William Le Queux

The Count’s Chauffeur

William Le Queux

(1864–1927)

The Count’s Chauffeur

(First published in Cassell’s Magazine, 1906)

Table of Contents

1. A Move on the “Forty”

2. A Sentimental Swindle

3. The Story of a Secret

4. A Run with Rosalie

5. The Six New Novels

1. A Move on the “Forty”

IN Paris, in Rome, in Florence, in Berlin, in Vienna—in fact, over half the face of Europe, from the Pyrenees to the Russian frontier—I am now known as “The Count’s Chauffeur.”

An Englishman, as my name, George Ewart denotes, I am of cosmopolitan birth and education, my early youth being spent on the Continent, where my father was agent for a London firm. When I was fourteen, my father, having prospered, came to London, and established himself as an agent in Wood Street, City, representing a great firm of silk manufacturers in Lyons. At twenty I tried City life, but an office with a high stool, a dusty ledger, and sandwich lunches, had no attraction for me. I had always had a turn for mechanics, but was never allowed to adopt engineering as a profession, my father’s one idea being that I should follow in his footsteps—a delusive hope entertained by many a fond parent.

Six months of office life sufficed me. One day I went home to Teddington and refused to return again to Wood Street. This resulted in an open quarrel between my father and myself, with the result that a week later I was on my way to Canada. In a year I was back again, and, after some months of semi-starvation in London, I managed to obtain a job in a motor factory. I was then entirely in my element. During two years I learned the mechanism of the various petrol-driven cars until I became classed as an expert driver and engineer.

Where I was employed there was manufactured one of the best and most expensive makes of English car, and, being at length placed on the testing staff, it was my duty to take out each new chassis for its trial-run before being delivered to a customer.

Upon my certificate each chassis was declared in perfect running order, and then handed over to the body-makers indicated by the purchaser.

Being an expert driver, my firm sent me to drive in the Tourist Trophy races in the Isle of Man, and I likewise did the Ardennes Circuit and came in fourth in the Brescia race for the Florio Cup, my successes, of course, adding glory and advertisement to the car I drove.

Racing, however, aroused within me, as it does in every motorist, an ardent desire to travel long distances. The testing of those chassis in Regent’s Park, and an occasional run with some wealthy customer out on the Great North road or on the Bath or Brighton roads, became too quiet a life for me. I was now seized by a desire to tour and see Europe. True, in my capacity of tester, I met all classes of men. In the seat beside me have sat Cabinet Ministers, Dukes, Indian Rajahs, Members of Parliament, and merchant princes, customers or prospective purchasers, all of whom chatted with me, mostly displaying their ignorance of the first principles of mechanics. It was all pleasant enough—a merry life and good pay. Yet I hated London, and the height of my ambition was a good car to drive abroad.

After some months of waiting, the opportunity came, and I seized it.

By appointment, at the Automobile Club one grey December morning, I met Count Bindo di Ferraris, a young Italian aristocrat, whose aspect, however, was the reverse of a Southerner. About thirty, he was tall, lithe, and well dressed in a dark brown lounge suit. His complexion, his chestnut hair, his erect, rather soldierly bearing, his clean-shaven face, and his open countenance gave him every appearance of an English gentleman. Indeed, I took him at first for an Englishman, for he spoke English perfectly.

When he had examined my testimonials and made a number of inquiries, he asked:

“You speak French?”

“Yes,” was my reply; “a little Italian, and a little German.”

“Italian!” he exclaimed in surprise. “Excellent!”

Then while we sat alone, with no one within hearing, he told me the terms upon which he was willing to engage me to drive on the Continent, and added:

“Your salary will be doubled—providing I find you entirely loyal to me. That is to say, you must know how to keep your mouth closed—understand?”

And he regarded me rather curiously, I thought.

“No,” I answered; “I don’t quite understand.”

“Well, well, there are matters—private family matters—of which you will probably become cognisant. Truth to tell, I want help—the help of a good careful driver who isn’t afraid, and who is always discreet. I may as well tell you that before I wrote to you I made certain secret inquiries regarding you, and I feel confident that you can serve me very much to our mutual advantage.”

This puzzled me, and my curiosity was further aroused when he added:

“To be plain, there is a certain young lady in very high society in the case. I need not tell you more, need I? You will be discreet, eh?”

I smiled and promised. What did it all mean? I wondered. My employer was mysterious; but in due course I should, as he prophesied, obtain knowledge of this secret—a secret love affair, no doubt.

The Count’s private affairs did not, after all, concern me. My duty was to drive on the Continent, and for what he was to pay me I was to serve him loyally, and see that his tyre and petrol bills were not too exorbitant.

He went to the writing-table and wrote out a short agreement which he copied, and we both signed it—a rather curiously worded agreement by which I was to serve him for three years, and during that time our interests were “to be mutual.” That last phrase caused me to wonder, but I scribbled my name and refrained from comment, for the payment was already double that which I was receiving from the firm.

“My car is outside,” he remarked, as he folded his copy of the agreement and placed it in his pocket. “Did you notice it?”

I had not, so we went out into Piccadilly together, and there, standing at the kerb, I saw a car that caused my heart to bound with delight—a magnificent six-cylinder forty horse-power “Napier,” of the very latest model. The car was open, with side entrance, a dark green body with coronet and cipher on the panels, upholstered in red, with glass removable screen to the splash-board—a splendid, workmanlike car just suitable for long tours and fast runs. Of all the cars and of all the makes, that was the only one which it was my ambition to drive.

I walked around it in admiration, and saw that every accessory was the best and very latest that money could buy—even to the newly invented gas-generator which had only a few weeks ago been placed upon the market. I lifted the long bonnet, looked around the engine, and saw those six cylinders in a row—the latest invention of a celebrated inventor.

“Splendid!” I ejaculated. “There’s nothing yet to beat this car. By Jove! we can get a move on a good road!”

“Yes,” smiled the Count. “My man Mario could make her travel, but he’s a fool and has left me in a fit of temper. He was an Italian, and we Italians are, alas! hot-headed,” and he laughed again. “Would you like to try her?”

I assented with delight, and, while he returned inside the Club to get his fur coat, I started the engine and got in at the steering-wheel. A few moments later he seated himself beside me, and we glided down Piccadilly on our way to Regent’s Park—the ground where, day after day, it had been my habit to go testing. The car ran perfectly, the engines sounding a splendid rhythm through the Regent Street traffic into broad Portland Place, and on into the Park, where I was afforded some scope to see what she could do. The Count declared that he was in no hurry, therefore we went up through Hampstead to Highgate Station, and then on the Great North Road, through East End Whetstone, Barnet, and Hatfield, to Hitchin—thirty-five miles of road which was as well known to me as the Strand.

The morning was dry and cold, the roads in excellent condition bar a few patches of new metal between Codicote and Chapelfoot, and the sharp east wind compelled us to goggle. Fortunately, I had on my leather-lined frieze coat, and was therefore fully equipped. The North Road between London and Hitchin is really of little use for trying the speed of a car, for there are so many corners, it is mostly narrow, and it abounds in police-traps. That twenty miles of flat, straight road, with perfect surface, from Lincoln to New Holland, opposite Hull, is one of the best places in England to see what a car is worth.

Nevertheless, the run to Hitchin satisfied me perfectly that the car was not a “roundabout,” as so many are, but a car well “within the meaning of the Act.”

“And, what is your opinion of her, Ewart?” asked the Count, as we sat down to cold beef and pickles in the long old-fashioned upstairs room of the Sun Inn at Hitchin.

“Couldn’t be better,” I declared. “The brake would do with re-lining, but that’s about all. When do we start for the Continent?”

“The day after to-morrow. I’m staying just now at the Cecil. We’ll run the car down to Folkestone, ship her across, and then go by Paris and Aix to Monte Carlo first; afterwards we’ll decide upon our itinerary. Ever been to Monty?”

I replied in the negative. The prospect of going on the Riviera sounded delightful.

After our late luncheon we ran back from Hitchin to London, but, not arriving before lighting-up time, we had to turn on the head-lights beyond Barnet. We drove straight to the fine garage on the Embankment beneath the Cecil, and after I had put things square and received orders for ten o’clock next day, I was preparing to go to my lodgings in Bloomsbury to look through my kit in preparation for the journey, when my employer suddenly exclaimed:

“Come up to the smoking-room a moment. I want to write a letter for you to take to Boodle’s in St. James’s Street for me, if you will.”

I followed him upstairs to the great tiled smoking-room overlooking the Embankment, and as we entered, two well-dressed men—Englishmen, of aristocratic bearing—rose from a table and shook him warmly by the hand.

I noticed their quick, apprehensive look as they glanced at me as though in inquiry, but my employer exclaimed:

“This is my new chauffeur, Ewart, an expert. Ewart, these are my friends—Sir Charles Blythe,” indicating the elder man, “and Mr. Henderson. These gentlemen will perhaps be with us sometimes, so you had better know them.”

The pair looked me up and down and smiled pleasantly. Sir Charles was narrow-faced, about fifty, with a dark beard turning grey; his companion was under thirty, a fair-haired, rather foppishly-dressed young fellow, in a fashionable suit and a light fancy vest.

Then, as the Count went to the table to write, Sir Charles inquired where we had been, and whether I had driven much on the Continent.

When the Count handed me the letter, I saw that he exchanged a meaning glance with Sir Charles, but what it was intended to convey I could not guess. I only know that, for a few seconds, I felt some vague distrust of my new friends, and yet they treated me more as an equal than as a mere chauffeur.

The Count’s friends were certainly a merry, easy-going pair, yet somehow I instinctively held them in suspicion. Whether it was on account of the covert glance which Sir Charles shot across at my employer, or whether there was something unusual about their manner, I cannot tell. I am only aware that when I left the hotel I went on my way in wonder.

Next day, at ten punctually, I ran the car from the Strand into the courtyard of the hotel and pulled up at the restaurant entrance, so as to be out of the way of the continuous cab traffic. The Count, however, did not make his appearance until nearly half an hour later, and when he did arrive he superintended the dispatch by cab of a quantity of luggage which he told me he was sending forward by grande vitesse to Monte Carlo.

After the four-wheeler had moved off, the hall-porter helped him on with his big fur coat, and he, getting up beside me, told me to drive to Piccadilly.

As we were crossing Trafalgar Square into Pall Mall, he turned to me, saying:

“Remember, Ewart, your promise yesterday. If my actions—I mean, if you think I am a little peculiar sometimes, don’t trouble your head about it. You are paid to drive—and paid well, I think. My affairs don’t concern you, do they?”

“Not in the least,” I answered, nevertheless puzzled.

He descended at a tobacconist’s in Bond Street, and bought a couple of boxes of cigars, and then made several calls at shops, also visiting two jewellers to obtain, he remarked, a silver photograph frame of a certain size.

At Gilling’s—the third shop he tried—he remained inside some little time—quite twenty minutes, I should think. As you know, it is in the narrowest part of Bond Street, and the traffic was congested owing to the road at the Piccadilly end being partially up.

As I sat in my place staring idly before me, and reflecting that I should be so soon travelling due south over the broad, well-kept French roads, and out of the gloom and dreariness of the English winter, I suddenly became conscious of a familiar face in the crowd of hurrying foot-passengers.

I glanced up quickly as a man bustled past. Was I mistaken? I probably had been, but the thin, keen, bearded countenance was very much like that of Sir Charles Blythe. But no. When I looked back after him I saw that his figure was much more bent and his appearance was not half so smart and well-groomed as the Count’s friend.

At one moment I felt absolutely positive that the man had really been watching me, and was now endeavouring to escape recognition, yet at the next I saw the absurdity of such a thought. Sir Charles’s face had, I suppose, been impressed upon my memory on the previous evening, and the passer-by merely bore some slight resemblance.

And so I dismissed it from my mind.

A few moments later a man in a frock-coat, probably the jeweller’s manager, opened the door, looked up and down the street for a few moments, shot an inquisitive glance at me, and then disappeared within.

I found that the clock on the splash board required winding, and was in the act of doing this when my eyes fell upon a second person who was equally a mystery. This time I felt convinced that I was not mistaken. The fair-moustached young man Henderson went by, but without recognising me.

Did either of the pair recognise the car? If so, what object had they in not acknowledging me?

My suspicions were again aroused. I did not like either of the two men. Were they following my master with some evil intent? In London, and especially in certain cosmopolitan circles, one cannot be too cautious regarding one’s acquaintances. They had been slightly too over-dressed and too familiar with the Count to suit me, and I had resolved that if I had ever to drive either of them I would land them in some out-of-the-world hole with a pretended break-down. The non-motorist is always at the mercy of the chauffeur and the so-called “break-downs” are frequently due to the vengeance of the driver, who gets his throttle stuck, or some trouble which sounds equally serious, but which is remedied in one, two, three, or four hours, according to how long the chauffeur decides to detain his victim by the roadside.

I wondered, as I sat ruminating, whether these two men were really “crooks,” and so deep-rooted were my suspicions that I decided, when the Count returned, to drop him a hint that we were being watched.

I am not nervous by any means and, moreover, I always carry for my own protection a handy little revolver. Yet I admit that at that moment I felt a decidedly uncomfortable feeling creeping over me.

Those men meant mischief. I had detected it in their eyes on the previous night. By some kind of mysterious intuition I became aware that we were in peril.

Almost at the moment the shop-door was opened by the manager, and the Count, emerging, crossed to me and said:

“Go into the shop, Ewart, and wait there till I return. I’m just going round to get some money,” and seeing a boy passing, he called him, saying, “Just mind this car for ten minutes, my boy, and I’ll give you half-a-crown. Never mind the police; if they say anything, tell them I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

The lad, eager to earn a trifle, at once consented, and descending, I entered the shop, the door of which was being still held open for me, while the Count hailed a hansom and drove away.

The shop is one of the finest in Bond Street, as you know. At that moment there were, however, no other customers. The manager politely invited me to be seated, saying:

“His lordship will only be a short time,” and then, standing with his hands behind his back, he commenced to chat with me.

“That’s a very fine car of yours,” he said. “You ought to be able to travel pretty fast, eh?”

“Well, we do, as a matter of fact,” I replied.

Then he went to the door, and looking over the panes of frosted glass, asked what horse-power it was, and a number of other questions with which non-motorists always plague the chauffeur.

Then, returning to me, he remarked what a very nice gentleman his lordship was, adding that he had been a customer on several occasions.

“Have you been long in his service?” he inquired.

“Oh, yes,” I replied, determined not to be thought a new hand. “Quite a long time. As you say, he is a very charming man.”

“He’s very wealthy, according to report. I read something about him in the papers the other day—a gift of some thousands to the Hospital Fund.”

This rather surprised me. I never remembered having seen the name of Count Bindo di Ferraris in the papers.

Presently I got up, and wandering about the shop, inspected some of the beautiful jewels in the fine show-cases, many of them ornaments of enormous value. The manager, a pleasant, elderly man, took me round and showed me some of the most beautiful jewellery I had ever seen. Then, excusing himself, he retired to the office beyond the shop, and left me to chat with one of the assistants.

I looked at the clock, and saw that nearly half an hour had elapsed since the Count had left. A constable had looked in and inquired about the car, but I had assured him that in a few minutes we should be off, and begged, as a favour that it might be allowed to remain until my master’s return.

Another quarter of an hour elapsed, when the door opened, and there entered two respectably-dressed men in dark overcoats, one wearing a soft brown felt hat and the other a “bowler.”

They asked to see the manager, and the assistant who had been chatting to me conducted them through the shop to the office beyond. Both men were of middle age and well set up, and as they entered, I saw that a third man, much younger, was with them. He, however, did not come in, but stood in the doorway, idly glancing up and down Bond Street.

Within the office I distinctly heard the manager utter an exclamation of surprise, and then one of the men, in a deep, low voice, seemed to enter into a long explanation.

Then the elder of the two strangers walked along the shop to the door, and going outside, spoke some words to the man who had accompanied them. On re-entering, he passed me, giving me a sharp glance, and then disappeared again into the office, where, for five minutes or so, he remained closeted with the manager.

Presently the last-named came out, and as he approached me I noticed an entire change in his manner. He was pale, almost to the lips.

“Will you step into my office for one moment?” he asked. “There’s—well, a little matter upon which I want to speak to you.”

This surprised me. What could he mean?

Nevertheless, I consented, and in a few moments found myself in a large, well-lit office with the manager and the two strangers.

The man in the brown felt hat was the first to speak.

“We want to ask you a question or two?” he said. “Do you recognise this?” and he produced a small square photograph of a man upon whose coat was a white ticket bearing a bold number. I started when my eyes fell upon it.

“My master!” I ejaculated.

The portrait was a police photograph! The men were detectives!

The inspector, for such he was, turned to the jeweller’s manager, and regarded him with a significant look.

“It’s a good job we’ve arrested him with the stuff on him,” he remarked “otherwise you’d never have seen the colour of it again. He’s worked the same dodge in Rome and Berlin, and both times got clear away. I suppose he became a small customer, in order to inspire confidence—eh?”

“Well, he came in this morning, saying that he wished to give his wife a tiara for the anniversary of her wedding, and asked that he might have two on approval, as he was undecided which to choose, and wished her to pick for herself. He left his car and chauffeur here till his return, and took away two worth five thousand pounds each. I, of course, had not the slightest suspicion. Lord Ixwell—the name by which we know him—is reputed everywhere to be one of the richest peers in the kingdom.”

“Yes. But, you see, Detective-Sergeant Rodwell here chanced to see him come out of the shop, and, recognising him as the jewel-thief we’ve wanted for months past, followed his cab down to Charing Cross Station, and there arrested him and brought him to Bow Street.”

I stood utterly dumbfounded at this sudden ending of what I believed would be an ideal engagement.

“What’s your name?” inquired the inspector.

“George Ewart,” was my answer. “I only entered the Count’s service yesterday.”

“And yet you told me you had been his chauffeur for a long time!” exclaimed the jeweller’s manager.

“Well,” said the elder of the detectives, “we shall arrest you, at any rate. You must come round to Bow Street, and I warn you that any statement you may make will be taken down and used as evidence against you.”

“Arrest me!” I cried. “Why, I haven’t done anything! I’m perfectly innocent. I had no idea that—”

“Well, you have more than an idea now, haven’t you?” laughed the detective. “But come along; we have no time to lose,” and he asked the manager to order a four-wheeled cab.

I remonstrated in indignation, but to no avail.

“What about the car?” I asked anxiously as we went outside together and stepped into the cab, the third police-officer, who had been on guard outside, holding open the door, while the constable who had been worrying me about the car stood looking on.

“Diplock, you can drive a motor-car,” exclaimed the inspector, turning to the detective at the cab door. “Just bring that round to Bow Street as quick as you can.”

The constable took in the situation at a glance. He saw that I had been arrested, and asked the detectives if they needed any assistance. But the reply was negative, and with the inspector at my side and the sergeant opposite, we moved off towards Piccadilly, the jeweller’s manager having been requested to attend at Bow Street Police Station in a hour, in order to identify the stolen property. By that time the charge would be made out, and we should, the inspector said, be up before the magistrate for a remand before the Court rose.

As we drove along Piccadilly, my heart fell within me. All my dreams of those splendid, well-kept roads in the sunny south, of touring to all the gayest places on the Continent, and seeing all that was to be seen, had been shattered at a single blow. And what a blow!

I had awakened to find myself under arrest as the accomplice of one of the most expert jewel thieves in Europe!

My companions were not communicative. Why should they have been?

Suddenly I became aware of the fact that we had driven a considerable distance. In my agitated state of mind I had taken no notice of our route, and my captors had, it seemed, endeavoured to take my attention off the direction we had taken.

Collecting my scattered senses, however, I recollected that we had crossed one of the bridges over the Thames, and looking out of the window, I found that we were in a long, open road of private houses, each with a short strip of railed-off garden in front—a South London thoroughfare evidently.

“This isn’t the way to Bow Street!” I exclaimed in wonder.

“Well, not exactly the straight way,” grinned the inspector. “A roundabout route, let’s call it.”

I was puzzled. The more so when I recognised a few minutes later that we had come down the Camberwell New Road, and were passing Camberwell Green.

We continued up Denmark Hill until, at the corner where Champion Hill branches off, the inspector called to the cabman to stop, and we all descended the detective-sergeant paying the fare.

Where were they taking me? I wondered. I asked, but they only laughed and would vouchsafe no reply.

Together we walked up the quiet, semi-rural Champion Hill, until we reached Green Lane, when at the sharp right angle of the road, as we turned, I saw before me an object which caused me to hold my breath in utter amazement.

The car was standing there, right before me in the lonely suburban road, and in it, seated at the wheel, a man whom I next second recognised as the Count himself! He was evidently awaiting me.

He was wearing a different motor-coat the car bore a different number, and as I approached I noticed that the coronet and cipher had been obliterated by a dab of green paint!

“Come on, Ewart!” cried the Count, jumping down to allow me to take his place at the steering.

I turned to my captors in wonder.

“Yes, away you go, Ewart,” the inspector said, “and good luck to you!”

Without another second’s delay, I sprang upon the car, and while the Count as he jumped up at my side, shouted good-bye to my captors, I started away towards Lordship Lane and the open country of Surrey.

“Where shall we go?” I inquired breathlessly, utterly amazed at our extraordinary escape.

“Straight on through Sydenham, and then I’ll tell you. The sooner we’re out of this, the better. We’ll run along to Winchester, where I have a little house at Kingsworthy, just outside the city, and where we can lie low comfortably for a bit.”

“But shan’t we be followed by those men?” I asked apprehensively.

“Followed—by them? Oh, dear no!” he laughed. “Of course, you don’t understand, Ewart. They all three belong to us. We’ve played a smartish game upon the jeweller, haven’t we? They had to frighten you, of course, because it added a real good touch of truth to the scheme. We ought to be able to slip away across the Channel in a week’s time, at latest. They’ll leave to-night—in search of me!” and he laughed lightly to himself.

“Then they were not detectives?” I exclaimed, utterly staggered by the marvellous ingenuity of the robbery.

“No more than you are, Ewart,” was his reply. “But don’t bother your head about them now. All you’ve got to look after is your driving. Let’s get across to Winchester as quickly as possible. Just here!—sharp to the right and the first to the left takes us into the Guildford road. Then we can move.”

2. A Sentimental Swindle

COUNT BINDO’S retreat near Winchester proved to be a small, rather isolated house near Kingsworthy. It stood in its own grounds, surrounded by a high wall, and at the rear was a very fair garage, that had been specially constructed, with inspection-pit and the various appliances.

The house was rather well furnished, but the only servant was a man, who turned out to be none other than the yellow-haired young fellow who had been introduced to me at the Cecil as “Mr. Henderson.”

He no longer wore the light fancy vest and smartly-cut clothes, but was in a somewhat shabby suit of black. He smiled grimly as I recognised him, while his master said:

“Got back all right, Henderson—eh?”

“I arrived only ten minutes ago, sir. All was quiet, wasn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” replied the Count, who then went upstairs, and I saw him no more that evening.

For nearly a fortnight the car remained in the garage. It now bore a different identification-plate, and to kill time I idled about, wondering when we should start again. It was a strange ménage. Count Bindo was a very easy-going cosmopolitan, who treated both Henderson and myself as intimates, inasmuch as we ate at table with him, and smoked together each evening.

We were simply waiting. The papers were, of course, full of the clever theft from Gilling’s, and the police, it appeared, were doing their utmost to track the tricksters—but in vain. The Count, under the name of Mr. Claude Fielding, seemed to be very popular in the neighbourhood, though he discouraged visitors. Indeed, no one came there. He dined, however, at several houses during the second week of his concealment and seemed to be quite confident of his safety.

At last we left, but not, however, before Sir Charles Blythe had stayed one night with us and made some confidential report to his friend. It being apparent that all was clear, some further alteration was made both in the appearance of the car and in the personal aspect of Count Bindo and myself, after which we started for the Continent by way of Southampton.

We crossed and ran up to Paris, where we stayed at the Ritz. The Count proved a devil-may-care fellow with plenty of friends in the French capital. When with the latter he treated me as a servant; when alone as a friend.

Whatever the result of the clever piece of trickery in Bond Street, it was quite clear that my employer was in funds, for he spent freely, dined and supped at the expensive restaurants, and thoroughly enjoyed himself with his chums.

We left Paris and went on the broad good road to Lyons and to Monte Carlo. It was just before Christmas, and the season had, of course, not yet commenced. We stayed at the Hôtel de Paris—the hotel where most men en garçon put up—and the car I put into the Garage Meunier.

It was the first time I had seen “Monty,” and it attracted me as it does every man and woman. Here, too, Bindo di Ferraris seemed to have hosts of friends. He dined at the Grand, the Métropole, or the Riviera Palace and supped each night at Ciro’s, indulging in a little mild play in the Rooms in the interval between the two meals.

He did not often go out in the car, but frequently went to Nice and Cannes by train. About a fortnight after our arrival, however, we ran, one bright morning, along the lower road by Beaulieu to Nice—bad, by the way, on account of the sharp corners and electric trams—and called at a small hotel in the Boulevard Gambetta.

The Count apparently had an appointment with a tall, dark-haired, extremely good-looking young French girl, with whom he lunched at a small restaurant and afterwards he walked for an hour on the Promenade, talking with her very earnestly.

She was not more than nineteen—a smart, very chic little Parisienne, quietly dressed in black, but in clothes that bore unmistakably the cachet of a first-class dressmaker. They took a turn on the Jetée Promenade, and presently returned to the hotel, when the Count told her to go and get a close hat and thick coat, and he would wait for her.

Then, when she had gone, he told me that we were about to take her over to the Bristol at Beaulieu, that great white hotel that lies so sheltered in the most delightful bay of the whole Riviera.

It was a clear, bright December afternoon. The roads were perfect, though dusty as the Corniche always is, and very soon, with the Count and his lady friend, I swung into the curved drive before the hotel.

“You can go to the garage for an hour or so, Ewart,” my employer said, after they had descended. Therefore I turned the car and went to the huge garage at the rear of the hotel—the garage which every motorist on the Riviera knows so well.

After an hour I re-entered the hotel to look for the Count and receive orders, when I saw, in the great red-carpeted lounge, my employer and the little Parisienne seated with the man whom I knew as Sir Charles Blythe, but who really was one of Count Bindo’s confederates.

We exchanged glances, and his was a meaning one. That some deep and ingenious game was in progress I felt certain, but what it was I had no idea.

Blythe was smartly dressed in a grey flannel suit and white shoes—the costume de rigueur on the Riviera—and as he smoked his cigar, easily reclining in the wicker lounge-chair, he presented the complete picture of the English aristocrat “putting in” a month or two for sunshine.

Both men were talking earnestly in French with the dark-eyed little lady, who now and then laughed, or, raising her shoulders, looked from one to the other and protruded her chin in a gesture of uncertainty.

I retired and watched closely. It was quite plain in a few moments that the young lady was entirely devoted to the handsome Bindo. Both manner and glances betrayed it. I saw him look at Blythe, and knew that they were working in accord towards some pre-arranged end.

Presently a noisy party of American girls who had just returned from “Monty” entered and sat close to them, calling for tea. Therefore the trio rose and went out into the evening dusk. They wished, it seemed, to talk in private, and they did so until, half an hour later, I received orders to bring round the car, and drove them all three back to Nice, which we reached in plenty of time for dinner.

“Now, you will not forget, Gabrielle, you’re sure?” said Bindo in French as he handed her out of the car and shook her hand as he bared his head.

“I have promised, m’sieur,” was her reply in a low, rather musical voice. “I shall not forget.”

And then she bowed to Blythe, ascended the steps, and disappeared into the hotel.

Her quietness and neatness of dress were, to me, attractive. She was a dainty little thing, and yet her plain black dress so well cut, was really very severe. She had the manner of a lady, sweet and demure. The air of the woman-of-the-world was, somehow, entirely absent.

Well, to confess it, I found myself admiring her very much. She was, I thought delightful—one of the prettiest, sweetest girls I had ever seen.

Evidently our run to Beaulieu and back was her first experience of motoring, for she laughed with girlish delight when, on an open piece of road here and there, I put on a “move.” And as she disappeared into the hotel she turned and waved her tiny black-gloved hand back at the handsome Bindo.

“Done, my dear chap!” chuckled Blythe in a low voice to his companion as the neat figure disappeared behind the glass swing-doors. “The rest is easy—if we keep up pluck.”

“It’s a big thing, of course; but I’m sanguine enough,” declared my employer. “That little girl is a perfect brick. She’s entirely unsuspicious. Flatter and court a woman, and if she falls in love with you she’ll go any length to serve you!”

“You’re a splendid lover!” declared Sir Charles as he mounted into the car beside the Count, while the latter, laughing lightly, bent to me saying:

“Back to Monte Carlo, as quick as we can get.”

I slipped along out of Nice, through Villefranche, round Beaulieu, slowing up for the corners, but travelling sharply on the open road, and we were soon back at the Paris.

Having put the car into the garage, I walked round to the hotel, transformed myself from a leather-coated chauffeur into a Monte Carlo lounger, and just before ten o’clock met the Count going across the flower-scented Place to the Rooms.

He was alone, and, recognising me crossed and said:

“Ewart, let’s walk up through the gardens. I want to have a word with you.”

I turned on my heel, and strolled with him.

“You know what we’ve done to-day—eh? You stand in, so you can just shut your eyes to anything that isn’t exactly in order—understand? There’s a big thing before us—a very big thing—a thing that’s simply dropped from the clouds. You want money, so do I. We all want money. Just keep a still tongue, and obey my orders, and you’ll see that we’ll bring off the biggest coup that the Riviera has yet known.”

“I know how to be silent,” I said, though I did not at all like the aspect of affairs.

“Yes, you do. I give you credit for that. One word of this and I go to durance vile. Silence, and the whole of us profit and get the wherewithal to live. I often think, Ewart, that the public, as they call it—the British public—are an extraordinary people. They are so confoundedly honest. But, nowadays, there surely isn’t any honesty in life—at least, I’ve never found any. Why, your honest business man who goes to church or chapel each Sunday, and is a model of all the virtues, is, in the City, the very man who’ll drive a hard bargain, pay a starvation wage, and button his pockets against the widow! Who are your successful men in business? Why, for the most part, the men who, by dint of sharp practice or unscrupulousness, have been able to get in front of their competitors. Therefore, after all, am I very much worse than the successful City man? I live on my brains—and I’m happy to say I’ve lived very well—up to the present. But enough of this philosophy,” laughed the easy-going young scoundrel. “I want to give you instructions. You stand in with us, Ewart. Your share of the Gilling affair is to your credit, and you’ll have it before long. At present, we have another little matter in hand—one which requires extremely delicate handling, but will be successful providing Mademoiselle Gabrielle doesn’t change her mind. But women are so often fickle, and the morning brings prudence far too frequently. You’ll see some strange happenings to-morrow or the next day. Keep your eyes and ears closed; that’s all you have to do. You understand—eh?”

“Perfectly,” was my reply, for my curiosity was now thoroughly whetted.

There was a desperate project in the air, and the spirit of adventure had now entered thoroughly into me.

Early next morning I drove the Count back to Nice where, at a quiet spot beyond the Magnan, he met the pretty Gabrielle clandestinely.

When we drew up to where she was apparently awaiting us, I saw that she was annoyed at my presence.

“Ewart, my chauffeur,” he explained, introducing me, “will say nothing about this meeting. He knows how to be discreet.”

I raised my peaked motor-cap, as our eyes met. I thought I detected a curiously timid glance in them, for in an instant she dropped her gaze.

That she was an intimate friend of the Count was shown by the instructions he gave her.

“You two walk along the Promenade des Anglais, and I’ll meet you at the other end by the Hotel Suisse. I’ll take the car myself on to the garage.”

This meant that I was to walk with her a full three-quarters of an hour along the whole of the beautiful sea-front of Nice. Why, I wondered?

“But, Bindo, can’t you come?”

“I’ll meet you outside the Suisse. It’s better to do that,” was his answer. “Go along; you’ll find Ewart a clever fellow. He’ll tell you how to drive a motor-car.”

She laughed lightly, and then, as Bindo mounted into the car again and turned away, we strolled together on the broad asphalt back towards the town.

The morning was delightful, with bright sunshine and blue sea. The sweet-smelling wallflowers were already out, and the big palms waved lazily in the soft breeze.

I quickly found my companion most charming, and envied the Count his acquaintanceship. Was she marked down as a victim? Or was she an accomplice? I could not grasp the motive for being sent to walk the whole length of the promenade with her. But the Count and his companions were, they admitted, working a “big thing,” and this was part of it, I supposed.

“This is the first time you have been in Nice, eh?” she asked in her pretty broken English as she stopped a moment to open her sunshade.

“Yes,” I answered; “but the Count is an old habitué, I believe?”

“Oh, yes,” she laughed; “he knows everybody. Last year he was on the Fêtes Committee and one of the judges at the Battle of Flowers.”

And so we gossiped on, walking leisurely, and passing many who, like ourselves, were idling in the winter sunshine.

There was an air of refined ingenuousness about her that was particularly attractive. She walked well, holding her skirt tightly about her as only a true Parisienne can, and displaying a pair of extremely neat ankles. She inquired about me—how long had I been in the Count’s service, how I liked him, and such like; while I, by careful questioning, discovered that her name was Gabrielle Deleuse, and that she came to the Cote d’Azur each season.

Just as we were opposite the white facade of the Hotel Westminster we encountered a short, rather stout, middle-aged lady, accompanied by a tall, thin, white-haired gentleman. They were well-dressed, the lady wearing splendid sables.

She started when she recognised them, instantly lowering her sunshade in order to hide her face. Whether the pair noticed her I cannot say. I only know that, as soon as ever they passed, she exclaimed, in annoyance:

“I can’t think why Bindo sent you along here with me.”

“I regret, mademoiselle, that my companionship should be distasteful to you,” I replied, mystified.

“No, no, not that, m’sieur,” she cried anxiously. “I do not mean that. You do not know—how can you know what I mean?”

“You probably mean that you ought not to be seen walking here, on the Promenade des Anglais, with a common chauffeur.”

“If you are a chauffeur, m’sieur, you are also a gentleman,” she said, looking straight into my face.

“I thank mademoiselle for her high compliment,” I said, bowing, for really I was in no way averse to a little mild flirtation with such a delightful companion. And yet what, I wondered, was my rôle in this latest piece of complicated trickery?

She quickened her pace, glancing anxiously at everyone we met, as though wishing to arrive at the end of our walk.

I was sorry our little chat was drawing to a close. I would like to have had her at my side for a day’s run on the car, and I told her so.

“Perhaps you will take me for a long trip one day—who knows?” she laughed. “Yesterday it was perfect.”

A few moments later we arrived before the Suisse, and from a seat on the Promenade Count Bindo rose to greet us. He had left his motor-coat and cap in the car, and stood before us in his grey flannels and white soft felt hat—a smart, handsome figure, such as women mostly admire. Indeed, Bindo was essentially a lady’s man, for he seemed to have a bowing acquaintance with hundreds of the fair sex.

“Well, Gabrielle, and has Ewart been saying lots of pretty things to you—eh?”

“How unkind of you!” she protested, blushing slightly. “You really ought not to say such things.”

“Well, well, forgive me, won’t you?” said the Count quickly, and together we strolled into the town, where we had an apéritif at the gay Café de l’Opéra, opposite the public gardens.

Here, however, a curious contretemps occurred.

She accidentally upset her glass of “Dubonnet” over her left hand, saturating her white glove so that she was compelled to take it off.

“Why!” ejaculated the Count in sudden amazement, pointing to her uncovered hand. “What does that mean?”

She wore upon her finger a wedding ring!

Her face went crimson. For a moment the pretty girl was too confused to speak.

“Ah!” she cried in a low, earnest tone, as she bent towards him. “Forgive me, Bindo. I—I did not tell you. How could I?”

“You should have told me. It was your duty to tell me. Remember, we are old friends. How long have you been married?”

“Only three weeks. This is my honeymoon.”

“And your husband?”

“Four days ago business took him to Genoa. He is still absent.”

“And, in the meanwhile, you meet me, and are the merry little Gabrielle of the olden days—eh?” remarked Bindo, placing both elbows upon the marble-topped table and looking straight into her face.

“Do you blame me, then?” she asked. “I admit that I deceived you, but it was imperative. Our encounter has brought back all the past—those summer days of two years ago when we met at Fontainebleau. Do you still remember them?” Her eyelids trembled.

I saw that, though married, she still regarded the handsome Bindo with a good deal of affection.

“I don’t blame you,” was his soft reply. “I suppose it is what anybody else would have done in the circumstances. Do I remember those days, you ask? Why, of course I do. Those picnics in the forest with you, your mother, and your sister Julie were delightful days—days never to return, alas! And so you are really married! Well, you must tell me all about it later. Let’s lunch together at the London House.” Then he added, reflectively, “Well, this really is a discovery—my little Gabrielle actually married! I had no idea of it.”

She laughed, blushing again.

“No; I don’t suppose you had. I was very, very foolish to take off my glove, yet if I had kept up the deception any longer I might perhaps have compromised myself.”

“Was it not—well, a little risky of you to go to Beaulieu with me yesterday?”

“Yes. I was foolish—very foolish Bindo. I ought not to have met you to-day. I ought to have told you the truth from the very first.”

“Not at all. Even if your husband is away, there is surely no reason why you should not speak to an old friend like myself, is there?”

“Yes; I’m known in Nice, as you are well aware.”

“Known as the prettiest woman who comes on the Riviera,” he declared, taking her hand and examining the wedding-ring and the fine circle of diamonds above it. Bindo de Ferraris was an expert in gems.

“Don’t be a flatterer,” she protested, with a light laugh. “You’ve said that, you know, hundreds of times before.”

“I’ve said only what’s the truth and I’m sure Ewart will bear me out.”

“I do, most certainly. Madame is most charming,” I asserted; and it was undoubtedly my honest opinion was, however, disappointed equally with the Count, to discover that my dainty divinity in black was married. She was certainly not more than nineteen, and had none of the self-possessed air of the matron about her.

Twice during that conversation I had risen to go, but the Count bade me stay, saying with a laugh:

“There is nothing in this that you may not hear. Madame has deceived us both.”

He treated the situation as a huge joke, yet I detected that the deception had annoyed him. Had the plans he had laid been upset by this unexpected discovery of the marriage? From his demeanour of suppressed chagrin I felt sure they had been.

Suddenly he glanced at his watch, and then taking from his pocket an envelope containing some small square hard object, about two inches long by one inch broad, he said:

“Go to the station and meet the 12.15 from Beaulieu to Cannes. You’ll find Sir Charles Blythe in the train. Give him this from me, and say that I’ll meet him at the Beau Site at Cannes at four o’clock. Have the car ready at two. I’ll come to the garage. You haven’t much time to spare, so take a cab.”

I rose, raised my hat to the dark-eyed little woman, who bowed gracefully, and then, mounting into a fiacre, drove rapidly up the Avenue de la Gare.

The situation was decidedly interesting. My ideal of that sunny morning had been shattered. Gabrielle of the luminous eyes was already a wife.

I met the train, and discovered Sir Charles looking out for me. I handed him the packet, and gave him the Count’s message. I noticed that he had some light luggage with him, and presumed that he was moving from Beaulieu to Cannes—to the tea-and-tennis Beau Site.

Then, when the train had moved off, I wandered across to a small restaurant opposite the station, and lunched alone, thinking and wondering about the dainty little girl-wife who had so completely fascinated me.

That she was still in love with Bindo was quite clear, yet he, on his part, was distinctly annoyed at being deceived.

At two o’clock, almost punctually, he entered the garage, flung his hat into the car, put on his cap, goggles, and motor-coat, and without a word I drew the “Napier” out into the road.

“To Cannes—quick!” he snapped. “Round to the right into the Rue Magnan then straight along. You saw Blythe?”

“Yes, I gave him the packet and the message.”

“Good! then we haven’t any time to lose. Get a move on her whenever you can.”

On we flew, as fast as the sharp corners would allow, until presently we slipped down the long hill into Cannes, and passing through the town, pulled up at the Beau Site, where we found Sir Charles awaiting us.

The latter had changed his clothes, and was now in a smart blue serge suit, and was idly smoking a cigar as we swept round to the entrance.

The two men met enthusiastically, some words were exchanged in an undertone and both burst out laughing—a laugh of triumph. Was it at the expense of poor little Gabrielle?

I was left outside to mind the car, and waited for fully an hour and a half. The wind blew bitterly cold at sundown, as it always does on the Riviera in December, and I was glad of my big fur coat.

Whatever was the subject of discussion it was evidently a weighty one. Both men had gone to Blythe’s room and were closeted there.

A little after five Blythe came out hailed a cab, and drove away into the town; while the Count, whose appearance was so entirely changed that I scarcely knew him, sauntered slowly down the hall after his friend. Blythe had evidently brought him some fresh clothes from Monte Carlo, and he had used his room as a dressing-room. He looked very much older, and the dark brown suit he now wore was out of shape and ill-fitting. His hair showed grey over the ears, and he wore gold spectacles.

Instantly I saw that the adventurous scheme was still in progress, so I descended and lit the big head-lights. About a dozen idlers were in the vicinity of the car, and in sight of them all, he struggled into his big motor-coat, and entering, gave me orders to drive into the centre of the town. Then, after we had got clear of the hotel, he said:

“Stop at the station; we have to pick up Blythe.”

Directed by him, we were soon at the spot where Sir Charles awaited us.

“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed in a low voice as he took out a big coat, motor-cap, and goggles. “Quick work, wasn’t it?”

“Excellent!” declared the Count, and then, bending to me, he added, “Round there to the left. The high road is a little further on—to Marseilles!”

“To Marseilles!” I echoed, surprised that we were going so far as a hundred odd miles, but at that moment I saw the wide highway and turned into it, and with our big search-lights throwing a white radiance on the road, I set the car westward through St. Raphael and Les Arcs. It commenced to rain, with a biting wind, and turned out a very disagreeable night; but, urged on by both men, I went forward at as quick a pace as I dared go on that road, over which I had never before travelled.

At Toulon we pulled up for a drink—for by that time we were all three chilled to the bone, notwithstanding our heavy leather-lined coats, and then we set out again for Marseilles, which we reached just after one o’clock in the morning, drawing up at the Louvre et Paix, which every visitor to the capital of southern France knows so well. Here we had a good hearty meal of cold meat and bock. Prior, however, to entering Marseilles, we had halted, changed our identification-plate, and made certain alterations, in order more thoroughly to disguise the car.

After supper we all got in again, and Bindo directed me up and down several long streets until we were once more in the suburbs. In a quiet, unfrequented road we pulled up, where from beneath the dark shadow of a wall a man silently approached us.

I could not distinguish his face in the darkness, but from his voice I knew it was none other than Henderson, the servant from Kingsworthy.

“Wait here for half an hour. Then run the car back to that church I pointed out to you as we came along. The one at the top of the Cannebière. Wait for us there. We shall be perhaps an hour, perhaps a little more,” said the Count, taking a stick from the car, and then the trio disappeared into the darkness.

Fully an hour elapsed, until at length, along in the shadow the three crept cautiously, each bearing a heavy bundle, wrapped in black cloth, which they deposited in the car. The contents of the bundles chinked as they were placed upon the floor. What their booty was I knew not.

Next instant, however, all three were in, the door was closed, and I drew off into the dark open road straight before me—out into the driving rain.

The Count, who was at my side, seemed panting and agitated.

“We’ve brought it off all right, Ewart,” he whispered, bending to me a few minutes later. “In behind there’s over twenty thousand pounds’ worth of jewellery for us to divide later on. We must get into Valence for breakfast, and thence Henderson will take the stuff away by train into Holland!”

“But how—what have you done?” I asked, puzzled.

“I’ll explain in the morning, when we’ve got rid of it all.”

He did explain. Blythe and Henderson both left us at Valence with the booty, while Bindo and myself, in the morning sunshine, went forward at an easy pace along the Lyons road.

“The affair wanted just a little bit of delicate manoeuvring,” he explained. “It was an affair of the heart, you see. We knew that the pretty little Gabrielle had married old Lemaire, the well-known jeweller in the Cannebière, in Marseilles, and that she had gone to spend her honeymoon at Nice. Unknown to either, I took a room next theirs at the hotel, and, thanks to the communicating doors they have in foreign hotels, overheard her husband explain that he must go to Genoa on pressing business. He also left her his safe-keys—the duplicates of those held by his manager in Marseilles—with injunctions to keep them locked in her trunk. I allowed him to be absent a couple of days, then, quite unexpectedly, I met her on the Promenade, pretending, of course, that I was entirely unaware of her marriage with old Lemaire. In case of accident, however, it was necessary that the little woman should be compromised with somebody, and as you were so discreet, I sent you both yesterday morning to idle along the whole length of the promenade. In the meantime, I nipped back to the hotel, entered Gabrielle’s room, obtained the two safe-keys, and took impressions of them in wax. These I put into a tin matchbox and sent them by you to Blythe at the station. Blythe, with his usual foresight, had already engaged a locksmith in Cannes, telling him a little fairy-story of how he had lost his safe-keys, and how his manager in London, who had duplicates, had sent him out impressions. The keys were made to time; Blythe took a cab from the hotel, and got them, rejoined us at Cannes station, and then we went on to Marseilles. There the affair became easier, but more risky. Henderson had already been reconnoitring the shop for a week, and had conceived a clever plan by which we got in from the rear quickly opened the two big safes with the copied keys, and cleared out all old Lemaire’s best stock. I’m rather sorry to have treated little Gabrielle so—but, after all, it really doesn’t hurt her, for old Lemaire is very rich, and he won’t miss twenty thousand pounds as much as we’re in need of it. The loving husband is still in Genoa, and poor little Gabrielle is no doubt thinking herself a fool to have so prematurely shown her wedding-ring.”

3. The Story of a Secret

THE story of the secret was not without its humorous side.

Before entering Paris, after our quick run up from Marseilles after the affair of the jeweller’s shop, we had stopped at Melun, beyond Fontainebleau. There, a well-known carriage-builder had been ordered to repaint the car pale blue with a dead white band. Upon the panels, my employer, the impudent Bindo, had ordered a count’s coronet, with the cipher “G.B.” beneath, all to be done in the best style and regardless of expense. Then, that same evening, we took the express to the Gare de Lyon, and put up, as before, at the Ritz.

For three weeks, without the car, we had a pleasant time. Usually Count Bindo di Ferraris spent his time with his gay friends, lounging in the evening at Maxim’s, or giving costly suppers at the Américain. One lady with whom I often saw him walking in the streets, or sitting in cafés, was, I discovered, known as “Valentine of the Beautiful Eyes,” for I recognised her one night on the stage of a music-hall in the Boulevard de Clichy, where she was evidently a great favourite. She was young—not more than twenty I think—with wonderful big coal-black eyes, a wealth of dark hair worn with a bandeau, and a face that was perfectly charming.

She seemed known to Blythe, too, for one evening I saw her sitting with him in the Brasserie Universelle, in the Avenue de l’Opéra—that place where one dines so well and cheaply. She was laughing, and had a demi-blonde raised to her lips. So essentially a Parisienne, she was also something of a mystery, for though she often frequented cafés, and went to the Folies Bergères and Olympia, sang at the Marigny, and mixed with a Bohemian crowd of champagne-drinkers, she seemed nevertheless a most decorous little lady. In fact, though I had not spoken to her, she had won my admiration. She was very beautiful, and I—well, I was only a man, and human.

One bright morning, when the car came to Paris, I called for her, at Bindo’s orders at her flat in the Avenue Kléber, where she lived, it appeared, with a prim, sharp-nosed old aunt, of angular appearance peculiarly French. She soon appeared, dressed in the very latest motor clothes with her veil properly fixed, in a manner which showed me instantly that she was a motorist. Besides, she would not enter the car, but got up beside me, wrapped a rug about her skirts in a business-like manner, and gave me the order to move.

“Where to, Mademoiselle?” I asked.

“Did not the Count give you instructions?” she asked in her pretty broken English, turning her great dark eyes upon me in surprise. “Why, to Brussels, of course.”

“To Brussels!” I ejaculated, for I thought the run was to be only about Paris—to meet Bindo, perhaps.

“Yes. Are you surprised?” she laughed. “It is not far—two hundred kilometres, or so. Surely that is nothing for you?”

“Not at all. Only the Count is at the Ritz. Shall we not call there first?”

“The Count left for Belgium by the seven-fifty train this morning,” was her reply. “He has taken our baggage with his, and you will take me by road alone.”

I was, of course, nothing loth to spend a few hours with such a charming companion as La Valentine; therefore in the Avenue des Champs Elysées I pulled up, and consulting my road-book, decided to go by way of Arras, Douai, St. Amand, and Ath. Quickly we ran out beyond the fortifications; while, driving in silence I wondered what this latest manoeuvre was to be. This sudden flight from Paris was more than mysterious. It caused me considerable apprehension, for when I had seen the Count in his room at midnight he had made no mention of his intention to leave so early.

At last, out upon the straight high road that ran between lines of high bare poplars, I put on speed, and quickly the cloud of white dust rose behind us. The northerly wind that grey day was biting, and threatened snow; therefore my pretty companion very soon began to feel the cold. I saw her turning up the collar of her cloth motor-coat, and guessed that she had no leather beneath. To do a day’s journey in comfort in such weather one must be wind-proof.

“You are cold, Mademoiselle,” I remarked. “Will you not put on my leather jacket? You’ll feel the benefit of it, even though it may not appear very smart.” And I pulled up.

With a light merry laugh she consented, and I got out the garment in question, helped her into it over her coat, and though a trifle tight across the chest, she at once declared that it was a most excellent idea. She was, indeed, a merry child of Paris, and allowed me to button the coat, smiling the while at my masculine clumsiness.

Then we continued on our way, and a few moments later were going for all we were worth over the dry, well-kept, level road eastward, towards the Belgian frontier. She laughed and chatted as the hours went by. She had been in London last spring, she told me, and had stayed at the Savoy. The English were so droll, and lacked cachet, though the hotel was smart—especially at supper.

“We pass Douai,” she remarked presently, after we had run rapidly through many villages and small towns. “I must call for a telegram.” And then, somehow, she settled down into thoughtful silence.

At Arras I pulled up, and got her a glass of hot milk. Then on again, for she declared that she was not hungry, and preferred to get to Brussels than to linger on the road. On the broad highway to Douai we went at the greatest speed that I could get out of the fine six-cylinder, the engines beating beautiful time, and the car running as smoothly as a watch. The clouds of whirling dust became very bad, however, and I was compelled to goggle, while the tall-fronted veil adequately protected my sweet-faced travelling companion.

At Douai she descended and entered the post-office herself, returning with a telegram and a letter. The latter she handed to me, and I found it was addressed in my name, and had been sent to the Poste-restante.

Tearing it open in surprise I read the hastily pencilled lines it contained—instructions in the Count’s handwriting which were extremely puzzling, not to say disconcerting. The words I read were:—

“After crossing the frontier you will assume the name of Count de Bourbriac, and Valentine will pass as the Countess. A suitable suite of rooms have been taken for you at the Grand Hotel, Brussels, where you will find your luggage on your arrival. Mademoiselle will supply you with funds. I shall be in Brussels, but shall not approach you.—B. di F.”

The pretty Valentine who was to be my pseudo-wife crushed the blue telegram into her coat-pocket, mounted into her seat, wrapped her rug around her, and ordered me to proceed.

I glanced at her, but she was to all appearances quite unconscious of the extraordinary contents of the Count’s letter.

We had run fully twenty miles in silence when at last, on ascending a steep hill, I turned to her and said:

“The Count has sent me some very extraordinary instructions, Mademoiselle I am, after passing the frontier, to become Count de Bourbriac, and you are to pass as the Countess!”

“Well?” she asked, arching her well-marked eyebrows. “Is that so very difficult, m’sieur? Are you disinclined to allow me to pass as your wife?”

“Not at all,” I replied smiling. “Only—well—it is somewhat—er—unconventional, is it not?”

“Rather an amusing adventure than otherwise,” she laughed. “I shall call you mon cher Gaston, and you—well, you will call me your petite Liane—Liane de Bourbriac will sound well, will it not?”

“Yes. But why this masquerade?” I inquired. “I confess, Mademoiselle I don’t understand it at all.”

“Dear Bindo does. Ask him.” Then after a brief pause, she added: “This is really a rather novel experience,” and she laughed gleefully, as though thoroughly enjoying the adventure.

Without slackening speed I drove on through the short winter afternoon. The faint yellow sunset slowly disappeared behind us, and darkness crept on. With the fading day the cold became intense, and when I stopped to light the head-lamps I got out my cashmere muffler and wrapped it around her throat.

At last we reached the small frontier village, where we pulled up before the Belgian Custom House, paid the deposit upon the car, and obtained the leaden seal. Then, after a liqueur-glass of cognac each at a little café in the vicinity, we set out again upon that long wide road that leads through Ath to Brussels.

A puncture at a place called Leuze caused us a little delay, but the pseudo Countess descended and assisted me, even helping me to blow up the new tube, declaring that the exercise would warm her.

For what reason the pretty Valentine was to pass as my wife was, to me, entirely mysterious. That Bindo was engaged in some fresh scheme of fraud was certain, but what it was I racked my brains in vain to discover.

Near Enghien we had several other tyre troubles, for the road had been newly metalled for miles. As every motorist knows, misfortunes never come singly, and in consequence it was already seven o’clock next morning before we entered Brussels by the Porte de Hal, and ran along the fine Boulevard d’Anspach, to the Grand Hotel.

The gilt-laced hall-porter, who was evidently awaiting us, rushed out cap in hand, and I, quickly assuming my rôle as Count, helped out the “Countess” and gave the car over to one of the employés of the hotel garage.

By the manager we were ushered into a fine suite of six rooms on the first floor, overlooking the Boulevard, and treated with all the deference due to persons of highest standing.

At that moment Valentine showed her cleverness by remarking that she had not brought Elise, her maid, as she was to follow by train, and that I would employ the services of one of the hotel valets for the time being. Indeed, so cleverly did she assume the part that she might really have been one of the ancient nobility of France.

I spoke in English. On the Continent just now it is considered rather smart to talk English. One often hears two German or Italian women speaking atrocious English together, in order to air their superior knowledge before strangers. Therefore that I spoke English was not remarked by the manager, who explained that our courier had given him all instructions, and had brought the baggage in advance. The courier was, I could only suppose, the audacious Bindo himself.

That day passed quite merrily. We lunched together, took a drive in the pretty Bois de la Cambre, and after dining, went to the Monnaie to see Madame Butterfly. On our return to the hotel I found a note from Bindo, and saying good-night to Valentine I went forth again to keep the appointment he had made in a café in the quiet Chausée de Charleroi, on the opposite side of the city.

When I entered the little place I found the Count seated at a table with Blythe and Henderson. The two latter were dressed shabbily, while the Count himself was in dark grey, with a soft felt hat—the perfect counterfeit of the foreign courier.

With enthusiasm I was welcomed into the corner.

“Well?” asked Bindo with a laugh, “And how do you like your new wife, Ewart?” and the others smiled.

“Charming,” I replied. “But I don’t see exactly where the joke comes in.”

“I don’t suppose you do, just yet.”

“It’s a risky proceeding, isn’t it?” I queried.

“Risky! What risk is there in gulling hotel people?” he asked. “If you don’t intend to pay the bill it would be quite another matter.”

“But why is the lady to pass as my wife? Why am I the Count de Bourbriac? Why, indeed, are we here at all?”

“That’s our business, my dear Ewart. Leave matters to us. All you’ve got to do is to just play your part well. Appear to be very devoted to La Comtesse, and it’ll be several hundreds into your pocket—perhaps a level thou’—who knows?”

“A thou’ each—quite,” declared Blythe, a cool, audacious international swindler of the most refined and cunning type.

“But what risk is there?” I inquired for my companions seemed to be angling after big fish this time, whoever they were.

“None, as far as you are concerned. Be advised by Valentine. She’s as clever a girl as there is in all Europe. She has her eyes and ears open all the time. A lover will come on the scene before long, and you must be jealous—devilish jealous—you understand?”

“A lover? Who? I don’t understand.”

“You’ll see, soon enough. Go back to the hotel—or stay with us to-night, if you prefer it. Only don’t worry yourself over risks. We never take any. Only fools do that. Whatever we do is always a dead certainty before we embark upon the job.”

“Then I’m to understand that some fellow is making love to Valentine—eh?”

“Exactly. To-morrow night you are both invited to a ball at the Belle Vue, in aid of the Hospital St. Jean. You will go, and there the lover will appear. You will withdraw, and allow the little flirtation to proceed. Valentine herself will give you further instructions as the occasion warrants.”

“I confess I don’t half like it. I’m working too much in the dark,” I protested.

“That’s just what we intend. If you knew too much you might betray yourself, for the people we’ve got to deal with have eyes in the backs of their heads,” declared Bindo.

It was five o’clock next morning before I returned to the Grand, but during the hours we smoked together, at various obscure cafés, the trio told me nothing further, though they chaffed me regarding the beauty of the girl who had consented to act the part of my wife, and who could only suppose, “stood in” with us.

At noon, surely enough, came a special invitation to the “Comte et Comtesse de Bourbriac” for the great ball that evening at the Hotel Belle Vue, and at ten o’clock that night Valentine entered our private salon splendidly dressed in a low-cut gown of smoke-grey chiffon covered with sequins. Her hair had been dressed by a maid of the first order, and as she stood pulling on her long gloves she looked superb.

“How do you find me, my dear M’sieur Ewart? Do I look like a Comtesse?” she asked laughing.

“You look perfectly charming, Mademoiselle.”

“Liane, if you please,” she said reprovingly, holding up her slim forefinger. “Liane, Comtesse de Bourbriac, Château de Bourbriac, Côtes du Nord!” and her pretty lips parted, showing her even pearly teeth.

When, half an hour later, we entered the ball-room we found all smart Brussels assembled around a royal prince and his wife who had given their patronage in the cause of charity. The affair was, I saw at a glance, a distinctly society function, for many men from the Ministries were present, and several of the Ambassadors in uniform, together with their staffs, who, wearing their crosses and ribbons, made a brave show, as they do in every ball-room.

We had not been there ten minutes before a tall good-looking young man in a German cavalry uniform strode up in recognition, and bowing low over Valentine’s outstretched hand, said in French:

“My dear Countess! How very delighted we are to have you here with us to-night. You will spare me a dance, will you not? May I be introduced to the Count?”

“My husband—Captain von Stolberg of the German Embassy.”

And we shook hands. Was this fellow the lover, I wondered?

“I met the Countess at Vichy last autumn,” explained the Captain in very good English. “She spoke very often of you. You were away in Scotland shooting the grouse,” he said.

“Yes—yes,” I replied for want of something better to say.

We both chatted with the young attaché for a few minutes, and then, as a waltz struck up, he begged a dance of my “wife,” and they both whirled down the room. Valentine was a splendid dancer, and as I watched them I wondered what could be the nature of the plot in progress.

I did not come across my pretty fellow-traveller for half-an-hour, and then I found that the captain had half filled her programme. Therefore I “laid low,” danced once or twice with uninteresting Belgian matrons, and spent the remainder of the night in the fumoir, until I found my “wife” ready to return to the Grand.

When we were back in the salon at the hotel she asked:

“How do you like the Captain, M’sieur Ewart? Is he not—what you call in English—a duck?”

“An overdressed, swaggering young idiot, I call him,” was my prompt reply.

“And there you are right—quite right my dear M’sieur Ewart. But you see we all have an eye to business in this affair. He will call to-morrow, because he is extremely fond of me. Oh! if you had heard all his pretty love phrases! I suppose he has learnt them out of a book. They couldn’t be his own. Germans are not romantic—how can they be? But he—ah! he is Adonis in the flesh—with corsets!” And we laughed merrily together.

“He thinks you are fond of him—eh?”

“Why, of course. He made violent love to me at Vichy. But he was not attaché then.”

“And how am I to treat him when he calls to-morrow?”

“As your bosom friend. Give him confidence—the most perfect confidence. Don’t play the jealous husband yet. That will come afterwards. Bon soir m’sieur,” and when I had bowed over her soft little hand she turned, and swept out of the room with a loud frou-frou of her silken train.

That night I sat before the fire smoking for a long time. My companions were evidently playing some deep game upon this young German, a game in which neither trouble nor expense was being spared—a game in which the prize was a level thousand pounds apiece all round. I quite appreciated that I had now become an adventurer, but I had done so out of pure love of adventure.

About four o’clock next afternoon the Captain came to take “fif-o’-clock,” as he called it. He clicked his heels together as he bowed over Valentine’s hand, and she smiled upon him even more sweetly than she had smiled at me when I had helped her into my leather motor-coat. She wore a beautiful toilette, one of the latest of Doeillet’s she had explained to me, and really presented a delightfully dainty figure as she sat there pouring out tea, and chatting with the infatuated Captain of Cuirassiers.

I saw quickly that I was not wanted; therefore I excused myself, and went for a stroll along to the Café Métropole, afterwards taking a turn up the Montagne de la Cour. All day I had been on the look-out to see either Bindo or his companions, but they were evidently in hiding.

When I returned, just in time to dress for dinner, I asked Valentine what progress her lover was making, but she merely replied:

“Slow—very slow. But in things of this magnitude one must have patience. We are invited to the Embassy ball in honour of the Crown Prince of Saxony to-morrow night. It will be amusing.”

Next night she dressed in a gown of pale rose chiffon, and we went to the Embassy, where one of the most brilliant balls of the season was in progress King Leopold himself being present to honour the young Crown Prince. Captain Stolberg soon discovered the woman who held him beneath her spell, and I found myself dancing attendance upon the snub-nosed little daughter of a Burgomaster, with whom I waltzed the greater part of the evening. On our return my “wife” told me with a laugh that matters were progressing well. “Otto,” she added, “is such a fool. Men in love will believe any fiction a woman tells them. Isn’t it really extraordinary?”

“Perhaps I’m one of those men, Mademoiselle,” I said looking straight into her beautiful eyes, for I own she had in a measure fascinated me, even though I knew her to be an adventuress.

She burst out laughing in my face.

“Don’t be absurd, M’sieur Ewart,” she cried. “Fancy you! But you certainly wouldn’t fall in love with me. We are only friends—in the same swim, as I believe you term it in English.”

I was a fool. I admit it. But when one is thrown into the society of a pretty woman eve a chauffeur may make speeches he regrets.

So the subject dropped, and with a mock curtsey, and a saucy wave of the hand, she went to her room.

On the following day she went out alone at eleven, not returning until six. She offered no explanation of where she had been, and of course it was not for me to question her. As we sat at dinner in our private salle-à-manger an hour later she laughed at me across the table, and declared that I was sitting as soberly as though I really were her dutiful husband. And next day she was absent again the whole day, while I amused myself in visiting the Law Courts, the picture galleries, and the general sights of the little capital of which Messieurs the brave Belgians are so proud. On her return she seemed thoughtful, even triste. She had been on an excursion somewhere with Otto, but she did not enlighten me regarding its details. I wondered that I had had no word from Bindo. Yet he had told me to obey Valentine’s instructions, and I was now doing so. At dinner she once clenched her little hand involuntarily, and drew a deep breath, showing me that she was indignant at something.

The following morning, as she mentioned that she should be absent all day, I took a run on the car as far as the quaint little town of Dinant, up the Meuse, getting back to dinner.

In the salon she met me, already in her dinner-gown, and told me that she had invited Otto to dine.

“To-night you must show your jealousy. You must leave us together here, in the salon, after dinner, and then a quarter of an hour later return suddenly. I will compromise him. Then you will quarrel violently, order him to leave the hotel, and thus part bad friends.”

I hardly liked to be a party to such a trick, yet the whole plot interested me. I could not see to what material end all this tended.

Well, the gay Captain duly arrived, and we dined together merrily. His eyes were fixed admiringly upon Valentine the whole time and his conversation was mainly reminiscent of the days at Vichy. The meal over, we passed into the salon, and there I left them. But on re-entering shortly afterwards I found him standing behind the couch, bending over and kissing her. She had her arms clasped around his neck so tightly that he could not disengage himself.

In pretended fury I dashed across to the pair with my fists clenched in jealous anger. What I said I scarcely remember. All I know is that I let forth a torrent of reproaches and condemnations, and ended by practically kicking the fellow out of the room, while my “wife” sank upon her knees and implored my forgiveness which I flatly refused.

The Captain took his kicking in silence but in his glance was murder, as he turned once and faced me ere he left the room.

“Well, Valentine,” I asked, when he was safely out of hearing, and when she had raised herself from her knees laughing. “And what now?”

“The whole affair is now plain sailing. To-morrow you will take the car to Liège, and there await me outside the cathedral at midnight on the following night. You will easily find the place. Wait until two o’clock, and if I am not there go on to Cologne, and put up at the Hôtel du Nord.”

“Without baggage?”

“Without baggage. Don’t trouble about anything. Simply go there and wait.”

At midday on the following day the pretty Valentine dressed herself carefully, and went out. Then, an hour later, pretending that I was only going for a short run, I mounted into the car and set out for Liège, wondering what was now to happen.

Next day I idled away, and at a quarter to twelve that night, after a run around the town, I pulled up in the shadow before the cathedral and stopped the engines. The old square was quite quiet, for the good Liègois retire early, and the only sound was the musical carillon of the bells.

In impatience I waited. The silent night was clear, bright, and frosty, with a myriad shining stars above. Time after time the great clock above me chimed the quarters, until just before two o’clock there came a dark female figure round the corner, walking quickly. In an instant I recognised Valentine, who was dressed in a long travelling coat with fur collar, and a sealskin toque. She was carrying something beneath her coat.

“Quick!” she said breathlessly. “Let us get away. Get ready. Count Bindo is following me!” And ere I could start the engines, my employer, in a long dark overcoat and felt hat, hurriedly approached us, saying:

“Come, let’s be off, Ewart. We’ve a long journey to-night to Cassel. We must go through Aix, and pick up Blythe, and then on by way of Cologne, Arnsburg, and the Hoppeke-Tal.”

Quickly they both put on the extra wraps from the car, entered, and wrapped the rugs about them, while two minutes later, with our big head-lamps shedding a broad white light before us, we turned out upon the wide high road to Verviers.

“It’s all right!” cried Bindo, leaning over to me when we had covered about five miles or so. “Everything went off perfectly.”

“And M’sieur made a most model ‘husband,’ I assure you,” declared the pretty Valentine, with a musical laugh.

“But what have you done?” I inquired half turning, but afraid to take my eyes from the road.

“Be patient. We’ll explain everything when we get to Cassel,” responded Valentine. And with that I had to be content.

At the station at Aix we found Blythe awaiting us, and when he had taken the seat beside me we set out by way of Duren to Cologne, and on to Cassel, a long and bitterly cold journey.

It was not until we were dining together late the following night in the comfortable old König von Preussen, at Cassel, that Valentine revealed the truth to me.

“When I met the German at Vichy I was passing as Countess de Bourbriac, and pretending that my husband was in Scotland. At first I avoided him,” she said. “But later on I was told, in confidence, that he was a spy in the service of the War Office in Berlin. Then I wrote to Count Bindo, and he advised me to pretend to reciprocate the fellow’s affections, and to keep a watchful eye for the main chance. I have done so—that’s all.”

“But what was this ‘main chance’?” I asked.

“Why, don’t you see, Ewart,” exclaimed the Count, who was standing by, smoking a cigarette. “The fact that he was in the Intelligence Department in Berlin, and that he had been suddenly appointed military attaché at Brussels, made it plain that he was carrying out some important secret-service work in Belgium. On making inquiries I heard that he was constantly travelling in the country, and, speaking French so well, he was passing himself off as a Belgian. Blythe, in the guise of an English tourist, met him in Boxtel two months ago, and satisfied himself as to the character of the task he had undertaken, a risky but most important one. Then we all agreed that, when completed, the secrets he had possessed himself of should become ours, for the Intelligence Department of either France or England would be certain to purchase them for almost any sum we liked to name, so important were they. About two months we waited for the unsuspecting Otto to complete his work, and then suddenly the Countess reappears, accompanied by her husband. And—well, Valentine, you can best tell Ewart the remainder of the story,” added the audacious scoundrel, replacing his cigarette in his mouth.

“As M’sieur Ewart knows, Captain Stolberg was in love with me, and I pretended to be infatuated with him. The other night he kissed me, and my dear ‘Gaston’ saw it, and in just indignation and jealousy promptly kicked him out. Next day I met him, told him that my husband was a perfect hog, and urged him to take me from him. At first he would not sacrifice his official position as attaché, for he was a poor man. Then we talked money matters, and I suggested that he surely possessed something which he could turn into money sufficient to keep us for a year or two, as I had a small income though not absolutely sufficient for our wants. In fact, I offered, now that he had compromised me in the eyes of my husband, to elope with him. We walked in the Bois de la Cambre for two solid hours that afternoon, until I was footsore, and yet he did not catch on. Then I played another game, declaring that he did not love me sufficiently to make such a sacrifice, and at last taking a dramatic farewell of him. He allowed me to get almost to the gates of the Bois, when he suddenly ran after me, and told me that he had a packet of documents for which he could obtain a large sum abroad. He would take them, and myself, to Berlin by that night’s mail, and then we would go on to St. Petersburg, where he could easily dispose of the mysterious papers. So we met at the station at midnight, and by the same train travelled Bindo and M’sieurs Blythe and Henderson. In the carriage he told me where the precious papers were—in a small leathern hand-bag—and this fact I whispered to Blythe when he brushed past me in the corridor. At Pepinster, the junction for Spa, we both descended to obtain some refreshment, and when we returned to our carriage the Captain glanced reassuringly at his bag. Bindo passed along the corridor, and I knew the truth. Then on arrival at Liege I left the Captain smoking, and strolled to the back end of the carriage, waiting for the train to move off. Just as it did so I sprang out upon the platform, and had the satisfaction of seeing, a moment later, the red tail-lights of the Berlin express disappear. I fancy I saw the Captain’s head out of the window and heard him shout, but next instant he was lost in the darkness.”

“As soon as you had both got out at Pepinster Blythe slipped into the compartment, broke the lock of the bag with a special tool we call ‘the snipper,’ and had the papers in a moment. These he passed on to me, and travelled past Liège on to Aix.”

“Here are the precious plans,” remarked the Count, producing a voluminous packet in a big blue envelope, the seal of which had been broken.

And on opening this he displayed to me a quantity of carefully drawn plans of the whole canal system, and secret defences between the Rhine and the Meuse, the waterway, he explained, which one day Germany, in time of war with England, will require to use in order to get her troops through the port of Antwerp, and the Belgian coast—the first complete and reliable plans ever obtained of the chain of formidable defences that Belgium keeps a profound secret.

What sum was paid to the pretty Valentine by the French Intelligence Department for them I am not aware. I only know that she one day sent me a beautiful gold cigarette-case inscribed with the words “From Liane de Bourbriac,” and inside it was a draft on the London branch of the Credit Lyonnais for eight hundred and fifty pounds.

Captain Otto Stolberg has, I hear, been transferred as attaché to another European capital. No doubt his first thoughts were of revenge, but on mature consideration he deemed it best to keep his mouth closed, or he would have betrayed himself as a spy. The Count had, no doubt, foreseen that. As for Valentine, she actually declares that, after all, she merely rendered a service to her country!

4. A Run with Rosalie

SEVERAL months had elapsed since my adventure with “Valentine of the Beautiful Eyes.”

From Germany Count Bindo di Ferraris had sent me with the car right across Europe to Florence, where, at Nenci’s the builders of motor-bodies, I, in obedience to orders, had it repainted a bright yellow—almost the colour of mustard.

When, a fortnight later, it came out of the Nenci works, I hardly recognised it. At Bindo’s orders I had had a second body built, one made of wicker, and lined inside with glazed white leather, which, when fixed upon the chassis, completely transformed it. This second body I sent by rail down to Leghorn, and then drove the car along the Arno valley, down to the sea-shore.

My orders were to go to the Palace Hotel at Leghorn, and there await my master. The hotel in question was, I found, one of the best in Italy, filled by the smartest crowd of men and women mostly of the Italian aristocracy, who went there for the magnificent sea-bathing. It was a huge white building, with many balconies, and striped awnings, facing the blue Mediterranean.

Valentine had travelled with me as far as Milan, while he had taken train, I believe, to Berlin. At Milan, my pretty companion had wished me adieu, and a month later I had taken up my residence in Leghorn, and there led an idle life, wondering when I was to hear next from Bindo. Before we parted he gave me a fairly large sum of money, and told me to remain at Leghorn until he joined me.

Weeks passed. Leghorn in summer is the Brighton of Italy, and everything there was delightfully gay. In the garage of the hotel were many cars, but not one so good as our 40-h.p. “Napier.” The Italians all admired it and on several occasions I took motoring enthusiasts of both sexes out for short runs along the old Maremma sea-road.

The life I led was one of idleness, punctuated by little flirtations, for by Bindo’s order I was staying at the Palace as owner of the car, and not as a mere chauffeur. The daughters of Italian countesses and marchionesses, though brought up so strictly, are always eager for flirtation, and so as I sat alone at my table in the big salle-à-manger I caught many a glance from black eyes that danced with merry mischievousness.

Valentine, when she left me in Milan, had said, laughingly:

“I may rejoin you again ere long, M’sieur Ewart, but not as your pretended wife, as at Brussels.”

“I hope not, Mademoiselle,” I had answered quite frankly. “That game is a little too dangerous. I might really fall in love with you.”

“With me?” she cried, holding up her small hands in a quick gesture. “What an idea! Oh! la la! Jamais.”

I smiled. Mademoiselle was extremely beautiful. No woman I had ever met possessed such wonderful eyes as hers.

“Au revoir, mon cher,” she said. “And a pleasant time to you till we meet again.” Then as I mounted on the car and traversed the big Piazza del Duomo, before the Cathedral, she waved her hand to me in farewell.

It was, therefore, without surprise that, sitting in the hall of the hotel about five o’clock one afternoon I watched her in an elegant white gown descending the stairs followed by a neat French maid in black.

Quickly I sprang up, bowed, and greeted her in French before a dozen or so of the idling guests.

As we walked across to Pancaldi’s baths she told her new maid to go on in front, and in a few quick words explained.

“I arrived direct from Paris this morning. Here, I am the Princess Helen of Dornbach-Laxenburg of the Ringstrasse, in Vienna, the Schloss Kirchbüchl, on the Drave, and Avenue des Champs Elysées, Paris, a Frenchwoman married to an Austrian. My husband, a man much older than myself, will arrive here in a few days.”

“And the maid?”

“She knows nothing to the contrary. She has been with me only a fortnight. Now you must speak of me in the hotel. Say that you knew me well at Monte Carlo, Rome, Carlsbad, and Aix; that you have stayed at Kirchbüchl, and have dined at our house in Paris. Talk of our enormous wealth and all that, and to-morrow invite me for a run on the car.”

“Very well—Princess,” I laughed. “But what’s the new scheme—eh?”

“At present nothing has been definitely settled. I expect Bindo in a few days, but he will appear to us as a stranger—a complete stranger. At present all I wish to do is to create a sensation you understand. A foreign princess is always popular at once, and I believe my arrival is already known all over the hotel. But it is you who will help me, M’sieur Ewart. You are the wealthy Englishman who is here with his motor-car and who is one of my intimate friends—you understand?”

“Well,” I said with some hesitation. “Don’t you think that all this kind of thing is very risky? Candidly, I expect before very long we shall all find ourselves under arrest.”

She laughed heartily at my fears.

“But, in any case, you would not suffer. You are simply Ewart, the Count’s chauffeur.”

“I know. But at this moment I’m posing here as the owner of the car, and living upon part of the proceeds of that little transaction in the train between Brussels and the German frontier.”

“Ah, mon cher! Never recall the past. It is such a very bad habit. Live for the future; and let the past take care of itself. Just remain perfectly confident that you run no risk in this present affair.”

“What’s your maid’s name?”

“Rosalie Barlet.”

“And she knows nothing?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

I watched the neat-waisted figure in black walking a little distance ahead of us. She was typically Parisienne, with Louis XV. shoes, and a glimpse of smart lingerie as she lifted her skirt daintily. Rather good-looking she was, too, but with a face as bony as most of the women of Paris, and a complexion slightly sallow.

By this time we had arrived at the entrance to the baths, where, on the asphalt promenade, built out into the clear crystal Mediterranean, all smart Leghorn was sitting in chairs, and gossiping beneath the awnings, as Italians love to do.

Pancaldi’s is essentially Italian. English, French, or German visitors are rarely if ever seen, therefore the advent of the Princess, news of whose arrival had spread from mouth to mouth but an hour ago, caused a perceptible flutter among the lounging idlers of both sexes.

My companion was, I saw, admired on every hand, while surprise was being expressed that I should turn out to be a friend of so very distinguished a person.

In the brilliant sundown, with just a refreshing breath of air coming across the glassy sea, we sat watching the antics of the swimmers and the general merriment in the water. I lit a cigarette and gossiped with her in French, ostentatiously emphasising the words “your Highness” when I addressed her, for the benefit of those passing and re-passing behind us.

For an hour she remained, and then returning to the hotel, dressed, and dined. As she sat with me at table that night in the handsome restaurant, she looked superb, in pale turquoise chiffon, with a single row of diamonds around her throat. Paste they were, of course, but none of the women who sat with their eyes upon her even dreamed that they were anything but the family jewels of the princely house of Dornbach-Laxenburg. Her manner and bearing were distinctly that of a patrician, and I saw that all in the hotel were dying to know her.

Yes. Her Highness was already a great success.

About ten o’clock she put on a wrap and, as is usual with the guests at the Palace at Leghorn, we went for a brief stroll along the promenade.

As soon as we were entirely alone she said:

“To-morrow you will take me for a run on the car, and the next day you will introduce me to one or two of the best people. I will discover who are the proper persons for me to know. I shall say that you are George Ewart, eldest son of a member of the English Parliament, and well known in London—eh?”

As we were walking in the shadow through the small leafy public garden lying between the roadway and the sea we suddenly encountered the figure of a young woman who, in passing, saluted my companion with deep respect. It was Rosalie.

“She’s wandering here alone, and watching for me to re-enter the hotel,” remarked Valentine. “But she need not follow me like this, I think.”

“No,” I said. “Somehow, I don’t like that girl.”

“Why not? She’s all right. What more natural than she should be on the spot to receive me when I come in?”

“But you don’t want to be spied upon like this, surely!” I said resentfully. “Have you done anything to arouse her suspicions that you are not—well, not exactly what you pretend yourself to be?”

“Nothing whatever; I have been a model of discretion. She never even went to the Avenue Kléber. I was staying for two nights at the Grand—under my present title—and after engaging her I told her that the house in the Avenue des Champs Elysées was in the hands of decorators.”

“Well, I don’t half like her following us. She may have overheard something of what we’ve just been saying—who knows?”

“Rubbish! Ah! mon cher ami, you are always scenting danger where there is none.”

I merely shrugged my shoulders, but my opinion remained. There was something mysterious about Rosalie—what it was I could not make out.

At ten o’clock next morning her Highness met me in the big marble hall of the hotel, dressed in the smartest motor-clothes, with a silk dust-coat and the latest invention in veils—pale blue with long ends twisted several times around her throat. Even in that costume she looked dainty and extremely charming.

I, too, was altered in a manner that certainly disguised my true calling; and when I brought the car round to the front steps, quite a crowd of visitors gathered to see her climb to the seat beside me, wrap the lug around her skirts, and start away.

With a deep blast on the horn I swept out of the hotel grounds to the left, and a few moments later we were heading away along the broad sea-road through the pretty villages of Ardenza and Antignano, out into that wild open country that lies between Leghorn and the wide deadly marshes of the fever-stricken Maremma. The road we were travelling was the old road to Rome, for two hundred miles along it—a desolate, dreary and uninhabited way—lay the Eternal City. Over that self-same road on the top of the brown rocks the conquering Roman legions marched to Gaul, and war-chariots once ran where now sped motor-cars. Out there in those great solitudes through which we were passing nothing has changed since the days of Nero and of the Caesars.

Twenty-five miles into the country we ran, and then pulled up to smoke and chat. She was fond of a cigarette, and joined me, laughing merrily at the manner in which we were so completely deceiving the gay world of Leghorn. The local papers that morning had announced that her Highness the Princess Helen of Dornbach-Laxenburg, one of the most beautiful women in Europe, had “descended” at the Palace Hotel, and had been seen at Pancaldi’s later in the afternoon.

“As soon as I came down this morning I was pounced upon for information,” I explained. “A young Italian Marquis, who has hitherto snubbed me, begged that I would tell him something concerning her Highness. He is deeply smitten with your beauty, that’s very evident,” I laughed.

“My beauty! You are really incorrigible, M’sieur Ewart,” she answered reprovingly, as she blew the tobacco-smoke from her lips. “And what, pray, is the name of this admirer?”

“The Marquis of Rapallo—the usual hard-up but well-dressed elegant, you know. He wears two fresh suits of white linen a day, with socks to match his ties. Last night he sat at the table next to us, and couldn’t keep his eyes off you—a rather short fellow with a little black moustache turned upwards.”

“Ah, yes, I recollect,” she replied, and then I thought that her countenance changed. “And so he’s been inquiring about me? Well, let’s run back to déjeuner—or collazione, as they call it here in Italy, I believe.”

An hour later we drew up again at the hotel, and her Highness disappeared within. Then, after I had taken the car to the garage in the rear, and entered the hotel myself, I quickly became surrounded by people who wanted introductions to my charming acquaintance, and to whom I romanced about her wealth, her position, and her home surroundings.

On the following day Valentine allowed me to introduce her to four persons—an Italian marchioness who moved in the most exclusive Roman set, the wife of a Sicilian Duke, the wife of Jacobi, the wealthy Jew banker of Turin, and a Captain of Bersaglieri.

One night a lonely but well-dressed stranger entered the restaurant and seated himself in a corner almost unnoticed, save by Valentine and myself. The newcomer was the audacious Bindo, passing as Mr. Bellingham, an Englishman, but he gave us no sign of recognition. Indeed, the days went on, but he never approached either of us. He simply idled about the hotel, or across at Pancaldi’s, having picked up one or two acquaintances, kindred spirits in the art of graceful idling. He never even wrote me a note.

Some deep game was in progress, but its nature I was entirely unable to gather.

Now, truth to tell, I experienced a growing uneasiness concerning Rosalie. To me, she was always the modest maid devoted to her Highness, and yet I thought I once detected a glance of mischief in her dark eyes. Determined to discover all I could, I at once commenced a violent flirtation with her, unknown, of course, to Valentine.

Mademoiselle seemed flattered by the attentions of one whom she believed to be an English gentleman. Therefore I met her out one evening and took her for a long walk, pretending to be deeply smitten by her charms. From the first moment I began to talk with her I saw that she was not the shallow giddy girl I had believed her to be. She, no doubt appreciated my attentions, for I took her to a café on the opposite side of the town where we should not be recognised, and there we sat a long time chatting. She seemed extremely curious to know who I really was, yet the queries she put to me were just a trifle blundering. They betrayed an earnest desire to know more than I intended that she should know.

“I wish her Highness would go back to Aix-les-Bains, or to Vichy, or to Luchon. I’m tired of this wretched hole where I know nobody,” she complained presently. “I had quite sufficient of Italy when I was with the Duchess of Pandolfini. I did not know we were coming here, otherwise I should not have accepted the engagement, and yet—well, the Princess is very kind and considerate.”

“She certainly is to her friends, and I hope the same to her servants,” I said; and then we rose to walk back, for it was nearly eleven, and her Highness, who had gone to the Opera with two of the ladies to whom I had introduced her, would soon be due back, and the dainty Rosalie must be there to receive her.

On our walk across the town I flattered her, pretending to be her devoted admirer, but when I left her I felt more convinced than ever upon three points—namely, that she was much older than twenty-two, as she had declared, that she was unduly inquisitive; and that she certainly was no fool.

That night I sent my master a note to his room warning him to be wary of her, and on the following morning I told her Highness my suspicions.

From that moment I made it my object in life to keep a watchful eye upon the new French maid. Each evening after her services were no longer required she went forth alone and wandered idly up and down the esplanade. Sometimes she walked out to Ardenza, a village a mile and a half distant, halted always at the same stone seat in the little public garden and then strolled back again, in blissful ignorance of being so closely watched.

If Rosalie had any suspicion that Valentine was not the Princess Helen, then there was, I foresaw, a grave and constant danger. And I, for one, did not intend to run any further risk.

Her Highness had been in Leghorn just over three weeks, and had become intensely popular everywhere, being invited to the houses of many of the principal residents, when one night an incident occurred which afforded me grave food for reflection.

Just after ten o’clock at night I had followed Rosalie along by the sea to Ardenza, where she was sitting alone upon her usual seat in a secluded spot, at the edge of the public garden on a kind of small promontory that ran in a semi-circle out to the sea. Behind her was a dark thicket of azaleas, and in front the calm moonlit Mediterranean.

I was standing back in the shadow at a spot where I had often stood before when, after about five minutes, I saw the tall dark figure of a man in a grey deer-stalker hat join her, and sit down unceremoniously at her side.

As soon as they met she began to tell him some long story, to which the stranger listened without comment. Then he seemed to question her closely, and they remained together fully a quarter of an hour, until at last they rose and parted, she walking calmly back to the hotel.

Was it possible that the dainty Rosalie was a spy?

When I got half way back to the Palace I regretted deeply that I had not followed the stranger and ascertained whom he might be. Next day I told Valentine, but she merely smiled, saying that Rosalie could know nothing, and the fellow was probably some secret lover. The next night, and the next, I watched, until, on the third evening, they met again at the same time and place, and on that occasion I followed the mysterious stranger. He was a thin, cadaverous-looking Frenchman, hollow-cheeked, rather shabbily dressed, and wore pince-nez. I watched him back into the town and lingered near him in a café until nearly one o’clock, when he entered his quarters at an uninviting, unfashionable and animating hotel, the “Falcon,” in the Via Vittorio. From the manner he had treated her I judged him to be a relation, probably her uncle. Yet why she should meet him clandestinely was an utter mystery.

In order still to keep watch upon the maid I made a fervent protest of affection, and frequently met her between the dinner hour and midnight. Through all this time, however, Bindo never gave a sign, even in secret, that he was acquainted with Valentine or myself, and this very fact in itself aroused my suspicions that he knew our movements were being closely watched.

Meanwhile, Princess Helen, who had become the most popular figure in Leghorn, and had given her patronage to several functions in the cause of charity, went out a great deal, and I accompanied her very frequently to the best houses.

“Poor Bindo is having a pretty quiet time, I fear,” she laughed to me one day in her easy irresponsible way. “He is lying low.”

“Waiting for the coup—eh?”

She smiled, but would, even then, tell me nothing.

Among the most devoted of her admirers was the Jew banker of Turin, named Jacobi, and his wife, a stout, vulgar, over-dressed person, who was constantly dancing attendance upon her “dear Princess,” as she called her. Valentine rather liked her, or pretended to, for on several occasions she lent her Rosalie to dress her hair. Jacobi himself was, it seemed on friendly terms with Bindo. Sometimes I saw the pair strolling together at Pancaldi’s, and once the young Marquis of Rapallo was with them.

One hot, stifling night, a brilliant ball was held, arranged at the Princess’s instigation, in the cause of charity. All the smart world attended, and dancing was almost at an end when Bindo met me alone out upon one of the balconies.

“Go and change at once,” he whispered. “Take the car out of the town beyond the railway-station, a little way on the Pisa road. There wait, but attract no attention.” And the next instant he had re-entered the ball-room, and was making his most elegant bow over a lady’s hand.

Wondering what was the nature of the coup, I presently slipped away to my room, but as I walked along the corridor I felt almost certain that I saw Rosalie’s black skirts flouncing round the corner. It was as though I had discovered her on the wrong floor, and that she had tried to escape me. The movements of that girl were so constantly suspicious.

I threw off my evening-clothes, and putting on a rough suit, an overcoat, and motor cap, went down the back staircase and along to the garage, where, amid the coming and going of the cars, of departing guests, I was able to run out without being noticed.

Ten minutes later I was outside the town, and drawing up in the dark lonely road that leads across the plain for fifteen miles to quaint old Pisa, I got down and examined my tyres, pretending I had a puncture should anyone become too inquisitive. Glancing at my watch I found it was already twenty minutes to two. The moon was overcast, and the atmosphere stifling and oppressive, precursory of a thunderstorm.

Each minute seemed an hour. Indeed I grew so nervous that I felt half-inclined to escape upon the car. Yet if I left that spot I might leave my audacious friend in the lurch, and in peril of arrest most likely.

It was close upon half-past two, as nearly as I could judge, when I heard a quick footstep in the road. I took off one of the acetylene head-lamps of the car and turned it in that direction in order to ascertain who was coming along.

A woman in a dark stiff dress and wearing a veil approached quickly. A moment later, to my mingled surprise and dismay, I saw it was none other than the dainty Rosalie herself, in a very admirable disguise, which gave her an appearance of being double her age.

“Ah! Monsieur!” she gasped, quite out of breath from walking so rapidly. “Drive me at once to Pisa. Don’t lose a single instant. The Paris express passes at four minutes past three, and I must catch it. The last train left here three hours ago.”

“You—alone?”

“Yes. I go alone.”

“But—well, let us speak quite frankly. Is no one else coming?” I inquired.

“Non, M’sieur. You will take me to Pisa at once, please,” she said impatiently.

So perforce I had to mount into the car, and when she had settled herself beside me, I drew off upon the dark and execrable road to the city she had indicated in order to catch the Rome-Paris express.

Was it all a trap, I wondered? What had occurred? I dared not ask her anything, while, she, on her part, preserved an absolute silence. Her only fear seemed lest she lost her train. That something had occurred was very evident, but of its nature I still remained in entire ignorance, even when, a short distance from the great echoing station, I dropped the chic little maid with whom I had for the past three weeks pretended to be so violently in love. On getting down she told me to await her. She would be only a few minutes. This surprised me, as I thought she was leaving for Paris.

She hurried away, and as I watched her going down the road towards the station I saw the dark figure of a man emerge from the shadow and join her. For a moment he became silhouetted against the station lights, and I recognised that it was her mysterious friend.

Five minutes later she rejoined me. Then, on turning back, I was forced to remain at the level-crossing until the Paris express, with its long wagon-lit, had roared past, and afterwards I put on a move, and we were soon back in Leghorn. She did not return to the hotel with me, but at her request I dropped her just before we entered the town.

Morning revealed the startling truth. Three women, occupying adjacent rooms, had lost the greater part of their valuable jewels which they had had sent from home on purpose to wear at the ball. The police were ferreting about the hotel questioning everybody. There was commotion everywhere, and loud among those expressing amazement at the audaciousness of the thief were both Bindo and her Highness, the latter declaring herself lucky that no attempt had been made to secure any of her own valuable jewels.

At noon I took her for a run on the car in order to have an opportunity to chat. When we were alone on the road she said—

“You entertained a foolish but quite reasonable suspicion of Rosalie. She and Kampf, the man you saw her with, always work together. They indeed suggested this present little affair, for they knew that Italian women bring lots of jewellery here, in order to show it off. Besides, hotels are their speciality. So there seemed to Bindo no reason why we should not have a little of the best of it. The diamond necklace of the Signora Jacobi is well known to be one of the finest in all Italy; therefore, on several occasions, I lent her Rosalie for hair-dressing, and she, clever girl, very soon discovered where all the best of the stuff was kept. Bindo, in the meantime, was keeping his keen eye open in other quarters. Last night, when the Jewess went up to her room, she found her own maid had gone to bed very unwell, and the faithful Rosalie had, at my orders, taken her place. ‘How kind it was of the dear Princess,’ she said! When Rosalie left the room she carried with her the necklace, together with several other trifles which she had pretended to lock in the jewel-case. Ten minutes later Bindo also slipped into her hands all that he had obtained in a swift raid in two other rooms during the dance, and she left the hotel carrying away gems worth roughly, we believe, about sixteen thousand pounds sterling. Kampf was awaiting her in Pisa, and by this time is already well on his way to the frontier at Modane, with the precious packet in his pocket.”

“And there is really no suspicion upon us?” I asked apprehensively.

“Certainly not. Not a soul knows that Rosalie left the hotel last night. She re-entered by a window Bindo left open.”

“But the garage people know that I was out,” I said.

“Well, and what of that? You have had no hand in it, have you, mon cher? No. We shall remain here another week. It is quite pleasant here—and quite safe. To leave might arouse suspicion.”

“Have not the police questioned Rosalie?”

“Certainly. But they have no suspicion of the maid of Princess Helen of Dornbach-Laxenburg. How could they? Especially as the Prefect and his wife were my guests at dinner last night!”

“Well,” I declared, “the way the whole affair has been managed is perfectly artistic.”

“Of course,” she said. “We do not blunder. Only poor people and fools do that.”

5. The Six New Novels

THE car had again undergone a transformation.

With a new racing-body, built in Northampton, and painted in white picked out with gilt, no one would have recognised it as the car which had carried away the clever jewel-thief from Bond Street.

Since the adventure at Leghorn I had seen nothing of La Belle Valentine. With Bindo, however, I had driven the car across from Rome to Calais by way of Ventimiglia and Marseilles, and, after crossing the Channel I had gone alone to Northampton, and there awaited the making of the smart new racing-body.

Count Bindo di Ferraris, who seemed ever on the move with an eye open for “a good thing,” wrote me from Ilfracombe, Southampton, Manchester, Perth, Aberdeen, and other places, remitting me the necessary money, and urging me to push on the work, as he wanted the car again immediately.

At last, when it was finished, I drove it to a garage I knew at the back of Regent Street, and that same evening met him at the Automobile Club. At his request, I dressed smartly and gave no outward appearance of the chauffeur; therefore he invited me to dine, and afterwards, while we sat alone in a corner of the smoking-room, he began to unfold a series of plans for the future. They were, however, hazy, and only conveyed to me an idea that we were going on a long tour in England.

I ventured to remark that to be in England, after the little affair in Bond Street, might be somewhat dangerous. He replied, however, with his usual nonchalant air:

“My dear Ewart, there’s not the slightest fear. Act as I bid, and trust in me. To-morrow, at eleven, we go north together—into Yorkshire. You will be my servant again after to-night. You understand—eh?”

“Perfectly. Shall we start from here?”

“Yes. But before we set out I can only warn you that you’ll want all your wits about you this time. If we have luck, we shall bring off a big thing—a very big thing.”

“And if we have no luck?”

“Well—well, we shan’t bring it off—that’s all,” he laughed.

“Where are we going?”

“Yorkshire. To spend a week at the seaside. It will do us both good. I’ve decided that the Scarborough air will be extremely beneficial to us. One of our friends is already there—at the Grand.”

“Sir Charles?”

“Exactly. He’s very fond of Scarborough—likes the church parade on Sundays, the music on the Spa, and all that kind of thing. So we’ll join him. I wonder if we shall get through in a day?”

“We ought to—with luck,” was my response, and then, after urging me to leave everything in his hands, he told me that I’d better get early to bed, and thoroughly overhaul the car early next morning before starting.

So next day at ten he took his seat by my side outside the club in Piccadilly, and we drove away into the traffic towards Regent’s Park on our way to that much overrated highway, the Great North Road. The day was warm and dusty, and as it was a Saturday there were police traps out everywhere. Therefore progress was slow for I was forced at every few miles to slow down to escape a ten-pound fine.

Leafy Hatfield, crooked Hitchin, quaint old Stamford, we passed until we swung into the yard of “The Angel” that antique and comfortable hotel well known to all motorists at Grantham, where we had a hasty meal.

Then out again in the sunset, we headed through Doncaster to York, and in the darkness, with our big head-lamps shining we tore through Malton and slipped down the hill into Scarborough. The run had been a long and dusty one, the last fifty miles in darkness and at a high speed, therefore when we pulled up before the Grand I leaned heavily upon the steering-wheel, weary and fagged.

It was about eleven o’clock at night and Sir Charles, who had evidently been expecting our arrival in the big hall of the hotel, rushed out and greeted Bindo effusively. Then, directed by a page-boy who sat in the Count’s seat, I took the car round to Hutton’s garage, close by.

With Sir Charles I noticed another man, young, with very fair hair, a mere boy, he seemed—in evening clothes of the latest cut. When I returned to the hotel I saw them all seated in the big hall over whiskies and sodas, laughing merrily together. It was late, and all the other guests had retired.

Next day Bindo took the young man, whose name I discovered to be Paul Clayton, for a run on the car to Bridlington. Bindo drove, and I sat upon the step. The racing-body gave the “forty” a rakish appearance, and each time we went up and down the Esplanade, or across the Valley Bridge, we created considerable interest. After lunch we went on to Hornsea, and returned to Scarborough at tea-time.

That same evening, after dinner, I saw Bindo’s new friend walking on the Esplanade with a fair-haired, well-dressed young girl. They were deep in conversation, and it struck me that she was warning him regarding something.

Days passed—warm, idle August days. Scarborough was full of visitors. The Grand was overrun by a smartly-dressed crowd, and the Spa was a picturesque sight during the morning promenade. The beautiful “Belvedere” grounds were a blaze of roses, and, being private property, were regarded with envy by thousands who trod the asphalt of the Esplanade. Almost daily Bindo took Paul for a run on the car. To York, to Castle Howard, to Driffield, and to Whitby we went—the road to the last-named place, by the way, being execrable. Evidently Bindo’s present object was to ingratiate himself with young Clayton but with what ulterior motive I could not conceive.

Sir Charles remained constantly in the background. Well-dressed and highly respectable, he presented a rather superior air, and walked on the Spa at certain hours, establishing a kind of custom from which he did not depart. He had now changed his name to Sinclair, while Bindo di Ferraris went under the less foreign cognomen of Albert Cornforth. I alone kept my own name, George Ewart.

As day succeeded day, I kept wondering what was really in the wind. Why were they so friendly with Paul Clayton? Of one fact I felt assured, and it was that jewels were not the object of the manoeuvre on this occasion. That Bindo and his friends had laid some deep plot was, of course, quite certain, but the Count never took me into his confidence until the last moment, when the coup was made. Therefore, try how I would, I could not discover the intentions of the gang.

From Leghorn to Scarborough is a far cry. At least we were safe from detection for all our little business affairs, save that of the Bond Street jewellers. Continually I reflected that our description had been circulated by the police, and that some enterprising constable or detective might pick upon us on the off-chance of being correct.

Count Bindo or Albert Cornforth, as he now chose to be known was having a most excellent time. He soon grew to know many people in the hotel, and being so essentially a ladies’ man was greatly in request at the dances. Continually he apologised to the ladies for being unable to take them motoring, but, as he explained the space on a racing car is limited.

Thus a fortnight passed. Round at the garage were a number of cars from London, Manchester and elsewhere and I soon grew friendly with several expert chauffeurs, two of whom were old friends.

One day Bindo and I had been to Harrogate, dined at the Majestic, and returned. After taking the car to the garage I went out for a turn along the Esplanade, in order to stretch my legs. It was midnight, brightly starlit, and silent save for the low soughing of the waves upon the shore. I had lit my pipe and walked nearly to the Holbeck Gardens at the extreme end of the South Cliff when, in the darkness, I discerned of two figures sitting upon a seat in the shadow. One was a man, and the other a woman in a light evening dress, with a wrap thrown over her head and shoulders. As I passed I managed to get a glimpse of their faces. One was Paul Clayton and the other the pretty, fair-haired young woman I had seen him with before. They were sitting in the attitude of lovers. He held her hand and, I believe, had just raised it to his lips.

I hurried on, annoyed with myself for being so inquisitive. But the beautiful face of the girl became impressed upon my memory.

Count Bindo, the nonchalant, audacious cosmopolitan, who spent money so freely, was a veritable marvel of cleverness and cunning in all matters of chicanery and fraud. He was evidently a man who, though still young, had a pretty dark record. But what it really was he carefully concealed from me. I can only admit that I had now become an adventurer like the others, for in each case I had received a certain portion of the profits of the coups which we had assisted each other in effecting. True, we lived a life full of excitement and change, but it was a life I liked, for at heart I was nothing if not a wanderer and adventurer. I liked adventure for adventure’s sake, and cared nothing for the constant peril of detection. Strange how easily one can be enticed from a life of honesty into one of fraud, especially if the inducements held out are an adequate recompense for any qualm of conscience.

The actions of our friend, Sir Charles Blythe, were also rather puzzling. He seemed to be taking no part in whatever scheme was in progress. If I met him in public on the Esplanade, or elsewhere, I saluted him as a chauffeur should, but when we met unobserved I was his equal and on several occasions I made inquiries which he refused to satisfy.

We had been nearly three weeks in Scarborough when, after dinner, one evening in the big hall of the hotel I saw the audacious Bindo seated drinking coffee with a little queer, wizen-faced but rather over-dressed old lady, towards whom he seemed to be particularly polite. She was evidently one of those wrinkled, yellow-toothed old tabbies who still believe themselves to be attractive, for, as I watched covertly, I saw how she assumed various poses for the benefit of those seated in her vicinity. Though so strikingly dressed, in a gown trimmed with beautiful old lace, she wore no jewellery, save her wedding-ring. Her airs and mannerisms were, however, amusing, and quickly made it apparent that she moved in a good set.

From the hall-porter I presently learned that she was a Mrs. Clayton, of St. Mellions Hall, near Peterborough, the widow of a wealthy Oldham cotton-spinner, who generally spent a month at that hotel each year.

“She’s a quaint old girl,” he informed me in confidence. “Thinks no end of herself, and always trying to hang on to some woman with a title, even if she’s only a knight’s wife. Some ill-natured woman has nicknamed her the Chameleon—because she changes her dresses so often and is so fond of bright colours. But she’s a good old sort,” he added. “Always pretty free with her tips. Her son is here, too.”

Whoever or whatever she was, it was evident that Bindo was busily engaged ingratiating himself with her, having previously established a firm friendship with her son, who, by the way, had left Scarborough on the previous day.

I happened to have a friend who was chauffeur to a doctor in Peterborough, therefore I wrote to him that evening, making inquiries regarding St. Mellions and its owner. Three days later a reply came to the effect that the Hall was about ten miles from Peterborough, and one of the finest country seats in Northamptonshire. It had been the property of a well-known Earl who, having become impoverished by gambling, had sold it together with the great estate, to old Joshua Clayton, the Lancashire millionaire. “She keeps a couple of cars,” my friend concluded. “One is a Humber voiturette, and the other a twenty-four Mercedes. You know her chauffeur—Saunders—from the Napier works.”

Of course I knew Saunders. He was once a very intimate friend of mine, but for the past couple of years I had lost sight of him.

Why, I wondered, was Bindo so intensely interested in the over-dressed old crone? He walked with her constantly on the Spa or along the Esplanade; he lounged at her side when she sat to watch the parading summer girls and their flirtations, and he idled at coffee with her every evening. After a few days Sir Charles Blythe, alias Sinclair, was introduced. By pre-arrangement the bogus baronet chanced to be standing by the railings looking over the Spa grounds one morning when Bindo and his companion strolled by. The men saluted each other, and Bindo asked Mrs. Clayton’s leave to introduce his friend. The instant the magic title was spoken the old lady became full of smiles and graces, and the trio walking together passed along in the direction of Holbeck.

Two days later Henderson appeared on the scene quite suddenly. I was walking along Westborough late one evening when somebody accosted me, and, turning, I found it was our friend—whom I believed to be still on the Continent. He was dressed as foppishly as usual, and certainly betrayed no evidence that he was a “crook.”

“Well, Ewart?” he asked. “And how goes things? Who’s this old crone we’ve got in tow? A soft thing, Bindo says.”

I told him all I knew concerning her, and he appeared to be reassured. He had taken a room at the Grand, he told me and I afterwards found that on the following morning Bindo pretended to discover him at the hotel and introduced him to the unsuspecting old lady as young Lord Kelham. Mrs. Clayton was delighted at thus extending her acquaintanceship with England’s bluest blood.

That same afternoon the old lady, who seemed to be of a rather sporting turn of mind, expressed a desire to ride upon a racing-car; therefore I brought round the forty, and Bindo drove her over to Malton, where we had tea, and a quick run back in the evening. There are no police-traps on the road between Scarborough and York, therefore we were able to put on a move, and the old lady expressed the keenest delight at going so fast. As I sat upon the step at her feet she seemed constantly alarmed lest I should fall off.

“My own cars never go so quickly,” she declared. “My man drives at snail’s pace.”

“Probably because you have traps in Northamptonshire,” Bindo replied. “There are always lurking constables along the Great North Road and the highways leading into it. But you must let me come and take your driver’s place for a little while. If the cars are worth anything at all I’ll get the last mile out of them.”

“I only wish you would come and pay me a visit, Mr. Cornforth. I should be so very delighted. Do you shoot?”

“A little,” Bindo answered. “My friend, Sir Charles Sinclair, is said to be one of the best shots in England. But I’m not much of a shot myself.”

“Then can’t you persuade him to come with you?”

“Well, I’ll ask him,” my employer replied. “He has very many engagements however. He’s so well known, you see.”

“He’ll come if you persuade him I’m sure,” the old lady said, with what she believed to be a winning smile. “You can drive my Mercedes, and he can shoot. I always have a house-party through September, so you both must join it. I’ll make you as comfortable as I can in my humble house. Paul will be at home.”

“Humble, Mrs. Clayton? Why, I have years ago heard St. Mellions spoken of as one of the show-houses of the Midlands.”

“Then you’ve heard an exaggeration, my dear Mr. Cornforth,” was her response, as she laughed lightly. “Remember, I shall expect you, and you can bring your own car if you like. Our roads are fairly good, you’ll find.”

Bindo accepted with profuse thanks, and shot me a glance by which I knew that he had advanced one step further towards the consummation of his secret intentions—whatever they were. Sir Charles would, no doubt, go with us. What, I wondered, was intended?

Three weeks later we arrived one evening at St. Mellions, and found it a magnificent old Tudor mansion, in the centre of a lordly domain, and approached from the high road by a great beech avenue nearly a mile in length. The older wing of the house—part of an ancient Gothic abbey—was ivy-covered, while in front of the place was a great lake, originally the fish-pond of the Carmelite monks.

It wanted an hour before dinner when we arrived, and at sound of our horn nearly a dozen men and women of the house-party came forth to greet us.

“They seem a pretty smart crowd,” remarked Bindo under his breath to Sir Charles, seated beside him.

“Yes, but we’ll want all our wits about us,” replied the other. “I hear that the wife of Gilling, the jeweller in Bond Street, is here with her daughter. Suppose her husband takes it into his head to run down here for the week-end—eh?”

“We won’t suppose anything of the sort, my dear fellow. I always hate supposing. It’s a bad habit when you’ve got your living to earn, as we have.”

And with those words he ran along to the main entrance, and pulled up sharply, being greeted by our hostess herself, who, in a cream serge dress, stood upon the steps and shouted us a warm welcome.

My two friends were quickly introduced by Paul to the assembled party, while several of the men came around the car to admire it, one of them questioning me as to its horse-power, its make, and other details, inquiries which showed his ignorance. Round in the garage I found my friend Saunders, and later on he took me over the splendid old place, filled as it was with the relics of the noble but now decadent English family.

My eyes and ears were open everywhere. The house-party, numbering eighteen, consisted mostly of the parvenu set, people who having made money by trade were attempting to pass as county families. The men possessed for the most part the air of “the City” and the womenkind were painfully “smart” without the good breeding necessary to carry it off.

After dinner, under the guidance of Saunders, I managed to get a glimpse of the great hall, where the party had assembled for coffee. It was a fine, lofty oak-panelled old place, once the refectory of the monks, with great Gothic windows of stained glass, antique cabinets, and stands of armour. Against the dark oak, from floor to ceiling, the dresses of the women showed well, and, amid the laughter and chatter, I saw the gay careless Bindo—a well set-up, manly figure in his evening clothes—standing beside his hostess, chatting and laughing with her, while Sir Charles was bending over the chair of a pretty fair-haired girl in turquoise, whom I recognised as the same girl I had seen with Paul at Scarborough. Her name was Ethel Gilling, Saunders said, and told me that young Clayton was, in secret, deeply in love with her. Would her father arrive and put a premature end to our conspiracy? I feared that he might.

Saunders asked me a good deal about my berth and position, and I fancy he envied me. He did not know that I had become a “crook” like my master, but believed me to be a mere chauffeur whose duties took him hither and thither across Europe. No chauffeur can bear private service with a cheap car in a circumscribed area. Every man who drives a motor-car—whether master or servant—longs for wide touring and a high-power.

Contrary to Bindo’s declaration, he proved to be a very good shot, while Sir Charles provoked the admiration of all the men when, next morning, they went forth in search of birds. That same afternoon Bindo drove the Mercedes containing Mrs. Clayton and three ladies of the party, while I drove one of the men—a Captain Halliday—in our own car, and we all went over to the ruins of Crowland Abbey. Saunders had told me that he had never driven the Mercedes to her full power, as his mistress was so nervous. But, with Bindo driving, the old lady now seemed to want to go faster and faster. Our car was, of course, the more powerful, and ere we had gone ten miles I put on full speed, and passed my master with ease, arriving at Crowland fully twenty minutes before him.

It was, however, very apparent that Bindo, the good-looking adventurer, had wormed himself entirely into the Chameleon’s good graces. Both he and Halliday escorted the ladies over the ruins, and after tea at the old-fashioned “George” we made a quick and enjoyable run home in the sunset by way of Eye, Peterborough, Castor, and Wansford.

The autumn days went by, and, amid such pleasant surroundings, our visit was proving a most merry one. Yet, try how I would, I could not see what Bindo and his friend intended.

The girl in turquoise who flirted so outrageously with young Clayton was, I discovered, also very friendly with Sir Charles. Then I saw that his partiality towards her was with a distinct object—namely, in order to be aware of her father’s movements.

Truly, Bindo and Blythe were past-masters in the art of genteel scoundrelism. Adventurers of the very first water, they seldom, if ever, let me into their secrets until their plans were actually matured. Their reason for this reticence was that they believed I might show the white feather. They could not yet rely upon my audacity or courage.

Within a week Bindo was the most popular man in the house-party, the humorist of the dinner-table, and an expert in practical jokes, of which many were being played, one half the party being pitted against the other half, as is so often the case.

In the servants’ hall we were also having a pretty merry time. Medhurst, the maid of Mrs. Clayton, was a particularly prepossessing young woman, and I had many chats and a few walks with her. From her, at Bindo’s instigation, I learned a good deal regarding her mistress’s habits and tastes, all of which I, in due course, reported to my master. A shrewd girl was Medhurst, however, and I was compelled to exercise a good deal of judicious tact in putting my questions to her.

One evening, however, while sitting alone in the park smoking, just before going to bed, I saw Bindo himself strolling at her side. She was speaking softly, but what about I could not make out. They were in a part of the park into which the guests never went, and it seemed as though she had kept a secret tryst. Not wishing to disturb them, I slipped away unobserved.

Next morning Paul Clayton went up to London in order to see his mother’s solicitors, and that same afternoon, about four o’clock, Mrs. Clayton received a very urgent telegram to come at once, as her lawyers desired some instructions immediately. The message she received evidently caused her very great anxiety, for she took Medhurst, and drove in the Mercedes to Peterborough station, where she caught the up-express at seven o’clock.

She had apologised to her house-party for her absence, explained the urgency of her presence in London, and promised to be back in time for dinner on the morrow.

She left the Hall at half-past six. At seven Bindo called me out of the servants’ hall and whispered:

“Hold yourself in readiness. Go to my room at nine punctually, and you’ll find on the table half-a-dozen novels done up in a strap. Just take them carefully, put them in the car, and then get away, first to Northampton to change the body, and the to Harwich. Wait for me there at the Great Eastern Hotel, in the name of Parker. Take great care of the books. I shall give you other instructions before people presently, but take no notice of them. I’ll join you as soon as it’s safe.

And with that he turned upon his heel and left me.

The dressing-gong was just sounding as I walked across to the garage in order to look through the car and charge the lamps, prior to my night journey. I was wondering what was about to happen. That some coup was to be made that night was very evident. I spent half-an-hour on the car, and had all in order, when a servant came to say that my master wanted me.

I found Bindo in the hall, laughing gaily with some ladies, prior to going in to dinner.

“Oh, Ewart,” he said, when I entered, cap in hand. “I want you to run the car over to Birmingham to-night, and bring Colonel Fielding here to-morrow. You know where he lives—at Welford Park. He’s expecting you. The roads are all right, so you’ll make good time. You’d better get a couple of outer covers too, when you’re there. You’ll bring the Colonel back in time for dinner to-morrow—you understand!”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, and, bowing, went out, while with the ladies he turned in the direction of the dining-room.

I idled about until the stable clock was just on the point of striking nine, when I made my way by the servants’ staircase to my master’s room. The corridor was in semi-darkness. I rapped, but there being no one there, I entered, switched on the light, and there upon the table found the small pile of new, cloth-bound six-shilling novels, held together with a strap of webbing, such as lawyers use to tie up their papers.

I took them up, switched off the light and carried them downstairs to the car which I had previously brought out into the stable-yard. My lamps were already lit, and I was in the act of putting on my frieze coat when Saunders, driving the Mercedes, passed me, going towards the main entrance of the Hall. He had a passenger—a guest from the station judging from his dress.

As the stranger descended from the car the light over the steps revealed his face. I started. It was the jeweller I had spoken to in Bond Street—the man I had taken for the manager, but who was none other than Mr. Gilling himself!

I saw that all was lost. In a few moments he would come face to face with Bindo!

In an instant, however, I had made up my mind, and, re-entering the house, I made my way quickly through into the large hall. But Gilling was already there kissing his wife and daughter. I glanced round, but was reassured to see both Bindo and Sir Charles were absentees. Did they know of Gilling’s impending arrival?

I ran up to the rooms of both my friends but could not find them. In Bindo’s room a dress-coat had been thrown upon the bed. He had changed since I had been up there for the books. Alarmed by the news of the jeweller’s arrival, they had in all probability, changed hurriedly and slipped away. Therefore I ran down to the car, and, telling Saunders that I was off to Birmingham and should return on the morrow, I ran quietly down the long dark avenue.

From St. Mellions to Harwich, as the crow flies, is about one hundred and thirty miles. First, however, I went to Northampton, and put the previous body on the car. Then the road I took was by Huntingdon, Cambridge, Halstead, and Colchester—in all, about 170 miles. The night was dark, but the roads were in fairly good condition, therefore I went at as high a speed as I dare, full of wonder as to what had really happened.

Bindo’s dress-coat on the bed showed that he had left, therefore I had every hope that he had not been recognised by the jeweller. After I had changed the body at the coachbuilder’s at Northampton, the run to the Essex coast proved an exciting one, for I had one narrow escape at a level crossing. But to give details of the journey would serve no purpose. Suffice it to say that I duly arrived at the Great Eastern Hotel at Harwich next morning, and registered there in the name of Parker.

Then I waited in patience until, two days later, I received a note from Bindo, and met him at some distance from the hotel. His personal appearance was greatly altered, and he was shabbily dressed as a chauffeur.

“By Jove!” he said, when we were alone. “We’ve had a narrow squeak. We had no idea when Henderson sent the telegram from London calling the old crone up to town that Gilling had been invited. We only heard of his impending arrival at the very moment we were bringing off the coup. Then, instead of remaining there, becoming indignant, and assisting the police, we were compelled to fly, and thus give the whole game away. If we had stayed Gilling would have recognised us. By Jove! I never had such a tough quarter of an hour in all my life. Blythe has gone up to Scotland and we shall ship the car across to Hamburg by to-night’s boat from Parkeston. You’ve got those books all right. Don’t lose them.”

“I’ve left them in the car,” I replied.

“Left them in the car!” he cried glaring at me. “Are you mad?”

“Mad! Why?”

“Go and get them at once and lock them up in your bag. I’ll show you something when we get an opportunity.”

The opportunity came three days later when we were alone together in a room in Hofer’s Hotel, in the Bahnhofs-Platz in Hamburg. He took the books from me, undid the buckle, and, to my surprise, showed me that the centres of the popular books had been cleverly cut out so that they were literally boxes formed by the paper leaves. And each book was filled with splendid jewels!

The haul was a huge one, for several of the diamond ornaments which had been taken from the Chameleon’s safe were of enormous value. The old lady was passionately fond of jewellery, and spent huge sums with Mr. Gilling. We afterwards discovered that several of the finest pieces we had taken had actually been sent to her on approval by Gilling, so, curiously enough, we had touched his property on a second occasion.

“It was a difficult affair,” Bindo declared. “I had to pretend to make love to Medhurst, or I should never have been able to get a cast of the safe-key. However, we’ve been able to take the best of the old lady’s collection, and they’ll fetch a good price in Amsterdam, or I’m a Dutchman myself. Of course, there’s a big hue-and-cry after us, so we must lie very low over here for a bit. Fancy your leaving those novels kicking about in the car! Somebody might have wanted to read them!”

The End