The Prisoners of Hartling

by J. D. Beresford

"Oh, well! my boy," he remarked, "we'll wait to settle that point of when you'll go until after you've seen him. He may have a card or two to play that you haven't guessed at so far. Eh, Joe?"

Joe Kenyon pursed his mouth. His expression was not hopeful.

"I've quite made up my mind," Arthur said, with what he hoped was an effect of complete finality. He had settled his problem now. He would go and find Eleanor. All the day, his last day, might be lost if he waited for her. She might be angry with him, but he would risk that. He could not endure this suspense any longer. He could hear the hall clock striking twelve.

Little Turner with a knowing, half-whimsical look of doubt on his face, still stood in front of him.

"Well, it's no good arguing that, is it?" Arthur continued irritably. "You'll know for certain to-morrow."

Turner turned away with a shrug of his neat shoulders. "Wonderful house for to-morrows, this," he said. "Always has been."

Arthur, inspired to pretend that he considered himself insulted, walked out of the room. By that little piece of chicane he escaped from all his dilemmas at a stroke. He had been horribly afraid that if he attempted some excuse to get away, Hubert might offer to accompany him. The suggestion of golf had hung in the air as a way of passing the afternoon, and some sort of untruthful evasion would have been necessary to avoid it.

He went first to the drawing-room on the off-chance that Eleanor might have come as far as that in search of him, but no one was there except his aunt and Mrs Turner; the latter, sitting with her hands in her lap staring fixedly out of the window. She had obviously been crying. His aunt did not look up from her fancy-work as he passed through with an air of having accidentally intruded upon a private ceremony. Poor old Mrs Turner; it had not occurred to him that she would be so upset by her son's departure for South Africa. He was, as a matter of fact, lucky to have broken away; but to the Kenyons, no doubt, the evils of the outer world appeared altogether monstrous compared with the securities of Hartling.

He had no hesitation now as to where he should seek Eleanor. Unless she had gone out without him—a ghastly alternative that he refused to believe—she must be upstairs somewhere in old Mr Kenyon's private suite. But when he knocked at the door of the little room whose chief use appeared to be that of a lobby, no one answered. He had never before entered the suite unannounced, and he opened the door and went in with a faint sense of trepidation. The room was empty and the door to the next room closed, but this time he entered without knocking.

He was now in the apartment in which he had always been received when he paid his morning visit, and farther than this he had never penetrated. Obviously, however, there were other rooms beyond. He remembered that he had seen Eleanor go through that way sometimes when he had been engaged with the old man, and as he stood hesitating he thought he heard very remotely the clicking of a typewriter. He went over to the farther door and knocked, and was answered faintly from within. He discovered then that there were double doors, four feet apart, between him and the next room. When he had opened the second he found himself in what appeared to be a perfectly appointed office.