Cynthia's Chauffeur
on him when he reached the street. The word had a curiously detached
sound in his ears. "Home!" It savored of rank lunacy to think that
within a few short hours he would be standing on foreign soil,
striving desperately with naked steel to defend his own life and
destroy another's.
CHAPTER XV
THE OUTCOME
The fine weather which had endured so long gave way that night.
Storm-clouds swept up from the Atlantic, and England was drenched in
rain when Medenham quitted Charing Cross at 9 p.m. At the eleventh
hour he determined to take Dale with him, but that belated display of
wisdom arose more from the need he felt of human companionship than
from any sense of the absurdity of going alone to fight a duel in a
foreign land. He had given no thought during the fleeting hours to the
necessity of communicating with his relatives in case he fell a victim
to Marigny's rancor, so he devoted himself now to writing a brief
account to the Marquis of Scarland of the causes that led up to the
duel. He concluded with an entreaty that his brother-in-law should use
all means within his power to close down any inquiry that might
result, and pointed out that in this connection Dale would prove a
valuable ally, since his testimony would make clear the fact that the
contest had taken place in France, where duels are looked on with a
more lenient eye than in England.
It was difficult to write legibly in the fast-moving, ill-lighted
train, so he completed the letter on board the steamer, but did not
hand it to Dale until after Calais was reached.
While the steamer was drawing up to her berth, he saw Count Edouard
Marigny among the few passengers on deck. He had turned his back on
the Frenchman at Charing Cross, but the imperturbable Count, noticing
Dale in the half-light of dawn, believed that Medenham had brought a
fellow-countryman as a witness. He strolled up, and said affably:
"Is this gentleman your friend?"
"Yes," said Medenham, "though not quite in the sense that you mean. He
will accompany me to the hotel, and await my return there."
The Frenchman was evidently mystified; he smiled, but passed no
other comment. Dale, who heard what was said, now wondered more than
ever what lay behind this sudden journey to France. He had already
recognized Marigny as the owner of the Du Vallon, for he had seen him
leaving the Metropole Hotel at Brighton not many days ago, and had the
best of reasons for regarding him as Viscount Medenham's implacable
enemy. Why, then, were these two crossing the Channel in company,
going together to some hotel, and leaving him, Dale, to kick his heels
in the small hours of the morning till it pleased them to pick him up
again?
In justice to the loyal-hearted chauffeur, plunged quite unknowingly
into the crisis of his life, it must be said that the notion of a
duel did not even occur to his puzzled brain.
Nor was he given much time for speculation. A carriage awaited the
trio at the quay. They carried no luggage to entail a delay at the
Customs, and they drove off at a rapid pace through silent streets in
a drenched downpour of rain. When they reached the Hotel de la Plage,
neither Medenham nor the Frenchman alighted, but the former handed
Dale a letter.
"I may be detained in France somewhat longer than I anticipated," he
said in a matter-of-fact tone. "If that is so, and you have to return
to England without me, hand this letter to the Marquis of Scarland.
Take great care of it, and keep it in your possession until you are
positively assured that I am unable to go with you."
These enigmatical instructions bothered their hearer far more than any
of the strange proceedings of the night.
"How shall I know, my lord, whether I am to go back with you or not?"
he asked.
"Oh, of course I shall make that quite clear," laughed Medenham. "At
present, all you have to do is to wait here a little while."
His careless demeanor dispelled the first dim shadow of doubt that had
arisen in Dale's mind. The man was no stranger on the Continent,
having traveled with his employer over the length and breadth of
France and Northern Italy; but the manner of this visit to the Hotel
de la Plage at Calais was so perplexing that he essayed another
question.
"When may I expect you, my lord?" he asked.
Medenham affected to consult his watch.
"Within an hour," he said; "perhaps a few minutes more. At any rate,
you can arrange to catch the afternoon boat. Meanwhile, make yourself
comfortable."
By this time, three men, whom he had never seen before, came out from
the hotel. Apparently, they were fully prepared for the coming of the
visitors from England. They greeted Count Marigny cordially, and were
introduced to Medenham. Without more ado, two of them entered the
vehicle; the third, hoisting an umbrella, climbed to the side of the
driver, to whom no orders were given, and the cab rattled rapidly away
over the paving-stones, leaving Dale to gaze disconsolately after it.
Then the vague suspicions in his mind awoke into activity. For one
thing, he had heard one of the strangers alluded to as "Monsieur le
Docteur." For another, the newcomers carried a curious-looking parcel,
or case, of an elongated shape that suggested unusual contents. Some
trick of memory came to his aid. In an hotel at Lyons he had watched a
valet packing just such an object with the remainder of his employer's
luggage, and was told, on inquiry, that it contained foils. But why
foils? ... at four o'clock in the morning? ... in a country where men
might still requite an outrage by an appeal to the law of the jungle?
Hastily drawing from his breast pocket the letter intrusted to him, he
examined the superscription. It was addressed simply to the Marquis of
Scarland, and must surely be a document of immense significance, or
the young Viscount would not have brought him all the way from London
to act as messenger rather than intrust it to the post. Each instant
Dale's ideas became clearer; each instant his heart throbbed with a
deeper anxiety. At last, when the four-wheeler disappeared from sight
round an angle of the rain-soaked boulevard, he yielded to impulse and
ran into the hotel. French people are early risers, but the visitors
to Calais that morning were astir at an hour when most of the hotel
staff were still sound asleep. A night porter, however, was awaiting
him at the entrance, and Dale forthwith engaged in a valiant struggle
with the French language in the effort to ascertain, first, whether
the man possessed a bicycle, and, secondly, whether he would lend it.
The Frenchman, of course, broke into a voluble statement out of all
proportion to the demand, but the production of a British sovereign
seemed to interpret matters satisfactorily, because a bicycle was
promptly produced from a shed in the rear of the building.
Dale handed the man the sovereign, jumped on the machine, and rode off
rapidly in the direction taken by the cab. He had no difficulty in
turning the corner round which it had vanished, but a little farther
on he erred in thinking that it had gone straight ahead, since the
driver had really turned to the right again in order to keep clear of
the fortifications. Dale traveled at such a pace that the first long
stretch of straight road opening up before his eyes convinced him of
his blunder when no cab was in sight. He raced back, dismounted at
the crossing, examined the road for wheel-marks, and soon was in the
saddle again. He was destined to be thus bothered three times in all,
but, taught wisdom by his initial mistake, he never passed a crossroad
without searching for the recent tracks of wheels.
The rain helped him wherever the roadway was macadamized, but
the paved _routes militaires_ with which Calais abounds offered
difficulties that caused many minutes of delay. At last, he found
himself in the open country, scorching along a sandy road that
traversed the low dunes lying between the town of Calais and Cape Gris
Nez. It was not easy to see far ahead owing to the rain and mist, and
he had covered a mile or more beyond the last of the scattered villas
and cottages which form the eastern suburb of the port, when he saw
the elusive cab drawn up by the roadside. The horse was steaming as
though it had been driven at a great pace, and the driver stood near,
smoking a cigarette, and protecting himself from the persistent
downpour by an umbrella.
Dale soon reached the man, and said breathlessly, in his slow French:
"Where are the gentlemen?"
The cabman, who had evidently been paid to hold his tongue, merely
shrugged. Dale, breathing hard, laid a heavy hand on his shoulder,
whereupon the other answered: "I don't know."
This, of course, was a lie, and the fact that it was a lie alarmed
Dale quite as much as any of the sinister incidents which had already
befallen. For one thing, there was no house into which five men could
have gone. On each side of the road were bleak sandhills; to the right
was the sea, gray and lowering beneath a leaden-hued sky that seemed
to weep above a dead earth. Here, undoubtedly, was the cab, since Dale
could swear to both horse and man. Where, then, were its occupants?
Having to depend upon his wits, he gave no further heed to the
Frenchman, but, fancying that he saw vestiges of recent footmarks on
the right, or seaward, side of the road, and dragging the bicycle with
him, he climbed to the top of the nearest dune, as he believed that a
view of the sands could be obtained from that point. He was right. The
sea was at a greater distance than he imagined would be the case, but
a wide strip of firm sand, its wet patches glistening dully in the
half-light, extended to the water's edge almost from the base of the
hillock on which he stood.
At first, his anxious eyes strained through the haze in vain, until
some circling seagulls caught his attention, and then he discerned
some vague forms silhouetted against a brighter belt of the sea to the
northeast.
Three of the figures were black and motionless, but two gave an eerie
suggestion of whiteness and movement. Abandoning the bicycle, and
hardly realizing why he should be so perturbed, Dale ran forward.
Twice he stumbled and fell amidst the stringy heath grass, but he was
up again in a frenzy of haste, and soon was near enough to the group
of men to see that Medenham and Marigny, bare-headed and in their
shirt sleeves, were fighting with swords.
Dale's eyes were now half-blinded with perspiration, for he had ridden
fast through the mud from Calais, and this final run through yielding
sand and clinging sedge was exhausting to one who seldom walked as
many furlongs as he had covered miles that morning. But even in
his panic of distress he fancied that his master was pressing the
Frenchman severely. It was no child's play, this battle with cold
steel. The slender, venomous-looking blades whirled and stabbed with a
fearsome vehemence, and the sharp rasp of each riposte and parry rang
out with a horrible suggestiveness in the moist air. And then, as he
lumbered heavily on, Dale thought he saw something that turned him
sick with terror. Almost halting, he swept a hasty hand across his
eyes--then he was sure.
Medenham, with arm extended in a feint in tierce, was bearing so
heavily on his opponent's rapier that his right foot slipped, and he
stumbled badly. At once Marigny struck with the deadly quickness and
certainty of a cobra. His weapon pierced Medenham's breast high up
on the right side. The stroke was so true and furious that the
Englishman, already unbalanced, was driven on to his back on the sand.
Marigny wrenched the blade free, and stooped with obvious intent to
plunge it again through his opponent's body. A warning shout from each
of the three spectators withheld him. He scowled vindictively, but