“I shall remember this all my life,” Lord Saxthorpe declared solemnly, “as one of the most singular coincidences which has ever come within my personal knowledge. Perhaps after lunch, Mr. 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?”