Part 49 (1/2)

The telephone is in the study. I will come down there to you.”

She pa.s.sed silently up the broad staircase. Hamel groped his way across the hail into the library. He turned on the small electric reading-lamp and drew up a chair to the side of the telephone. Even as he lifted the receiver to his ear, he looked around him half apprehensively. It seemed as though every moment he would hear the click of Mr. Fentolin's chair.

He got the exchange at Norwich without difficulty, and a few minutes later a sleepy reply came from the number he had rung up in London. It was Kinsley's servant who answered.

”I want to speak to Mr. Kinsley at once upon most important business,”

Hamel announced.

”Very sorry, sir,” the man repelled. ”Mr. Kinsley left town last night for the country.”

”Where has he gone?” Hamel demanded quickly. ”You can tell me. You know who I am; I am Mr. Hamel.”

”Into Norfolk somewhere, sir. He went with several other gentlemen.”

”Is that Bullen?” Hamel asked.

The man admitted the fact.

”Can you tell me if any of the people with whom Mr. Kinsley left London were connected with the police?” he inquired.

The man hesitated.

”I believe so, sir,” he admitted. ”The gentlemen started in a motor-car and were going to drive all night.”

Hamel laid down the receiver. At any rate, he would not be left long with this responsibility upon him. He walked out into the hall. The house was still wrapped in deep silence. Then, from somewhere above him, coming down the stairs, he heard the rustle of a woman's gown. He looked up, and saw Miss Price, fully dressed, coming slowly towards him.

She held up her finger and led the way back into the library. She was dressed as neatly as ever, but there was a queer light in her eyes.

”I have seen Mrs. Seymour Fentolin,” she said. ”She tells me that you have left Mr. Fentolin and the others in the subterranean room of the Tower.”

Hamel nodded.

”They have Dunster down there,” he told her. ”I followed them in; it seemed the best thing to do. I have a friend from London who is on his way down here now with some detective officers, to enquire into the matter of Dunster's disappearance.”

”Are you going to leave them where they are until these people arrive?”

she asked.

”I think so,” he replied, after a moment's hesitation. ”I don't seem to have had time to consider even what to do. The opportunity came, and I embraced it. There they are, and they won't dare to do any further harm to Dunster now. Mrs. Fentolin was down in my room, and I thought it best to bring her back first before I even parleyed with them again.”

”You must be careful,” she advised slowly. ”The man Dunster has been drugged, he has lost some of his will; he may have lost some of his mental balance. Mr. Fentolin is clever. He will find a dozen ways to wriggle out of any charge that can be brought against him. You know what he has really done?”

”I can guess.”

”He has kept back a doc.u.ment signed by the twelve men in America who control the whole of Wall Street, who control practically the money markets of the world. That doc.u.ment is a warning to Germany that they will have no war against England. Owing to Mr. Fentolin, it has not been delivered, and the Conference is sitting now. War may be declared at any moment.”

”But as a matter of common sense,” Hamel asked, ”why does Mr. Fentolin desire war?”

”You do not understand Mr. Fentolin,” she told him quietly. ”He is not like other men. There are some who live almost entirely for the sake of making others happy, who find joy in seeing people content and satisfied. Mr. Fentolin is the reverse of this. He has but one craving in life: to see pain in others. To see a human being suffer is to him a debauch of happiness. A war which laid this country waste would fill him with a delight which you could never understand. There are no normal human beings like this. It is a disease in the man, a disease which came upon him after his accident.”