The Lady in the Car Part 9

THE MAN WITH THE RED CIRCLE.

Another story related by Garrett, the chauffeur, is worth telling, for it is not without its humorous side.

It occurred about six weeks after the return of the party from San Remo.

It was dismal and wet in London, one of those damp yellow days with which we, alas I are too well acquainted.

About two o'clock in the afternoon, attired in yellow fishermen's oil-skins instead of his showy grey livery, Garrett sat at the wheel of the new "sixty" six-cylinder car of Finch Grey's outside the Royal Automobile Club, in Piccadilly, bade adieu to the exemplary Bayswater parson, who stood upon the steps, and drew along to the corner of Park Lane, afterwards turning towards the Marble Arch, upon the first stage of a long and mysterious journey.

When it is said that the journey was a mysterious one Garrett was compelled to admit that, ever since he had been in the service of Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein his journeys had been made for the most part with a motive that, until the moment of their accomplishment, remained to him a mystery. His employer gave him orders, but he never allowed him to know his plans. He was paid to hold his tongue and obey. What mattered if his Highness, who was such a well-known figure in the world of automobilism was not a Highness at all; or whether the Rev Thomas Clayton held no clerical charge in Bayswater. He, Garrett, was the Prince's chauffeur, paid to close his ears and his eyes to everything around him, and to drive whatever lady who might be in the car hither and thither, just as his employer or his audacious friends required.

For two years his life had been one of constant change, as these secret records show. In scarcely a country in Europe he had not driven, while fully half a dozen times he had driven between Boulogne and the "Place"

at Monte Carlo, four times from Calais due east to Berlin, as well as some highly exciting runs over certain frontiers when compelled to evade the officers of the law.

The good-looking Prince Albert, whose real name was hidden in obscurity, but who was best known as Tremlett, Burch.e.l.l-Laing, Drummond, Lord Na.s.sington, and half a dozen other aliases, constantly amazed and puzzled the police. Leader of that small circle of bold and ingenious men, he provided the newspapers with sensational gossip from time to time, exploits in which he usually made use of one or other of his high-power cars, and in which there was invariably a lady in the car.

Prince Albert was nothing if not a ladies' man, and in two years had owned quite a dozen cars of different makes with identification plates innumerable, most of them false.

His Highness, who always found sn.o.bs to bow and dust his boots, and who took good care to prey upon their sn.o.bbishness, was a perfect marvel of cunning. His cool audacity was unequalled. The times which he pa.s.sed unsuspected and unidentified beneath the very noses of the police were innumerable, while the times in which Garrett had been in imminent peril of arrest were not a few.

The present journey was, however, to say the least, a very mysterious one.

That morning at ten o'clock he had sat, as usual, in the cosy chambers in Dover Street. His Highness had given him a cigar, and treated him as an equal, as he did always when they were alone.

"You must start directly after lunch for the Highlands, Garrett," he had said suddenly, his dark, clearly defined brows slightly knit. He was still in his velvet smoking-jacket, and smoked incessantly his brown "Petroffs."

"I know," he went on, "that the weather is wretched--but it is imperative. We must have the car up there."

Garrett was disappointed, for they were only just back from Hamburg, and he had expected at least to spend a few days with his own people down at Surbiton.

"What?" he asked, "another _coup_?" His Highness smiled meaningly.

"We've got a rather ticklish piece of work before us, Garrett," he said, contemplating the end of his cigar. "There's a girl in it--a very pretty little girl. And you'll have to make a lot of love to her--you understand?" And the gay nonchalant fellow laughed as his eyes raised themselves to the chauffeur's.

"Well," remarked the man, somewhat surprised. "You make a much better lover than I do. Remember the affair of the pretty Miss Northover?"

"Yes, yes!" he exclaimed impatiently. "But in this affair it's different. I have other things to do besides love-making. She'll have to be left to you. I warn you, however, that the dainty Elfrida is a dangerous person--so don't make a fool of yourself, Garrett."

"Dangerous?" he echoed.

"I mean dangerously attractive, that's all. Neither she, nor her people, have the least suspicion. The Blair-Stewarts, of Glenblair Castle, up in Perthshire, claim to be one of the oldest families in the Highlands. The old fellow made his money at shipbuilding, over at Dumbarton, and bought back what may be, or may not be, the family estate. At any rate, he's got pots of the needful, and I, having met him with his wife and daughter this autumn at the `Excelsior,' at Aix, am invited up there to-morrow to spend a week or so. I've consented if I may go _incognito_ as Mr Drummond."

"And I go to take the car up?"

"No. You go as Herbert Hebberdine, son of old Sir Samuel Hebberdine, the banker of Old Broad Street, a young man sowing his wild oats and a motor enthusiast, as every young man is more or less nowadays," he laughed. "You go as owner of the car. To Mrs Blair-Stewart I explained long ago that you were one of my greatest friends, so she has asked me to invite you, and I've already accepted in your name."

"But I'm a stranger!" protested Garrett.

"Never mind, my dear fellow," laughed the audacious Prince. "Clayton will be up there too. It's he who knows the people, and is working the game pretty cleverly."

"Is it jewels?" asked the chauffeur in a low voice.

"No, it just isn't, this time! You're mistaken, as you always are when you're too inquisitive. Garrett, it's something better," he answered.

"All you've got to do is to pretend to be smitten by the girl. She's a terrible little flirt, so you won't have very much difficulty. You make the running, and leave all the rest to me." His master, having shown him on the map where Glenblair was situated, half way between Stirling and Perth, added:

"I'll go up to-night, and you'll be there in three days' time.

Meanwhile I'll sing your praises, and you'll receive a warm welcome from everybody when you arrive. Take your decent kit with you, and act the gentleman. There's a level thousand each for us if we bring it off properly. But," he added, with further injunctions not to fall genuinely in love with the pretty Elfrida, "the whole thing rests upon you. The girl must be devoted to you--otherwise we can't work the trick."

"What _is_ the trick?" asked Garrett, his curiosity aroused.

"Never mind what it is, Garrett," he said, rising to dismiss him.

"Have your lunch and get away. You've five hundred miles of bad roads and new metal before you, so the sooner you're off the better. Call and see Clayton at his rooms. He's got a bag, or something, to put in the car, I think. When we meet in Scotland, recollect that I'm Prince Albert _incognito_. We were at Bonn together, and have been friends for many years. Good luck to you!"

And with that he left the Prince's cosy rooms, and soon found himself out in Dover Street again, much puzzled.

The real object of his visit and his flirtation at a Scotch castle filled his mind as, in the dull light of that fading afternoon, he swept along the muddy Great North Road his exhaust opened and roaring as he went ascending through Whetstone and Barnet in the direction of Hatfield. The "sixty" repainted cream with narrow gilt lines upon it certainly presented a very smart appearance, but in the back he had a couple of false number-plates, together with three big pots of dark-green enamel and a brush, so that if occasion arose, as it had arisen more than once, he could run up a by-road, and in an hour transform its appearance, so that its own maker would scarcely recognise it.

In the grey twilight as he approached Hitchin, swinging round those sharp corners at a speed as high as he dared, it poured with rain again, and he was compelled to lower the wind-screen and receive the full brunt of the storm, so blurred became everything through the sheet of plate-gla.s.s. The old "Sun" at Hitchin reached, he got a drink, lit his head-lamps, and crossing the marketplace, pushed forward, a long and monotonous run up Alconbury Hill and through Wansford to Stamford where, at the Stamford Hotel--which recalled memories of the Northovers--he ate a cold dinner and rested for an hour over a cigar.

Many were the exciting adventures he had had while acting as chauffeur to his Highness, but his instructions that morning had somehow filled him with unusual misgiving. He was on his way to pretend to make love to a girl whom he had never seen, the daughter of a millionaire shipbuilder, a man who, as the Prince had informed him, had risen from a journeyman, and like so many others who make money, had at once looked round for a ready-made pedigree, and its accompanying estate. Heraldry and family trees seem to exercise a strange and unaccountable fascination for the parvenu.

As he pushed north, on through that long dark night in the teeth of a bitter northeaster and constant rain, his mind was full of the mysterious _coup_ which his Highness and his friend were about to attempt. Jewels and money were usually what they were in search of, but on this occasion it was something else. What it was, his Highness had flatly refused to tell.

Aided by the Rev Thomas Clayton, one of the cleverest impostors who ever evaded the police, his Highness's successes had been little short of marvellous. His audacity was unparalleled. The Parson, who lived constantly in that smug circle wherein moved the newly-rich, usually marked down the victim, introduced his Highness, or the fascinating Mr Tremlett, and left the rest to the young cosmopolitan's tact and ingenuity. Their aliases were many, while the memory of both Tremlett and Clayton for faces was extraordinary. A favourite pose of the Prince was that of military _attache_ in the service of the German Government, and this self-a.s.sumed profession often gained him admission to the most exclusive circles here, and on the Continent.

Garrett's alias of Herbert Hebberdine he had a.s.sumed on one or two previous occasions--once at Biarritz, when his Highness successfully secured the splendid pearl necklace of the d.u.c.h.ess of Taormino, and again a few months later at Abbazia, on the beautiful sh.o.r.e of the Adriatic. On both occasions their _coup_ had been brought off without a hitch, he recollected. Therefore, why should he, on this occasion, become so foolishly apprehensive?

He could not tell. He tried to a.n.a.lyse his feelings as, hour after hour, he sat at the wheel, tearing along that dark, wet, endless highway due north towards York. But all in vain. Over him seemed to have spread a shadow of impending evil, and try how he would, he could not shake off the uncomfortable feeling that he was rushing into some grave peril from which he was destined not to escape.

To describe in detail that wet, uncomfortable run from Hyde Park Corner to Edinburgh would serve no purpose in this little chronicle of an exciting chapter of an adventurous life. Suffice it to say that, late in the night of the second day after leaving London, he drew up before the North British Hotel, in Prince's Street, glad of shelter from the icy blast. A telegram from his Highness ordered him to arrive at the castle on the following evening; therefore, just as dusk was falling, he found himself before the lodge-gates of the splendid domain of the laird of Glenblair, and a moment later turned into the drive which ascended for more than a mile through an avenue of great bare beeches and oaks, on the one side a dense wood, and on the other a deep, beautiful glen, where, far below, rippled a burn with many picturesque cascades.

Once or twice he touched the b.u.t.ton of the electric horn to give warning of his approach, when suddenly the drive took a wide curve and opened out before a splendid old mansion in the Scotch baronial style, situated amid the most romantic and picturesque scenery it had ever been his lot to witness.

At the door, brought out by the horn, stood his Highness, in a smart suit of blue serge, and the Parson, in severe clerical garb and pince-nez, while with them stood two women, one plump, elderly, and grey-haired, in a dark gown, the other a slim figure in cream with wavy chestnut hair, and a face that instantly fascinated the new-comer.

As he alighted from the car and drew off his fur glove the Prince--who was staying _incognito_ as Mr Drummond--introduced him to his hostess, before whom he bowed, while she, in turn, said:

"This is my daughter, Elfrida--Mr Hebberdine."

Garrett bowed again. Their eyes met, and next instant the young man wished heartily that he had never come there. The Prince had not exaggerated her beauty. She was absolutely perfect. In all the years he had been a wanderer he had never seen such dainty _chic_, such tiny hands and feet, or such a sweet face with its soft pink cheeks and its red lips made for kisses. She could not have been more than eighteen or so, yet about her was none of the _gaucherie_ of the school-girl. He noticed that she dropped her eyes quickly, and upon her cheeks arose just the _soupcon_ of a blush.

"Had a good run, Herbert?" asked the Prince as he entered the big hall of the castle.

"Not very. The roads were infernally bad in places," replied the other, "and the new metal between York and Newcastle is most annoying."

"Good car, that of yours!" remarked the Parson, as though he had never seen it before, while his Highness declared that a six-cylinder was certainly the best of all.