Cynthia's Chauffeur
play any tricks on him.
"Which of you men is called Fitzroy?" demanded a serving-maid,
carrying a tray.
"I," said Medenham.
"Here, Miss," broke in the other, "my name's Smith, plain Smith, but I
can do with a sup o' tea as well as anybody."
"Ask Miss Vanrenen to give you another cup for Count Marigny's
chauffeur," said Medenham to the girl.
"Oh, he's a count, is he?" said the waitress saucily. "My, isn't he
mashed on the young one?"
"Who wouldn't be?" declared Smith. "She's the sort of girl a fellow
'ud leave home for."
"Fine feathers go a long way. There's as good as her in the world,"
came the retort, not without a favorable glance at Medenham.
"Meanwhile the tea is getting cold," said he.
"Dear me, you needn't hurry. Her ma is goin' to write half-a-dozen
picture postcards. But what a voice! The old girl drowns the
waterfall."
The waitress flounced off. She was pretty, and no wandering chauffeur
had ever before turned aside the arrows of her bright eyes so
heedlessly.
"Then you have seen Miss Vanrenen?" inquired Medenham, sipping his
tea.
"Ra-ther!" said Smith. "Saw her in Paris, at the Ritz, when my people
sent me over there to learn the mechanism of this car. The Count was
always hanging about, and I thought he wanted the old man to buy a Du
Vallon, but it's all Lombard Street to a china orange that he was
after the daughter the whole time. I don't blame him. She's a regular
daisy. But you ought to know best. How do _you_ get on with her?"
"Capitally."
"Why did Dale and you swop jobs?"
"Oh, a mere matter of arrangement," said Medenham, who realized that
Smith would blurt out every item of information that he possessed if
allowed to talk.
"He's a corker, is Dale," mused the other. "I can do with a pint or
two meself when the day's work is finished an' the car safely locked
up for the night. But that Dale! he's a walkin' beer-barrel. Lord love
a duck! what a soakin' he gev' me in Brighton. Some lah-di-dah toff
swaggered into the garage that evenin', and handed Dale a fiver--five
golden quidlets, if you please--which my nibs had won on a horse at
Epsom. I must say, though, Dale did the thing handsome--quart bottles
o' Bass opened every ten minutes. Thank you, my dear"--this to the
waitress, "next to beer give me tea. Now, my boss, bein' a Frenchy,
won't touch eether--wine an' corfee are his specials."
"He seemed to be enjoying his tea when I caught sight of him in the
garden a little while ago," said Medenham.
"That's his artfulness, my boy. You wait a bit. You'll see something
before you reach Bristol to-night; anyway, you'll hear something,
which amounts to pretty much the same in the end."
"They're just off to the caves," put in the girl.
"While Mrs. Devar writes her postcards, I suppose?" said Medenham
innocently.
"What! Is that the old party with the hair? I thought she was the
young lady's mother. She's gone with them. She looks that sort of
meddler--not half. Two's company an' three's none is my motto, cave
or no cave."
She tried her most bewitching smile on Medenham this time. It was a
novel experience to be the recipient of a serving-maid's marked favor,
and it embarrassed him. Smith, his mouth full of currant bun,
spluttered with laughter.
"A fair offer," he cried. "You two dodge outside and see which cave
the aristocracy chooses. Then you can take a turn round the other one.
I'll watch the cars all right."
The girl suddenly blushed and looked demure. A sweet voice said
quietly:
"We shall remain here half an hour or more, Fitzroy. I thought I
would tell you in case you wished to smoke--or occupy your time in any
other way."
The pause was eloquent: Cynthia had heard.
"Thank you, Miss Vanrenen," he said, affecting to glance at his watch.
He felt thoroughly nonplussed. She would surely think he had been
flirting with this rosy-cheeked servant, and he might never have an
opportunity of telling her that his sole reason for encouraging the
conversation lay in his anxiety to learn as much as possible about
Marigny and his associates.
"My, ain't she smart!" said the girl when Cynthia had gone.
Medenham put his hand in his pocket and gave her half-a-crown.
"They have forgotten to tip you, Gertie," he said. Without heeding a
stare of astonishment strongly tinctured with indignation, he stooped
in unnecessary scrutiny of the Mercury's tires. The minx tossed her
head.
"Some folks are as grand as their missuses," she remarked, and went
back to her garden.
But Smith looked puzzled. Medenham, no good actor at any time, had
dropped too quickly the air of camaraderie which had been a successful
passport hitherto. His voice, his manner, the courtly insolence of
the maid's dismissal, evoked vague memories in Smith's mind. The
square-shouldered, soldierly figure did not quite fit into the
picture, but he seemed to hear that same authoritative voice
speaking to Dale in the Brighton garage.
The conceit was absurd, of course. Chauffeurs do not swagger through
the world dressing for dinner each night and distributing gold in
their leisure moments. But Smith's bump of inquisitiveness was well
developed, as the phrenologists say, and he was already impressed by
the fact that no firm could afford to send out for hire a car like
Medenham's.
"Funny thing," he said at last. "I seem to have met you somewhere or
other. Who do you work for?"
"Myself."
Medenham caught the note of bewilderment, and was warned. He
straightened himself with a smile, though it cost him an effort to
look cheerful.
"Have a cigarette?" he said.
"Don't mind if I do. Thanks." Then, after a pause, and some puffing
and tasting: "Sorry, old man, but this baccy ain't my sort. It tastes
queer. What is it? Flor de Cabbagio? Here, take one of mine!"
Medenham, in chastened mood, accepted a "five a penny" cigarette, and
saw Smith throw away the exquisite brand that Sevastopolo, of Bond
Street, supplied to those customers only who knew the price paid by
connoisseurs for the leaf grown on one small hillside above the
sun-steeped bay of Salonika.
"Yes," he agreed, bravely poisoning the helpless atmosphere, "this is
better suited to the occasion."
"A bit of all right, eh? I can't stand the Count's cigarettes
eether--French rubbish, you know. An' the money they run into--well,
there!"
"But if he is a rich man----"
"Rich!" Smith exploded with merriment. "If he had what he owes he
might worry along for a year or so, but, you mark my words, if he
doesn't--Well, it's no business of mine, only just keep your eyes
open. You're going through with this tour?"
"I--believe so," said Medenham slowly--and thus he took the great
resolution which till that moment was dim in his mind.
"In that case we'll be having a jaw some other time, and then, mebbe,
we'll both be older an' wiser."
Notwithstanding the community of taste established by Smith's
weeds, the man was still furtively racking his brains to account for
certain discrepancies in his new acquaintance's bearing and address.
Medenham's hands, for instance, were too well kept. His boots were of
too good a quality. His reindeer driving gloves, discarded and lying
on the front seat, were far too costly. The disreputable linen coat
might hide many details, but not these. Every now and then Smith
wanted to say "sir," and he wondered why.
Medenham was sure that at the back of Smith's head lay some scheme,
some arranged trick, some artifice of intrigue that would find
its opportunity between Cheddar and Bristol. The distance was not
great--perhaps eighteen miles--by a fairly direct second-class road,
and on this fine June evening it was still safe to count on three long
hours of daylight. It was doubly irritating, therefore, to think
that by his own lack of diplomacy he had almost forfeited Smith's
confidence. Twice had the man been on the very brink of revelation,
for he was one of those happy-go-lucky beings not fitted for the
safeguarding of secrets, yet on each occasion his tongue faltered in
subconscious knowledge that he was about to betray his master's
affairs.
Feeling that Dale would have managed this part of the day's adventures
far better than himself, Medenham took his seat and touched the
switch.
"We have to make Bristol by seven o'clock, so I shall pull out in
front; I suppose Count Marigny will give the ladies the road?" he
remarked casually.
Smith was listening to the engine.
"Runs like a watch, don't it?" was his admiring cry.
"And almost as quietly, so you heard what I said."
"Oh, I hear lots, but I reckon it a good plan to keep my mouth shut,"
grinned the other.
"Exactly what you have failed to do," thought Medenham, though he
nodded pleasantly, and, with a "So long!" passed out of the yard.
Smith went to the exit and looked after him. The man's face wore a
good-humored sneer. It was as though he said:
"You wait a bit, my dandy shuffer--you ain't through with his
Countship yet--not by any manner o' means."
And Medenham did wait, till nearly seven o'clock. He saw Cynthia and
her companions come out of Gough's Cave and enter Cox's. These fairy
grottoes of nature's own contriving were well worthy of close
inspection, he knew. Nowhere else in the world can stalactites that
droop from the roof, stalagmites that spring from the floor, be seen
in such perfection of form and tint. But he fretted and fumed because
Cynthia was immured too long in their ice-cold recesses, and when, at
last, she reappeared from the second cavern and halted near a stall to
purchase some curios, impatience mastered him, and he brought the car
slowly on until she turned and looked at him.
He raised his cap.
"The gorge is the finest thing in Cheddar, Miss Vanrenen," he said.
"You ought to see it while the light is strong."
"We are going now," she answered coldly. "Monsieur Marigny will take
me to Bristol, and you will follow with Mrs. Devar."
He did not flinch from her steadfast gaze, though those blue eyes of
hers seemed definitely to forbid any expression of opinion. Yet there
was a challenge in them, too, and he accepted it meekly.
"I was hoping that I might have the pleasure of driving you this
evening," he said. "The run through the pass is very interesting, and
I know every inch of it."
He fancied that she was conscious of some mistake, and eager to atone
if in the wrong.
She hesitated, yielded almost, but Mrs. Devar broke in angrily:
"We have decided differently, Fitzroy. I have some few postcards to
dispatch, and Count Marigny has kindly promised to run slowly up the
hill until we overtake him."
"Yes, you ought to have waited in the yard of the inn for orders,"
said the ever-smiling Marigny. "My car can hardly pass yours in this
narrow road. Back a bit to one side, there's a good fellow, and, when
we have gone, pull up to the door. Come, Miss Vanrenen. I am fierce to
show you the paces of a Du Vallon."
The concluding sentences were in French, but Count Edouard spoke
idiomatic English fluently and with a rather fascinating accent.
Cynthia, slightly ruffled by her own singular lack of purpose, made
no further demur. The three walked off down the hill, and Medenham
could only obey in a chill rage that, were Marigny able to gauge its
intensity, might have given him "furiously to think."
In a few minutes the Du Vallon scurried by. Smith was driving, and
there was a curious smirk on his red face as he glanced at Medenham.
Cynthia sat in the tonneau with the Frenchman, who drew her attention
to the limestone cliffs in such wise that she did not even see the
Mercury as she passed.
Medenham muttered something under his breath, and reversed slowly back