"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 a.s.sist 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 sh.o.r.e, standing, as it seemed, sheer over the sea, was a little black speck.
"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?"
"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 sudden 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 situated 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 suppose. This is where you get out," she concluded, rising to her feet.
She turned away with the slightest nod. A maid was already awaiting her at the door of the compartment. 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 disappointed in your quarters."
Hamel followed her slowly on to the platform, saw her escorted to a very handsome motor-car by an obsequious station-master, and watched the former disappear down the stretch of straight road which led to the hill. Then, with a stick in one hand, and the handbag 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 att.i.tude, 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 departing 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 turned from the window as though about to speak, but met Mr. Fentolin"s eye and at once resumed his position.
"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 foreigners, they see little or nothing of the village people."
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 departed 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 himself had his back to the light. The woman, on the other hand, was facing it. The windows were high, and the curtains were drawn back to their fullest extent. A cold stream of northern light fell upon her face. Mr. Fentolin gazed at her and nodded her head slightly.
"My dear Lucy," he declared, "you are wonderful--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 immobility 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 Credit Lyonaise and in the name you know of. Say to Lebonaitre of Paris that you consider his last reports faulty. No mention was made of Monsieur C"s visit to the Russian Emba.s.sy, or of the supper 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 subjection. Yet his inability to stir her sometimes maddened 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 believe 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 mandate with him. I have them both--the man and his mandate. Can you guess what I am going to do with them?"