"But what about the Captain, sir," cried I.
"Oh," says he, "the Captain will never trouble me again. Now get up
and make haste. Is your back lamp all right? That's good--I
particularly wish all the policemen to get our number. Go right ahead
and stop for no one. It's a big house, I am told, and we cannot miss
it."
"But," cried I, "isn't it your lordship's house?"
He laughed, the merriest laugh in all the world.
"I was never there in my life," says he; "now get on, for heaven's
sake, or you'll have the morning here."
I hadn't a word for this, and, wondering whether I had gone dotty or
he, I let the Daimler out and drove straight up Baker Street, through
the Park and out on to the Finchley Road. The police have eyes all
round their heads for this track as a rule, but never a policeman do I
remember seeing that night, and we travelled forty-five an hour after
Barnet if we travelled a mile.
My directions, you will remember, had been to go straight through
Potter's Bar, and then on to a place called Five Corners--a locality I
had never heard of, well as I know Hertfordshire and the roads round
about. This I told his lordship as we slowed up in the village, and
his answer was surprising, for he told me to go to the police station
and to ask there. So I slowed up in Potter's Bar, and, seeing a
policeman, I asked him to direct me.
"Keep to the right and turn to the right again," says he, staring hard
at his lordship and at me. "That's Lord Crossborough's house, isn't
it?"
"Why, yes," says I, naturally enough, "and it's his lordship I am
driving."
He nodded pleasantly at this, and his lordship putting his head out of
the window at the moment, he spoke to him direct.
"Rather late to-night, my lord."
"Yes, yes, very late, and a driver who doesn't know the road. I am
much obliged to you, constable. Tell him how to go, and here's a
sovereign for you."
A policeman doesn't like a sovereign, of course, and this fellow was
just as nasty about it as the others. I suppose he spent the next
quarter of an hour directing me how to go, and when that was done he
saluted his lordship in fine military fashion. To be truthful, I may
say that we went out of Potter's Bar with flying colours, and for the
next ten minutes I drove slowly down dark lanes with corners sharp
enough for copybooks, and hedges so high that a man couldn't feel
himself for the darkness. When we got out of this we came to five
cross-roads, and a big sign-post; and here, I remembered, the policeman
had told me to take the middle road to the left, and that I should find
Five Corners a quarter of a mile further down. So I was just swinging
the big car round when what should happen but that the signal told me
to stop, and, bringing to in a jiffy, I waited for his lordship to
speak.
"Britten," says he, for I had told him my name half a dozen times
already, "Britten, this is very important to me. I'll make it fifteen
pounds if you do the job well. Just drive up to the lodge, and when
the man opens, you say 'His lordship is very late to-night.' After
that, you'll keep to the lower of two roads and come to another lodge.
There, when you wake them up, you will say, 'His lordship is very early
this morning,' and after that, drive away just as hard as the old car
can take you. I'm in the mood to have some fun to-night, and whatever
I do is no responsibility of yours, so don't you be troubled about it,
my lad. I shall exonerate you if there's any tale; but there can't be
one, for surely a man may drive through his own park when he has the
mind to."
I said "Of course he had," for what else could I say? The further I
got into this job the madder it appeared to be. Perhaps just because
of its madness, I determined to see the end of it. After all, I had
been ordered by my mistress to drive this gentleman, and whatever he
might choose to do was no concern of mine. If I tell the whole truth,
and say I thought him a lunatic with whom it would be dangerous to
quarrel, well, there's no harm in that; for how many would have done
different, and where's the blame? Lords go mad like other people, for
all their coronets; and fine times they appear to have in that
condition. I said Lord Crossborough was either daft or had some deep
game going; and, with that to keep me up, I drove straight to the lodge
gates, and bawled for them to let me in.
There was a long wait here, fifteen good minutes or more before a
tousled-haired girl opened the little window of the cottage, and asked
me what I wanted. When I told her to look sharp and not keep his
lordship waiting, I do believe she laughed in my face.
"Why, he's not left the house for a month!" cries she. "Now don't tell
me!"
"Oh, but I'm going to tell you--that and a lot more, if you don't hurry
up. Don't you see that I've brought his lordship home?"
"Oh, dear me," says she, all flustered; "I'm sure I beg his lordship's
pardon----" and with that she came down like a shot and opened the
gate. For my part I had nothing more to say to her, except the remark
which Lord Crossborough had ordered me to make, and exclaiming, "His
lordship is late to-night," I let the clutch in and started the car. A
glance behind me showed me my passenger fast asleep, with the girl
staring at him with all her eyes. But she said no more, and I drove
on, and hadn't gone fifty yards before the signal was working again.
"Oh," says I, "then we've got no sort of dormouse up to be sure.
Asleep and awake again all in five minutes"; but I slowed up the car as
he directed, and immediately afterwards he called my attention to
another party who shared the road with us, and was as curious as the
girl. He was a policeman, and he had passed through the lodge gates
right on our heels.
I don't know how it is, but if you are doing anything you have any
doubt about at all, the sight of a policeman always gives you the
creeps. I never see one, but I wonder if he has been timing me, or
quarrelling with my number-plates, or doing one or other of those
things which policemen do, and we poor devils pay for.
This time I was right down afraid, and made no bones about it. The
scene in Portman Square, the women's screams, the empty house, the
black hangings, the talk concerning the duel, and his lordship's
mysterious words about Captain Blackham never troubling him any more:
they came upon me in a flash, and almost drove me silly. Not so my
lord himself--I had never seen him calmer.
"Good-morning, constable," says he, "and what can I do for you?"
"I beg your pardon, sir," says the man, dismounting as he spoke, "but
there's a telegram from London about your house in Portman Square, and
I came up to see if you know anything about it."
"Of course I do, constable--very good of you, though. Tell them it's
all right, just a little party to some of my old friends. And here's a
sovereign for you; call again later on if you have anything to say.
I'm half asleep and dead tired."
He threw a sovereign out on to the grass, and the police sergeant
picked it up sharp enough. I thought there was a kind of hesitation in
his manner, but couldn't make much of it. Whatever he thought or
wished to say, however, that he kept to himself, and after remarking
that the morning would break fine, and that he was much obliged to his
lordship, he mounted and rode away. This was the moment Lord
Crossborough ceased to work the signal, and, opening the front window,
spoke to me direct.
"Stop your engine," he says in a low voice, "and see you don't start it
until that fellow is out of the park."
I thought it a strange order, but did as he wished. It was plain to
me, as it would have been plain to any one, that he didn't wish the
constable to see us take the lower road, and had thought out this trick
to work his will. I am a pretty good hand myself at stopping my
engine, and being unable to start her, especially when my master or
mistress wants to get there in a hurry and doesn't consult my
convenience. So I was down in a jiffy when his lordship spoke, and
there I stood, pretending to swing the handle and to poke about inside
the bonnet until the sergeant had turned the corner of the drive, and
it was safe to go ahead again.
The second lodge lay perhaps the third of a mile from the place where
we had halted, and we must pass within a hundred yards of the house
itself to get to it. I didn't need to be told not to sound my horn as
we went by, and we were creeping along nicely when--and this was
something which seemed to hit me in the very face--we came upon a man
walking under the trees by the lake side, and he--believe me or not as
you like--was the very living image of my passenger. "Good God!" says
I, "then there are two of 'em," and in a very twinkling the whole
nature of this night's business seemed clear to me.
A man just like his lordship, dressed in a tweed suit and with a thick
stick in his hand--a man with a bushy black beard, a full round
forehead, and the very walk and movement of the man I carried. What
was I to make of him, what to think of it? Well, I can hardly tell you
that, for, no sooner did we catch sight of the man than my passenger
roared to me to go straight on, and, ducking down inside the
landaulette, he hid himself as completely from sight as though he had
been in the tool-box. For my part, remembering the old adage about "In
for a penny in for a pound," I just let the Daimler fly, and we went
down the drive and up to the lodge as fast as car ever travelled that
particular road or will travel it whatever the circumstances.
"Gate," I roared, "gate, gate!" for the padlock was plain enough and a
good stout chain about it. No one answered me for more than five
minutes, I suppose, and no sooner did an old man appear, than I saw the
stranger with his bushy black beard, his lordship's double, running
down the drive for all he was worth, and bawling to the gate-keeper not
to open.
A critical moment this, upon my word, and one to bring a man's heart
into his mouth--the doddering old man tottering to the gate; the
stranger running like a prize-winner; Lord Crossborough himself,
doubled up in the bottom of the landaulette, and me sitting there with
my foot on the clutch, my hand on the throttle, and my pulse going like
one o'clock. Should we do it or should we not? Would it be shut or
open? The question answered itself a moment later, when the
lodge-keeper, not seeing the other fellow, half opened the iron gates
and let my bonnet in between them. The car almost knocked him down as
we raced through--I could hear him bawling "Stop!" even above the hum
of the engine.
You will not have forgotten that his lordship had told me to go, hell
for leather, directly I was through the gate, and right well I obeyed
him. The lanes were narrow and twisty; there were morning mists
blowing up from the fields; we passed more than one market cart, and
nearly lost our wings. But I was out to earn fifteen of the best, and
right well I worked for them. Slap bang into Potter's Bar, slap bang
out of it and round the bend towards Prickly Hill. I couldn't have
driven faster if I had had the whole county police at my heels--and the
Lord knows whether I had or not.
This brought us to Barnet in next to no time. We were still doing
forty as we entered the town, and would have run out of it at
twenty-five after we'd passed the church and the police station--would
have, I say, but for one little fact, and that was a fat sergeant of
police right in the middle of the road, with his hand held up like a
leg of mutton, and a voice that might have been hailing a burglar.
"Here, you," he cried, as I drew up, "who have you got in that car?"
"Why," says I, "who should I have but somebody who has a right to be
there? Ask his lordship for himself."
"His lordship--do you mean Lord Crossborough?"
I went to say "Yes," just as he opened the door. You shall judge what
I thought of it when a glance behind me showed that the landaulette was
empty.
"Now, who are you making game of?" cried the sergeant, throwing the
door wide open. "There ain't no lordship in here. What do you mean by
saying there was?"
"Well, he was there when I left Five Corners----"
"What! you've come from his house?"
"Straight away," says I, "and no calls. Ask him for yourself."
He could see that I was flabbergasted and telling him the truth. There
was the landaulette as empty as a box of chocolates when the
parlourmaid has done with them. How Lord Crossborough got out or where
he had gone to when he did get out, I knew no more than the dead. One
thing was plain--I was as clean sold as any greenhorn at any country
fair. And I made no bones about telling the sergeant as much.
"He asked me to drive him down from town to his house at Five Corners.
My mistress told me to take him, and I did. I was to have fifteen of
the best for the job--and here you see what I get. Oh, you bet I'm
happy."
I spoke with some feeling, and you may be sure I felt pretty kind
towards Lord Crossborough just then. To be kept up all night and run
about like a "yellow breeches," to have my ears crammed with promises
and my skin drenched with the mists, to find myself stranded in Barnet
at the end. It was more than any man's temper could stand, and that I
told the sergeant.
"Well," says I, "next time I meet him, I shall have something pretty
strong to say to that same Lord Crossborough, and you may tell him so
when you see him."
"See him--I wish we could see him. There's half the county police
looking for him this minute. Oh, we'd like to see him all right, and a
few others as well. Now, you come down to the station and tell us all
about it. There'll be a cup of hot coffee there, and I daresay you
won't mind that."
I said that I wouldn't, and went along with him. An inspector at the
station took my story down from the time I set off from the Carlton to
the moment I quitted Five Corners. What he wanted it for, what Lord
Crossborough had done, or what he was going to do, they didn't tell me,
nor did I care. But they gave me a jolly good breakfast before they
sent me off, and that was about the best thing I had had for twelve
long hours. It was eleven o'clock when I got back to town at last.
And at three o'clock precisely I saw my mistress again.
You will readily imagine that I was glad of this interview, and had
been looking forward to it anxiously from the time I drove the car into
the stable until the moment it came off. Miss Dartel had a flat in
Bayswater just then; but she didn't send for me there, and it was at
the theatre I saw her, in her own dressing-room between the acts of a
rehearsal. A clean-shaven gentleman was talking to her when I went in,
and for a little while I didn't recognise him; but presently he turned
round, and something in his manner and tone of voice caused me to look
up sharp enough.
"Why," says I, "his lordship!"
They both laughed at this, and Miss Dartel held up her finger.
"Whatever are you saying, Britten?" cried she. "That's Mr. Jermyn, of
the Hicks Theatre."
"Jermyn or French," says I, my temper getting up, "he's the man I drove
to Five Corners last night--and fifteen pounds he owes me, neither more
nor less."
Well, they both laughed again, and the gentleman, he took a pocket-book
from the inside pocket of his coat and laid three five-pound notes on
the table. While they were there, Miss Dartel puts her pretty fingers
upon them, and begins to speak quite confidentially--
"Britten," says she, "there's fifteen pounds. I daresay it would be
fifty if you had a very bad memory, Britten, and couldn't recognise the
gentleman you picked up last night. Now, do you think you have such a
bad memory as all that?"