if this smiling land produced many chauffeurs who lauded it in such phrases.
Up and down Handcross Hill they whirred, treating that respectable eminence as if it were a snow bump in the path of a flying toboggan. Medenham had roamed the South Downs as a boy, and he was able now to point out Chanctonbury Ring, the Devil’s Dyke, Ditchling Beacon, and the rest of the round-shouldered giants that guard the Weald. In the mellow light of a superlatively fine afternoon the Downs wore their gayest raiment of blue and purple, red and green – decked, too, with ribands of white roads and ruffs of rose-laden hedges.
Cynthia forgot many times, and he hardly ever remembered, that he was a chauffeur, and the miles, too, were disregarded until the sea sparkled in their eyes as they emerged from the great gap which the Devil forebore to use when he planned to swamp a land of churches by cutting the famous dyke.
Then the girl awoke from a day-dream, and the car was stopped on the pretense that this marvelous landscape must be viewed in silence and at rest. She rejoined Mrs. Devar, and began instantly to expatiate on the beauties of Sussex, so Medenham ran slowly down the hill through Patcham and Preston into Brighton.
And there, sitting in the wide porch of the Hotel Metropole, was a slim, handsome Frenchman, who sprang up with all the vivacity of his race when the Mercury drew up at the foot of the steps, dusty after its long run, but circumspect as though it had just quitted the garage.
“Mrs. Devar, Miss Vanrenen! what a delightful surprise!” cried the stranger with an accompaniment of wide smiles and hat flourishing. “Who would have thought of meeting you here? Voyez, donc, I was moping in solitude when suddenly the sky opens and you appear.”
“Deæ ex machinâ, in fact, Monsieur Marigny,” said Cynthia, shaking hands with this overjoyed gentleman.
Mrs. Devar, not understanding, cackled loudly.
“We’ve had a lovely run from town, Count Edouard,” she gushed, “and it is just too awfully nice of you to be in Brighton. Now, don’t say you have made all sorts of engagements for the evening.”
“Such as they are they go by the board, dear lady,” said the gallant Count, who had good teeth, and showed them in a succession of grins.
“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 Saturday, 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 flustered.
“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 class 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