He had, as it were, jealously guarded this vista all day, said not a word of it, even when Cynthia and he discussed the route, so that it might come at last in one supreme moment of revelation. And now that it was here, Cynthia was hidden somewhere in the gray distance, and Medenham was frowning at a flying strip of white road, with his every faculty intent on exacting the last ounce of power from the superb machine he controlled.
The miles rolled beneath, yet there was no token of the Du Vallon that was to "run slowly up the hill" until overtaken by the industrious writer of postcards. At the utmost, the French car was given some twelve or thirteen minutes" start, which meant seven or eight miles to a high-powered automobile urged forward with the determination Medenham himself was displaying. Marigny"s chauffeur, therefore, must have dashed through that t.i.tanic cleft in the limestone at a speed utterly incompatible with his employer"s excuse of sightseeing.
Of course, it would be an easy matter for Marigny to enlist Miss Vanrenen"s sympathies in the effort of a first-rate engine to conquer the adverse gradient. She would hardly realize the rate of progress, and, from where she was seated, the speed indicator would be invisible unless she leaned forward for the express purpose of reading it.
Medenham was sure that the Mercury would catch the Du Vallon long before Bristol was reached, but when the last ample fold of the bleak plateau spread itself in front, and his hunter"s eyes could discern no cloud of dust lingering in the still air where the road dipped over the horizon, he began to doubt, to question, to solve grotesque problems that were discarded ere they had well taken shape.
Oddly enough, there came no more expostulation from Mrs. Devar. Like the majority of nervous people, she was quelled by the need of placing complete trust in one who understood his work. While Medenham was still searching the sky-line for signs of the vanished car, she did show some interest in his quest. He felt, since he could not see, that she half rose and looked over his head, bent low behind the partial shelter afforded by a gla.s.s screen. Then she settled back in the seat, and drew a rug comfortably around her knees. For some reason, she was strangely content.
The incident supplied food for active thought. So she felt safe! That which she dreaded as the result of a too strenuous pursuit could not now happen! Then what was it? Medenham swept aside the fantasy that Mrs. Devar knew the country well enough to be able to say precisely when and where she might be sure of his failure to s.n.a.t.c.h Cynthia from that hidden evil the nature of which he could only guess at. Her world was the artificial one of hotels, and shops, and numbered streets--in the real world, of which the lonely wastes of the Mendips provided no meager sample, she was a profound ignoramus, a fat little automaton equipped with atrophied senses. But she blundered badly in composing herself so cozily for the remainder of the run to Bristol. Medenham had dwelt many months at a time in lands where just such simple indications of mood on the part of man or beast had meant to him all the difference between life and death. So now, if ever, he became doubly alert; his eyes were strained, eager, peering; his body still as the wild creatures which he knew to be skulking unseen behind many a rock and gra.s.s tuft pa.s.sed on the way.
This desolate land, given over to stones interspersed with patches of wiry gra.s.s on which browsed some hardy sheep, resembled a disturbed ocean suddenly made solid. It was not level, but ran in long, almost regular undulations. In the trough between two of these rounded ridges the road bifurcated, the way to Bristol trending to the left, and a less important thoroughfare glancing off to the right.
There was no sign-post, but a child could scarce have erred if asked to choose the track that led to a big town. Medenham, having consulted the map earlier in the day, swung to the left without hesitation. The car literally flew up the next incline, and the dark lines of trees and hedges in the distance proved that tilled land was being neared.
Now he was absolutely sure that he had managed, somehow, to miss the Du Vallon--unless, indeed, its redoubtable mechanism was of a caliber he had not yet come across in the highways and byways of Europe.
With him, to decide was to act. The Mercury slowed up so promptly that Mrs. Devar became alarmed again.
"What is it?--a tire gone?" she cried.
"No, I am on the wrong road--that is all."
"But there is no other. That turning we pa.s.sed was a mere lane."
The car stopped where his watchful glance noted a carpet of sand left by the last shower of rain. He sprang out and examined the marks of recent traffic. Marigny"s vehicle carried non-skid covers with studs arranged in peculiar groups, and their imprint was plain to be seen.
But they had followed that road once only. It was impossible to determine off-hand whether they had come or gone, but, if they came from Bristol, then most certainly they had not returned.
Medenham took nothing for granted. Dusk was advancing, and he must make no mistake at this stage. He ran the Mercury slowly ahead, not taking his gaze off the telltale signs. At last he found what he was looking for. The broad scars left by a heavy cart crossed the studs, and had crossed after the pa.s.sage of the car. Thus he eliminated the vagaries of chance. Marigny had _not_ taken the road to Bristol--he _must_ be on the other one--since no cart was in sight.
Medenham backed and turned. Mrs. Devar, of course, grew agitated.
"Where are you going?" she demanded.
Medenham resolved to end this farce of pretense, else he would not be answerable for the manner of his speech.
"I mean to find Miss Vanrenen," he said. "Pray let that suffice for the hour. Any further explanation you may require can be given at Bristol and in her presence."
Mrs. Devar began to sob. He heard her, and of all things that he hated it was to become the cause of a woman"s tears. But his lips closed in a thin seam, and he drove fast to the fork in the roads. Another halt here, and the briefest scrutiny showed that his judgment had not erred. The Du Vallon had pa.s.sed this point twice. If it came from Bristol in the first instance it had gone now to some unfamiliar wilderness that skirted the whole northeastern slopes of the Mendips.
He leaped back to the driving seat, and Mrs. Devar made one more despairing effort to regain control of a situation that had slipped from her grasp nearly an hour ago.
"Please do be sensible, Fitzroy!" she almost screamed. "Even if he _has_ made a mistake in a turning, Count Marigny will take every care of Miss Vanrenen----"
It was useless. She was appealing to a man of stone, and, indeed, Medenham could not pay heed to her then in any circ.u.mstances, for the road surface quickly became very rough, and it needed all his skill to guide his highly-strung car over its inequalities without inflicting an injury that might prove disastrous.
His only consolation was provided by the knowledge that the risk to a stout Mercury was as naught compared with the tortures endured by a French-built racer, with its long wheel-base and low cha.s.sis. After a couple of miles of semi-miraculous advance his respect for Smith"s capability as a driver increased literally by leaps and bounds.
But the end was nearer than he thought. On reaching the top of one of those seemingly interminable land-waves, he saw a blurred object in the hollow. Soon he distinguished Cynthia"s fawn-colored dust cloak, and his heart throbbed exultantly when the girl fluttered a handkerchief to show that she, too, had seen.
Mrs. Devar rose and clutched the back of the seat behind him.
"I apologize, Fitzroy," she piped tremulously. "You were right. They have lost their way and met with some accident. How glad I am that I did not insist on your making straight for Bristol!"
Her unparalleled impudence won his admiration. Such a woman, he thought, was worthy of a better fate than that which put her in the position of a bought intriguer. But Cynthia was near, waving her hands gleefully, and executing a nymph-like thanksgiving dance on a strip of turf by the roadside, so Medenham"s views of Mrs. Devar"s previous actions were tempered by conditions extraordinarily favorable to her at the moment.
She seemed to be aware instinctively of the change in his sentiments wrought by sight of Cynthia. It was in quite a friendly tone that she cried:
"Count Edouard is there; but where is his man?... Something serious must have happened, and the chauffeur has been sent to obtain help....
Oh, how lucky we hurried, and how clever of you to find out which way the car went!"
CHAPTER VI
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT"S VAGARIES
Cynthia, notwithstanding that spirited _pas seul_, was rather pale when Medenham stopped the car close beside her. She had been on tenterhooks during the past quarter of an hour--there were silent moments when she measured her own slim figure against the natty Count"s in half-formed resolution to take to her heels along the Cheddar Road.
At first, she had enjoyed the run greatly. Although Dale spoke of Smith as a mechanic, the man was a first-rate driver, and he spun the Du Vallon along at its best speed. But the change from good macadam to none soon made itself felt, and Cynthia was more troubled than she cared to show when the French flier came to a standstill after panting and jolting alarmingly among the ruts. Marigny"s excited questions evoked only unintelligible grunts from Smith; for all that, the irritating truth could not be withheld--the petrol tank was empty; not only had the chauffeur forgotten to fill it that morning, but, by some strange mischance, the supply usually held in reserve had been left at Bristol!
The Frenchman was very angry with Smith, and Smith was humbly apologetic. The pair must have acted convincingly, because each knew to a nicety how soon a gallon of petrol would vaporize in the Du Vallon"s six cylinders. Having taken the precaution to measure that exact quant.i.ty into the tank before leaving Cheddar, they were prepared for a breakdown at any point within a few hundred yards of the precise locality where it occurred.
Cynthia, being generous-minded, tried to make little of the mishap. By taking that line she strove to rea.s.sure herself.
"Fitzroy is always prepared for emergencies," she said. "He will soon catch up with us. But what a road! I didn"t really notice it before. Surely this cannot be the only highway between Bristol and Cheddar?--and in England, too, where the roads are so perfect!"
"There are two roads, but this is the nearest one," explained the glib-tongued Count, seemingly much relieved by the prospect of Fitzroy"s early arrival. "You don"t deserve to be pulled out of a difficulty so promptly, Smith," he went on, eying the chauffeur sternly.
"There"s a village not very far ahead, sir," said the abashed Smith.
"Oh, never mind! We must wait for Miss Vanrenen"s car."
"Wait?" inquired Cynthia. "What else can we do?"
"I take it he meant to walk to some village, and bring a stock of spirit."
"Oh, dear! I hope no such thing will be necessary."
From that half hint of latent and highly disagreeable developments dated Cynthia"s uneasiness. She accepted Marigny"s suggestion that they should stroll to the top of the slight hill just descended, whence they would be able to watch their rescuer"s approach from a considerable distance--she even remembered to tell him to smoke--but she answered his lively sallies at random, and agreed unreservedly with his voluble self-reproach.
The obvious disuse of the road, a mere lane providing access to sheep inclosures on the hills, caused her no small perplexity, though she saw fit not to add to her companion"s distress by commenting on it. In any other circ.u.mstances she would have been genuinely alarmed, but her well-established acquaintanceship with the Count, together with the apparently certain fact that Fitzroy and Mrs. Devar were coming nearer each second, forbade the tremors that any similar accident must have evoked if, say, they were marooned on some remote mountain range of the continent, and no friendly car was speeding to their aid.
The two halted on the rising ground, and one of them, at least, gazed anxiously into the purple shadows now mellowing the gray monotony of the plateau. The point where the Du Vallon left the main road was invisible from where they stood. Marigny had laid his plans with skill, so his humorous treatment of their plight was not marred by any lurking fear of the Mercury"s unwelcome appearance.
"What a terrible collapse this would be if I were running away with you, Miss Cynthia," he said slyly. "Let us imagine a priest waiting in some ancient castle ten miles away, and an irate father, or a pair of them, starting from Cheddar in hot pursuit."
"My imagination fails me there, Monsieur Marigny," she replied, and the shade of emphasis on his surname showed that she was fully aware of the boundary crossed by the "Miss Cynthia," an advance which surprised her more than the Frenchman counted on. "At present I am wholly absorbed in a vain effort to picture an automobile somewhere down there in the gathering mists; still, it _must_ arrive soon."