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It fell back noiselessly upon rubber studs, and Meekins immediately slipped through it a ladder, on either side of which was a grooved stretch of board, evidently fashioned to allow Mr. Fentolin's carriage to pass down. Hamel held his breath. The moment for him was critical. If the light flashed once in his direction, he must be discovered.
He knows well how necessary solitude is to me if once I take the brush between my fingers solitude natural and entire, I mean. If any one is within a dozen yards of me I know it, even though I cannot see them. Meekins is wandering somewhere the other side of the Tower." "Shall I call him?" "On no account," Mr. Fentolin begged. "Presently he will appear, in plenty of time.
I am going to sit here," he went on, "and I am going to look across the sea and reflect. A very fortunate storm, after all, I think, which kept Mr. John P. Dunster from the Harwich boat last night. Leave me, Gerald, for a time. Stand behind my chair, Meekins, and see that no one enters." Mr.
Meekins, I enjoined them, strictly, not to mention that I knew anything of the matter; and betook myself to my bed sincerely rejoicing that in a few hours more Mike would be again in that laud where even his eccentricities and excesses would be viewed with a favorable and forgiving eye.
"I will leave nothing to chance," Mr. Dunster continued. "Send this man who seems to have constituted himself my jailer out of earshot, and I will tell you even more." Mr. Fentolin turned to Meekins. "You can leave the room for a moment," he ordered. "Wait upon the threshold." Meekins very unwillingly turned to obey.
Do not bring any alien thoughts into my brain. I am absorbed, you see absorbed. It is a strange problem of colour, this." He was silent for several moments, glancing repeatedly out of the window and back to his canvas, painting all the time with swift and delicate precision. "Meekins, who stands behind my chair," Mr. Fentolin continued, "even Meekins is entranced.
His face, with the heavy jaw and small eyes, was the face of the typical fighting man, yet his features seemed to have become disposed by habit into an expression of gentle, almost servile civility. "Meekins," Mr. Fentolin said, "a visitor has arrived. Do you happen to have noticed what luggage he brought?" "There is one small dressing-case, sir," the man replied; "nothing else that I have seen."
"My first duty, sir," the inspector pronounced, "is to see the gentleman in question." "By all means," Mr. Fentolin agreed. "Gerald, will you take the inspector up to Mr. Dunster's rooms? Or stop, I will go myself." Mr. Fentolin started his chair and beckoned the inspector to follow him. Meekins, who was waiting inside the hall, escorted them by means of the lift to the second floor.
Gerald asked hoarsely. Hamel nodded. "A man with concussion of the brain doesn't cry out like that. Besides, did you hear the end of it? It sounded as though some one were choking him. Hush!" They had spoken only in bated breath, but the door of the room before which they were standing was suddenly opened. Meekins stood there, fully dressed, his dark, heavy face full of somber warning.
Fentolin nodded. "Excellent!" he pronounced. "Really excellent. With a little assistance from our friend Meekins, you, I am sure, Sarson, will now be able to climb up and let down the steps." Doctor Sarson stood by Mr. Fentolin's chair, and together they looked up through the fragments of the trap-door. Meekins was still breathing heavily.
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