Hamel sighed.
“I know nothing beyond what I have told you.”
“How did he look when he went away?”
“Very ill indeed,” Hamel declared. “I afterwards saw the nurse who had been attending him, and she admitted that he was not fit to travel. I should say the probabilities are that he is laid up again somewhere.”
“Did you actually speak to him?”
“Just a word or two.”
“And you saw him go off in the car?”
“Gerald Fentolin and I both saw him and wished him good-by.”
Kinsley glanced at the clock and rose to his feet. “Walk down to the station with me,” he suggested. “I needn’t tell you, I am sure,” he went on, as they left the hotel a few minutes later, “that if anything does turn up, or if you get the glimmering of an idea, you’ll let me know? We’ve a small army looking for the fellow, but it does seem as though he had disappeared off the face of the earth. If he doesn’t turn up before the end of the Conference, we are done.”
“Tell me,” Hamel asked, after they had walked for some distance in silence, “exactly why is our fleet demonstrating to such an extent?”