se. You
have had an opportunity of studying him."

"So far as my impressions go," Hamel replied, "everything which you have
suggested might very well be true. I think that either out of sheer love
of mischief, or from some subtler motive, he is capable of anything.
Every one in the place, except one poor woman, seems to look upon him
as a sort of supernatural being. He gives money away to worthless people
with both hands. Yet I share your opinion of him. I believe that he is
a creature without conscience or morals. I have sat at his table and
shivered when he has smiled."

"Are you staying at St. David's Hall now?"

"I left yesterday."

"Where are you now, then?"

"I am at St. David's Tower--the little place I told you of that belonged
to my father--but I don't know whether I shall be able to stop there.
Mr. Fentolin, for some reason or other, very much resented my leaving
the Hall and was very annoyed at my insisting upon claiming the Tower.
When I went down to the village to get some one to come up and look
after me, there wasn't a woman there who would come. It didn't matter
what I offered, they were all the same. They all muttered some excuse or
other, and seemed only anxious to show me out. At the village shop they
seemed to hate to serve me with anything. It was all I could do to get a
packet of tobacco yesterday afternoon. You would really think that I was
the most unpopular person who ever lived, and it can only be because of
Mr. Fentolin's influence."

"Mr. Fentolin evidently doesn't like to have you in the locality,"
Kinsley remarked thoughtfully.

"He was all right so long as I was at St. David's Hall," Hamel observed.

"What's this little place like--St. David's Tower, you call it?" Kinsley
asked.

"Just a little stone building actually on the beach," Hamel explained.
"There is a large shed which Mr. Fentolin keeps locked up, and the
habitable portion consists just of a bedroom and sitting-room. From what
I can see, Mr. Fentolin has been making a sort of hobby of the place.
There is telephonic communication with the house, and he seems to have
used the sitting-room as a sort of studio. He paints sea pictures and
really paints them very well."

A man came into the coffee-room, made some enquiry of the waiter and
went out again. Hamel stared at him in a puzzled manner. For the moment
he could only remember that the face was familiar. Then he suddenly gave
vent to a little exclamation.

"Any one