d his eyes were closed, but his colour was
ghastly.

"He doesn't look like getting up for a good many days to come," Hamel
observed.

The doctor led the way towards the door.

"The man has a fine constitution," he said. "I feel sure that if you
wish you will be able to talk to him to-morrow."

They separated outside in the passage. Mr. Fentolin bade his guest a
somewhat restrained good night, and Gerald mounted the staircase to
his room. Hamel, however, had scarcely reached his door before Gerald
reappeared. He had descended the stair-case at the other end of the
corridor. He stood for a moment looking down the passage. The doors were
all closed. Even the light had been extinguished.

"May I come in for a moment, please?" he whispered.

Hamel nodded.

"With pleasure! Come in and have a cigarette if you will. I shan't feel
like sleep for some time."

They entered the room, and Gerald threw himself into an easy-chair
near the window. Hamel wheeled up another chair and produced a box of
cigarettes.

"Queer thing your dropping across that fellow in the way you did," he
remarked. "Just shows how one may disappear from the world altogether,
and no one be a bit the wiser."

The boy was sitting with folded arms. His expression was one of deep
gloom.

"I only wish I'd never brought him here," he muttered. "I ought to have
known better."

Hamel raised his eyebrows. "Isn't he as well off here as anywhere else?"

"Do you think that he is?" Gerald demanded, looking across at Hamel.

There was a brief silence.

"We can scarcely do your uncle the injustice," Hamel remarked, "of
imagining that he can possibly have any reason or any desire to deal
with that man except as a guest."

"Do you really believe that?" Gerald asked.

Hamel rose to his feet.

"Look here, young man," he said, "this is getting serious. You and I are
at cross-purposes. If you like, you shall have the truth from me."

"Go on."

"I was warned about your uncle before I came down into this part of
the world," Hamel continued quietly. "I was told that he is a dangerous
conspirator, a man who sticks at nothing to gain his ends, a person
altogether out of place in these days. It sounds melodramatic, but I
had it straight from a friend. Since I have been here, I have had a
telegram--you brought it to me yourself--asking for information about
this man Dunster. It was I who wired to London that he was here. It was
through me that Scotland Yard com