Mr. Fentolin sat for a moment in his chair with immovable face. Then he
pointed to the door, which Gerald had left open behind him.
“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 table,” 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, something which Mr. Fentolin was quick to recognise.
“I do not quite understand the nature of your question, Gerald,” Mr.
Fentolin began. “It is unlike you. You do not seem yourself. Is there
anything 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?”
“I did.”
“You listened--at the keyhole?”
“I listened outside,” Gerald assented doggedly. “I am glad I listened.
Do you mind answering my question?”
“Do I mind!” Mr. Fentolin repeated softly. “Really, Gerald, your
politeness, your consideration, your good manners, astound me. I am
positively deprived of the power of speech.”
“I’ll wait here till it comes to you again, then,” the boy declared
bluntly. “I’ve waited on you hand and foot, done dirty work for you, put
up with your ill-humours and your tyranny, and never grumbled. But there
is a limit! You’ve made a poor sort of creature of me, but even the
worm turns, you know. When it comes to giving away secrets about the
movements of our navy at a time when we are almost at war, I strike.”
“Melodramatic, almost dramatic, but, alas! so inaccurate,” Mr. Fentolin
sighed. “Is this a fit of the heroics, boy, or what has come over you?
Have you by any chance--forgotten?”
Mr. Fentolin’s voice seemed suddenly to have grown in volume. His eyes
dilated, he himself seemed to have grown in size. Gerald stepped a
little back. He was trembling, but his expression had not changed.
“No, I haven’t forgotten. There’s a great debt we are doing our best to
pay, but there’s such a thing as asking too much, there’s such a thing
as drawing the cords to snapping point. I’m speaking for Esther and
mother as well as myself. We have been your slaves; in a way I suppose
we are willing to go on being your slaves. It’s the burden that Fate
has placed around our necks, and we’ll go through with it. All I want
to point out is that there are limits, and it seems to me that we are up
against them now.”
Mr. Fentolin nodded. He had the air of a man who wishes to be
reasonable.
“You are very young, my boy,” he said, “very young indeed. Perhaps that
is my fault for not having let you see more of the world. You have got
some very queer ideas into your head. A little too much novel reading
lately, eh? I might treat you differently. I might laugh at you and send
you out of the room. I won’t. I’ll tell you what you ask. I’ll explain
what you find so mysterious. The person to whom I have been speaking is
my stockbroker.”
“Your stockbroker!” Gerald exclaimed.
Mr. Fentolin nodded.
“Mr. Bayliss,” he continued, “of the firm of Bayliss, Hundercombe &
Dunn, Throgmorton Court. Mr. Bayliss is a man of keen perceptions.
He understands exactly the effect of certain classes of news upon the
market. The message which I have just sent to him is practically common
property. It will be in the Daily Mail to-morrow morning. The only thing
is that I have sent it to him just a few minutes sooner than any one
else can get it. There is a good deal of value in that, Gerald. I do not
mind telling you that I have made a large fortune through studying the
political situation and securing advance information upon matters of
this sort. That fortune some day will probably be yours. It will be you
who will benefit. Meanwhile, I am enriching myself and doing no one any
harm.”
“But how do you know,” Gerald persisted, “that this message would
ever have found its way to the Press? It was simply a message from one
battleship to another. It was not intended to be picked up on land.
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 consequence, 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. “You always get the best of it.
I’ll only ask you one more question. Are you having the wireless hauled
down?”
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
imagination, 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.
“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 decent
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.”
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. Dunster 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 surprise.
“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 declared 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.”
“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. “Esther 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. Fentolin 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 eyes, which seemed
somehow to have their message 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 began to
hum scraps of a little French air.