Mr. Fentolin was just replacing the re-
ceiver on its stand. He looked up at his nephew,
and his eyebrows came together.
“ What do you mean by this?” he demanded.
“ Don't you know that I allow no one in here when
I am telephoning on the private wire?”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 203
Gerald closed the door behind him and summoned
'p all his courage.
“ It is because I have heard what you were say-
ing over the telephone that I am here,” he declared.
“ I want to know to whom you were sending that
message which you have intercepted outside.”


CHAPTER XXII
Mr. Fentolin sat for a moment in his chair with
immovable face. Then he pointed to the door, which
“ Close that door, Gerald.”
The boy obeyed. Mr. Fentolin waited until he
had turned around again.
“ Come and stand over here by the side of the ta-
ble,” he directed.
Gerald came without hesitation. He stood before
his uncle with folded arms. There was something
else besides sullenness in his face this morning, some-
thing which Mr. Fentolin was quick to recognise.
“I do not quite understand the nature of your
question, Gerald,” Mr. Fentolin began. “ It is un-
like you. You do not seem yourself. Is there any-
thing in particular the matter? ”
“ Only this,” Gerald answered firmly. “I don't
understand why this naval fellow should come here
and ask you to close up your wireless because secrets
have been leaking out, and a few moments afterwards
you should be picking up a message and telephoning
to London information which was surely meant to be
private. That's all. I've come to ask you about it.”
“ You heard the message, then?”
6 I did.”
“ You listened — at the keyhole?”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 207
this message would ever have found its way to the
Press? It was simply a message from one battle-
ship to another. It was not intended to be picked
up onland. There is no other installation but
ours that could have picked it up. Besides, it was
in code. I know that you have the code, but the
others haven't.”
Mr. Fentolin yawned slightly.
“ Ingenious, my dear Gerald, but inaccurate.
You do not know that the message was in code, and
in any case it was liable to be picked up by any
steamer within the circle. You really do treat me,
my boy, rather as though I were a weird, mischief-
making person with a talent for intrigue and crime
of every sort. Look at your suspicions last night.
I believe that you and Mr. Hamel had quite made
up your minds that I meant evil things for Mr. John
P. Dunster. Well, I had my chance. You saw him
depart.”
“What about his papers ? "
“I will admit,” Mr. Fentolin replied, “ that I
read his papers. They were of no great conse-
quence, however, and he has taken them away with
him. Mr. Dunster, as a matter of fact, turned
out to be rather a. mare's-nest. Now, come, since
you are here, finish everything you have to say to
me. I am not angry. I am willing to listen quite
reasonably."
Gerald shook his head.
“Oh, I can't !” he declared bitterly. 6 You al-
ways get the best of it. I'll only ask you one more
question. Are you having the wireless hauled
down? "


208 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
Mr. Fentolin pointed out of the window. Gerald
followed his finger. Three men were at work upon
the towering spars.
“You see,” Mr. Fentolin continued tolerantly,
“ that I am keeping my word to Lieutenant Godfrey.
You are suffering from a little too much imagina-
tion, I am afraid. It is really quite a good fault.
By-the-by, how do you get on with our friend Mr.
Hamel ? ”
“ Very well,” the boy replied. “I haven't seen
much of him.”
“He and Esther are together a great deal, eh?”
Mr. Fentolin asked quickly.
66 They seem to be quite friendly.”
“ It isn't Mr. Hamel, by any chance, who has been
putting these ideas into your head?”
“No one has been putting any ideas into my head,"
Gerald answered hotly. “It's simply what I've seen
and overheard. It's simply what I feel around, the
whole atmosphere of the place, the whole atmosphere
you seem to create around you with these brutes
Sarson and Meekins; and those white-faced, smooth-
tongued Marconi men of yours, who can't talk de-
cent English; and the post-office man, who can't look
you in the face; and Miss Price, who looks as though
she were one of the creatures, too, of your torture
chamber. That's all.”
Mr. Fentolin waited until he had finished. Then
he waved him away.
“Go and take a long walk, Gerald,” he advised.
“ Fresh air is what you need, fresh air and a little
vigorous exercise. Run along now and send Miss
Price to me.”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 209
Gerald overtook Hamel upon the stairs.
“ By this time," the latter remarked, “I suppose
that our friend Mr. Dunster is upon the sea.”
Gerald nodded silently. They passed along the
corridor. The door of the room which Mr. Dun-
ster had occupied was ajar. As though by common
consent, they both stopped and looked in. The
windows were all wide open, the bed freshly made.
The nurse was busy collecting some medicine bottles
and fragments of lint. She looked at them in sur-
prise.
“Mr. Dunster has left, sir,” she told them.
“We saw him go,” Gerald replied.
“Rather a quick recovery, wasn't it, nurse? ”
'Hamel asked.
“It wasn't a recovery at all, sir," the woman de-
clared sharply. “He'd no right to have been taken
away. It's my opinion Doctor Sarson ought to be
ashamed of himself to have permitted it.”
“ They couldn't exactly make a prison of the
place, could they ? " Hamel pointed out. “ The man,
after all, was only a guest.”
“ That's as it may be, sir,” the nurse replied.
“ All the same, those that won't obey their doctors
aren't fit to be allowed about alone. That's the way
I look at it."
Mrs. Fentolin was passing along the corridor as
they issued from the room. She started a little as
she saw them.
“ What have you two been doing in there?" she
asked quickly.
“We were just passing,” Hamel explained.
“ We stopped for a moment to speak to the nurse."


210 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“Mr. Dunster has gone,” she said. “You saw
him go, Gerald. You saw him, too, didn't you, Mr.
Hamel?”
“I certainly did,” Hamel admitted.
Mrs. Fentolin pointed to the great north window
near which they were standing, through which the
clear sunlight streamed a little pitilessly upon her
worn face and mass of dyed hair.
“ You ought neither of you to be indoors for a
minute on a morning like this,” she declared. “Es-
ther is waiting for you in the car, I think, Mr.
Hamel.”
Gerald passed on up the stairs to his room, but
Hamel lingered. A curious impulse of pity towards
his hostess stirred him. The morning sunlight
seemed to have suddenly revealed the tragedy of
her life. She stood there, a tired, worn woman, with
the burden heavy upon her shoulders.
“Why not come out with Miss Fentolin and me? ”
he suggested. “We could lunch at the Golf Club,
out on the balcony. I wish you would. Can't you
manage it?"
She shook her head.
“ Thank you very much,” she said. “Mr. Fen-
tolin does not like to be left."
Something in the finality of her words seemed to
him curiously eloquent of her state of mind. She
did not move on. She seemed, indeed, to have the
air of one anxious to say more. In that ruthless
light, the advantages of her elegant clothes and
graceful carriage were suddenly stripped away from
her. She was the abject wreck of a beautiful woman,
wizened, prematurely aged. Nothing remained but


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 211
the eyes, which seemed somehow to have their mes-
sage for him.
“ Mr. Fentolin is a little peculiar, you know," she
went on, her voice shaking slightly with the effort
she was making to keep it low. “ He allows Esther
so little liberty, she sees so few young people of her
own age. I do not know why he allows you to be
with her so much. Be careful, Mr. Hamel.”
Her voice seemed suddenly to vibrate with a curious
note of suppressed fear. Almost as she finished her
speech, she passed on. Her little gesture bade him
remain silent. As she went up the stairs, she be-
gan to hum scraps of a little French air.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 213
“I have been silent," he told her, “because I have
been thinking."
“ That may be truthful,” she remarked, “but you
wouldn't call it polite, would you?”
6 The subject of my thoughts is my excuse. I
have been thinking of you."
For a single moment her eyes seemed to have
caught something of that sympathetic light with
which he was regarding her. Then she looked away.
“ Was it my mashie shots you were worrying
about? ” she asked.
“ It was not,” he replied simply. “ It was you —
you yourself.”
She laughed, not altogether naturally.
“ How flattering!” she murmured. “ By-the-by,
you are rather a downright person, aren't you, Mr.
Hamel?”
“ So much so," he admitted, “ that I am going to
tell you one or two things now. I am going to be
very frank indeed.”
She sat suddenly quite still. Her face was turned
from him, but for the first time since he had known
her there was a slight undertone of colour in her
cheeks.
“A week ago,” he said, “I hadn't the faintest
idea of coming into Norfolk. I knew about this
little shanty of my father's, but I had forgotten all
about it. I came as the result of a conversation I
had with a friend who is in the Foreign Office.”
She looked at him with startled eyes.
“ What do you mean? ” she asked quickly. “ You
are Mr. Hamel, aren't you?”
“ Certainly,” he replied. “Not only am I Richard


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 215
that he was showing the liveliest interest in under-
ground politics. They believed that it was a mere
hobby, born of his useless condition, a taste min-
istered to, without doubt, by the occupation of his
earlier life. Once or twice lately they have had
reason to change their minds. You know, I dare
say, in what a terribly disturbed state European
affairs are just now. Well, my friend had an idea
that Mr. Fentolin was showing an extraordinary
amount of interest in a certain conference which we
understand is to take place at The Hague. He
begged me to come down, and to watch your uncle
while I was down here, and report to him anything
that seemed to me noteworthy. Since then I have
had a message from him concerning the American
whom you entertained - Mr. John P. Dunster. It
appears that he was the bearer of very important
dispatches for the Continent."
“ But he has gone,” she said quickly. “Nothing
happened to him, after all. He went away without
a word of complaint. We all saw him."
“ That is quite true,” Hamel admitted. “Mr.
Dunster has certainly gone. It is rather a coin-
cidence, however, that he should have taken his de-
parture just as the enquiries concerning his where-
abouts had reached such a stage that it had become
quite impossible to keep him concealed any longer.”
She turned a little in her place and looked at
him steadfastly. .
“Mr. Hamel,” she said, “ tell me — what of your
mission? You have had an opportunity of studying
my uncle. You have even lived under his roof.
Tell me what you think.”


216 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
His face was troubled.
“ Miss Fentolin,” he said, “ I will tell you frankly
that up to now I have not succeeded in solving the
problem of your uncle's character. To me per-
sonally he has been most courteous. He lives ap-
parently a studious and an unselfish life. I have
heard him even spoken of as a philanthropist. And
yet you three — you, your mother, and your brother,
who are nearest to him, who live in his house and
under his protection, have the air of passing your
days in mortal fear of him.”
“ Mr. Hamel,” she exclaimed nervously, “ you
don't believe that! He is always very kind.”
“ Apparently," Hamel observed drily. “And yet
you must remember that you, too, are afraid of him.
I need not remind you of our conversations, but
there the truth is. You praise his virtues and his
charities, you pity him, and yet you go about with
a load of fear, and — forgive me — of secret terror
in your heart, you and Gerald, too. As for your
mother —”
“ Don't!” she interrupted suddenly. “Why do
you bring me here to talk like this? You cannot
alter things. Nothing can be altered.”
“ Can't it!” he replied. “Well, I will tell you the
real reason of my having brought you here and of
my having made this confession. I brought you here
because I could not bear to go on living, if not under
your roof, at any rate in the neighbourhood, without
telling you the truth. Now you know it. I am here
to watch Mr. Fentolin. I am going on watching
him. You can put him on his guard, if you like; I
shan't complain. Or you can —"


218 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
-
-- micro
“I have only known you for three days.”
“We can make up for that.”
“ But I don't — care about you. I have never
thought of any one in that way. It is absurd,” she
went on.
“You'll have to, sometime or other,” he declared.
“ I'll take you travelling with me, show you the world,
new worlds, unnamed rivers, untrodden mountains.
Or do you want to go and see where the little brown
people live among the mimosa and the cherry blos-
soms? I'll take you so far away that this place and
this life will seem like a dream."
Her breath caught a little.
“Don't, please,” she begged. “You know very
well — or rather you don't know, perhaps, but I
must tell you — that I couldn't. I am here, tied and
bound, and I can't escape.”
“Ah! dear, don't believe it,” he went on earnestly.
66 There isn't any bond so strong that I won't break
it for you, no knot I won't untie, if you give me the
right.”
They were climbing slowly on to the tee. He
stepped forward and pulled her up. Her hand was
cold. Her eyes were raised to his, very softly yet
almost pleadingly.
“ Please don't say anything more," she begged.
“ I can't — quite bear it just now. You know, you
must remember — there is my mother. Do you think
that I could leave her to struggle alone?”
His caddy, who had teed the ball, and who had re-
garded the proceedings with a moderately tolerant
air, felt called upon at last to interfere,
“We'd best get on,” he remarked, pointing to two


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 221
“In a magazine I was reading the other day," he
continued, “I was interested to observe that the
modern idea as regards marriage is a changed one.
A woman, they say, should not marry until she
is twenty-seven or twenty-eight — a very excellent
idea. I think we agree, do we not, on that, Esther?”
“I don't know," she replied. “I have never
thought about the matter.”
“ Then,” he went on, “we will make up our minds
to agree. Twenty-seven or twenty-eight, let us say.
A very excellent age! A girl should know her own
mind by then. And meanwhile, dear Esther, would it
be wise, I wonder, to see a little less of our friend
Mr. Hamel? He leaves us to-day, I think. He is
very obstinate about that. If he were staying still
in the house, well, it might be different. But if he
persists in leaving us, you will not forget, dear,
that association with a guest is one thing; associa-
tion with a young man living out of the house is an-
other. A great deal less of Mr. Hamel I think that
we must see.”
She made no reply whatever. Hamel was coming
now towards them.
“ Really a very personable young man,” Mr. Fen-
tolin remarked, studying him through his eyeglass.
“ Is it my fancy, I wonder, as an observant person,
or is he just a little — just a little taken with you,
Esther? A pity if it is so — a great pity.”
She said nothing, but her hand which rested upon
the rug was trembling a little.
“ If you have an opportunity,” Mr. Fentolin sugo
gested, dropping his voice,“ you might very del-
icately, you know — girls are so clever at that sort


222 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
of thing - convey my views to Mr. Hamel as re-
gards his leaving us and its effect upon your com-
panionship. You understand me, I am sure?”
For the first time she turned her head towards
him.
.“I understand," she said, “ that you have some
particular reason for not wishing Mr. Hamel to leave
St. David's Hall."
He smiled benignly.
“ You do my hospitable impulses full justice, dear
Esther," he declared. “Sometimes I think that you
understand me almost as well as your dear mother.
If, by any chance, Mr. Hamel should change his
mind as to taking up his residence at the Tower, I
think you would not find me in any sense of the word
an obdurate or exacting guardian. Come along,
Mr. Hamel. That seat opposite to us is quite com-
fortable. You see, I resign myself to the inevitable.
I have come to fetch golfers home to luncheon, and
I compose myself to listen. Which of you will be-
gin the epic of missed putts and brassey shots which
failed by a foot to carry?"


CHAPTER XXIV
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 in-
cidents 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 ter-
raced 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 stock-
ings. 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 per-
fume 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


224 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
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 de-
lightfully hospitable of Mr. Fentolin to have in-
sisted 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 ab-
solute repose, if one could forget her mass of un-
naturally 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.
6 My life, and the lives of my two children," she


226 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
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 thi.
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 re-
move 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 ob-
vious 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 pur-
pose of his labours. The only thing I know is that
he suspects you of wanting to steal one of his se
crets."


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 227
“ Secrets? But what secrets has he?" Hamel de-
manded. “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 remain-
ing 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, es-
pecially 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 some-
thing 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 --"


228 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
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 ques-
tioning so fierce.
“My dear Mrs. Fentolin,” he began -
She suddenly relaxed her grip of his arm. Some-
thing 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, frown-
ing. “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.”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 229
Mrs. Fentolin's eyes were once more fixed upon
the Tower. The sun had caught the top of the tele-
phone 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 some-
how 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


230 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
must have our walk. Come along, Koto; come along,
little dogs."
Hamel strolled down the terrace steps and wan-
dered 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 hand 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. Fen-
tolin'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 an-
swered. “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


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 231
about fifteen fishermen's cottages dotted about the
marsh. Your business, I presume, is with the gen-
eral 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 ac-
cept 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.


232 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
" 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. Fen-
tolin. Living here alone with him, you have all
grown under his dominance to an unreasonable ex-
tent. 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 ca-
pricious old man. Humnour 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


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 233
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. Fen-
tolin's creatures followed us.”
She turned, and he saw the great transformation.
Her face was brilliant, her eyes shone with wonder-
ful 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 mys-
terious recesses of the one tiny shop.


CHAPTER XXV
Hamel met Kinsley shortly before one o'clock the
following afternoon, in the lounge of the Royal Ho-
tel at Norwich.
“ You got my wire, then ? " the latter asked, as he
held out his hand. “I had it sent by special mes-
senger from Wells.”
“It arrived directly after breakfast," Hamel re-
plied. “ 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?"


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 235
“ 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 en-
quiry 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 elo-
quently profane.
“ That's why Mr. Fentolin let him go, then. If
Saxthorpe had only held his tongue, or if those in-
fernal police hadn't got chattering with the magis-
trates, 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


236 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
said. “He was on his guard, too, for Mr. Fen-
tolin 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 confi-
dence. 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 yes-
terday morning, and he certainly arrived in Yar-
mouth 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


242 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“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 sug-
gested. “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 glim-
mering 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 re-
plied, “ 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
Now you see fingers from hy to Malta, &


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 243
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 Dun-
ster was bringing from New York!"


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 245
about him, the door from the back was opened,
Hannah Cox came quietly into the room.
6 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
de 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.”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 247
Hamel put some money upon the table.
“ Please get anything that is necessary,” he di-
rected. “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 back-
ground. 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


248 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
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 un-
dressed 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 con-
scious that his pulses were beating with absurd ra-
pidity. A new feeling seemed to possess him. He


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 349
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 con-
viction 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 al-
most 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 il-
lusion — 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 hu-
man 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


250 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
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.”


CHAPTER XXVII
Hamel awoke to find his room filled with sunshine
and a soft wind blowing in through the open window.
There was a pleasant odour of coffee floating up from
the kitchen. He looked at his watch — it was
past eight o'clock. The sea was glittering and be-
spangled with sunlight. He found among his scanty
belongings a bathing suit, and, wrapped in his over-
coat, hurried down-stairs.
“ Breakfast in half an hour, Mrs. Cox,” he called
out.
She stood at the door, watching him as he stepped
across the pebbles and plunged in. For a few mo-
ments he swam. Then he turned over on his back.
The sunlight was gleaming from every window of St.
David's Hall. He even fancied that upon the ter-
race he could see a white-clad figure looking towards
him. He turned over and swam once more. From
her place in the doorway Mrs. Cox called out to
him.
“ Mind the Dagger Rocks, sir!”
He waved his hand. The splendid exhilaration of
the salt water seemed to give him unlimited courage.
He dived, but the woman's cry of fear soon recalled
him. Presently he swam to shore and hurried up the
beach. Mrs. Cox, with a sigh of relief, disappeared
into the kitchen.
“ Those rocks on your nerves again, Mrs. Cox?”


252 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
he asked, good-humouredly, as he took his place at
the breakfast table a quarter of an hour later.
“ It's only us who live here, sir,” she answered,
“ who know how terrible they are. There's one —
it comes up like my hand — a long spike. A boat
once struck upon that, and it's as though it'd been
sawn through the middle.”
“I must have a look at them some day,” he de-
clared. “I am going to work this morning, Mrs.
Cox. Lunch at one o'clock.”
He took rugs and established himself with a pile
of books at the back of a grassy knoll, sheltered from
the wind, with the sea almost at his feet. He sharp-
ened his pencil and numbered the page of his note-
book. Then he looked up towards the Hall garden
and found himself dreaming. The sunshine was de-
licious, and a gentle optimism seemed to steal over
him.
“I am a fool!” he murmured to himself. “I am
catching some part of these people's folly. Mr.
Fentolin is only an ordinary, crotchety invalid
with queer tastes. On the big things he is prob-
ably like other men. I shall go to him this morn-
ing.”
A sea-gull screamed over his head. Little, brown-
sailed fishing-boats came gliding down the harbour
way. A pleasant, sensuous joyfulness seemed part of
the spirit of the day. Hamel stretched himself out
upon the dry sand.
“Work be hanged!” he exclaimed.
A soft voice answered him almost in his ear, a
voice which was becoming very familiar.
“A most admirable sentiment, my young friend,


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 253
which you seem to be doing your best to live up to.
Not a line written, I see.”
He sat up upon his rug. Mr. Fentolin, in his lit-
tle carriage, was there by his side. Behind was the
faithful Meekins, with an easel under his arm.
“I trust that your first night in your new abode
has been a pleasant one? ” Mr. Fentolin asked.
“I slept quite well, thanks," Hamel replied.
“ Glad to see you're going to paint.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head gloomily.
“ It is, alas !” he declared,“ one of my weaknesses.
I can work only in solitude. I came down on the
chance that the fine weather might have tempted you
over to the Golf Club. As it is, I shall return."
“ I am awfully sorry,” Hamel said. “ Can't I go
out of sight somewhere?”.
Mr. Fentolin sighed.
“I will not ask your pardon for my absurd hu-
mours," he continued, a little sadly. “Their exist-
ence, however, I cannot deny. I will wait.”
“ It seems a pity for you to do that,” Hamel re-
marked. “You see, I might stay here for some
time.”
Mr. Fentolin's face darkened. He looked at the
young man with a sort of pensive wrath.
“If,” the latter went on, “ you say 'yes' to some-
thing I am going to ask you, I might even stay —
in the neighbourhood — for longer still.”
Mr. Fentolin sat quite motionless in his chair; his
eyes were fixed upon Hamel.
“What is it that you are going to ask me?” he
demanded.
“ I want to marry your niece.”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 255
creature like myself is scarcely likely to be possessed
of much sensibility. However, perhaps your views
as to a solitary residence here will change with your
engagement to my niece.”
Hamel did not reply for a moment. He was try-
ing to ask himself why, even in the midst of this rush
of anticipatory happiness, he should be conscious of
a certain reluctance to leave the Tower — and Mr.
Fentolin. He was looking longingly towards the
Hall. Mr. Fentolin waved him away.
“Go and make love,” he ordered, “ and leave me
alone. We are both in pursuit of beauty — only
our methods differ."
Hamel hesitated no longer but walked up the nar-
now path with swift, buoyant footsteps. Every-
where he seemed to be surrounded by the glorious
spring sunshine. It glittered in the little pools and
creeks by his side. It drew a new colour from the
dun-coloured marshes, the masses of emerald seaweed,
the shimmering sands. It flashed in the long row of
windows of the Hall. As he drew nearer, he could
see the banks of yellow crocuses in the sloping gar-
dens behind. There were odours of spring in the air.
He ran lightly up the terrace steps. There was an
easy-chair drawn into her favourite corner, and a
book upon the table, but no sign of Esther. He hesi-
tated for a moment, and then, retracing his steps
along the terrace, entered the house by the front
door, which stood wide open. There was no one in
the hall, scarcely a sound about the place. A great
clock ticked solemnly from the foot of the stairs.
There was not even a servant in sight. Hamel wan-
dered around, at a loss what to do. He opened the


256 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
door of the drawing-room and looked in. It was
empty. He turned away, meaning to ring a bell.
On his way across the hall he paused. A curiously
suggestive sound reached him faintly from the end
of one of the passages. It was the click of a type-
writer.
Hamel stood for a moment perfectly still. He had
hurried up to the Hall, filled with the one selfish joy
common to all mankind. He had had no thought
save the thought of seeing Esther. The click of that
machine brought him back to the stern realities of
life. He remembered his talk to Kinsley, his prom-
ise. On the hall table he could see from where he was
standing the great headlines which announced the na-
tion's anxiety. He was in the house of a suspected
spy. The click of the typewriter was an accompani-
ment to his thought. He looked around once more
and listened. Then he made his way quietly across
the hall and down the long passage, at the end of
which the room which Mr. Fentolin called his work-
room was situated. He turned the handle of the door
and entered, closing it immediately behind him. The
woman who was typing paused with her fingers upon
the keys. Her eyes met his coldly, without curios-
ity. She had paused in her work, but she took no
other notice of his coming.
“ Has Mr. Fentolin sent you here? ” she asked at
last.
He came over to the typewriter.
“Mr. Fentolin has not sent me,” he said slowly.
“ I am here on my own account. I dare say you will
think that I am a lunatic to come to you like this.
Nevertheless, please listen to me.”


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 257
Her fingers left the keys. She laid her hands upon
the table in front of her. He drew a little nearer.
She covered over the sheets of paper with which she
was surrounded with a pad of blotting-paper. He
pointed suddenly to them.
“Why do you do that?” he demanded. “What is
there in your work that you are afraid I might see?"
She answered him without hesitation.
“ These are private papers of Mr. Fentolin's.
No one has any business to see them. No one has
any business to enter this room. Why are you
here?"
“I came to the Hall to find Miss Fentolin,” he re-
plied. “I heard the click of your typewriter. I
came to you, I suppose I should say, on impulse.”
Her eyes rested upon his, filled with a cold and
questioning light.
“ There's an impression up in London," Hamel
went on, “ that Mr. Fentolin has been interfering by
means of his wireless in affairs which don't concern
him, and giving away valuable information. This
man Dunster's disappearance is as yet unexplained.
I feel myself justified in making certain investiga-
tions, and among the first of them I should like you to
tell me exactly the nature of the work for which Mr.
Fentolin finds a secretary necessary? "
She glanced towards the bell. He moved to the
edge of the table as though to intercept her.
“ In any ordinary case," he continued, “I would
not ask you to betray your employer's confidence.
As things are, I think I am justified. You are Eng-
lish, are you not? You realise, I suppose, that the
country is on the brink of war?”


NGER
THE VANISHED MESSENGER 259
her stil,
-n," she :
ation in t
y follrb
e infora
left be
criter r
“ You are a foolish person," she said calmly.
* You are so foolish that you are not, in all proba-
bility, in the slightest degree dangerous. Believe
ine, ours is an unequal duel. There is a bell upon
this table which has apparently escaped your no-
tice. I sit with my finger upon the button — 50.
I have only to press it, and the servants will be here.
I do not wish to press it. I do not desire that you
should be, as you certainly would be, banished from
this house.”
He was immensely puzzled. She had not resented
his strange intrusion. She had accepted it, indeed,
with curious equanimity. Her forefinger lingered
still over the little ivory knob of the bell attached
to her desk. He shrugged his shoulders.
“You have the advantage of me,” he admitted, a
little curtly. “ All the same, I think I could possess
myself of those sheets of paper, you know, before the
bell was answered.”
“Would it be wise, I wonder, then, to ensure their
safety? ” she asked coolly.
Her finger pressed the bell. He took a quick step
forward. She held out her hand.
“Stop!” she ordered. “ These sheets will tell
you nothing which you do not know already unless
you are a fool. Never mind the bell. That is my
affair. I am sending you away.”
He leaned a little towards her.
“It wouldn't be possible to bribe you, I sup
go and
I hare
!
which
Pras
pose? »
She shook her head.
“I wonder you haven't tried that before. No, it
would not — not with money, that is to say.”


CHAPTER XXVIII
Mr. Fentolin, his carriage drawn up close to the
beach, was painting steadily when Hamel stood once
more by his side. His eyes moved only from the
sea to the canvas. He never turned his head.
“ So your wooing has not prospered, my young
friend,” he remarked gently. “I am sorry. Is
there anything I can do ?”
“Your niece has gone out to lunch, Hamel re-
plied shortly.
Mr. Fentolin stopped painting. His face was full
of concern as he looked up at Hamel.
“My dear sir," he exclaimed, “how can I apolo-
gise! Of course she has gone out to lunch. She
has gone out to Lady Saxthorpe's. I remember the
subject being discussed. I myself, in fact, was the
instigator of her going. I owe you a thousand
apologies, Mr. Hamel. Let me make what amends
are possible for your useless journey. Dine with us
to-night.”
“ You are very kind.”
“A poor amends,” Mr. Fentolin continued. “A
morning like this was made for lovers. Sunshine and
blue sky, a salt breeze flavoured just a little with that
lavender, and a stroll through my spring gardens,
where my hyacinths are like a field of purple and
gold, a mantle of jewels upon the brown earth. Ah,
well! One's thoughts will wander to the beautiful


266 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
rose to her feet, Hamel, finding words at last, was
surprised to find that his throat was dry.
“ What is it, Mrs. Cox?” he asked. “Why were
you listening there?”
Her face was absolutely expressionless. She was
busying herself now with a small saucepan, and her
back was turned towards him.
“I spend my life, sir,” she said, “ listening and
waiting. One never knows when the end may come.”
“ But the boat-house,” Hamel objected. “No
one has been in there this morning, have they?"
“ Who can tell?” she answered. “He could go
anywhere when he chose, or how he chose — through
the keyhole, if he wanted.”
“But why listen? " Hamel persisted. “ There is
nothing in there now but some odds and ends of ma-
chinery."
She turned from the fire and looked at him for a
moment. Her eyes were colourless, her tone unemo-
tional.
“Maybe! There's no harm in listening."
“ Did you hear anything which made you want to
listen? "
“ Who can tell? ” she answered. “A woman who
lives well-nigh alone, as I live, in a quiet place, hears
things so often that other folk never listen to.
There's always something in my ears, night or day.
Sometimes I am not sure whether it's in this world
or the other. It was like that with me just then.
It was for that reason I listened. Your luncheon's
ready, sir."
Hamel walked thoughtfully back into his sitting
room. He seated himself before a spotless cloth and


CHAPTER XXIX
: A cold twilight had fallen upon the land when
Hamel left the Tower that evening and walked briskly
along the foot-way to the Hall. Little patches of
mist hung over the creeks, the sky was almost frosty.
The lights from St. David's Hall shone like cheerful
beacons before him. He hastened up the stone steps,
crossed the terrace, and passed into the hall. A
servant conducted him at once to the drawing-room.
Mrs. Fentolin, in a pink evening dress, with a
pink ornament in her hair, held out both her hands.
In the background, Mr. Fentolin, in his queerly-
cut evening clothes, sat with folded arms, lean-
ing back in his carriage. He listened grimly to his
sister-in-law as she stood with Hamel's hands in
hers. .
“My dear Mr. Hamel!” she exclaimed. “How
perfectly charming of you to come up and relieve a
little our sad loneliness! Delightful, I call it, of
you. I was just saying so to Miles.”
Hamel looked around the room. Already his heart
was beginning to sink.
“ Miss Fentolin is well, I hope?” he asked.
“Well, but a very naughty girl," her mother de-
clared. " I let her go to Lady Saxthorpe's to lunch,
and now we have had simply the firmest letter from
Lady Saxthorpe. They insist upon keeping Esther
to dine and sleep. I have had to send her evening


270 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“ He promised to play with me to-morrow,” Haniel
remarked thoughtfully. “He said nothing about go-
ing away.”
“I fear that like most young men of his age he
has little memory,” Mr. Fentolin sighed. “How-
ever, he will be back to-morrow or the next day. I
owe you my apologies, Mr. Hamel, for our lack of
young people. We must do our best to entertain our
guest, Florence. You must be at your best, dear.
You must tell him some of those capital stories of
yours.”
Mrs. Fentolin shivered for a moment. Hamel, as
he handed her to her place, was struck by a strange
look which she threw upon him, half furtive, full of
pain. Her hand almost clung to his. She slipped a
little, and he held her tightly. Then he was sud-
denly conscious that something hard was being
pressed into his palm. He drew his hand away at
once.
“You seem a little unsteady this evening, my dear,
Florence,” Mr. Fentolin remarked, peering across the
round table.
She eyed him nonchalantly enough.
“ The floor is slippery,” she said. “I was glad,
for a moment, of Mr. Hamel's strong hand. Where
are those dear puppies? Chow-Chow,” she went on,
“come and sit by your mistress at once.”
Hamel's fingers inside his waistcoat pocket were
smoothing out the crumpled piece of paper which
she had passed to him. Soon he had it quite flat.
Mrs. Fentolin, as though freed from some anxiety,
chattered away gaily.
“ I don't know that I shall apologise to Mr. Hamel


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 271
at all for the young people being away,” she de-
clared. “ Just fancy what we have saved him from
—a solitary meal served by Hannah Cox! Do you
know that they say she is half-witted, Mr. Hamel ? "
“ So far, she has looked after me very well,” Hamel
observed.
“Her intellect is defective,” Mr. Fentolin re-
marked, “ on one point only. The good woman is
obsessed by the idea that her husband and sons are
still calling to her from the Dagger Rocks. It is al-
most pitiful to meet her wandering about there on
a stormy night. The seacoasts are full of these little
village tragedies — real tragedies, too, however in-
significant they may seem to us."
Mr. Fentolin's tone was gently sympathetic. He
changed the subject a moment or two later, how-
ever.
“ Nero fiddles to-night,” he said, “ while Rome
burns. There are hundreds in our position, yet it
certainly seems queer that we should be sitting here
so quietly when the whole country is in such a state
of excitement. I see the press this morning is preach-
ing an immediate declaration of war.”
“ Against whom? ” Mrs. Fentolin asked.
Mr. Fentolin smiled.
“ That does seem to be rather the trouble,” he ad-
mitted. “Russia, Austria, Germany, Italy, and
France are all assisting at a Conference to which no
English representative has been bidden. In a sense,
of course, that is equivalent to an act of hostility
from all these countries towards England. The
question is whether we have or have not a secret
understanding with France, and if so, how far she


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 273
“ Well," he concluded, “ all these things lie on the
knees of the gods. I dare say you wonder, Mr. Hamel,
why a poor useless creature like myself should take the
slightest interest in passing events? It is just the fas-
cination of the looker-on. I want your opinion about
that champagne. Florence dear, you must join us.
We will drink to Mr. Hamel's health. We will per-
haps couple that toast in our minds with the senti-
ment which I am sure is not very far from your
thoughts, Florence.”
Hamel raised his glass and bowed to his host and
hostess. He was not wholly at his ease. It seemed
to him that he' was being watched with a queer per-
sistence by both of them. Mrs. Fentolin continued
to talk and laugh with a gaiety which was too ob-
viously forced. Mr. Fentolin posed for a while as
the benevolent listener. He mildly applauded his
sister-in-law's stories, and encouraged Hamel in the
recital of some of his reminiscences. Suddenly the
door was opened. Miss Price appeared. She walked
smoothly across the room and stood by Mr. Fen-
tolin's side. Stooping down, she whispered in his
ear. He pushed his chair back a little from the
table. His face was dark with anger.
“I said not before ten to-night,” he muttered.
Again she spoke in his ear, so softly that the sound
of her voice itself scarcely travelled even as far as
where Hamel was sitting. Mr. Fentolin looked stead-
fastly for a moment at his sister-in-law and from
her to Hamel. Then he backed his chair away from
the table.
“I shall have to ask to be excused for three min-
utes," he said. “I must speak upon the telephone.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 275
6 Don't argue with me, please. You are in danger
you know nothing about. Pass me the cigarettes."
She leaned back in her chair, smoking quickly.
She held one of the dogs on her knee and talked rub-
bish to it. Hamel watched her, leaning back in his
carved oak chair, and he found it hard to keep the
píty from his eyes. The woman was playing a part,
playing it with desperate and pitiful earnestness, a
part which seemed the more tragical because of the
soft splendour of their surroundings. From the
shadowy walls, huge, dimly-seen pictures hung about
them, a strange and yet impressive background.
Their small round dining-table, with its rare cut
glass, its perfect appointments, its bowls of pink
roses, was like a spot of wonderful colour in the great
room. Two men servants stood at the sideboard a
few yards away, a triumph of negativeness. The
butler, who had been absent for a moment, stood now
silently waiting behind his master's place. Hamel
was oppressed, during those few minutes of waiting,
by a curious sense of unreality, as though he were
taking part in some strange tableau. There was
something unreal about his surroundings and his own
presence there; something unreal in the atmosphere,
charged as it seemed to be with some omen of im-
pending happenings; something unreal in that whis-
pered warning, those few hoarsely uttered words
which had stolen to his hearing across the clusters
of drooping roses; the absurd babble of the woman,
who sat there with tragic things under the powder
with which her face was daubed.
“ Koto must learn to sit upon his tail — like that.
No, not another grape till he sits up. There, then!”


282 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
but appearances are sometimes deceptive. It has
been suggested to me that you are a spy.”
“ By whom? " Hamel demanded.
“ By those in whom I trust,” Mr. Fentolin told
him sternly. “ You are a friend of Reginald Kins-
ley. You met him in Norwich the other day —
secretly. Kinsley's chief is a member of the Govern-
ment. He is one of those who will find eternal oblo-
quy if The Hague Conference comes to a success-
ful termination. For some strange reason, I am
supposed to have robbed or harmed the one man in
the world whose message might bring to nought that
Conference. Are you here to watch me, Mr. Hamel ?
Are you one of those who believe that I am either
in the pay of a foreign country, or that my harm-
less efforts to interest myself in great things are
efforts inimical to this country; that I am, in short,
a traitor? "
“You must admit that many of your actions are
incomprehensible," Hamel replied slowly. “ There
are things here which I do not understand — which
certainly require explanation.”
“Still, why do you make them your business? " Mr.
Fentolin persisted. “If indeed the course which I
steer is a harmless one,” he continued, with a strange
new glitter in his eyes, “ then you are an impertinent
stranger to whom my doors cannot any longer be
open. If you have taken advantage of my hos-
pitality to spy upon me and my actions, if indeed
you have a mission here, then you can carry it with
you down into hell!”
“I understand that you are threatening me? "
Hamel murmured.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 283
Mr. Fentolin smiled.
“ Scarcely that, my young friend. I am not quite
the obvious sort of villain who flourishes revolvers
and lures his victims into secret chambers. These
words to you are simply words of warning. I am not
like other men, neither am I used to being crossed.
When I am crossed, I am dangerous. Leave here,
if you will, in safety, and mind your own affairs; but
if you show one particle of curiosity as to mine, if
you interfere in matters which concern me and me
only, remember that you are encircled by powers
which are entirely ruthless, absolutely omnipotent.
You can walk back to the Tower to-night and re-
member that there isn't a step you take which might
not be your last if I willed it, and never a soul the
wiser. There's a very hungry little mother here who
takes her victims and holds them tight. You can
hear her calling to you now. Listen!”
He held up his finger. The tide had turned, and
through the half-open window came the low thunder
of the waves.
“ You decline to share my evening,” Mr. Fen-
tolin concluded. “Let it be so. Go your own way,
Hamel, only take care that your way does not cross
mine."
He backed his chair slowly and pressed the bell.
Hamel felt himself dismissed. He passed out into
the hall. The door of the drawing-room stood open,
and he heard the sound of Mrs. Fentolin's thin voice
singing some little French song. He hesitated and
then stepped in. With one hand she beckoned him
to her, continuing to play all the time. He stepped
over to her side.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 285
kitchen. Then he gave a start. The lamp nearly
slipped from his fingers. Kneeling on the stone
floor, in very much the same attitude as he had
found her earlier in the day, Hannah Cox was crouch-
ing patiently by the door which led into the boat-
house, her face expressionless, her ear turned towards
the crack. She was still listening.


CHAPTER XXXI
Hamel set down the lamp upon the table. He
glanced at the little clock upon the dresser; it was
a quarter past ten. The woman had observed his
entrance, although it seemed in no way to have dis-
composed her.
“Do you know the time, Mrs. Cox?” he asked.
“ You ought to have been home hours ago. What
are you doing there?”
She rose to her feet. Her expression was one
of dogged but patient humility.
“I started for home before nine o'clock, sir," she
told him, “but it was worse than ever to-night. All
the way along by the sea I seemed to hear their
voices, so I came back. I came back to listen. I
have been listening for an hour.”
Hamel looked at her with a frown upon his fore-
head.
“Mrs. Cox,” he said, “I wish I could understand
what it is that you have in your mind. Those are
not real voices that you hear; you cannot believe
that?”
“Not real voices,” she repeated, without the slight-
est expression in her tone.
“Of course not! And tell me what connection
you find between these fancies of yours and that
room? Why do you come and listen here?"
“I do not know," she answered patiently.


290 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
had been dozing, how long he had no idea. Some-
thing had awakened him abruptly. There was a
cold draught blowing through the room. He turned
his head, his hands still gripping the sides of his
chair. His heart gave a leap. The outer door was
a few inches open, was being held open by some in-
visible force. There was some one there, some one on
the point of entering stealthily. Even as he watched,
the crack became a little wider. He sat with his
eyes riveted upon that opening space. The unseen
hand was still at work. Every instant he expected
to see a face thrust forward. The sensation of ab-
solute physical fear by which he was oppressed was
a revelation to him. He found himself wishing al-
most feverishly that he was armed. The physical
strength in which he had trusted seemed to him at
that instant a valueless and impotent thing. There
was a splash of spray or raindrops against the
window and through the crack in the door. The
lamp chimney hissed and spluttered and finally the
light went out. The room was in sudden darkness.
Hamel sprang then to his feet. Silence had become
an intolerable thing. He felt the close presence of
another human being creeping in upon him.
“ Who's there?” he cried. “Who's there, I say?"
There was no direct answer, only the door was
pushed a little further open. He had stepped close
to it now. The sweep of the wind was upon his
face, although in the black darkness he could see
nothing. And then a sudden recollection flashed in
upon him. From his trousers pocket he snatched a
little electric torch. In an instant his thumb had
pressed the button. He turned it upon the door.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 291
The shivering white hand which held it open was
plainly in view. It was the hand of a woman! He
stepped swiftly forward. A dark figure almost fell
into his arms.
“Mrs. Fentolin!” he exclaimed, aghast.
An hysterical cry, choked and subdued, broke from
her lips. He half carried, half led her to his easy-
chair. Suddenly steadied by the presence of this un-
looked-for emergency, he closed the outside door and
relit the lamp with firm fingers. Then he turned to
face her, and his amazement at this strange visit be-
came consternation.
She was still in her dinner-gown of black satin,
but it was soaked through with the rain and hung
about her like a black shroud. She had lost one
shoe, and there was a great hole in her silk stocking.
Her hair was all disarranged; one of its numerous
switches was hanging down over her ear. The rouge
upon her cheeks had run down on to her neck. She
sat there, looking at him out of her hollow eyes like
some trapped animal. She was shaking with fear.
It was fear, not faintness, which kept her silent.
“Tell me, please, what is the matter? ” he insisted,
speaking as indifferently as he could. Tell me at
once what has happened?"
She pointed to the door.
“ Lock it!” she implored.
He turned down the latch and drew the bolt. The
sound seemed to give her a little courage. Her
fingers went to her throat for a moment.
“ Give me some water.”
He poured out some soda-water. She drank only
& sip and put it down again. He began to be


292 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
alarmed. She had the appearance of one who has
suddenly lost her senses.
“ Please tell me just what has happened?” he
begged. “If I can help in any way, you know I
will. But you must tell me. Do you realise that it
is three o'clock? I should have been in bed, only I
went to sleep over the fire here."
“ I know," she answered. “ It is just the wind
that has taken away my breath. It was a hard
struggle to get here. Listen — you are our friend,
Mr. Hamel — Esther's and mine? Swear that you
are our friend?”
“ Upon my honour, I am,” he assured her. “ You
should know that.”
“For eight years,” she went on, her voice clear
enough now, although it seemed charged with a
curious metallic vibration, “ for eight years we've
borne it, all three of us, slaves, bound hand and foot,
lashed with his tongue, driven along the path of his
desires. We have seen evil things. We have been
on the point of rebellion, and he's come a little
nearer and he's pointed back. He has taken me by
the hand, and I have walked by the side of his chair,
loathing it, loathing myself, out on to the terrace
and down below, just where it happened. You
know what happened there, Mr. Hamel?”
“ You mean where Mr. Fentolin met with his ac-
cident."
“ It was no accident!” she cried, glancing for a
moment around her. “ It was no accident! It was
my husband who took him up and threw him over i
the terrace, down below; my husband who tried to
kill him; Esther's father - Gerald's father! Miles


CHAPTER XXXII
Hamel, for the next few minutes, forgot every-
thing else in his efforts to restore to consciousness
his unexpected visitor. He rebuilt the fire, heated
some water upon his spirit lamp, and forced some
hot drink between the lips of the woman who was
now almost in a state of collapse. Then he wrapped
her round in his own ulster and drew her closer to
the fire. He tried during those few moments to put
away the memory of all that she had told him.
Gradually she began to recover. She opened her
eyes and drew a little sigh. She made no effort at
speech, however. She simply lay and looked at him
like some wounded animal. He came over to her
side and chafed one of her cold hands.
“ Come,” he said at last, “ you begin to look more
like yourself now. You are quite safe in here, and,
for Esther's sake as well as your own, you know that
I am your friend.”
She nodded, and her fingers gently pressed his.
“ I am sure of it,” she murmured.
“ Now let us see where we are," he continued.
“ Tell me exactly why you risked so much by leav-
ing St. David's Hall to-night and coming down here.
Isn't there any chance that he might find out?”
“I don't know," she answered. “It was Lucy
Price who sent me. She came to my room just as I
was undressing."


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 297
is in the boat-house, the place where Miles told you
he kept a model of his invention. They brought him
here the night before they put his clothes on Ryan
and sent him off disguised as Mr. Dunster, in the car
to Yarmouth.”
Hamel started up, but she clutched at his arm
and pulled him back. “No," she cried, “ you can't
break in! There are double doors and a wonderful
lock. The boat-house is yours; the building is yours.
In the morning you must demand the keys — if he
does not come to-night!”
“And how are we to know," Hamel asked, “ if
he comes to-night?”
“Go outside,” she whispered. “ Look towards St.
David's Hall and tell me how many lights you can
see.”
He drew back the bolt, unlatched the door, and
stepped out into the darkness. The wind and the
driving rain beat against his face. A cloud of spray
enveloped and soaked him. Like lamps hung in the
sky, the lights of St. David's Hall shone out through
the black gulf. He counted them carefully; then he
stepped back.
“ There are seven,” he told her, closing the door
with an effort.
She counted upon her fingers.
“I must come and see,” she muttered. “I must
be sure. Help me.”
He lifted her to her feet, and they staggered out
together.
“ Look!” she went on, gripping his arm. “You
see that row of lights? If anything happens, if Mr.
Fentolin leaves the Hall to-night to come down here,


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 299
friends in London who would need some explanation
of my disappearance. Stay here and wait."
She recognised the note of authority in his tone,
and she bowed her head. Then she looked up at
him; she was a changed woman.
“ Perhaps I have done ill to drag you into our
troubles, Mr. Hamel,” she said, “and yet, I believe
in you. I believe that you really care for Esther.
If you can help us now, it will be for your happiness,
too. You are a man. God bless you!”
Hamel groped his way round the side of the Tower
and took up a position at the extreme corner of the
landward side of the building, within a yard of the
closed doors. The light far out upon the left was
still gleaming brightly, but two of the others in a
line with it had disappeared. He flattened himself
against the wall and waited, listening intently, his
eyes straining through the darkness. Yet they were
almost upon him before he had the slightest indica-
tion of their presence. A single gleam of light in
the path, come and gone like a flash, the gleam of an
· electric torch directed momentarily towards the road,
was his first indication that they were near. A mo-
ment or two later he heard the strange click, click
of the little engine attached to Mr. Fentolin's chair.
Hamel set his teeth and stepped a few inches further
back. The darkness was so intense that they were
actually within a yard or so of him before he could
even dimly discern their shapes. There were three
of them — Mr. Fentolin in his chair, Doctor Sarson,
and Meekins. They paused for a moment while the
latter produced a key. Hamel distinctly heard a
slow, soft whisper from Doctor Sarson.


THE 'VANISHED MESSENGER 301
of light came travelling up, from which Hamel knew
that they had lit a lamp below. Very softly he crept
across the floor, threw himself upon his stomach and
peered down. Below him was a room, or rather a
cellar, parts of which seemed to have been cut out
of the solid rock. Immediately underneath was a
plain iron bedstead, on which was lying stretched the
figure of a man. In those first few moments Hamel
failed altogether to recognise Mr. Dunster. He was
thin and white, and he seemed to have shrunken ; his
face, with its coarse growth of beard, seemed like the
face of an old man. Yet the eyes were open, eyes
dull and heavy as though with pain. So far no word
had been spoken, but at that moment Mr. Fentolin
broke the silence.
“My dear guest,” he said, “I bring you our most
sincere apologies. It has gone very much against
the grain, I can assure you, to have neglected you
for so long a time. It is entirely the fault of the
very troublesome young man who occupies the other
portion of this building. In the daytime his pres-
ence makes it exceedingly difficult for us to offer you
those little attentions which you might naturally ex-
pect.”
The man upon the bed neither moved nor changed
his position in any way. Nor did he speak. All
power of initiative seemed to have deserted him.
He lay quite still, his eyes fixed upon Mr. Fentolin.
“ There comes a time,” the latter continued, “ when
every one of us is confronted with what might be de-
scribed as the crisis of our lives. Yours has come,
my guest, at precisely this moment. It is, if my
watch tells me the truth, five and twenty minutes to


302 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
four. It is the last day of April. The year you
know. You have exactly one minute to decide
whether you will live a short time longer, or whether
you will on this last day of April, and before
— say, a quarter to four, make that little journey
the nature of which you and I have discussed more
than once."
Still the man upon the bed made no movement nor
any reply. Mr. Fentolin sighed and beckoned to
Doctor Sarson.
“I am afraid," he whispered, “ that that wonder-
ful drug of yours, Doctor, has been even a little too
far-reaching in its results. It has kept our friend
so quiet that he has lost even the power of speech,
perhaps even the desire to speak. A little restora-
tive, I think — just a few drops.”
Doctor Sarson nodded silently. He drew from
his pocket a little phial and poured into a wine-glass
which stood on a table by the side of the bed, half a
dozen drops of some ruby-coloured liquid, to which
he added a tablespoonful of water. Then he leaned
once more over the bed and poured the contents of
the glass between the lips of the semi-conscious man.
“ Give him two minutes," he said calmly. “He
will be able to speak then."
Mr. Fentolin nodded and leaned back in his chair.
He glanced around the room a little critically.
There was a thick carpet upon the floor, a sofa piled
with cushions in one corner, and several other arti-
cles of furniture. The walls, however, were uncov-
ered and were stained with damp. A great pink fun-
gus stood out within a few inches of the bed, a grim
mixture of exquisite colouring and loathsome imper-


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 303
fections. The atmosphere was fetid. Meekins sud-
denly struck a match and lit some grains of powder
in a saucer. A curious odour of incense stole through
the place. Mr. Fentolin nodded appreciatively.
“ That is better,” he declared. “Really, the at-
mosphere here is positively unpleasant. I am
ashamed to think that our guest has had to put up
with it so long. And yet,” he went on, “ I think we
must call it his own fault. I trust that he will no
longer be obstinate.”
The effect of the restorative began to show itself.
The man on the bed moved restlessly. His eyes were
no longer altogether expressionless. He was staring
at Mr. Fentolin as one looks at some horrible vision.
Mr. Fentolin smiled pleasantly.
“Now you are looking more like your old self,
my dear Mr. Dunster,” he remarked. “I don't
think that I need repeat what I said when I first
came, need I? You have just to utter that one word,
and your little visit to us will be at an end."
The man looked around at all of them. He raised
himself a little on his elbow. For the first time,
Hamel, crouching above, recognised any likeness to :
Mr. John P. Dunster.
“ I'll see you in hell first!”
Mr. Fentolin's face momentarily darkened. He
moved a little nearer to the man upon the bed.
“ Dunster,” he said, “I am in grim earnest.
Never mind arguments. Never mind why I am on
the other side. They are restless about you in
America. Unless I can cable that word to-morrow
morning, they'll communicate direct with The Hague,
and I shall have had my trouble for nothing. It is


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 305
Mr. Fentolin's fingers disappeared within the pocket
of his coat. Something very bright was glistening
in his hand when he withdrew it.
“ Come and parley with us, Mr. Hamel,” he
begged. “You will not find us unreasonable.”
Hamel's voice came back in reply, but Hamel him-
self kept well away from the opening.
“ The conditions," he said, “are unpropitious.
A little time for reflection will do you no harm.”
The trap-doors were suddenly closed. Mr. Fen-
tolin's face, as he looked up, became diabolic.
6 We are trapped!” he muttered; “ caught like
rats in a hole!"


CHAPTER XXXIII
A gleam of day was in the sky as Hamel, with Mrs.
Fentolin by his side, passed along the path which led
from the Tower to St. David's Hall. Lights were
still burning from its windows; the outline of the
building itself was faintly defined against the sky.
Behind him, across the sea, was that one straight line
of grey merging into silver. The rain had ceased
and the wind had dropped. On either side of them
stretched the brimming creeks.
“ Can we get into the house without waking any
one?” he asked.
“Quite easily," she assured him. “ The front
door is never barred."
She walked by his side, swiftly and with surpris-
ing vigour. In the still, grey light, her face was more
ghastly than ever, but there was a new firmness
about her mouth, a new decision in her tone. They
reached the Hall without further speech, and she led
the way to a small door on the eastern side, through
which they entered noiselessly and passed along a lit-
tle passage out into the hall. A couple of lights
were still burning. The place seemed full of shad-
ows.
“What are you going to do now?” she whis-
pered.
“I want to ring up London on the telephone,” he
replied. “I know that there is a detective either in


314 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“Our young friend,” Mr. Fentolin continued,
“has, without doubt, an obvious turn of mind. He
will send for his acquaintance in the Foreign Office;
they will haul out Mr. Dunster here, and he will have
a belated opportunity of delivering his message at
The Hague.”
“ You aren't going to murder me first, then? " Mr.
Dunster grunted.
Mr. Fentolin smiled at him benignly.
“My dear and valued guest,” he protested, “ why
so forbidding an idea? Let me assure you from the
bottom of my heart that any bodily harm to you is
the most unlikely thing in the world. You see,
though you might not think it,” he went on, “ I love
life. That is why I keep a doctor always by my side.
That is why I insist upon his making a complete
study of my constitution and treating me in every
respect as though I were indeed an invalid. I am
really only fifty-nine years old. It is my intention
to live until I am eighty-nine. An offence against
the law of the nature you indicate might interfere
materially with my intentions."
Mr. Dunster struggled for a moment for breath.
“Look here,” he said, “ that's all right, but do
you suppose you won't be punished for what you've
done to me? You laid a deliberate plot to bring me
to St. David's Hall; you've kept me locked up, dosed
me with drugs, brought me down here at the dead
of night, kept me a prisoner in a dungeon. Do you
think you can do that for nothing? Do you think
you won't have to suffer for it? "
Mr. Fentolin smiled.
“My dear Mr. Dunster,” he reminded him, “ you


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 315
were in a railway accident, you know; there is no pos-
sible doubt about that. And the wound in your head
is still there, in a very dangerous place. Men who
have been in railway accidents, and who have a gaping
wound very close to their brain, are subject to delu-
sions. I have simply done my best to play the Good
Samaritan. Your clothes and papers are all un-
touched. If my eminent physician had pronounced
you ready to travel a week ago, you would certainly
have been allowed to depart a week ago. Any inter-
ference in your movements has been entirely in the
interests of your health.”
Mr. Dunster tried to sit up but found himself un-
able.
“ So you think they won't believe my story, eh? ”
he muttered. “Well, we shall see.”
Mr. Fentolin thoughtfully contemplated the burn-
ing end of his cigarette for a moment.
“If I believed,” he said, “ that there was any
chance of your statements being accepted, I am
afraid I should be compelled, in all our interests, to
ask Doctor Sarson to pursue just a step further that
experiment into the anatomy of your brain with
which he has already trifled.”
Mr. Dunster's face was suddenly ghastly. His re-
serve of strength seemed to ebb away. The memory
of some horrible moment seemed to hold him in its
clutches.
“For God's sake, leave me alone!” he moancd.
“Let me get away, that's all; let me crawl away!”
“ Ah!” Mr. Fentolin murmured. “That sounds
much more reasonable. When you talk like that, my
friend, I feel indeed that there is hope for you. Let


316 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
- -
us abandon this subject for the present. Have you
solved the puzzle yet?” he asked Meekins.
Meekins was standing below the closed trap-door.
He had already dragged up a wooden case underneath
and was piling it with various articles of furniture.
“ Not yet, sir," he replied. “When I have made
this steadier, I am just going to see what pressure I
can bring to bear on the trap-door.”
“I heard the bolts go," Doctor Sarson remarked
uneasily.
“In that case," Mr. Fentolin declared," it will in-
deed be an interesting test of our friend Meekins'
boasted strength. Meekins holds his place — a very
desirable place, too — chiefly for two reasons: first
his discretion and secondly his muscles. He has
never before had a real opportunity of testing the
latter. We shall see."
Doctor Sarson came slowly and gravely to the bed-
side. He looked down upon his patient. Mr. Dun-
ster shivered.
"I am not sure, sir," he said very softly, “ that
Mr. Dunster, in his present state of mind, is a very
safe person to be allowed his freedom. It is true that
we have kept him here for his own sake, because of
his fits of mental wandering. Our statements, how-
ever, may be doubted. An apparent return to san-
ity on his part may lend colour to his accusations, es-
pecially if permanent. Perhaps it would be as well
to pursue that investigation a shade further. A
touch more to the left and I do not think that Mr.
Dunster will remember much in this world likely to
affect us."
Mr. Dunster's face was like marble. There were
-
.
.
o
in
m


318 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
gan to tremble where he stood. Mr. Fentolin played
for a moment with his collar, as though he found it
tight.
6 Such a chance it was, my dear Meekins," Mr.
Fentolin continued cheerfully, “ which brought me
that little scrap of knowledge concerning you. It
has bought me through all these years a good deal of
faithful service. I am not ungrateful, believe me. I
intend to retain you for my body-servant and to keep
my lips sealed, for a great many years to come.
Now remember what I have said. When we leave this
place, that little episode will steal back into a far
corner of my mind. I shall, in short, forget it. If
we are caught here and inconvenience follows, well,
I cannot say. Do your best, Meekins. Do a little
better than your best. You have the reputation of
being a strong man. Let us see you justify it.”
The man took a long breath and returned to his
task. His shoulders and arms were upon the door.
He began to strain. He grew red in the face; the
veins across his forehead stood out, blue, like tightly-
drawn string. His complexion became purple.
Through his open mouth his breath came in short
pants. With every muscle of his body and neck he
strained and strained. The woodwork gave a little,
but it never even cracked. With a sob he suddenly
almost collapsed. Mr. Fentolin looked at him,
frowning.
“ Very good — very good, Meekins," he said, “ but
not quite good enough. You are a trifle out of prac-
tice, perhaps. Take your breath, take time. Re-
member that you have another chance. I am not an-
gry with you, Meekins. I know there are many en-


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 321
“ Yes," he said, “ some one seems to have been rum-
maging about.”
“ Send down the steps quickly," Mr. Fentolin or-
dered. “I am beginning to find the atmosphere here
unpleasant.”
There was a brief silence. Then they heard the
sound of the ladder being dragged across the floor,
and a moment or two later it was carefully lowered
and placed in position. Mr. Fentolin passed the
rope through the front of his carriage and was drawn
up. From his bed Mr. Dunster watched them go.
It was hard to tell whether he was relieved or disap-
pointed.
“Who has been in here?” Mr. Fentolin demanded,
as he looked around the place.
There was no reply. A grey twilight was strug-
gling now through the high, dust-covered windows.
Meekins, who had gone on towards the door, suddenly
called out:
“ Some one has taken away the key! The door is
locked on the other side!”
Mr. Fentolin's frown was malign even for him.
“ Our dear friend, Mr. Hamel, I suppose,” he mut-
tered. “Another little debt we shall owe him! Try
the other door."
Meekins moved towards the partition. Suddenly
he paused. Mr. Fentolin's hand was outstretched;
he, too, was listening. Above the low thunder of the
sea came another sound, a sound which at that mo-
menť they none of them probably understood. There
was the steady crashing of feet upon the pebbles, a
low murmur of voices. Mr. Fentolin for the first
time showed symptoms of fear.


CHAPTER XXXV
Mr. Fentolin, arrived outside on the stone front of
the boat-house, pointed the wheel of his chair towards
the Hall. Hannah Cox, who kept by his side, how-
ever, drew it gently towards the beach.
“ Down here,” she directed softly. “ Bring your
chair down the plank-way, close to the water's edge.”
“My good woman,” Mr. Fentolin exclaimed furi-
ously, “ I am not in the humour for this sort of thing!
Lock up, Sarson, at once; I am in a hurry to get
back.”
“ But you will come just this little way,” she con-
tinued, speaking without any change of tone. “You
see, the others are waiting, too. I have been down
to the village and fetched them up."
Mr. Fentolin followed her outstretched finger and
gave a sudden start. Standing at the edge of the sea
were a dozen or twenty fishermen. They were all
muttering together and looking at the top of the
boat-house. As he realised the direction of their
gaze, Mr. Fentolin's face underwent a strange trans-
formation. He seemed to shrink in his chair. He
was ghastly pale even to the lips. Slowly he turned
his head. From a place in the roof of the boat-house
a tall support had appeared. On the top was a
swinging globe.
66 What have you to do with that? ” he asked in a
low tont.


324 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“I found it,” she answered. “I felt that it was
there. I have brought them up with me to see it. I
think that they want to ask you some questions.
But first, come and listen.”
Mr. Fentolin shook her off. He looked around for
Meekins.
“ Meekins, stand by my chair," he ordered sharply.
“ Turn round; I wish to go to the Hall. Drive this
woman away.”
Meekins came hurrying up, but almost at the same
moment half a dozen of the brown-jerseyed fishermen
detached themselves from the others. They formed
a little bodyguard around the bath-chair.
“ What is the meaning of this?” Mr. Fentolin de-
manded, his voice shrill with anger. “ Didn't you
hear what I said? This woman annoys me. Send
her away.”
Not one of the fishermen answered a word or made
the slightest movement to obey him. One of them, a
grey-bearded veteran, drew the chair a little further
down the planked way across the pebbles. Hannah
Cox kept close to its side. They came to a standstill
only a few yards from where the waves were break-
ing. She lifted her hand.
“ Listen!” she cried. “ Listen!”
Mr. Fentolin turned helplessly around. The little
group of fishermen had closed in upon Sarson and
Meekins. The woman's hand was upon his shoulder;
she pointed seaward to where a hissing line of white
foam marked the spot where the topmost of the rocks
were visible.
“ You wondered why I have spent so much of my
time out here,” she said quietly. “Now you will


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 325
know. If you listen as I am listening, as I have lis-
tened for so many weary hours, so many weary years,
you will hear them calling to me, David and John and
Stephen. •The light!' Do you hear what they are
crying? “The light! Fentolin's light!' Look!"
She forced him to look once more at the top of the
boat-house.
“ They were right!” she proclaimed, her voice
gaining in strength and intensity. “ They were
neither drunk nor reckless. They steered as straight
as human hand could guide a tiller, for Fentolin's
light! And there they are, calling and calling at the
bottom of the sea — my three boys and my man.
Do you know for whom they call?”
Mr. Fentolin shrank back in his chair.
“ Take this woman away!” he ordered the fisher-
men. “Do you hear? Take her away; she is
mad!”
They looked towards him, but not one of them
moved. Mr. Fentolin raised his whistle to his lips,
and blew it.
“ Meekins !” he cried. “Where are you, Mee-
kins? "
He turned his head and saw at once that Meekins
was powerless. Five or six of the fishermen had
gathered around him. There were at least thirty
of them about, sinewy, powerful men. The only
person who moved towards Mr. Fentolin's carriage
was Jacob, the coast guardsman.
“ Mr. Fentolin, sir,” he said, “ the lads have got
your bully safe. It's a year and more that Hannah
Cox has been about the village with some story about
two lights on a stormy night. It's true what she


326 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
says — that her man and boys lie drowned. There's
William Green, besides, and a nephew of my own —
John Kallender. And Philip Green - he was saved.
He swore by all that was holy that he steered straight
for the light when his boat struck, and that as he
swam for shore, five minutes later, he saw the light
reappear in another place. It's a strange story.
He pointed straight to the wire-encircled globe
which towered on its slender support above the boat-
house. Mr. Fentolin looked at it and looked back
at the coast guardsman. The brain of a Machia-
velli could scarcely have invented a plausible re-
ply.
“ The light was never lit there,” he said. “It was
simply to help me in some electrical experiments.”
Then, for the first time in their lives, those who
were looking on saw Mr. Fentolin apart from his
carriage. Without any haste but with amazing
strength, Hannah Cox leaned over, and, with her
arms around his middle, lifted him sheer up into the
air. She carried him, clasped in her arms, a weird,
struggling object, to the clumsy boat that lay always
at the top of the beach. She dropped him into the
bottom, took her seat, and unshipped the oars. For
one moment the coast guardsman hesitated; then he
obeyed her look. He gave the boat a push which
sent it grinding down the pebbles into the sea. The
woman began to work at the oars. Every now and
then she looked over her shoulder at that thin line
of white surf which they were all the time approach-
ing.
“ What are you doing, woman? " Mr. Fentolin de-


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 327
manded hoarsely. “ Listen! It was an accident
that your people were drowned. I'll give you an an-
nuity. I'll make you rich for life — rich! Do you
understand what that means?”
“ Aye!” she answered, looking down upon him as
he lay doubled up at the bottom of the boat. “I
know what it means to be rich - better than you,
maybe. Not to let the gold and silver pieces fall
through your fingers, or to live in a great house and
be waited upon by servants who desert you in the
hour of need. That isn't being rich. It's rich to
feel the touch of the one you love, to see the faces
around of those you've given birth to, to move on
through the days and nights towards the end, with
them around; not to know the chill loneliness of an
empty life. I am a poor woman, Mr. Fentolin, and
it's your hand that made me so, and not all the mira-
cles that the Bible ever told of can make me rich
again.”
“ You are a fool!” he shrieked. “You can buy
forgetfulness! The memory of everything passes.”
“I may be a fool,” she retorted grimly, “ and you
the wise man; but this day we'll both know the truth.”
There was a little murmur from the shore, where
the fishermen stood in a long line.
“ Bring him back, missus," Jacob called out.
“ You've scared him enough. Bring him back.
We'll leave him to the law.”
They were close to the line of surf now; they had
passed it, indeed, a little on the left, and the boat
was drifting. She stood up, straight and stern, and
her face, as she looked towards the land, was lit with
the fire of the prophetess.


328 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
“ Aye,” she cried, “ we'll leave him to the law —
to the law of God!”
Then they saw her stoop down, and once more with
that almost superhuman strength which seemed to
belong to her for those few moments, she lifted the
strange object who lay cowering there, high above
her head. From the shore they realised what was
going to happen, and a great shout arose. She
stood on the side of the boat and jumped, holding
her burden tightly in her arms. So they went down
and disappeared.
Half a dozen of the younger fishermen were in the
other ran for a boat that was moored a little way
down the beach. But from the first the search was
useless. Only Jacob, who was a person afflicted with
many superstitions, wiped the sweat from his fore-
head as he leaned over the bow of his boat and looked
down into that fathomless space.
“I heard her singing, her or her wraith,” he swore
afterwards. “I'll never forget the moment I looked
down and down, and the water seemed to grow clearer,
rocks, with him over her back, singing as she went,
looking everywhere for George and the boys!”
But if indeed his eyes were touched with fire at that
moment, no one else in the world saw anything more
of Miles Fentolin.


CHAPTER XXXVI.
Mr. John P. Dunster removed the cigar from his
teeth and gazed at the long white ash with the air of
a connoisseur. He was stretched in a long chair,
high up in the terraced gardens behind the Hall.
At his feet were golden mats of yellow crocuses ; long
borders of hyacinths — pink and purple; beds of
violets; a great lilac tree, with patches of blossom
here and there forcing their way into a sunlit world.
The sea was blue; the sheltered air where they sat
was warm and perfumed. Mr. Dunster, who was oc-
cupying the position of a favoured guest, was feeling
very much at home.
“ There is one thing," he remarked meditatively,
“which I can't help thinking about you Britishers.
You may deserve it or you may not, but you do have
the most almighty luck.”
“ Sheer envy,” Hamel murmured. “We escape
from our tight corners by forethought.”
“ Not on your life, sir," Mr. Dunster declared vig-
orously. “A year or less ago you got a North Sea
scare, and on the strength of a merely honourable un-
derstanding with your neighbour, you risk your coun-
try's very existence for the sake of adding half a
dozen battleships to your North Sea Squadron. The
day the last of those battleships passed through the
Straits of Gibraltar, this little Conference was plot-
ted. I tell you they meant to make history there.


THE VANISHED MESSENGER 331
side by side with those other considerations, a great
statesman's first duty is to the people over whom he
watches, not to study the interests of other lands.
However, it's finished. The Hague Conference is
broken up. The official organs of the world allude
to it, if at all, as an unimportant gathering called
together to discuss certain frontier questions with
which England had nothing to do. But the memory
of it will live. A good cold douche for you people,
I should say, and I hope you'll take warning by it.
Whatever the attitude of America as a nation may
be to these matters, the American people don't want
to see the old country in trouble. Gee whiz! What's
that? ”
There was a little cry from all of them. Only
Hamel stood without sign of surprise, gazing down-
ward with grim, set face. A dull roar, like the boom-
ing of a gun, flashes of fire, and a column of smoke
-- and all that was left of St. David's Tower was
one tottering wall and a scattered mass of masonry.
“I had an idea,” Hamel said quietly, “ that St.
David's Tower was going to spoil the landscape for
a good many years. My property, you know, and
there's the end of it. I am sick of seeing people for
the last few days come down and take photographs
of it for every little rag that goes to press.”
Mr. Dunster pointed out to the line of surf beyond.
“If only some hand,” he remarked, “ could plant
dynamite below that streak of white, so that the sea
could disgorge its dead! They tell me there's a
Spanish galleon there, and a Dutch warship, besides
a score or more of fishing-boats."
Mrs. Fentolin shivered a little. She drew her


332 THE VANISHED MESSENGER
cloak around her. Gerald, who had been watching
her, sprang to his feet.
“ Come," he exclaimed, “We chose the gardens
for our last afternoon here, to be out of the way of
these places! We'll go round the hill.”
Mrs. Fentolin shook her head once more. Her
face had recovered its serenity. She looked down-
ward gravely but with no sign of fear.
" There is nothing to terrify us there, Gerald,"
she declared. “The sea has gathered, and the sea
will hold its own."
Hamel held out his hand to Esther.
“I have destroyed the only house in the world
which I possess," he said. “ Come and look for
violets with me in the spinney, and let us talk of the
houses we are going to build, and the dreams we shall
dream in them."
THE END


Ening
dens
wn-
sea


காயாக கைstiaan காக்க
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