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 hesitating
footsteps across the spacious and lofty room. He had the air of some
frightened creature approaching 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 beautifully shaped
hands were exposed, and his face; nothing else. His hair was a silvery
white; his complexion 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 exquisite 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 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
commission, 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 handle of his chair.
The smile had passed from his lips. He looked at his nephew in gentle
bewilderment.
“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 permission to travel with him. I told him a lie as to how I had
missed the train. I hated it, but it was necessary.”
Mr. Fentolin nodded approvingly.
“My dear boy,” he said, “to trifle with the truth is always unpleasant.
Besides, you are a Fentolin, and our love of truth is proverbial. But
there are times, you know, when for the good of others we must sacrifice
our scruples. So you told Mr. Dunster a falsehood.”
“He let me travel with him,” Gerald continued. “We were all night
getting about half-way here. Then--you know about the storm, I suppose?”
Mr. Fentolin spread out his hands.
“Could one avoid the knowledge of it?” he asked. “Such a sight has never
been seen.”
“We found we couldn’t get to Harwich,” Gerald went on. “They telegraphed
to London and got permission to bring us to Yarmouth. We were on our way
to Norwich, and the train ran off the line.”
“An accident?” Mr. Fentolin exclaimed.
Gerald nodded.
“Our train ran off the line and pitched down an embankment. Mr. Dunster
has concussion of the brain. He and I were taken to a miserable little
inn near Wymondham. From there I hired a motor-car and brought him
here.”
“You hired a motor-car and brought him here,” Mr. Fentolin repeated
softly. “My dear boy--forgive me if I find this a little hard to
understand. You say that you have brought him here. Had he nothing to
say about it?”
“He was unconscious when we picked him up,” Gerald explained. “He
is unconscious now. The 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 tonneau of the car and
covered him up. They have carried him now into a bedroom, and Sarson is
looking 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 servant, 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 expression of gentle, almost
servile civility.
“Meekins,” Mr. Fentolin said, “a visitor has arrived. Do you happen to
have noticed what luggage he brought?”
“There is one small dressing-case, sir,” the man replied; “nothing else
that I have seen.”
“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. Fentolin 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, indeed! 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 moment 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 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 banging 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 expression.
“Gerald!” Mr. Fentolin repeated.
Then it was obvious that there was something between those two, some
memory or some living thing, seldom, if ever, to be spoken of, and yet
always present. The boy began to tremble.
“You’re a little overwrought, Gerald,” Mr. Fentolin declared. “Sit
quietly in my easy-chair for a few moments. Wait until I have examined
Mr. Dunster’s belongings. Ah! Meekins has been prompt, indeed.”
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 dressing-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 unattractive
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 issued by
American banking houses to enclose letters of credit. One side of it was
filled with notes. Mr. Fentolin 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 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. Fentolin 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 written matter, and what appeared to be a dozen
signatures 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 unimagined 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 document which Mr. Dunster has brought
across the seas, and which I hold in my hands, is the most amazing
message of modern times.”
Gerald rose to his feet.
“What are you going to do about it?” he asked abruptly. “Do you want any
one in from the telegraph room?”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head slowly.
“At present,” he announced, “I am going to reflect. 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 gripping the wonderful
document, his eyes travelling over the ocean now flecked with sunlight.
His eyes were fixed upon the horizon. He looked steadily eastward.