“I will tell you a secret,” she answered calmly. “Perhaps it will help you to understand. You know my uncle’s condition. You know that it was the result of an accident?”
“I have heard so,” he replied gravely.
She clutched at his arm.
“Come,” she said.
Side by side they walked the entire length of the terrace. When they reached the corner, they were met with a fierce gust of wind. She battled along, and he followed her. They were looking inland now. There were no lights visible—nothing but dark, chaotic emptiness. From somewhere below him he could hear the wind in the tree-tops.
“This way,” she directed. “Be careful.”
They walked to the very edge of the palisading. It was scarcely more than a couple of feet high. She pointed downwards.
“Can you see?” she whispered.
By degrees his eyes faintly penetrated the darkness. It was as though they were looking down a precipice. The descent was perfectly sheer for nearly a hundred feet. At the bottom were the pine trees.
“Come here again in the morning,” she whispered. “You will see then. I brought you here to show you the place. It was here that the accident happened.”
“What accident?”
“Mr. Fentolin’s,” she continued. “It was here that he went over. He was picked up with both his legs broken. They never thought that he would live.”
Hamel shivered a little. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw more distinctly than ever the sheer fall, the tops of the bending trees below.
“What a horrible thing!” he exclaimed.
“It was more horrible than you know,” she continued, dropping her voice a little, almost whispering in his ear. “I do not know why I tell you this—you, a stranger—but if I do not tell some one, I think that the memory of it will drive me mad. It was no accident at all. Mr. Fentolin was thrown over!”
“By whom?” he asked.
She clung to his arm for a moment.
“Ah, don’t ask me!” she begged. “No one knows. My uncle gave out, as soon as he was conscious, that it was an accident.”
“That, at any rate, was fine of him,” Hamel declared.
She shivered.
“He was proud, at least, of our family name. Whatever credit he deserves for it, he must have. It was owing to that accident that we became his slaves: nothing but that—his absolute slaves, to wait upon him, if he would, hand and foot. You see, he has never been able to marry. His life was, of course, ruined. So the burden came to us. We took it up, little thinking what was in store for us. Five years ago we came here to live. Gerald wanted to go into the army; I wanted to travel with my mother. Gerald has done all the work secretly, but he has never been allowed to pass his examinations. I have never left England except to spend two years at the strictest boarding-school in Paris, to which I was taken and fetched away by one of his creatures. We live here, with the shadow of this thing always with us. We are his puppets. If we hesitate to do his bidding, he reminds us. So far, we have been his creatures, body and soul. Whether it will go on, I cannot say—oh, I cannot say! It is bad for us, but—there is mother, too. He makes her life a perfect hell!”
A roar of wind came booming once more across the marshes, bending the trees which grew so thickly beneath them and which ascended precipitately to the back of the house. The French windows behind rattled. She looked around nervously.
“I am afraid of him all the time,” she murmured. “He seems to overhear everything—he or his creatures. Listen!”
They were silent for several moments. He whispered in her ear so closely that through the darkness he could, see the fire in her eyes.
“You are telling me half,” he said. “Tell me everything. Who threw your uncle over the parapet?”
She stood by his side, motionless and trembling.
“It was the passion of a moment,” she said at last, speaking hoarsely. “I cannot tell you. Listen! Listen!”
“There is no one near,” Hamel assured her. “It is the wind which shakes the windows. I wish that you would tell me everything. I would like to be your friend. Believe me, I have that desire, really. There are so many things which I do not understand. That it is dull here for you, of course, is natural, but there is something more than that. You seem always to fear something. Your uncle is a selfish man, naturally, although to look at him he seems to have the disposition of an angel. But beyond that, is there anything of which you are afraid? You seem all the time to live in fear.”
She suddenly clutched his hand. There was nothing of affection in her touch, and yet he felt a thrill of delight.
“There are strange things which happen here,” she whispered, “things which neither Gerald nor I understand. Yet they terrify us. I think that very soon the end will come. Neither of us can stand it very much longer. We have no friends. Somehow or other, he seems to manage to keep us always isolated.”
“I shall not go away from here,” Hamel said firmly, “at present. Mind, I am not at all sure that, living this solitary life as you do, you have not become a little over-nervous; that you have not exaggerated the fear of some things. To me your uncle seems merely quixotic and egregiously selfish. However that may be, I am going to remain.” She clutched once, more at his arm, her finger was upraised. They listened together. From somewhere behind them came the clear, low wailing of a violin.
“It is Mr. Fentolin,” she whispered. “Please come in; let us go in at once. He only plays when he is excited. I am afraid! Oh, I am afraid that something is going to happen!”
She was already round the corner and on her way to the main terrace. He followed her closely.
CHAPTER XVI
Table of Contents
“Let us follow the example of all great golfers,” Hamel said. “Let us for this morning, at any rate, imagine that your whole world is encompassed within these eighteen holes. We have been sent here in a moment of good humour by your tyrant uncle. The sun shines, and the wind is from the west. Why not?”
“That is all very well for you,” she retorted, smiling, “but I have topped my drive.”
“Purely an incident,” he assured her. “The vicissitudes of the game do not enter into the question. I have driven a ball far above my usual form, but I am not gloating over it. I prefer to remember only that I am going to spend the next two hours with you.”
She played her shot, and they walked for a little way together. She was suddenly silent.
“Do you know,” she said finally, just a little gravely, “I am not at all used to speeches of this sort.”
“Then you ought to be,” he declared. “Nothing but the lonely life you have been living has kept you from hearing them continually.”
She laughed a little at the impotence of her rebuff and paused for a moment to make her next shot. Hamel, standing a little on one side, watched her appraisingly. Her short, grey tweed skirt was obviously the handiwork of an accomplished tailor. Her grey stockings and suede shoes were immaculate and showed a care for her appearance which pleased him. Her swing, too, revealed a grace, the grace of long arms and a supple body, at which previously he had only guessed. The sunshine seemed to have brought out a copper tinge from her abundant brown hair.
“Do you know,” he remarked, “I think I am beginning to like your uncle. Great idea of his, sending us off here directly after breakfast.”
Her face darkened for a moment, and he realised his error. The same thought, indeed, had been in both their minds. Mr. Fentolin’s courteous suggestion had been offered to them almost in the shape of a command. It was scarcely possible to escape from the reflection that he had desired to rid himself of their presence for the morning.
“Of course,” he went on, “I knew that these links were good—quite famous, aren’t they?”
“I have played on so few others,” she told him. “I learned my golf here with King, the professional.”
He took off his cap and handed it to his caddy. He hims
elf was beginning already to look younger. The long blue waves came rippling up the creeks. The salt wind, soft with sunshine, blew in their faces. The marshes on the landward side were mauve with lavender blossom. In the distance, the red-tiled cottages nestled deep among a background of green trees and rising fields.
“This indeed is a land of peace,” he declared. “If I hadn’t to give you quite so many strokes, I should be really enjoying myself.”
“You don’t play like a man who has been living abroad for a great many years,” she remarked. “Tell me about some of the places you have visited?”
“Don’t let us talk seriously,” he begged. “I’ll tell you of them but let it be later on. This morning I feel that the spring air is getting into my head. I have an absurd desire to talk nonsense.”
“So far,” she admitted, “you haven’t been altogether unsuccessful.”
“If you are alluding,” he replied, “to the personal remarks I was emboldened to make on my way here, I can only say that they were excused by their truthfulness.”
“I am not at all sure that you have known me long enough to tell me what colours suit me,” she demurred.
“Then what will you say,” he enquired, “if I admire the angle of that quill in your hat?”
“Don’t do it,” she laughed. “If you continue like this, I may have to go home.”
“You have sent the car away,” he reminded her cheerfully. “You would simply have to sit upon the balcony and reflect upon your wasted morning.”
“I decline to talk upon the putting green,” she said. “It puts me off. If you will stand perfectly quiet and say nothing, I will play the like.”
They moved off presently to the next teeing ground.
“I don’t believe this nonsense is good for our golf,” she said.
“It is immensely good for us as human beings,” he protested.
They had played the ninth hole and turned for home. On their right now was a shimmering stretch of wet sand and a thin line of sea, in the distance. The tide, receding, had left little islands of virgin sand, grass tufted, the home of countless sea-gulls. A brown-sailed fishing boat was racing for the narrow entrance to the tidal way.
“I am beginning to understand what there is about this coast which fascinated my father so,” he remarked.
“Are you?” she answered gravely. “Years ago I used to love it, but not now.”
He tried to change the subject, but the gloom had settled upon her face once more.
“You don’t know what it is like,” she went on, as they walked side by side after their balls, “to live day and night in fear, with no one to talk to—no one, that is to say, who is not under the same shadow. Even the voices of the wind and the sea, and the screaming of the birds, seem to bring always an evil message. There is nothing kindly or hopeful even in the sunshine. At night, when the tide comes thundering in as it does so often at this time of the year, one is afraid. There is so much to make one afraid!”
She had turned pale again, notwithstanding the sunshine and the freshening wind. He laid his hand lightly upon her arm. She suffered his touch without appearing to notice it.
“Ah, you mustn’t talk like that!” he pleaded. “Do you know what you make me feel like?”
She came back from the world of her own unhappy imaginings.
“Really, I forgot myself,” she declared, with a little smile. “Never mind, it does one good sometimes. One up, are you? Henceforth, then, golf—all the rigour of the game, mind.”
He fell in with her mood, and their conversation touched only upon the game. On the last green he suffered defeat and acknowledged it with a little grimace.
“If I might say so, Miss Fentolin,” he protested, “you are a little too good for your handicap. I used to play a very reasonable scratch myself, but I can’t give you the strokes.”
She smiled.
“Doubtless your long absence abroad,” she began slowly, “has affected your game.”
“I was round in eighty-one,” he grumbled.
“You must have travelled in many countries,” she continued, “where golf was an impossibility.”
“Naturally,” he admitted. “Let us stay and have lunch and try again.”
She shook her head with a little sigh of regret.
“You see, the car is waiting,” she pointed out. “We are expected home. I shan’t be a minute putting my clubs away.”
They sped swiftly along the level road towards St. David’s Hall. Far in the distance they saw it, built upon that strange hill, with the sunlight flashing in its windows. He looked at it long and curiously.
“I think,” he said, “that yours is the most extraordinarily situated house I have ever seen. Fancy a gigantic mound like that in the midst of an absolutely flat marsh.”
She nodded.
“There is no other house quite like it in England,” she said. “I suppose it is really a wonderful place. Have you looked at the pictures?”
“Not carefully,” he told her.
“You must before you leave,” she insisted. “Mr. Fentolin is a great judge, and so was his father.”
Their road curved a little to the sea, and at its last bend they were close to the pebbly ridge on which the Tower was built. He touched the electric bell and stopped the car.
“Do let us walk along and have a look at my queer possession once more,” he begged. “Luncheon, you told me, is not till half-past one, and it is a quarter to now.”
She hesitated for a moment and then assented. They left the car and walked along the little track, bordered with white posts, which led on to the ridge. To their right was the village, separated from them only by one level stretch of meadowland; in the background, the hall. They turned along the raised dike just inside the pebbly beach, and she showed her companion the narrow waterway up to the village. At its entrance was a tall iron upright, with a ladder attached and a great lamp at the top.
“That is to show them the way in at night, isn’t it?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Yes,” she told him. “Mr. Fentolin had it placed there. And yet,” she went on, “curiously enough, since it was erected, there have been more wrecks than ever.”
“It doesn’t seem a dangerous beach,” he remarked.
She pointed to a spot about fifty yards from the Tower. It was the spot to which the woman whom he had met on the day of his arrival had pointed.
“You can’t see them,” she said; “they are always out of sight, even when the tide is at the lowest—but there are some hideous sunken rocks there. ‘The Daggers,’ they call them. One or two fishing boats have been lost on them, trying to make the village. When Mr. Fentolin put up the lamp, every one thought that it would be quite safe to try and get in at night. This winter, though, there have been three wrecks which no one could understand. It must be something in the currents, or a sort of optical illusion, because in the last shipwreck one man was saved, and he swore that at the time they struck the rock, they were headed straight for the light.”
They had reached the Tower now. Hamel became a little absorbed. They walked around it, and he tried the front door. He found, as he had expected, that it opened readily. He looked around him for several moments.
“Your uncle has been here this morning,” he remarked quietly.
“Very likely.”
“That outhouse,” he continued, “must be quite a large place. Have you any idea what it is he works upon there?”
“None,” she answered.
He looked around him once more.
“Mr. Fentolin has been preparing for my coming,” he observed. “I see that he has moved a few of his personal things.”
She made no reply, only she shivered a little as she stepped back into the sunshine.
“I don’t believe you like my little domicile,” he remarked, as they started off homeward.
“I don’t,” she admitted curtly.
“In the train,” he reminded her, “you seemed r
ather to discourage my coming here. Yet last night, after dinner—”
“I was wrong,” she interrupted. “I should have said nothing, and yet I couldn’t help it. I don’t suppose it will make any difference.”
“Make any difference to what?”
“I cannot tell you,” she confessed. “Only I have a strange antipathy to the place. I don’t like it. My uncle sometimes shuts himself up here for quite a long time. We have an idea, Gerald and I, that things happen here sometimes which no one knows of. When he comes back, he is moody and ill-tempered, or else half mad with excitement. He isn’t always the amiable creature whom you have met. He has the face of an angel, but there are times—”
“Well, don’t let’s talk about him,” Hamel begged, as her voice faltered. “Now that I am going to stay in the neighbourhood for a few days, you must please remember that it is partly your responsibility. You are not going to shut yourself up, are you? You’ll come and play golf again?”
“If he will let me,” she promised.
“I think he will let you, right enough,” Hamel observed. “Between you and me, I rather think he hates having me down at the Tower at all. He will encourage anything that takes me away, even as far as the Golf Club.”
They were approaching the Hall now. She was looking once more as she had looked last night. She had lost her colour, her walk was no longer buoyant. She had the air of a prisoner who, after a brief spell of liberty, enters once more the place of his confinement. Gerald came out to meet them as they climbed the stone steps which led on to the terrace. He glanced behind as he greeted them, and then almost stealthily took a telegram from his pocket.
“This came for you,” he remarked, handing it to Hamel. “I met the boy bringing it out of the office.”
Hamel tore it open, with a word of thanks. Gerald stood in front of him as he read.
“If you wouldn’t mind putting it away at once,” he asked, a little uncomfortably. “You see, the telegraph office is in the place, and my uncle has a queer rule that every telegram is brought to him before it is delivered.”
21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series) Page 170
