"Ten to-morrow morning, Fitzroy," said Cynthia, turning on the steps as she was about to enter the hotel. He lifted his cap.
"The car will be ready, Miss Vanrenen," said he.
He got down, and scowled, yes, actually scowled, at a porter who was hauling too strongly at the straps and buckles of the dust-covered trunks.
"Damage the car"s paint and I"ll raise bigger blisters on yours," was what he said to the man. But his thoughts were of Count Edouard Marigny, and, like the people"s discussion of the Derby, they took the form of question and answer.
"When is a coincidence not a coincidence?" he asked himself.
"When it is prearranged," was the answer.
Then he drove round to the yard at the rear of the hotel, where Dale awaited him, for Medenham would intrust the cleaning of the car to no other hands.
"You"ve booked my room at the Grand Hotel and taken my bag there?" he inquired.
"Yes, my lord."
"Make these people give you the key when the door is locked for the night, and bring the car to my hotel at nine o"clock."
He hurried away, and Dale looked after him.
"Something must ha" worried his lordship," said the man. "First time I"ve ever seen him in a bad temper. An" what about Eyot? Three to one the paper says. P"raps he"ll think of it in the morning."
CHAPTER III
SOME EMOTIONS--WITHOUT A MORAL
Not until he was dressing, and the contents of his pockets were spread on a table, did Medenham remember Dale"s commission. It was quite true, as he told Mrs. Devar, that he had backed Vendetta for a small stake on his own account. But that was an afterthought, and the bet was made with another bookmaker at reduced odds. Altogether, including the few sovereigns in his possession at the beginning of the day, he counted nearly fifty pounds in gold, an exceptionally large amount to be carried in England, where considerations of weight alone render banknotes preferable.
He slipped Dale"s money into an envelope, and took thirty pounds to be exchanged for notes by the hotel"s cashier. At the same time he wrote a telegram to his father, destroying two drafts before he evolved something that left his story untold while quieting any scruples as to lack of candor. It was not that the Earl would resent his unexpected disappearance after nearly four years" absence from home, because father and son had met in South Africa during the war, and were together in Cannes and Paris subsequently. His difficulty was to explain this freak journey satisfactorily. The Earl of Fairholme held feudal views anent the place occupied in the world by the British aristocracy. His own hot youth was crowded with episodes that Medenham might regard with disdain, yet he would be shocked out of his well-fed cynicism by the notion that his son was gallivanting round the country as the chauffeur of an unconventional American girl and a middle-aged harpy like Mrs. Devar.
So Medenham"s message was non-committal.
Aunt Susan was unable to come Epsom to-day. Have taken car to Brighton, and Bournemouth. Home Sat.u.r.day, perhaps earlier. GEORGE.
Of course, he meant to fill in details verbally. It was possible in conversation to impart a jesting turn to an adventure which would be unconvincing and ambiguous in the bald phrases of a telegram.
Then he dined, filled a cigarette case from the box of Salonikas which Tomkinson had not omitted to pack with his clothes, and strolled out, bare-headed, to enrich Dale. He could trust his man absolutely, and was quite sure that the Mercury would then be in the drying stage after a thorough cleaning. Thus far he was justified, but he had not counted on the pride of the born mechanic. Though the car was housed for the night, when he entered the garage the hood was off, and Dale was annoying two brothers of the craft by explaining the superiority of _his_ engine to every other type of engine.
All three were bent over the cylinders, and Dale was saying:
"Just take a squint at them valves, will you?--ever seen anything like "em before? Of course you haven"t. Don"t look like valves, eh? Can you break "em, can you warp "em, can you pit "em? D"ye twig how the mixture reaches the cylinder? None of your shoulders or kinks to choke it up--is there?--and the same with the exhaust. Would you ever have a mushroom valve again after you"ve once cast your peepers over this arrangement? Now, if I took up areonotting--if _I_ wanted to fly the Channel----"
He stopped abruptly, having seen his master standing in the open doorway.
"By gad, Dale," cried Medenham, "I have never heard your tongue wagging in that fashion before."
Dale was fl.u.s.tered.
"Beg pardon, my lord, but I was only----" he began.
"Only using the cut-out, I fancy. Come here, I want you a minute."
The other chauffeurs suddenly discovered that they had urgent business elsewhere. They vanished. Dale thought it necessary to explain.
"One of them chaps has a new French car, my lord, and he was blowing so loudly about it that I had to take him down a peg or two."
Medenham grew interested. Like every keen motorist, he could "talk shop" at all times.
"What sort of car?"
"A 59 Du Vallon, my lord. It is the first of its cla.s.s in England, and I rather think his guv"nor is running it on show."
"Indeed. Who is _he_?"
"A count Somebody-or-other, my lord. I did hear his name----"
"Not Count Edouard Marigny?" said Medenham, with a sharp emphasis that startled Dale.
"That"s him, my lord. I hope I haven"t done anything wrong."
Medenham, early in life, had formed the habit of not expressing his feelings when really vexed, and it stood him in good stead now. Dale"s blunder was almost irreparable, yet he could not find it in his heart to blame the man for being an enthusiast.
"You have put me in a deuce of a fix," he said at last. "This Frenchman is acquainted with Miss Vanrenen. He knows she is here, and will probably see her off in the morning. If his chauffeur recognizes the car he will be sure to speak of it. That gives the whole show away."
"I"m very sorry, my lord----"
"Dash it all, there you go again. But it is largely my own fault. I ought to have warned you, though I little expected this sort of a mix-up. In future, Dale, while this trip lasts, you must forget my t.i.tle. Look here, I have brought you your winnings over Eyot--can"t you rig up some sort of a yarn that I am a sporting friend of yours, and that you were just trying to be funny when you addressed me as "my lord"? If you have an opportunity, tell Count Marigny"s man that your job is taken temporarily by a driver named Fitzroy. By the way, is the chauffeur a Frenchman, too?"
"No, my l----." Dale caught Medenham"s eye, a very cold eye at that instant. "No, sir. He"s just a fitter from the London agency."
"Well, we must trust to luck. He may not remember me in my chauffeur"s kit, which is beastly uncomfortable, by the way. I must get you a summer rig. Here is your money--five to one I took. Don"t lose sight of those two fellows, and spend this half sovereign on them. If you can fill that chap with beer to-night he may have a head in the morning that will keep him in bed too late to cause any mischief. When we meet in Bournemouth and Bristol, say nothing to anybody about either the car or me."
Dale was a model of sobriety, but the excitement of "fives" when he looked for "threes" was too much for him.
"I"ll tank him all right, my l----, I mean, sir," he vowed cheerfully.
Medenham lit a new cigarette and strolled out of the yard.
From the corner of his eye he saw Marigny"s helper looking at him. Without undue exaggeration, he craned his neck, rounded his shoulders, and carried himself with the listless air of a Piccadilly idler. He reflected, too, that a bare-headed man in evening dress would not readily be identified with a leather-coated chauffeur, and Dale, he hoped, was sufficiently endowed with mother wit to frame a story plausible enough to account for his unforeseen appearance. On the whole, the position was not so bad as it seemed in that first moment when the owner of the 59 Du Vallon was revealed in the handsome Count. In any event, what did it matter if his harmless subterfuge were revealed? The girl would surely laugh, while Mrs. Devar would squirm. So now for a turn along the front, and then to bed.
It was a perfect June evening, the fitting sequel to a day of unbroken sunshine. A marvelous amber light hovered beyond the level line of the sea to the west; an exquisite blue suffused the horizon from south to east, deepening from sapphire to ultramarine as it blended with the soft shadows of a summer"s night. He found himself comparing the sky"s southeasterly tint with the azure depths of Cynthia Vanrenen"s eyes, but he shook off that fantasy quickly, crossed the roadway and promenade, and, propping himself against the railings, turned a resolute back on romance. He did not gain a great deal by this maneuver, since his next active thought was centered in a species of quest for the particular window among all those storeyed rows through which Cynthia Vanrenen might even then be gazing at the shining ocean.
He looked at his watch. Half-past nine.