Hamel hesitated no longer but walked up the narnow path with swift, buoyant footsteps. Everywhere he seemed to be surrounded by the glorious spring sunshine. It glittered in the little pools and creeks by his side. It drew a new colour from the dun-coloured marshes, the masses of emerald seaweed, the shimmering sands. It flashed in the long row of windows of the Hall. As he drew nearer, he could see the banks of yellow crocuses in the sloping gardens behind. There were odours of spring in the air. He ran lightly up the terrace steps. There was an easy-chair drawn into her favourite corner, and a book upon the table, but no sign of Esther.
He hesitated for a moment, and then, retracing his steps along the terrace, entered the house by the front door, which stood wide open. There was no one in the hall, scarcely a sound about the place. A great clock ticked solemnly from the foot of the stairs.
There was not even a servant in sight. Hamel wandered around, a a loss what to do. He opened the door of the drawing-room and looked in. It was empty. He turned away, meaning to ring a bell.
On his way across the hall he paused. A curiously suggestive sound reached him faintly from the end of one of the passages.
It was the click of a typewriter.
Hamel stood for a moment perfectly still. He had hurred up to the Hall, filled with the one selfish joy common to all mankind.
He had had no thought save the thought of seeing Esther. The click of that machine brought him hack to the stern realities of life. He remembered his talk to Kinsley, his promise. On the hall table he could see from where he was standing the great headlines which announced the nation's anxiety. He was in the house of a suspected spy. The click of the typewriter was an accompaniment to his thought. He looked around once more and listened. Then he made his way quietly across the hail and down the long passage, at the end of which the room which Mr. Fentolin called his workroom was situated. He turned the handle of the door and entered, closing it immediately behind him. The woman who was typing paused with her fingers upon the keys. Her eyes met his coldly, without curiosity.
She had paused in her work, but she took no other notice of his coming.
"Has Mr. Fentolin sent you here?" she asked at last.
He came over to the typewriter.
"Mr. Fentolin has not sent me," he said slowly. "I am here on my own account. I dare say you will think that I am a lunatic to come to you like this. Nevertheless, please listen to me."
Her fingers left the keys. She laid her hands upon the table in front of her. He drew a little nearer. She covered over the sheets of paper with which she was surrounded with a pad of blotting-paper.
He pointed suddenly to them.
"Why do you do that? " he demanded. "What is there in your work that you are afraid I might see?"
She answered him without hesitation.
"These are private papers of Mr. Fentolin's. No one has any business to see them. No one has any business to enter this room.
Why are you here?"
"I came to the Hall to find Miss Fentolin," he replied. "I heard the click of your typewriter. I came to you, I suppose I should say, on impulse."
Her eyes rested upon his, filled with a cold and questioning light.
"There's an impression up in London," Hamel went on, "that Mr.
Fentolin has been intefering by means of his wireless in affairs which don't concern him, and giving away valuable information.
This man Dunster's disappearance is as yet unexplained. I feel myself justified in making certain investigations, and among the first of them I should like you to tell me exactly the nature of the work for which Mr. Fentolin finds a secretary necessary?"
She glanced towards the bell. He moved to the edge of the table as though to intercept her.
