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 surprising 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 little passage out into the hall. A couple of lights were still
burning. The place seemed full of shadows.
“What are you going to do now?” she whispered.
“I want to ring up London on the telephone,” he replied. “I know that
there is a detective either in the neighbourhood or on his way here, but
I shall tell my friend that he had better come down himself.”
She nodded.
“I am going to release Esther,” she said. “She is locked in her room.
The telephone is in the study. I will come down there to you.”
She passed silently up the broad staircase. Hamel groped his way across
the hall into the library. He turned on the small electric reading-lamp
and drew up a chair to the side of the telephone. Even as he lifted the
receiver to his ear, he looked around him half apprehensively. It seemed
as though every moment he would hear the click of Mr. Fentolin’s chair.
He got the exchange at Norwich without difficulty, and a few minutes
later a sleepy reply came from the number he had rung up in London. It
was Kinsley’s servant who answered.
“I want to speak to Mr. Kinsley at once upon most important business,”
Hamel announced.
“Very sorry, sir,” the man repelled. “Mr. Kinsley left town last night
for the country.”
“Where has he gone?” Hamel demanded quickly. “You can tell me. You know
who I am; I am Mr. Hamel.”
“Into Norfolk somewhere, sir. He went with several other gentlemen.”
“Is that Bullen?” Hamel asked.
The man admitted the fact.
“Can you tell me if any of the people with whom Mr. Kinsley left London
were connected with the police?” he inquired.
The man hesitated.
“I believe so, sir,” he admitted. “The gentlemen started in a motor-car
and were going to drive all night.”
Hamel laid down the receiver. At any rate, he would not be left long
with this responsibility upon him. He walked out into the hall. The
house was still wrapped in deep silence. Then, from somewhere above him,
coming down the stairs, he heard the rustle of a woman’s gown. He looked
up, and saw Miss Price, fully dressed, coming slowly towards him.
She held up her finger and led the way back into the library. She was
dressed as neatly as ever, but there was a queer light in her eyes.
“I have seen Mrs. Seymour Fentolin,” she said. “She tells me that you
have left Mr. Fentolin and the others in the subterranean room of the
Tower.”
Hamel nodded.
“They have Dunster down there,” he told her. “I followed them in; it
seemed the best thing to do. I have a friend from London who is on his
way down here now with some detective officers, to enquire into the
matter of Dunster’s disappearance.”
“Are you going to leave them where they are until these people arrive?”
she asked.
“I think so,” he replied, after a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t seem to
have had time to consider even what to do. The opportunity came, and I
embraced it. There they are, and they won’t dare to do any further harm
to Dunster now. Mrs. Fentolin was down in my room, and I thought it best
to bring her back first before I even parleyed with them again.”
“You must be careful,” she advised slowly. “The man Dunster has been
drugged, he has lost some of his will; he may have lost some of his
mental balance. Mr. Fentolin is clever. He will find a dozen ways to
wriggle out of any charge that can be brought against him. You know what
he has really done?”
“I can guess.”
“He has kept back a document signed by the twelve men in America who
control the whole of Wall Street, who control practically the money
markets of the world. That document is a warning to Germany that they
will have no war against England. Owing to Mr. Fentolin, it has not been
delivered, and the Conference is sitting now. War may be declared at any
moment.”
“But as a matter of common sense,” Hamel asked, “why does Mr. Fentolin
desire war?”
“You do not understand Mr. Fentolin,” she told him quietly. “He is not
like other men. There are some who live almost entirely for the sake
of making others happy, who find joy in seeing people content and
satisfied. Mr. Fentolin is the reverse of this. He has but one craving
in life: to see pain in others. To see a human being suffer is to him a
debauch of happiness. A war which laid this country waste would fill
him with a delight which you could never understand. There are no normal
human beings like this. It is a disease in the man, a disease which came
upon him after his accident.”
“Yet you have all been his slaves,” Hamel said curiously.
“We have all been his slaves,” she admitted, “for different reasons.
Before his accident came, Mr. Fentolin was my master and the only man
in the world for me. After his accident, I think my feelings for him,
if anything, grew stronger. I became his slave. I sold my conscience, my
self-respect, everything in life worth having, to bring a smile to his
lips, to help him through a single moment of his misery. And just lately
the reaction has come. He has played with me just as he would sit and
pull the legs out of a spider to watch its agony. I have been one of his
favourite amusements. And even now, if he came into this room I think
that I should be helpless. I should probably fall at his feet and pray
for forgiveness.”
Hamel looked at her wonderingly.
“I have come down to warn you,” she went on. “It is possible that this
is the beginning of the end, that his wonderful fortune will desert him,
that his star has gone down. But remember that he has the brains and
courage of genius. You think that you have him in a trap. Don’t be
surprised, when you go back, to find that he has turned the tables upon
you.”
“Impossible!” Hamel declared. “I looked all round the place. There isn’t
a window or opening anywhere. The trap-door is in the middle of the
ceiling and it is fifteen feet from the floor. It shuts with a spring.”
“It may be as you say,” she observed. “It may be that he is safe.
Remember, though, if you go near him, that he is desperate.”
“Do you know where Miss Fentolin is?” he interrupted.
“She is with her mother,” the woman replied, impatiently. “She is coming
down. Tell me, what are you going to do with Mr. Fentolin? Nothing else
matters.”
“I have a friend,” Hamel answered, “who will see to that.”
“If you are relying upon the law,” she said, “I think you will find
that the law cannot touch him. Mr. Dunster was brought to the house in
a perfectly natural manner. He was certainly injured, and injured in
a railway accident. Doctor Sarson is a fully qualified surgeon, and he
will declare that Mr. Dunster was unfit to travel. If necessary, they
will have destroyed the man’s intelligence. If you think that you have
him broken, let me warn you that you may be disappointed. Let me, if I
may, give you one word of advice.”
“Please do,” Hamel begged.
She looked at him coldly. Her tone was still free from any sort of
emotion.
“You have taken up some sort of position here,” she continued, “as a
friend of Mrs. Seymour Fentolin, a friend of the family. Don’t let them
come back under the yoke. You know the secret of their bondage?”
“I know it,” he admitted.
“They have been his slaves because their absolute obedience to his will
was one of the conditions of his secrecy. He has drawn the cords too
tight. Better let the truth be known, if needs be, than have their three
lives broken. Don’t let them go back under his governance. For me, I
cannot tell. If he comes back, as he will come back, I may become his
slave again, but let them break away. Listen--that is Mrs. Fentolin.”
She left him. Hamel followed her out into the hall. Esther and her
mother were already at the foot of the stairs. He drew them into the
study. Esther gave him her hands, but she was trembling in every limb.
“I am terrified!” she whispered. “Every moment I think I can hear the
click of that awful carriage. He will come back; I am sure he will come
back!”
“He may,” Hamel answered sturdily, “but never to make you people his
slaves again. You have done enough. You have earned your freedom.”
“I agree,” Mrs. Fentolin said firmly. “We have gone on from sacrifice
to sacrifice, until it has become a habit with us to consider him the
master of our bodies and our souls. To-day, Esther, we have reached the
breaking point. Not even for the sake of that message from the other
side of the grave, not even to preserve his honour and his memory, can
we do more.”
Hamel held up his finger. He opened the French windows, and they
followed him out on to the terrace. The grey dawn had broken now over
the sea. There were gleams of fitful sunshine on the marshes. Some
distance away a large motor-car was coming rapidly along the road.