Book: The Vanished Messenger

E >> E. Phillips Oppenheim >> The Vanished Messenger




Mr. Fentolin shook his head.

"We cannot spare him quite so soon," he declared. "We must avail
ourselves of this wonderful chance afforded us by my brilliant young
nephew. We must keep him with us for a little time. What is it
that you have in your hands, Doctor? Telegrams, I think. Let me
look at them."

The doctor held them out. Mr. Fentolin took them eagerly between
his thin, delicate fingers. Suddenly his face darkened, and became
like the face of a spoilt and angry child.

"Cipher!" he exclaimed furiously. "A cipher which he knows so well
as to remember it, too! Never mind, it will be easy to decode. It
will amuse me during the afternoon. Very good, Sarson. I will take
charge of these."

"You do not wish anything dispatched?"

"Nothing at present," Mr. Fentolin sighed. "It will be well, I
think, for the poor man to remain undisturbed by any communications
from his friends. Is he restless at all?"

"He wants to get on with his journey."

"We shall see," Mr. Fentolin remarked. "Now feel my pulse, Sarson.
How am I this morning?"

The doctor held the thin wrist for a moment between his fingers,
and let it go.

"In perfect health, as usual," he announced grimly.

"Ah, but you cannot be sure!" Mr. Fentolin protested. "My tongue,
if you please."

He put it out.

"Excellent!"

"We must make quite certain," Mr. Fentolin continued. "There are
so many people who would miss me. My place in the world would not
be easily filed. Undo my waistcoat, Sarson. Feel my heart, please.
Feel carefully. I can see the end of your stethoscope in your
pocket. Don't scamp it. I fancied this morning, when I was lying
here alone, that there was something almost like a palpitation - a
quicker beat. Be very careful, Sarson. Now."

The doctor made his examination with impassive face. Then he
stepped back.

"There is no change in your condition, Mr. Fentolin," he announced.
"The palpitation you spoke of is a mistake. You are in perfect
health."

Mr. Fentolin sighed gently.

"Then," he said, "I will now amuse myself by a gentle ride down to
the Tower. You are entirely satisfied, Sarson? You are keeping
nothing back from me?"

The doctor looked at him with grim, impassive face. "There is
nothing to keep back," he declared. "You have the constitution of
a cowboy. There is no reason why you should not live for another
thirty years.

Mr. Fentolin sighed, as though a weight bad been removed from his
heart.

"I will now," he decided, reaching forward for the handle of his
carriage, "go down to the Tower. It is just possible that a few
days' seclusion might be good for our guest."

The doctor turned silently away. There was no one there to see his
expression as he walked towards the door.




CHAPTER VII

The two men who were supping together in the griliroom at the Cafe
Milan were talking with a seriousness which seemed a little out of
keeping with the rose-shaded lamps and the swaying music of the
band from the distant restaurant. Their conversation had started
some hours before in the club smoking-room and had continued
intermittently throughout the evening. It had received a further
stimulus when Richard Hamel, who had bought an Evening Standard on
their way from the theatre a few minutes ago, came across a certain
paragraph in it which he read aloud.

"Hanged if I understand things over here, nowadays, Reggie!" he
declared, laying the paper down. "Here's another Englishman
imprisoned in Germany - this time at a place no one ever heard of
before. I won't try to pronounce it. What does it all mean? It's
all very well to shrug your shoulders, but when there are eighteen
arrests within one week on a charge of espionage, there must be
something up."

For the first time Reginald Kinsley seemed inclined to discuss the
subject seriously. He drew the paper towards him and read the
little paragraph, word by word. Then he gave some further order to
an attentive maitre d'hotel and glanced around to be sure that they
were not overheard.

"Look here, Dick, old chap," he said, "you are just back from abroad
and you are not quite in the hang of things yet. Let me ask you a
plain question. What do you think of us all?"

"Think of you?" Hamel repeated, a little doubtfully. "Do you mean
personally?"

"Take it any way you like," Kinsley replied. Look at me. Nine
years ago we played cricket in the same eleven. I don't look much
like cricket now, do I?"

Hamel looked at his companion thoughtfully. For a man who was
doubtless still young, Kinsley had certainly an aged appearance.
The hair about his temples was grey; there were lines about his
mouth and forehead. He had the air of one who lived in an
atmosphere of anxiety.

"To me," Hamel declared frankly, "you look worried. If I hadn't
heard so much of the success of your political career and all the
rest of it, I should have thought that things were going badly
with you."

"They've gone well enough with me personally," Kinsley admitted,
"but I'm only one of many. Politics isn't the game it was. The
Foreign Office especially is ageing its men fast these few years.
We've been going through hell, Hamel, and we are up against it now,
hard up against it."

The slight smile passed from the lips of Hamel's sunburnt,
good-natured face. He himself seemed to become infected with
something of his companion's anxiety.

"There's nothing seriously wrong, is there, Reggie?" he asked.

"Dick," said Kinsley, with a sigh, "I am afraid there is. It's
very seldom I talk as plainly as this to any, one but you are just
the person one can unburden oneself to a little; and to tell you
the truth, it's rather a relief. As you say, these eighteen arrests
in one week do mean something. Half of the Englishmen who have been
arrested are, to my certain knowledge, connected with our Secret
Service, and they have been arrested, in many cases, where there are
no fortifications worth speaking of within fifty miles, on one
pretext or another. The fact of the matter is that things are going
on in Germany, just at the present moment, the knowledge of which is
of vital interest to us."

"Then these arrests," Hamel remarked," are really bona fide?"

"Without a doubt," his companion agreed. "I only wonder there have
not been more. I am telling you what is a pretty open secret when
I tell you that there is a conference due to be held this week at
some place or another on the continent-I don't know where, myself
- which will have a very important bearing upon our future. We know
just as much as that and not much more."

"A conference between whom? " Hamel asked.

Kinsley dropped his voice almost to a whisper.

"We know," he replied, "that a very great man from Russia, a greater
still from France, a minister from Austria, a statesman from Italy,
and an envoy from Japan, have been invited to meet a German minister
whose name I will not mention, even to you. The subject of their
proposed discussion has never been breathed. One can only suspect.
When I tell you that no one from this country was invited to the
conference, I think you will be able, broadly speaking, to divine
its purpose. The clouds have been gathering for a good many years,
and we have only buried our heads a little deeper in the sands. We
have had our chances and wilfully chucked them away. National
Service or three more army corps four years ago would have brought
us an alliance which would have meant absolute safety for twenty-one
years. You know what happened. We have lived through many rumours
and escaped, more narrowly than most people realise, a great many
dangers, but there is every indication this time that the end is
really coming."

"And what will the end be?" Hamel enquired eagerly.

Kinsley shrugged his shoulders and paused while their glasses were
filled with wine.

"It will be in the nature of a diplomatic coup," he said presently.
"Of that much I feel sure. England will be forced into such a
position that she will have no alternative left but to declare war.
That, of course, will be the end of us. With our ridiculously
small army and absolutely no sane scheme for home defence, we shall
lose all that we have worth fighting for - our colonies - without
being able to strike a blow. The thing is so ridiculously obvious.
It has been admitted time after time by every sea lord and every
commander-in-chief. We have listened to it, and that's all. Our
fleet is needed under present conditions to protect our own shores.
There isn't a single battleship which could be safely spared. Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, India, must take care of themselves.
I wonder when a nation of the world ever played fast and loose with
great possessions as we have done!"

"This is a nice sort of thing to hear almost one's first night in
England," Hamel remarked a little gloomily. "Tell me some more
about this conference. Are you sure that your information is
reliable?"

"Our information is miserably scanty," Kinsley admitted. "Curiously
enough, the man who must know most about the whole thing is an
Englishman, one of the most curious mortals in the British Empire.
A spy of his succeeded in learning more than any of our people, and
without being arrested, too."

"And who is this singular person?" Hamel asked.

"A man of whom you, I suppose, never heard," Kinsley replied. "His
name is Fentolin - Miles Fentolin - and he lives somewhere down in
Norfolk. He is one of the strangest characters that ever lived,
stranger than any effort of fiction I ever met with. He was in the
Foreign Office once, and every one was predicting for him a brilliant
career. Then there was an accident - let me see, it must have been
some six or seven years ago - and he had to have both his legs
amputated. No one knows exactly how the accident happened, and there
was always a certain amount of mystery connected with it. Since then
he has buried himself in the country. I don't think, in fact, that he
ever moves outside his place; but somehow or other he has managed to
keep in touch with all the political movements of the day."

"Fentolin," Hamel repeated softly to himself. "Tell me, whereabouts
does he live?"

"Quite a wonderful place in Norfolk, I believe, somewhere near the
sea. I've forgotten the name, for the moment. He has had wireless
telegraphy installed; he has a telegraph office in the house,
half-a-dozen private wires, and they say that he spends an immense
amount of money keeping in touch with foreign politics. His excuse
is that he speculates largely, as I dare say he does; but just
lately," Kinsley went on more slowly, "he has been an object of
anxiety to all of us. It was he who sent the first agent out to
Germany, to try and discover at least where this conference was to
be held. His man returned in safety, and he has one over there now
who has not been arrested. We seem to have lost nearly all of ours."

"Do you mean to say that this man Fentolin actually possesses
information which the Government hasn't as to the intentions of
foreign Powers?" Hamel asked.

Kinsley nodded. There was a slight flush upon his pallid cheeks.

"He not only has it, but he doesn't mean to part with it. A few
hundred years ago, when the rulers of this country were men with
blood in their veins, he'd have been given just one chance to tell
all he knew, and hung as a traitor if he hesitated. We don't do
that sort of thing nowadays. We rather go in for preserving
traitors. We permit them even in our own House of Commons. However,
I don't want to depress you and play the alarmist so soon after your
return to London. I dare say the old country'll muddle along through
our time."

"Don't be foolish," Hamel begged. "There's no other subject of
conversation could interest me half as much. Have you formed any
idea yourself as to the nature of this conference?"

"We all have an idea," Kinsley replied grimly; "India for Russia; a
large slice of China for Japan, with probably Australia thrown in;
Alsace-Lorraine for France's neutrality. There's bribery for you.
What's to become of poor England then? Our friends are only human,
after all, and it's merely a question of handing over to them
sufficient spoil. They must consider themselves first: that's the
first duty of their politicians towards their country."

"You mean to say," Hamel asked, "that you seriously believe that a
conference is on the point of being held at which France and Russia
are to be invited to consider suggestions like this?"

"I am afraid there's no doubt about it," Kinsley declared. "Their
ambassadors in London profess to know nothing. That, of course,
is their reasonable attitude, but there's no doubt whatever that
the conference has been planned. I should say that to-night we are
nearer war, if we can summon enough spirit to fight, than we have
been since Fashoda."

"Queer if I have returned just in time for the scrap," Hamel remarked
thoughtfully. "I was in the Militia once, so I expect I can get a
job, if there's any fighting."

"I can get you a better job than fighting - one you can start on
to-morrow, too," Kinsley announced abruptly, "that is if you really
want to help?"

"Of course I do," Hamel insisted. "I'm on for anything."

"You say that you are entirely your own master for the next six
months?"

"Or as much longer as I like," Hamel assented. "No plans at all,
except that I might drift round to the Norfolk coast and look up
some of the places where the governor used to paint. There's a
queer little house - St. David's Tower, I believe they call it
- which really belongs to me. It was given to my father, or rather
he bought it, from a man who I think must have been some relative
of your friend. I feel sure the name was Fentolin."

Reginald Kinsley set down his wine-glass.

"Is your St. David's Tower anywhere near a place called Salthouse?"
he asked reflectively.

"That's the name of the village," Hamel admitted. "My father used
to spend quite a lot of time in those parts, and painted at least a
dozen pictures down there."

"This is a coincidence," Reginald Kinsley declared, lighting a
cigarette. "I think, if I were you, Dick, I'd go down and claim
my property."

"Tired of me already?" Hamel asked, smiling.

Reginald Kinsley knocked the ash from his cigarette.

"It isn't that. The fact is, that job I was speaking to you about
was simply this. We want some one to go down to Salthouse - not
exactly as a spy, you know, but some one who has his wits about him.
We are all of us very curious about this man Fentolin. There are
o end of rumours which I won't mention to you, for they might only
put you off the scent. But the man seems to be always intriguing.
It wouldn't matter so much if he were our friend, or if he were
simply a financier, but to tell you the truth, we have cause to
suspect him."

"But he's an Englishman, surely?" Hamel asked. "The Fentolin who
was my father's friend was just a very wealthy Norfolk squire - one
of the best, from all I have heard."

"Miles Fentolin is an Englishman," Kinsley admitted. "It is true,
too, that he comes of a very ancient Norfolk family. It doesn't do,
however, to build too much upon that. From all I can learn of him,
he is a sort of Puck, a professional mischief-maker. I don't
suppose there's anything an outsider could find out which would be
really useful to us, but all the same, if I had the time, I should
certainly go down to Norfolk myself."

The conversation drifted away for a while. Mutual acquaintances
entered, there were several introductions, and it was not until
the two found themselves together in Kinsley's rooms for a few
minutes before parting that they were alone again. Hamel returned
then once more to the subject.

"Reggie," he said, "if you think it would be of the slightest use,
I'll go down to Salthouse to-morrow. I am rather keen on going
there, anyway. I am absolutely fed up with life here already."

"It's just what I want you to do," Kinsley said. "I am afraid
Fentolin is a little too clever for you to get on the right side
of him, but if you could only get an idea as to what his game is
down there, it would be a great help. You see, the fellow can't
have gone into all this sort of thing blindfold. We've lost
several very useful agents abroad and two from New York who've
gone into his pay. There must be a method in it somewhere. If
it really ends with his financial operations - why, all right.
That's very likely what it'll come to, but we should like to know.
The merest hint would be usefuL"

"I'll do my best," Hamel promised. "In any case, it will be just
the few days' holiday I was looking forward to."

Kinsley helped himself to whisky and soda and turned towards his
friend.

"Here's luck to you, Dick! Take care of yourself. All sorts of
things may happen, you know. Old man Fentolin may take a fancy to
you and tell you secrets that any statesman in Europe would be glad
to hear. He may tell you why this conference is being held and
what the result will be. You may be the first to hear of our coming
fall. Well, here's to you, anyway! Drop me a line, if you've
anything to report."

"Cheero!" Hamel answered, as he set down his empty tumbler.
"Astonishing how keen I feel about this little adventure. I'm
perfectly sick of the humdrum life I have been leading the last
week, and you do sort of take one back to the Arabian Nights, you
know, Reggie. I am never quite sure whether to take you seriously
or not."

Kinsley smiled as he held his friend's band for a moment.

"Dick," he said earnestly, "if only you'd believe it, the adventures
in the Arabian Nights were as nothing compared with the present-day
drama of foreign politics. You see, we've learned to conceal things
nowadays - to smooth them over, to play the part of ordinary citizens
to the world while we tug at the underhand levers in our secret
moments. Good night! Good luck!"




CHAPTER VIII

Richard Hame1, although he certainly had not the appearance of a
person afflicted with nerves, gave a slight start. For the last
half-hour, during which time the train had made no stop, he had
been alone in his compartment. Yet, to his surprise, he was
suddenly aware that the seat opposite to him had been noiselessly
taken by a girl whose eyes, also, were fixed with curious
intentness upon the broad expanse of marshland and sands across
which the train was slowly making its way. Hamel had spent a great
many years abroad, and his first impulse was to speak with the
unexpected stranger. He forgot for a moment that he was in England,
travelling in a first-class carriage, and pointed with his left hand
towards the sea.

"Queer country this, isn't it?" he remarked pleasantly. "Do you
know, I never heard you come in. It gave me quite a start when I
found that I had a fellow-passenger."

She looked at him with a certain amount of still surprise, a look
which he returned just as steadfastly, because even in those few
seconds he was conscious of that strange selective interest,
certainly unaccounted for by his own impressions of her appearance.
She seemed to him, at that first glance, very far indeed from being
good-looking, according to any of the standards by which he had
measured good looks. She was thin, too thin for his taste, and she
carried herself with an aloofness to which he was unaccustomed.
Her cheeks were quite pale, her hair of a soft shade of brown, her
eyes grey and sad. She gave him altogether an impression of
colourlessness, and he had been living in a land where colour and
vitality meant much. Her speech, too, in its very restraint, fell
strangely upon his ears.

"I have been travelling in an uncomfortable compartment," she
observed. "I happened to notice, when passing along the corridor,
that yours was empty. In any case, I am getting out at the next
station."

"So am I," he replied, still cheerfully. "I suppose the next
station is St. David's?"

She made no answer, but so far as her expression counted for
anything at all, she was a little surprised. Her eyes considered
him for a moment. Hamel was tall, well over six feet, powerfully
made, with good features, clear eyes, and complexion unusually
sunburnt. He wore a flannel collar of unfamiliar shape, and his
clothes, although they were neat enough, were of a pattern and cut
obviously designed to afford the maximum of ease and comfort with
the minimum regard to appearance. He wore, too, very thick boots,
and his hands gave one the impression that they were seldom gloved.
His voice was pleasant, and he had the easy self-confidence of a
person sure of himself in the world. She put him down as a colonial
- perhaps an American - but his rank in life mystified her.

"This seems the queerest stretch of country," he went on; "long
spits of sand jutting right out into the sea, dikes and creeks
- miles and miles of them. Now, I wonder, is it low tide or high?
Low, I should think, because of the sea-shine on the sand there."

She glanced out of the window.

"The tide," she told him, "is almost at its lowest."

"You live in this neighbourhood, perhaps?" he enquired.

"I do," she assented.

"Sort of country one might get very fond of," he ventured.

She glanced at him from the depths of her grey eyes.

"Do you think so?" she rejoined coldly. "For my part, I hate it."

He was surprised at the unexpected emphasis of her tone - the first
time, indeed, that she had shown any signs of interest in the
conversation.

"Kind of dull I suppose you find it," he remarked pensively, looking
out across the waste of lavender-grown marshes, sand hummocks piled
with seaweed, and a far distant line of pebbled shore. "And yet, I
don't know. I have lived by the sea a good deal, and however
monotonous it may seem at first, there's always plenty of change,
really. Tide and wind do such wonderful work."

She, too, was looking out now towards the sea.

"Oh, it isn't exactly that," she said quietly. "I am quite willing
to admit what all the tourists and chance visitors call the
fascination of these places. I happen to dislike them, that is all.
Perhaps it is because I live here, because I see them day by day;
perhaps because the sight of them and the thought of them have
become woven into my life."

She was talking half to herself. For a moment, even the knowledge
of his presence had escaped her. Hamel, however, did not realise
that fact. He welcomed her confidence as a sign of relaxation from
the frigidity of her earlier demeanour.

"That seems hard," he observed sympathetically. "It seems odd to
hear you talk like that, too. Your life, surely, ought to be
pleasant enough."

She looked away from the sea into his face. Although the genuine
interest which she saw there and the kindly expression of his eyes
disarmed annoyance, she still stiffened slightly.

"Why ought it?."

The question was a little bewildering.

"Why, because you are young and a girl," he replied. "It's natural
to be cheerful, isn't it?"

"Is it?" she answered listlessly. "I cannot tell. I have not had
much experience."

"How old are you?" he asked bluntly.

This time it certainly seemed as though her reply would contain
some rebuke for his curiosity. She glanced once more into his
face, however, and the instinctive desire to administer that
well-deserved snub passed away. He was so obviously interested,
his question was asked so naturally, that its spice of
impertinence was as though it had not existed.

"I am twenty-one," she told him.

"And how long have you lived here?

"Since I left boarding-school, four years ago."

"Anywhere near where I am going to bury myself for a time, I wonder?"
he went on.

"That depends," she replied. "Our only neighbours are the
Lorneybrookes of Market Burnham. Are you going there?"

He shook his head.

"I've got a little shanty of my own," he explained, "quite close to
St. David's Station. I've never even seen it yet."

She vouchsafed some slight show of curiosity.

"Where is this shanty, as you call it?" she asked him.

"I really haven't the faintest idea," he replied. "I am looking
for it now. All I can tell you is that it stands just out of reach
of the full tides, on a piece of rock, dead on the beach and about
a mile from the station. It was built originally for a coastguard
station and meant to hold a lifeboat, but they found they could
never launch the lifeboat when they had it, so the man to whom all
the foreshore and most of the land around here belongs - a Mr.
Fentolin, I believe - sold it to my father. I expect the place has
tumbled to pieces by this time, but I thought I'd have a look at it."

She was gazing at him steadfastly now, with parted lips.

"What is your name?" she demanded.

"Richard Hamel."

"Hamel."

She repeated it lingeringly. It seemed quite unfamiliar.

"Was your father a great friend of Mr. Fentolin's, then?" she asked.

"I believe so, in a sort of way," he answered. "My father was Hamel
the artist, you know. They made him an R.A. some time before he
died. He used to come out here and live in a tent. Then Mr.
Fentolin let him use this place and finally sold it to him. My
father used often to speak to me about it before he died."

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