第87章 CHAPTER XXXIV(1)

Mr. John P. Dunster, lying flat upon his little bed, watched with dilated eyes the disappearance of the ladder. Then he laughed. It was a queer sound - broken, spasmodic, devoid of any of the ordinary elements of humor - and yet it was a laugh. Mr. Fentolin turned his head towards his prisoner and nodded thoughtfully.

"What a constitution, my friend!" he exclaimed, without any trace of disturbance in his voice. "And what a sense of humour! Strange that a trifling circumstance like this should affect it. Meekins, burn some more of the powder. The atmosphere down here may be salubrious, but I am unaccustomed to it."

"Perhaps," Mr. Dunster said in a hollow tone, you will have some opportunity now of discovering with me what it is like."

"That, too, is just possible," Mr. Fentolin admitted, blowing out a little volume of smoke from a cigarette which he had just lit, "but one never knows. We have friends, and our position, although, I must admit, a little ridiculous, is easily remedied. But how that mischief-making Mr. Hamel could have found his way into the boat-house does, I must confess, perplex me."

"He must have been hanging around and followed us in when we came,"

Meekins muttered. "Somehow, I fancied I felt some one near."

"Our young friend," Mr. Fentolin continued, has, without doubt, an obvious turn of mind. He will send for his acquaintance in the Foreign Office; they will haul out Mr. Dunster here, and he will have a belated opportunity of delivering his message at The Hague."

"You aren't going to murder me first, then?" Mr. Dunster grunted.

Mr. Fentolin smiled at him benignly.

"My dear and valued guest," he protested, "why so forbidding an idea? Let me assure you from the bottom of my heart that any bodily harm to you is the most unlikely thing in the world. You see, though you might not think it," he went on, "I love life. That is why I keep a doctor always by my side. That is why I insist upon his making a complete study of my constitution and treating me in every respect as though I were indeed an invalid. I am really only fifty-nine years old. It is my intention to live until I am eighty-nine. An offence against the law of the nature you indicate might interfere materially with my intentions."

Mr. Dunster struggled for a moment for breath.

"Look here," he said, "that's all right, but do you suppose you won't be punished for what you've done to me? You laid a deliberate plot to bring me to St. David's Hall; you've kept me locked up, dosed me with drugs, brought me down here at the dead of night, kept me a prisoner in a dungeon. Do you think you can do that for nothing? Do you think you won't have to suffer for it?"

Mr. Fentolin smiled.

"My dear Mr. Dunster," he reminded him, you were in a railway accident, you know; there is no possible doubt about that. And the wound in your head is still there, in a very dangerous place. Men who have been in railway accidents, and who have a gaping wound very close to their brain, are subject to delusions. I have simply done my best to play the Good Samaritan. Your clothes and papers are all untouched. If my eminent physician had pronounced you ready to travel a week ago, you would certainly have been allowed to depart a week ago. Any interference in your movements has been entirely in the interests of your health."

Mr. Dunster tried to sit up but found himself unable.

"So you think they won't believe my story, eh?" he muttered. "Well, we shall see."

Mr. Fentolin thoughtfully contemplated the burning end of his cigarette for a moment.

"If I believed," he said, "that there was any chance of your statements being accepted, I am afraid I should be compelled, in all our interests, to ask Doctor Sarson to pursue just a step further that experiment into the anatomy of your brain with which he has already trifled."

Mr. Dunster's face was suddenly ghastly. His reserve of strength seemed to ebb away. The memory of some horrible moment seemed to hold him in its clutches.

"For God's sake, leave me alone!" he moaned. "Let me get away, that's all; let me crawl away!"

"Ah!" Mr. Fentolin murmured. "That sounds much more reasonable.

When you talk like that, my friend. I feel indeed that there is hope for you. Let us abandon this subject for the present. Have you solved the puzzle yet?" he asked Meekins.

Meekins was standing below the closed trap-door. He had already dragged up a wooden case underneath and was piling it with various articles of furniture.

"Not yet, sir," he replied. "When I have made this steadier, I am just going to see what pressure I can bring to bear on the trap-door."

"I heard the bolts go," Doctor Sarson remarked uneasily.

"In that case," Mr. Fentolin declared, "it will indeed be an interesting test of our friend Meekins' boasted strength. Meekins holds his place - a very desirable place, too - chiefly for two reasons: first his discretion and secondly his muscles. He has never before had a real opportunity of testing the latter. We shall see."

Doctor Sarson came slowly and gravely to the bedside. He looked down upon his patient. Mr. Dunster shivered.

"I am not sure, sir," he said very softly, "that Mr. Dunster, in his present state of mind, is a very safe person to be allowed his freedom. It is true that we have kept him here for his own sake, because of his fits of mental wandering. Our statements, however, may be doubted. An apparent return to sanity on his part may lend colour to his accusations, especially if permanent. Perhaps it would be as well to pursue that investigation a shade further. A touch more to the left and I do not think that Mr. Dunster will remember much in this world likely to affect us."

Mr. Dunster's face was like marble. There were beads of perspiration upon his forehead, his eyes were filled with reminiscent horror. Mr.

Fentolin bent over him with genuine interest.

"What a picture he would make!" he murmured. "What a drama! Do you know, I am half inclined to agree with you, Sarson. The only trouble is that you have not your instruments here."