第49章 CHAPTER XVIII(3)

Fentolin, you will let some of your people telephone to the police-station at Wells? There really is an important enquiry respecting this man. I should not be surprised," he added, dropping his voice a little for the benefit of the servants, "to find that Scotland Yard needed him on their own account."

"In that case," Mr. Fentolin remarked, "he is quite safe, for Sarson tells me there is no chance of his being able to travel, at any rate for twenty-four hours."

Lady Saxthorpe shivered.

"Aren't you afraid to have him in the house?" she asked, "a man who is really and actually wanted by Scotland Yard? When one considers that nothing ever happens here except an occasional shipwreck in the winter and a flower-show in the summer, it does sound positively thrilling. I wonder what he has done."

They discussed the subject of Mr. Dunster's possible iniquities.

Meanwhile, a young man carrying his hat in his hand had slipped in past the servants and was leaning over Mr. Fentolin's chair. He laid two or three sheets of paper upon the table and waited while his employer glanced them through and dismissed him with a little nod.

"My wireless has been busy this morning," Mr. Fentolin remarked.

"We seem to have collected about forty messages from different battleships and cruisers. There must be a whole squadron barely thirty miles out."

"You don't really think," Lady Saxthorpe asked, "that there is any fear of war, do you, Mr. Fentolin?

He answered her with a certain amount of gravity. "Who can tell?

The papers this morning were bad. This conference at The Hague is still unexplained. France's attitude in the matter is especially mysterious."

"I am a strong supporter of Lord Roberts," Lord Saxthorpe said, "and I believe in the vital necessity of some scheme for national service. At the same time, I find it hard to believe that a successful invasion of this country is within the bounds of possibility."

"I quite agree with you, Lord Saxthorpe," Mr. Fentolin declared smoothly. "All the same, this Hague Conference is a most mysterious affair. The papers this morning are ominously silent about the fleet. From the tangle of messages we have picked up, I should say, without a doubt, that some form of mobilisation is going on in the North Sea. If Lady Saxthorpe thinks it warm enough, shall we take our coffee upon the terrace?"

"The terrace, by all means," her ladyship assented, rising from her place. "What a wonderful man you are, Mr. Fentolin, with your wireless telegraphy, and your telegraph office in the house, and telephones. Does it really amuse you to be so modern?"

"To a certain extent, yes," Mr. Fentolin sighed, as he guided his chair along the hall. "When my misfortune first came, I used to speculate a good deal upon the Stock Exchange. That was really the reason I went in for all these modern appliances."

"And now?" she asked. "What use do you make of them now?"

Mr. Fentolin smiled quietly. He looked out sea-ward, beyond the sky-line, from whence had come to him, through the clouds, that tangle of messages.

"I like to feel," he said, "that the turning wheel of life is not altogether out of earshot. I like to dabble just a little in the knowledge of these things."

Lord Saxthorpe came strolling up to them.

"You won't forget to telephone about this guest of yours?" he asked fussily.

"It is already done," Mr. Fentolin assured him. "My dear sister, why so silent?"

Mrs. Fentolin turned slowly towards him. She, too, had been standing with her eyes fixed upon the distant sea-line. Her face seemed suddenly to have aged, her forced vivacity to have departed.

Her little Pomeranian rubbed against her feet in vain. Yet at the sound of Mr. Fentolin's voice, she seemed to come back to herself as though by magic.

"I was looking where you were looking," she dedared lightly, "just trying to see a little way beyond. So silly, isn't it?

Chow-Chow, you bad little dog, come and you shall have your dinner."

She strolled off, humming a tune to herself. Lord Saxthorpe watched her with a shadow upon his plain, good-humoured face.

"Somehow or other," he remarked quietly, "Mrs. Fentolin never seems to have got over the loss of her husband, does she? How long is it since he died?"

"Eight years," Mr. Fentolin replied. "It was just six months after my own accident."

"I am losing a great deal of sympathy for you, Mr. Fentolin," Lady Saxthorpe confessed, coming over to his side. "You have so many resources, there is so much in life which you can do. You paint, as we all know, exquisitely. They tell me that you play the violin like a master. You have unlimited time for reading, and they say that you are one of the greatest living authorities upon the politics of Europe. Your morning paper must bring you so much that is interesting."

"It is true," Mr. Fentolin admitted, "that I have compensations which no one can guess at, compensations which appeal to me more as time steals on. And yet -"

He stopped short.

"And yet?" Lady Saxthorpe repeated interrogatively.

Mr.. Fentolin was watching Gerald drive golf balls from the lawn beneath. He pointed downwards.

"I was like that when I was his age," he said quietly.