The Vanished Messenger Part 38

"What about Mr. John P. Dunster?"

"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 enquiry 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 eloquently profane.

"That's why Mr. Fentolin let him go, then. If Saxthorpe had only held his tongue, or if those infernal police hadn't got chattering with the magistrates, 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 said. "He was on his guard too, for Mr. Fentolin 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 confidence. 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 doc.u.ment 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, d.i.c.k, 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 yesterday morning, and he certainly arrived in Yarmouth 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 have heard news at once. As a last resource, I ran down here to see you on the chance of your having picked up any information."

Hamel shook his head.

"You seem to know a good deal more than I do, already," he said.

"What do you think of Mr. Fentolin? You have stayed in his house. You have had an opportunity of studying him."

"So far as my impressions go," Hamel replied, "everything which you have suggested might very well be true. I think that either out of sheer love of mischief, or from some subtler motive, he is capable of anything.

Every one in the place, except one poor woman, seems to look upon him as a sort of supernatural being. He gives money away to worthless people with both hands. Yet I share your opinion of him. I believe that he is a creature without conscience or morals. I have sat at his table and s.h.i.+vered when he has smiled."

"Are you staying at St. David's Hall now?"

"I left yesterday."

"Where are you now, then?"

"I am at St. David's Tower--the little place I told you of that belonged to my father--but I don't know whether I shall be able to stop there.

Mr. Fentolin, for some reason or other, very much resented my leaving the Hall and was very annoyed at my insisting upon claiming the Tower.

When I went down to the village to get some one to come up and look after me, there wasn't a woman there who would come. It didn't matter what I offered, they were all the same. They all muttered some excuse or other, and seemed only anxious to show me out. At the village shop they seemed to hate to serve me with anything. It was all I could do to get a packet of tobacco yesterday afternoon. You would really think that I was the most unpopular person who ever lived, and it can only be because of Mr. Fentolin's influence."

"Mr. Fentolin evidently doesn't like to have you in the locality,"

Kinsley remarked thoughtfully.

"He was all right so long as I was at St. David's Hall," Hamel observed.

"What's this little place like--St. David's Tower, you call it?" Kinsley asked.

"Just a little stone building actually on the beach," Hamel explained.

"There is a large shed which Mr. Fentolin keeps locked up, and the habitable portion consists just of a bedroom and sitting-room. From what I can see, Mr. Fentolin has been making a sort of hobby of the place.

There is telephonic communication with the house, and he seems to have used the sitting-room as a sort of studio. He paints sea pictures and really paints them very well."

A man came into the coffee-room, made some enquiry of the waiter and went out again. Hamel stared at him in a puzzled manner. For the moment he could only remember that the face was familiar. Then he suddenly gave vent to a little exclamation.

"Any one would think that I had been followed," he remarked. "The man who has just looked into the room is one of Mr. Fentolin's parasites or bodyguards, or whatever you call them."

"You probably have," Kinsley agreed. "What post does he hold in the household?"

"I have no idea," Hamel replied. "I saw him the first day I arrived and not since. Sort of secretary, I should think."

"He is a queer-looking fellow, anyway," Kinsley muttered. "Look out, d.i.c.k. Here he comes back again."

Mr. Ryan approached the table a little diffidently.

"I hope you will forgive the liberty, sir," he said to Hamel. "You remember me, I trust--Mr. Ryan. I am the librarian at St. David's Hall."

Hamel nodded.

"I thought I'd seen you there."

"I was wondering," the man continued, "whether you had a car of Mr.

Fentolin's in Norwich to-day, and if so, whether I might beg a seat back in case you were returning before the five o'clock train? I came in early this morning to go through some ma.n.u.scripts at a second-hand bookseller's here, and I have unfortunately missed the train back."

Hamel shook his head.

"I came in by train myself, or I would have given you a lift back, with pleasure," he said.

Mr. Ryan expressed his thanks briefly and left the room. Kinsley watched him from over the top of a newspaper.

"So that is one of Mr. Fentolin's creatures, too," he remarked. "Keeping his eye on you in Norwich, eh? Tell me, d.i.c.k, by-the-by, how do you get on with the rest of Mr. Fentolin's household, and exactly of whom does it consist?"

"There is his sister-in-law," Hamel replied, "Mrs. Seymour Fentolin. She is a strange, tired-looking woman who seems to stand in mortal fear of Mr. Fentolin. She is always overdressed and never natural, but it seems to me that nearly everything she does is done to suit his whims, or at his instigation."

Kinsley nodded thoughtfully.

"I remember Seymour Fentolin," he said; "a really fine fellow he was.

Well, who else?"

"Just the nephew and niece. The boy is half sullen, half discontented, yet he, too, seems to obey his uncle blindly. The three of them seem to be his slaves. It's a thing you can't live in the house without noticing."