The Vanished Messenger

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  CHAPTER XV

  Mr. Fentolin led the way to a delightful little corner of his library,where before the open grate, recently piled with hissing logs, an easychair had been drawn. He wheeled himself up to the other side of thehearthrug and leaned back with a little air of exhaustion. The butler,who seemed to have appeared unsummoned from somewhere among the shadows,served coffee and poured some old brandy into large and wonderfully thinglasses.

  "Why my house should be turned into an asylum to gratify the hospitableinstincts of my young nephew, I cannot imagine," Mr. Fentolin grumbled."A most extraordinary person, our visitor, I can assure you. Quiteviolent, too, he was at first."

  "Have you had any outside advice about his condition?" Hamel inquired.

  Mr. Fentolin glanced across those few feet of space and looked at Hamelwith swift suspicion.

  "Why should I?" he asked. "Doctor Sarson is fully qualified, and thecase seems to present no unusual characteristics."

  Hamel sipped his brandy thoughtfully.

  "I don't know why I suggested it," he admitted. "I only thought that anoutside doctor might help you to get rid of the fellow."

  Mr. Fentolin shrugged his shoulders.

  "After all," he said, "the matter is of no real consequence. DoctorSarson assures me that we shall be able to send him on his way veryshortly. In the meantime, Mr. Hamel, what about the Tower?"

  "What about it?" Hamel asked, selecting a cigar from the box which hadbeen pushed to his side. "I am sure I haven't any wish to inconvenienceyou."

  "I will be quite frank," Mr. Fentolin declared. "I do not dispute yourright for a moment. On the other hand, my few hours daily down therehave become a habit with me. I do not wish to give them up. Stay herewith us, Mr. Hamel. You will be doing us a great kindness. My nephew andniece have too little congenial society. Make up your mind to give us afortnight of your time, and I can assure you that we will do our best tomake yours a pleasant stay."

  Hamel was a little taken aback.

  "Mr. Fentolin," he said, "I couldn't think of accepting your hospitalityto such an extent. My idea in coming here was simply to fulfil an oldpromise to my father and to rough it at the Tower for a week or so, andwhen that was over, I don't suppose I should ever be likely to come backagain. You had better let me carry out that plan, and afterwards theplace shall be entirely at your disposal."

  "You don't quite understand," Mr. Fentolin persisted, a littleirritably. "I sit there every morning. I want, for instance, to be thereto-morrow morning, and the next morning, and the morning afterwards, tofinish a little seascape I have commenced. Nowhere else will do. Call ita whim or what you will I have begun the picture, and I want to finishit."

  "Well, you can sit there all right," Hamel assured him. "I shall be outplaying golf or fishing. I shall do nothing but sleep there."

  "And very uncomfortable you will be," Mr. Fentolin pointed out. "Youhave no servant, I understand, and there is no one in the village fit tolook after you. Think of my thirty-nine empty rooms, my books here, mygardens, my motor-cars, my young people, entirely at your service. Youcan have a suite to yourself. You can disappear when you like. To alleffects and purposes you will be the master of St. David's Hall. Bereasonable. Don't you think, now, that you can spend a fortnight morepleasantly under such circumstances than by playing the misanthrope downat the Tower?"

  "Please don't think," Hamel begged, "that I don't appreciate yourhospitality. I should feel uncomfortable, however, if I paid you a visitof the length you have suggested. Come, I don't see," he added, "why myoccupation of the Tower should interfere with you. I should be away fromit by about nine or ten o'clock every morning. I should probably onlysleep there. Can't you accept the use of it all the rest of the time? Ican assure you that you will be welcome to come and go as though it wereentirely your own."

  Mr. Fentolin had lit a cigarette and was watching the blue smoke curlupwards to the ceiling.

  "You're an obstinate man, Mr. Hamel," he sighed, "but I suppose you musthave your own way. By-the-by, you would only need to use the up-stairsroom and the sitting-room. You will not need the outhouse--rather morethan an outhouse, though isn't it? I mean the shed which leads out fromthe kitchen, where the lifeboat used to be kept?"

  "I don't think I shall need that," Hamel admitted, a littlehesitatingly.

  "To tell you the truth," Mr. Fentolin continued, "among my other hobbiesI have done a little inventing. I work sometimes at a model there. It isfoolish, perhaps, but I wish no one to see it. Do you mind if I keep thekeys of the place?"

  "Not in the least," Hamel replied. "Tell me, what direction do yourinventions take, Mr. Fentolin?"

  "Before you go," Mr. Fentolin promised, "I will show you my little modelat work. Until then we will not talk of it. Now come, be frank with me.Shall we exchange ideas for a little time? Will you talk of books? Theyare my daily friends. I have thousands of them, beloved companions onevery side. Or will you talk of politics or travel? Or would yourather be frivolous with my niece and nephew? That, I think, is Estherplaying."

  "To be quite frank," Hamel declared bluntly, "I should like to talk toyour niece."

  Mr. Fentolin smiled as though amused. His amusement, however, wasperfectly good-natured.

  "If you will open this door," he said, "you will see another one exactlyopposite to you. That is the drawing-room. You will find Esther there.Before you go, will you pass me the Quarterly Review? Thank you."

  Hamel crossed the hall, opened the door of the room to which he had beendirected, and made his way towards the piano. Esther was there, playingsoftly to herself with eyes half closed. He came and stood by her side,and she stopped abruptly. Her eyes questioned him. Then her fingersstole once more over the keys, more softly still.

  "I have just left your uncle," Hamel said. "He told me that I might comein here."

  "Yes?" she murmured.

  "He was very hospitable," Hamel continued. "He wanted me to remain hereas a guest and not go to the Tower at all."

  "And you?"

  "I am going to the Tower," he said. "I am going there to-morrow or theday after."

  The music swelled beneath her fingers.

  "For how long?"

  "For a week or so. I am just giving your uncle time to clear out hisbelongings. I am leaving him the outhouse."

  "He asked you to leave him that?" she whispered.

  "Yes!"

  "You are not going in there at all?"

  "Not at all."

  Again she played a little more loudly for a few moments. Then the musicdied away once more.

  "What reason did he give for keeping possession of that?"

  "Another hobby," Hamel replied. "He is an inventor, it seems. He has themodel of something there; he would not tell me what."

  She shivered a little, and her music drifted away. She bent over thekeys, her face hidden from him.

  "You will not go away just yet?" she asked softly. "You are going tostay for a few days, at any rate?"

  "Without a doubt," he assured her. "I am altogether my own master."

  "Thank God," she murmured.

  He leaned with his elbow against the top of the piano, looking down ather. Since dinnertime she had fastened a large red rose in the front ofher gown.

  "Do you know that this is all rather mysterious?" he said calmly.

  "What is mysterious?" she demanded.

  "The atmosphere of the place: your uncle's queer aversion to my havingthe Tower; your visitor up-stairs, who fights with the servants while weare at dinner; your uncle himself, whose will seems to be law not onlyto you but to your brother, who must be of age, I should think, and whoseems to have plenty of spirit."

  "We live here, both of us," she told him. "He is our guardian."

  "Naturally," Hamel replied, "and yet, it may have been my fancy, ofcourse, but at dinnertime I seemed to get a queer impression."

  "Tell it me?" she insisted, her fingers breaking suddenly into alivelier melody. "Tell it me at once? You were there all th
e time. Icould see you watching. Tell me what you thought?"

  She had turned her head now, and her eyes were fixed upon his. They werelarge and soft, capable, he knew, of infinite expression. Yet at thatmoment the light that shone from them was simply one of fear, halfcurious, half shrinking.

  "My impression," he said, "was that both of you disliked and feared Mr.Fentolin, yet for some reason or other that you were his abject slaves."

  Her fingers seemed suddenly inspired with diabolical strength andenergy. Strange chords crashed and broke beneath them. She played someunfamiliar music with tense and fierce energy. Suddenly she paused androse to her feet.

  "Come out on to the terrace," she invited. "You are not afraid of cold?"

  He followed her without a word. She opened the French windows, and theystepped out on to the long, broad stone promenade. The night was dark,and there was little to be seen. The light was burning at the entranceto the waterway; a few lights were twinkling from the village. The softmoaning of the sea was distinctly audible. She moved to the edge of thepalisading. He followed her closely.

  "You are right, Mr. Hamel," she said. "I think that I am more afraid ofhim than any woman ever was of any man in this world."

  "Then why do you live here?" he protested. "You must have otherrelations to whom you could go. And your brother--why doesn't he dosomething--go into one of the professions? He could surely leave easilyenough?"

  "I will tell you a secret," she answered calmly. "Perhaps it will helpyou to understand. You know my uncle's condition. You know that it wasthe 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 theyreached the corner, they were met with a fierce gust of wind. Shebattled along, and he followed her. They were looking inland now.There were no lights visible--nothing but dark, chaotic emptiness. Fromsomewhere 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 morethan a couple of feet high. She pointed downwards.

  "Can you see?" she whispered.

  By degrees his eyes faintly penetrated the darkness. It was as thoughthey were looking down a precipice. The descent was perfectly sheer fornearly a hundred feet. At the bottom were the pine trees.

  "Come here again in the morning," she whispered. "You will see then. Ibrought you here to show you the place. It was here that the accidenthappened."

  "What accident?"

  "Mr. Fentolin's," she continued. "It was here that he went over. He waspicked up with both his legs broken. They never thought that he wouldlive."

  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 bendingtrees below.

  "What a horrible thing!" he exclaimed.

  "It was more horrible than you know," she continued, dropping her voicea little, almost whispering in his ear. "I do not know why I tell youthis--you, a stranger--but if I do not tell some one, I think that thememory of it will drive me mad. It was no accident at all. Mr. Fentolinwas 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, assoon 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 deservesfor it, he must have. It was owing to that accident that we became hisslaves: nothing but that--his absolute slaves, to wait upon him, if hewould, hand and foot. You see, he has never been able to marry. His lifewas, of course, ruined. So the burden came to us. We took it up, littlethinking 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 allowedto pass his examinations. I have never left England except to spend twoyears at the strictest boarding-school in Paris, to which I was takenand fetched away by one of his creatures. We live here, with the shadowof this thing always with us. We are his puppets. If we hesitate to dohis bidding, he reminds us. So far, we have been his creatures, body andsoul. Whether it will go on, I cannot say--oh, I cannot say! It is badfor us, but--there is mother, too. He makes her life a perfect hell!"

  A roar of wind came booming once more across the marshes, bendingthe trees which grew so thickly beneath them and which ascendedprecipitately to the back of the house. The French windows behindrattled. She looked around nervously.

  "I am afraid of him all the time," she murmured. "He seems to overheareverything--he or his creatures. Listen!"

  They were silent for several moments. He whispered in her ear so closelythat through the darkness he could, see the fire in her eyes.

  "You are telling me half," he said. "Tell me everything. Who threw youruncle 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 shakesthe windows. I wish that you would tell me everything. I would like tobe your friend. Believe me, I have that desire, really. There are somany things which I do not understand. That it is dull here for you,of course, is natural, but there is something more than that. Youseem 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 allthe time to live in fear."

  She suddenly clutched his hand. There was nothing of affection in hertouch, and yet he felt a thrill of delight.

  "There are strange things which happen here," she whispered, "thingswhich neither Gerald nor I understand. Yet they terrify us. I thinkthat very soon the end will come. Neither of us can stand it very muchlonger. We have no friends. Somehow or other, he seems to manage to keepus 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 havenot become a little over-nervous; that you have not exaggerated the fearof some things. To me your uncle seems merely quixotic and egregiouslyselfish. However that may be, I am going to remain." She clutched oncemore at his arm, her finger was upraised. They listened together. Fromsomewhere behind them came the clear, low wailing of a violin.

  "It is Mr. Fentolin," she whispered. "Please come in; let us go in atonce. He only plays when he is excited. I am afraid! Oh, I am afraidthat something is going to happen!"

  She was already round the corner and on her way to the main terrace. Hefollowed her closely.