The Man Who Drove the Car Part 2

"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?"

I twigged it in a minute, and answered them quite honestly.

"I must know more or less, madame," says I. "Remember my interests are not this gentleman's interests."

"Oh, that's quite fair, Britten, though naturally, we know nothing.

But they do say that poor Lord Crossborough has gone quite silly about the rural life. He's been reading Tolstoy's books, and wants to live upon a shilling a day; while poor Lady Crossborough, who knows my cousin, Captain Blackham, very well, she's bored to death, and it will kill her if it goes on. So, you see, she persuaded his lordship to give that funny party at his old house in Portman Square last night, and all the papers are laughing at it to-day, and he'll be chaffed out of his life. I'm sure Lady Crossborough will get her way now, Britten; and when the police hear it was only an eccentricity upon his lordship's part, they won't say anything. Now, do you think that you would be able to swear that the man you drove last night was very like Lord Crossborough? If so, it would be lucky, and I'm sure her ladyship will give you fifty pounds."

I thought about it a minute, rolling up the notes and putting them into my pocket. Of course I could swear as she wanted me to. And fifty of the best. Good Lord, what a temptation!

But I'll tell you straight that I got the fifty, and never swore nothing at all. The party was a job put up by Lady Crossborough. The man I drove was Mr. Jermyn, of the Hicks Theatre, and the world and the newspapers laughed so loud at his lordship, who never convinced anybody he hadn't done it, that he went off to India in a hurry, and never came back for twelve months. Which proves to me that honesty is the best policy, as I shall always declare.

And one thing more--where did Mr. Jermyn get out of my car? Why, just as I slowed up for the corner by the church at Barnet--not a hundred yards from where the constable stopped me. A clever actor--why, yes, he is that.

[1] The Editor has left Mr. Britten to speak for himself in his own manner when that seems characteristic of his employment.

[2] Mr. Britten's spelling of Quat'z-Arts is eccentric.

II

THE SILVER WEDDING

Yes, I shall never forget "Benny," and I shall never forget his beautiful red hair. Gentlemen, I have driven for many ... and the other sort, but "Benny" was neither the one nor the other--not a man, but a tribe ... not a Jew nor yet a Christian, but just something you meet every day and all days--a big, blundering heap of good-nature, which quarrels with one half the world and takes Ba.s.s's beer with the other. That was Benjamin Colmacher--"Benny" for short--that was the master I want to tell you about.

I was out of a job at the time, and had picked up an endors.e.m.e.nt at Hayward's Heath and left a matter of six pounds there for the justices to get busy with. Time is money, they say, and I have found it to be so ... generally five pounds and costs, though more if you take a quant.i.ty. It isn't easy for a good man with a road mechanic's knowledge and five years' experience, racing and otherwise, to place himself nowadays, when any groom can get made a slap-bang "shuffer" for five pounds at a murder-shop, and any old coachman is young enough to put his guv'nor in the ditch. My knowledge and my experience had gone begging for exactly three months when I heard of Benny, and hurried round to his flat off Russell Square, "just the chap for you," they said at the garage. I thought so, too, when I saw him.

It was a fine flat, upon my word, and filled up with enough fal-de-lals to please a d.u.c.h.ess from the Gaiety. Benny himself, his red hair combed flat on his head and oiled like a missing commutator, wore a j.a.panese silk dressing-gown which would have fired a steam car. His breakfast, I observed, consisted of one brandy-and-soda and a bunch of grapes; but the cigar he offered me was as long as a policeman's boot, and the fellow to it stuck out of a mouth as full of fine white teeth as a pod of peas.

"Good-morning," says he, nodding affably enough; and then, "You are Lionel Britten, I suppose?"

"Yes," says I--for no road mechanic who respects himself is going to "sir" such as Benny Colmacher to begin with--"that's my name, though my friends call me Lal for short. You're wanting a driver, I hear."

He sat himself in a great armchair and looked me up and down as a vet looks at a horse.

"I do want a driver," says he, "though how you got to know it, the Lord knows."

"Why," says I, "that's funny, isn't it? We're both wanting the same thing, for I can see you're just the gentleman I would like to take on with."

He smiled at this, and seemed to be thinking about it. Presently he asked a plain question. I answered him as shortly.

"Where did you hear of me?" he asked.

"At Blundell's garage," I answered.

"And I was buying a car?"

"Yes, a fifty-seven Daimler ... that was the talk."

"Could you drive a car like that?"

"Could I--oh, my G.o.dfathers----"

"Then you have handled fast cars?"

"I drove with Fournier in the Paris-Bordeaux, was through the Florio for the Fiat people, and have driven the big Delahaye just upon a hundred and three miles an hour. Read my papers, sir ... they'll show you what I've done."

I put a bundle into his hand, and he read a few words of them. When next he looked at me, there was something in his eyes which surprised me considerably. Some would have called it cunning, some curiosity; I didn't know what to make of it.

"Why would you like to drive for me?" he asked presently.

"Because," said I, quickly enough, "it's plain that you're a gentleman anybody would like to drive for."

"But you don't know anything at all about me."

"That's just it, sir. The nicest people are those we don't know anything at all about."

He laughed loudly at this, and helped himself to the brandy-and-soda, but didn't drink over-much of it. I could see that he was much relieved, and he spoke afterwards with more freedom.

"You're one that knows how to hold his tongue?" he suggested. I rejoined that, so far as tongues went, I had mine in a four-inch vice.

"Especially where the ladies are concerned?"

"I'd sooner talk to them than about them, sir."

"That's right, that's right. Don't take the maid when you can get the mistress, eh?"

"Take 'em both for choice, that's my motto."

"You're not married, Britten?"

"No such misfortune has overtaken me, sir."

"Ha!"--here he leered just like an actor at the Vic--"and you don't mind driving at night?"

"I much prefer it, sir."

He leered again, and seemed mightily pleased. A few more questions put and answered found me with that job right enough ... and a right good job, too, as things are nowadays. I was to have four pounds a week and liveries. Such a mug as "Benny" Colmacher would not be the man to ask about tyres and petrol, and if he did, I knew how to fill up his tanks for him. Be sure I went away on my top speed and ate a better lunch than had come my way for six months or more. Who the man was, or what he was, I didn't care a dump. I had got the job, and to-morrow I would get up in the driver's seat of a car again. You can't wonder I was pleased.

I slept well that night, and was round at Benny's early on the following morning. If I had been surprised at my good luck yesterday, surprise was no word for what I felt when the valet opened the door to me and told me that Mr. Colmacher was in the country and wouldn't be back for a month. Not a word had been said about this, mind you--not a hint at it; and yet the stiff and starched gentleman could tell me the news just as coolly as though he had said, "My master has gone across the street to see a friend." When I asked him if there was no message for me, he answered simply, "None."