第80章 CHAPTER XXXI(1)

Hamel set down the lamp upon the table. He glanced at the little clock upon the dresser; it was a quarter past ten. The woman had observed his entrance, although it seemed in no way to have discomposed her.

"Do you know the time, Mrs. Cox?" he asked. "You ought to have been home hours ago. What are you doing there?"

She rose to her feet. Her expression was one of dogged but patient humility.

"I started for home before nine o'clock, sir," she told him, "but it was worse than ever to-night. All the way along by the sea I seemed to hear their voices, so I came back. I came back to listen.

I have been listening for an hour."

Hamel looked at her with a frown upon his forehead.

"Mrs. Cox," he said, "I wish I could understand what it is that you have in your mind. Those are not real voices that you hear; you cannot believe that?"

"Not real voices," she repeated, without the slightest expression in her tone.

"Of course not! And tell me what connection you find between these fancies of yours and that room? Why do you come and listen here?

"I do not know," she answered patiently.

"You must have some reason," he persisted.

"I have no reason," she assured him, "only some day I shall see behind these doors. Afterwards, I shall hear the voices no more."

She was busy tying a shawl around her head. Hamel watched her, still puzzled. He could not get rid of the idea that there was some method behind her madness.

"Tell me - I have found you listening here before. Have you ever heard anything suspicious?"

"I have heard nothing yet," she admitted, "nothing that counts."

"Come," he continued, "couldn't we clear this matter up sensibly?

Do you believe that there is anybody in there? Do you believe the place is being used in any way for a wrong purpose? If so, we will insist upon having the keys from Mr. Fentolin. He cannet refuse.

The place is mine.

"Mr. Fentolin would not give you the keys, sir," she replied. "If he did, it would be useless."

"Would you like me to break the door in?" Hamel asked.

"You could not do it, sir," she told him, "not you nor anybody else.

The door is thicker than my fist, of solid oak. It was a mechanic from New York who fitted the locks. I have heard it said in the village - Bill Hamas, the carpenter, declares that there are double doors. The workmen who were employed here were housed in a tent upon the beach and sent home the day they finished their job. They were never allowed in the village. They were foreigners, most of them. They came from nobody knows where, and when they had finished they disappeared. Why was that, sir? What is there inside which Mr. Fentolin needs to guard so carefully?"

"Mr. Fentolin has invented something," Hamel explained. "He keeps the model in there. Inventors are very jealous of their work."

She looked down upon the floor for a moment.

"I shall be here at seven o'clock in the morning, sir. I will give you your breakfast at the usual time."

Hamel opened the door for her.

"Good night, Mrs. Cox," he said. "Would you like me to walk a little way with you? It's a lonely path to the village, and the dikes are full."

"Thank you, no, sir," she replied. "It's a lonely way, right enough, but it isn't loneliness that frightens me. I am less afraid out with the winds and the darkness than under this roof. If I lose my way and wander all night upon the marsh, I'll be safer out there than you, sir.

She passed away, and Hamel watched her disappear into the darkness.

Then he dragged out a bowl of tobacco and filled a pipe. Although he was half ashamed of himself, he strolled back once more into the kitchen, and, drawing up a stool, he sat down just where he had discovered Hannah Cox, sat still and listened. No sound of any sort reached him. He sat there for ten minutes. Then he scrambled to his feet.

"She is mad, of course!" he muttered.

He mixed himself a whisky and soda, relit his pipe, which had gone out, and drew up an easy-chair to the fire which she had left him in the sitting-room. The wind had increased in violence, and the panes of his window rattled continually. He yawned and tried to fancy that he was sleepy. It was useless. He was compelled to admit the truth - that his nerves were all on edge. In a sense he was afraid. The thought of bed repelled him. He had not a single impulse towards repose. Outside, the wind all the time was gathering force. More than once his window was splashed with the spray carried on by the wind which followed the tide. He sat quite still and tried to think calmly, tried to piece together in his mind the sequence of events which had brought him to this part of the world and which had led to his remaining where he was, an undesired hanger-on at the threshold of Miles Fentolin. He had the feeling that to-night he had burned his boats. There was no longer any pretence of friendliness possible between him and this strange creature. Mr. Fentolin suspected him, realised that he himself was suspected. But of what? Hamel moved in his chair restlessly.

Sometimes that gathering cloud of suspicion seemed to him grotesque.

Of what real harm could he be capable, this little autocrat who from his chair seemed to exercise such a malign influence upon every one with whom he was brought into contact? Hamel sighed. The riddle was insoluble. With a sudden rush of warmer and more joyous feelings, he let the subject slip away from him. He closed his eyes and dreamed for a while. There was a new world before him, joys which only so short a time ago he had fancied had passed him by.

He sat up in his chair with a start. The fire had become merely a handful of grey ashes, his limbs were numb and stiff. The lamp was flickering out. He had been dozing, how long he had no idea.