The Vanished MessengerOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
The Vanished Messenger
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
“Trace him?” Kinsley repeated. “By heavens, you don’t seem to
understand, Dick, the immense, the extraordinary importance of this man
to us! The cleverest detective in England spent yesterday under your
nose at St. David’s Hall. There are a dozen others working upon the job
as hard as they can. All the reports confirm what you say--that Dunster
left St. David’s Hall at half-past nine yesterday morning, and he
certainly arrived in Yarmouth at a little before twelve. From there he
seems, however, to have completely disappeared. The car went back to
St. David’s Hall empty; the man only stayed long enough in Yarmouth, in
fact, to have his dinner. We cannot find a single smack owner who
was approached in any way for the hire of a boat. Yarmouth has been
ransacked in vain. He certainly has not arrived at The Hague or we
should have heard news at once. As a last resource, I ran down here to
see you on the chance of your having picked up any information.”
Hamel shook his head.
“You seem to know a good deal more than I do, already,” he said.
“What do you think of Mr. Fentolin? You have stayed in his house. You
have had an opportunity of studying him.”
“So far as my impressions go,” Hamel replied, “everything which you have
suggested might very well be true. I think that either out of sheer love
of mischief, or from some subtler motive, he is capable of anything.
Every one in the place, except one poor woman, seems to look upon him
as a sort of supernatural being. He gives money away to worthless people
with both hands. Yet I share your opinion of him. I believe that he is
a creature without conscience or morals. I have sat at his table and
shivered when he has smiled.”
“Are you staying at St. David’s Hall now?”
“I left yesterday.”
“Where are you now, then?”
“I am at St. David’s Tower--the little place I told you of that belonged
to my father--but I don’t know whether I shall be able to stop there.
Mr. Fentolin, for some reason or other, very much resented my leaving
the Hall and was very annoyed at my insisting upon claiming the Tower.
When I went down to the village to get some one to come up and look
after me, there wasn’t a woman there who would come. It didn’t matter
what I offered, they were all the same. They all muttered some excuse or
other, and seemed only anxious to show me out. At the village shop they
seemed to hate to serve me with anything. It was all I could do to get a
packet of tobacco yesterday afternoon. You would really think that I was
the most unpopular person who ever lived, and it can only be because of
Mr. Fentolin’s influence.”
“Mr. Fentolin evidently doesn’t like to have you in the locality,”
Kinsley remarked thoughtfully.
“He was all right so long as I was at St. David’s Hall,” Hamel observed.
“What’s this little place like--St. David’s Tower, you call it?” Kinsley
asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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