The Count's Chauffeur. Le Queux William
no reply.
Together we walked up the quiet, semi-rural Champion Hill, until we reached Green Lane, when at the sharp right angle of the road, as we turned, I saw before me an object which caused me to hold my breath in utter amazement.
The car was standing there, right before me in the lonely suburban road, and in it, seated at the wheel, a man whom I next second recognised as the Count himself! He was evidently awaiting me.
He was wearing a different motor-coat, the car bore a different number, and as I approached I noticed that the coronet and cipher had been obliterated by a dab of paint!
“Come on, Ewart!” cried the Count, jumping down to allow me to take his place at the steering.
I turned to my captors in wonder.
“Yes, away you go, Ewart,” the inspector said, “and good luck to you!”
Without another second’s delay, I sprang upon the car, and while the Count, as he jumped up at my side, shouted good-bye to my captors, I started away towards Lordship Lane and the open country of Surrey.
“Where shall we go?” I inquired breathlessly, utterly amazed at our extraordinary escape.
“Straight on through Sydenham, and then I’ll tell you. The sooner we’re out of this, the better. We’ll run along to Winchester, where I have a little house at Kingsworthy, just outside the city, and where we can lie low comfortably for a bit.”
“But shan’t we be followed by those men?” I asked apprehensively.
“Followed – by them? Oh dear no!” he laughed. “Of course, you don’t understand, Ewart. They all three belong to us. We’ve played a smartish game upon the jeweller, haven’t we? They had to frighten you, of course, because it added a real good touch of truth to the scheme. We ought to be able to slip away across the Channel in a week’s time, at latest. They’ll leave to-night – in search of me!” and he laughed lightly to himself.
“Then they were not detectives?” I exclaimed, utterly staggered by the marvellous ingenuity of the robbery.
“No more than you are, Ewart,” was his reply. “But don’t bother your head about them now. All you’ve got to look after is your driving. Let’s get across to Winchester as quickly as possible. Just here! – sharp to the right and the first to the left takes us into the Guildford road. Then we can move.”
CHAPTER II
A SENTIMENTAL SWINDLE
Count Bindo’s retreat near Winchester proved to be a small, rather isolated house near Kingsworthy. It stood in its own grounds, surrounded by a high wall, and at the rear was a very fair garage, that had been specially constructed, with inspection-pit and the various appliances.
The house was rather well furnished, but the only servant was a man, who turned out to be none other than the yellow-haired young fellow who had been introduced to me at the Cecil as “Mr. Henderson.”
He no longer wore the light fancy vest and smartly-cut clothes, but was in a somewhat shabby suit of black. He smiled grimly as I recognised him, while his master said —
“Got back all right, Henderson – eh?”
“I arrived only ten minutes ago, sir. All was quiet, wasn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” replied the Count, who then went upstairs, and I saw him no more that evening.
For nearly a fortnight the car remained in the garage. It now bore a different identification-plate, and to kill time, I idled about, wondering when we should start again. It was a strange ménage. Count Bindo was a very easy-going cosmopolitan, who treated both Henderson and myself as intimates, inasmuch as we ate at table with him, and smoked together each evening.
We were simply waiting. The papers were, of course, full of the clever theft from Gilling’s, and the police, it appeared, were doing their utmost to track the tricksters – but in vain. The Count, under the name of Mr. Claude Fielding, seemed to be very popular in the neighbourhood, though he discouraged visitors. Indeed, no one came there. He dined, however, at several houses during the second week of his concealment, and seemed to be quite confident of his safety.
At last we left, but not, however, before Sir Charles Blythe had stayed one night with us and made some confidential report to his friend. It being apparent that all was clear, some further alteration was made both in the appearance of the car and in the personal aspect of Count Bindo and myself, after which we started for the Continent by way of Southampton.
We crossed and ran up to Paris, where we stayed at the Ritz. The Count proved a devil-may-care fellow, with plenty of friends in the French capital. When with the latter he treated me as a servant; when alone as a friend.
Whatever the result of the clever piece of trickery in Bond Street, it was quite clear that my employer was in funds, for he spent freely, dined and supped at the expensive restaurants, and thoroughly enjoyed himself with his chums.
We left Paris, and went on the broad good road to Lyons and to Monte Carlo. It was just before Christmas, and the season had, of course, not yet commenced. We stayed at the Hôtel de Paris – the hotel where most men en garçon put up – and the car I put into the Garage Meunier.
It was the first time I had seen “Monty,” and it attracted me, as it does every man and woman. Here, too, Bindo di Ferraris seemed to have hosts of friends. He dined at the Grand, the Métropole, or the Riviera Palace, and supped each night at Ciro’s, indulging in a little mild play in the Rooms in the interval between the two meals.
He did not often go out in the car, but frequently went to Nice and Cannes by train. About a fortnight after our arrival, however, we ran, one bright morning, along the lower road by Beaulieu to Nice – bad, by the way, on account of the sharp corners and electric trams – and called at a small hotel in the Boulevard Gambetta.
The Count apparently had an appointment with a tall, dark-haired, extremely good-looking young French girl, with whom he lunched at a small restaurant, and afterwards he walked for an hour on the Promenade, talking with her very earnestly.
She was not more than nineteen – a smart, very chic little Parisienne, quietly dressed in black, but in clothes that bore unmistakably the cachet of a first-class dressmaker. They took a turn on the Jetée Promenade, and presently returned to the hotel, when the Count told her to go and get a close hat and thick coat, and he would wait for her.
Then, when she had gone, he told me that we were about to take her over to the Bristol at Beaulieu, that great white hotel that lies so sheltered in the most delightful bay of the whole Riviera.
It was a clear, bright December afternoon. The roads were perfect, though dusty as the Corniche always is, and very soon, with the Count and his lady friend, I swung into the curved drive before the hotel.
“You can go to the garage for an hour or so, Ewart,” my employer said, after they had descended. Therefore I turned the car and went to the huge garage at the rear of the hotel – the garage which every motorist on the Riviera knows so well.
After an hour I re-entered the hotel to look for the Count and receive orders, when I saw, in the great red-carpeted lounge, my employer and the little Parisienne seated with the man whom I knew as Sir Charles Blythe, but who really was one of Count Bindo’s confederates.
We exchanged glances, and his was a meaning one. That some deep and ingenious game was in progress I felt certain, but what it was I had no idea.
Blythe was smartly dressed in a grey flannel suit and white shoes – the costume de rigueur on the Riviera – and as he smoked his cigar, easily reclining in the wicker lounge-chair, he presented the complete picture of the English aristocrat “putting in” a month or two for sunshine.
Both men were talking earnestly in French with the dark-eyed little lady, who now and then laughed, or, raising her shoulders, looked from one to the other and protruded her chin in a gesture of uncertainty.
I retired and watched closely. It was quite plain in a few moments that the young lady was entirely devoted to the handsome