Chapter 8

I opened my eyes wide, telling myself, for the second time, that he was as certainly mad as any March hare in the picture-books; but I said nothing, for he had turned to a little wooden cupboard near the fireplace, and before he spoke again he set a bottle of whisky, a syphon, and two tumblers on the table, and poured out a stiffish dose for himself and its fellow for me. When I had watched him drink it, and not before, I followed suit, and never did a man want a whisky and soda as badly.

"Your health," says he--I believe I wished him the same. "And little Mabel Bellamy's----"

I put the glass down on the table with a bang.

"Good God!" said I, "not Mabel Bellamy that did the disappearing trick at the Folies Bergeres in Paris two years ago?"

"The same," says he.

"And you are telling me----"

"That she was a very fine actress. Do you deny it, Mr. Britten?"

I rose and buttoned my coat--but the black look was in his eyes again.

"Britten," says he, "not in so much of a hurry, if you please. I am going round to the _Daily Herald_ this afternoon to get that five hundred. You will sit here until I return, when I shall pay you fifty of the best. Is it a bargain, Britten--have we the right to the money or have you?"

I thought upon it for a moment and could not deny the justice of it.

"Do you mean to say you did it for an advertisement?" I cried.

"The very same," says he, "and this night, Mabel's fond papa, the gentleman with the big eyes, Britten, will go to Hampstead and take his long-lost daughter to his breast. She makes her first appearance at the Casino Theatre to-morrow night, Britten----"

I rose and shook him by the hand.

"Fifty of the best," said I, "and I'll wait for them here."

* * * * *

Well, I must say it was a tidy good notion, first for the pair of them to work a trick like that on the public just for the sake of letting all the world know that Mabel Bellamy was to disappear from a basket at the Casino Theatre; and secondly, dropping on the _Daily Herald_ for five hundred of the best--and getting it, too, before the story got wind.

You see, the _Herald_ lost no money, for they had a fine scoop all to their little selves, while the other papers gnashed their teeth and looked on. Nor was the whole truth told by a long way, but a garbled version about foreign coves who worked the business and bolted, and a doting father who never consented to it--and such a hash-up and hocus-pocus as would have made a pig laugh.

Whether, however, the public really took it all, or whether it resented the manner of the play, is not for me to say.

Sentiment is, after all, a very fine thing, as I told Betsy Chambers the night I gave her the anchor brooch and asked her to wear it for auld lang syne, to say nothing of the good time we had when I took her to Maidenhead in old Moss's car and pretended I was broken down at Reading with a dot-and-go-one accumulator. Of course, Moss weighed in with an interview. I wonder the sight of his ugly old mug didn't shrivel the paper it was printed on.

Anyway me and Betsy--but that's another story, and so, perhaps, I had better conclude.

VI

THE COUNTESS

To begin with, I suppose, it would be as well to tell you her name, but I only saw it once in the address-book at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, and then I couldn't have written it down for myself--no, not if a man had offered me five of the best for doing so.

You see, she gave it out that she came from foreign parts, and her husband, when she remembered that she'd got one, was supposed to be a Hungarian grandee with a name fit to crack walnuts, and a moustache like an antelope's horns set over a firegrate to speak of her ancestors. Had I been offered two guesses, I would have said that she came from New York City and that her name was Mary. But who am I to contradict a pretty woman in trouble, and what was the matter with Maria Louise Theresa, and all the rest of it, as she set it down in the visitors' book at the hotel?

I'd been over to Paris on a job with a big French car, and worked there a little while for James D. Higgs, the American tin-plate maker, who was making things shine at the Ritz Hotel, and had a Panhard almost big enough to take the chorus to Armenonville--which he did by sections, showing neither fear nor favour, and being wonderful domesticated in his tastes.

When James was overtaken by the domestic emotions, and thought he would return to Pittsburg to his sorrowing wife and children, he handed me over to the Countess, saying that she was a particular friend of his, and that if her ancestors didn't sail with the Conqueror it was probably because they had an appointment at the Moulin Rouge and were too gentlemanly to break it--which was his way of tipping me the wink; and "Britten, my boy," says he, "keep her out of mischief, for you are all she has got in this wicked world."

Well, it was an eye-opener, I must say; for I hadn't seen her for more than two minutes together, and when we did meet, I found her to be just a jolly little American chassis, slim and shapely, and as full of "go" as a schoolgirl on a roundabout. Her idea, she told me, was to drive a Delahaye car she had hired, from Paris to Monte Carlo, and there to meet her husband with the jaw-cracking name; whom, she assured me, with the look of an angel in the blue picture, she hadn't seen for more than two years.

"Two years, Britten--sure and certain. Now what do you think of that?"

"It would depend upon your husband, madame," said I; upon which she laughed so loud they must have heard her in the garden below.

"Why, to be sure," says she, "you've got there first time. It does depend upon the husband, and mine is the kindest, gentlest, most foolish creature that ever was in this world. So, you see, I am determined not to be kept from him any longer."

"Then, madame," said I, "we had better start at once."

I thought that she hesitated, could have sworn that she was about to admit me further into her confidence; but I suppose she considered the time unsuited; and after asking me a few questions about the car, and whether I knew the road and was a careful driver, she gave me instructions to be at the hotel at nine o'clock on the following morning. So away I went, telling myself that the world was a funny place, and wondering what Herr Joseph, the jaw-cracker, would have to say to his good lady when she did turn up at Montey and laid her new beehive hat upon his doting bosom.

This was no business of mine. I am a motor-driver, and two pound ten on Saturday is my abiding anxiety. Give me my wages regular, and the class of passenger who feels for the driver's palm at the journey's end, and I'll ask nothing more of Providence. So on the following morning, at nine sharp, I drove the big Delahaye round to the Ritz, and by a quarter past her ladyship was aboard and we were making for Dijon and the coast.

No motorist who knows anything of the game will ask me to describe this journey, or to tell him just where he should stop because of the dead 'uns of five hundred years ago, or where he should hurry on because of the livestock of to-day. I had a fine car under me, a pretty woman in the tonneau, a May-day to put life into me, and a road so fine that a man might dream of it in his sleep. And if that's not what the schoolmaster calls Eldorado, then I'll send him a halfpenny card to find out just what is.

So let it suffice to say that we went at our leisure--slept at Dijon and at Lyons, were one night at Avignon, and two nights later at Nice. If there was anything to remark during the journey, it was Madame's growing anxiety as we approached the Mediterranean, and the number of telegrams she sent to her friends whenever we chanced to halt--even in the meanest villages.

The telegrams I had the pleasure to read more than once as I handed them over the counter; but those that were in German were no good to me, and those that were in French I could but half decipher. None the less, I got the impression that she was in a state of much distress and perplexity, and that all her messages were to one end--namely, that she should have the right to go somewhere at present forbidden her, and that the Baron Albert, whoever he might be, should be interviewed on her behalf and persuaded that she was a lady of all the virtues.

A final telegram to an English gentleman at Vienna capped all, and was not to be misunderstood. It simply said, "I shall publish the story if they persevere." And that seemed to me an ugly threat to come from so pretty a sender, though of its meaning I had no more knowledge than the dead.

Perhaps you will say that I was a poor sort to have been reading her telegrams at all; that it didn't concern me; and that I was paid to hold my tongue. Well, that is true enough, and Madame had little to complain of on such a score, I must say. To all and sundry who questioned me at the hotels, I just said she was the wife of a Hungarian nobleman, and that she travelled for her pleasure. When we arrived at Nice, and an impertinent policeman got me into a corner, so to speak, and tried to put me through the catechism, I simply said, "No speakee Frenchee--Mistress Americano," and at that he shook his head and wrote it down in a note-book about as large as a grocer's ledger. But I plainly perceived that something more than mere police curiosity accounted for all this cross-examination; and when Madame sent for me to her private sitting-room that night, I guessed immediately that something was up, and that I was about to learn the nature of it.

I shall always remember the occasion, as beautiful a night of a Southern summer as a man could hap upon. Still and starry, the sea without a ripple; the ships like black shapes against an azure sky; the lights of the houses shining upon the moonlit gardens; the music of the bands; the gay talk of the merry people--oh, who would go northward ho! if Providence set him down on such a spot as this? And upon it all was the picture of Madame herself--of that lady of the gazelle's eyes and the milk-white skin, as she invited me into her sitting-room and asked me to sit down while she talked.

You could not have matched her for beauty in Nice; I doubt if you could have done it nearer than Paris and the Ritz. Dressed in a lot of fluffy stuff, with a pink satin skirt, and arms bare to the shoulders and a chain of diamonds about her neck--dressed like this, and so sweet and gracious in her manner, talking to me just as though she had known me from infancy, and asking me, Lal Britten, to help her--why, you bet I said "Yes," and said it so plainly that even she could not mistake me.

"Why, Britten," says she, "do you know what has happened to-day?"

"Couldn't guess it if I tried, madame," said I.

"Well, then, I must tell you: they won't let me go to Monte Carlo, Britten. They say the Emperor forbids it."

"But, madame, is there any need to ask the old gentleman's permission? Aren't you an American citizen?"

She laughed at my idea of it, and asked me if I would like a glass of port wine, which I did to oblige her; while she took another as though she liked it, which I have no reason to suppose she did not.

"You see, Britten," she said, presently, "a woman is of her husband's nationality, and so, of course, I am a Hungarian. That is why the Emperor has the power to say that I must not be admitted to Monte Carlo just at the moment when my dear husband is waiting for me there. Now, don't you think it is very hard upon us both?"

"It's very hard on him, madame, seeing you are in the case. I should want to know him before I said the same thing for you, asking your pardon for the liberty."

She took no notice of this, but casting up her eyes to heaven--and at that game Miss Sarah Bernhardt out of Paris couldn't beat her--she exclaimed:

"Oh, my poor Joseph, whatever will he think of me? I dare not contemplate it, Britten--I really dare not."

"Then I should leave it alone, madame. Is there no way of getting this decision altered?"

"None that I can think of, unless----"

"Unless what, madame?"

She tapped the table with her pretty fingers, and poured me out a second glass of port wine.

"Unless the mountain will come to Mahomet--but I guess you don't know what that means, Britten, now do you?"

She screwed her lips up to the kissing point with this, and looked at me so tenderly that I began to feel nervous--upon my word I did.

"Do you mean that your husband must come here, madame?"

"Of course I mean it, Britten. You must fetch him--by a trick. Now wouldn't that be splendid--say, wouldn't it be fine? If we could outwit them--if we could make the Emperor look foolish!"

I rubbed my chin and thought about it. There isn't much modesty in my profession, but the idea of getting up against a policeman so far from my humble home somehow put the brake on, and I found myself misfiring like one o'clock in spite of her pretty eyes and her red lips, and her "take me in your arms and kiss me" look. The Croydon lot are bad enough, but as for the beaks at Montey--well, I've heard tales of them and to spare.

"It would be fine, madame, if we could do it," said I at last; "but between talking of it here in this hotel and crossing the frontier----"

"Oh," she cried, interrupting me almost angrily--and she has the devil of a temper--"oh, there's no difficulty, Britten. Just drive to the Hermitage after my husband has dined to-morrow night, and say that if he wants the news of Madame Clara, you can take him where he will get it. Don't you see, Clara is one of my pet names. He'll understand in a moment, and you can drive him to this hotel. Are you afraid to do that, Britten?"

Of course I wasn't afraid, and she knew it. It was nothing to me anyway, and I could always plead that I was her servant and an Englishman, and didn't care a damn for this particular Emperor or any other. None the less, if she hadn't smiled upon me as she did at that particular moment--smiled like a daffy-down-dilly in April, and squeezed my hand as soft as June roses, which the same appeared to be done by accident, I might have left it alone, after all. As it was, I had set off at seven o'clock on the following evening, and at a quarter past nine I was asking at the Hermitage for Count Joseph, just as full of the story I had to tell as a history-book of kings.

A black and white _maitre d'hotel_, picked out with gold, replied to this, and after talking to half a dozen waiters and sending for another chap with a shirt-front like a Mercedes bonnet, they directed me to a little hotel down by Monaco; and there the head waiter received me quite affably, and said, "Certainly, the gentleman was at home." When I had given my name, but not my business, I was ushered up, perhaps after an interval of ten minutes, to a sitting-room on the first floor, and there I found myself face to face with a fat, red-faced man in evening dress; and if ever there was a martinet down Montey way, this fine gentleman was that same. He was fat, I say, and forty--but to write that he was fair would be impossible, for he hadn't more than about half a dozen hairs on his head, and those had drifted down his neck to get out of the wind. When I came in he appeared to be sipping Cognac out of a long green bottle, and to be reading private papers just as fast as he could get through them, but he looked up presently, and a pair of wickeder eyes I do not want to see.

"Who sent you here?" he asked.

"A lady," said I.

"Her name?"

"Madame Clara."

He turned and snuffed the wick of a candle standing on the table by his side. From his manner I did not think him quite sober, but he appeared to pull himself together by-and-by, and then he exclaimed:

"Repeat your message."

"I am to say that if you wish for news of Madame Clara, I can take you where you will get it."

Well, I thought that he smiled, though I cannot be quite sure of that. Presently, however, he stood up without a word, and, going into his bedroom, he brought a heavy fur coat and cap into the sitting-room, and motioned me to help him on with them. When that was done, he opened the door and invited me to precede him down the corridor.

"I will see the lady," he said--and that was all. We were in the car two minutes afterwards, making for Nice on the "fourth," and not a soul to interfere with us or to do more than take a glance at our papers as we passed the stations. Never had there been a lighter job; never had a man helped a woman so easily.

I thought about all this, be sure, as we drew near Nice and the end of our game appeared to be at hand. The old women tell us not to count our chickens before they are hatched, and that's a thing I am not in the habit of doing; but the more I reflected upon it, the better pleased did I feel with myself, and the greater was my wonder at the lady's tastes. That such a pretty little woman, such a gay soul, such a good judge of men--for she was a judge, I'll swear--that she should have ever been in love with this sack of lard I was driving to Nice--well, that did astonish me beyond measure; though it should not have done so, knowing women as I do, and seeing how old Father Time does stick his dirty fingers on our idols and make banshees of the best of them.

I say that I was astonished, but such a feeling soon gave place to others; and when I brought up my car with a dash to the door of the hotel, and the gold-laced porter helped the fat old gentleman out, curiosity took the place of wonder. I became as anxious as a parlourmaid at a keyhole to know what Madame would have to say to this twenty-stone husband, and, what particular terms of endearment he would choose for his reply. Certainly if pleasurable anticipation is to be denoted by smiles, he found no fault with his present situation, for he grinned like a gorilla when he got down, and, nodding to me quite affably, he asked:

"Upon which floor is Madame Clara staying, did you say?"

"The third floor--number 113."

"Ah," says he, adjusting his glasses and turning round to go in, "that is an unlucky number, my friend," and without another word he entered the hotel and left me there.

Of course, I didn't expect him to talk to me, was not looking for a tip from Madame's own husband, but I had expected a question or two; and when he had departed the porter and I stopped there gossiping a bit, for it was likely that the car might be wanted again that night--and, to be truthful, I more than half hoped that Madame would send for me.

"What's up?" asks the porter--he passes for a foreigner, but I happen to know he was born just off Soho. "What's up, matey?"

"Why," says I, "that's just what I'd like to know myself. Can't you tell the chambermaid at 113 to find out?"

"The maid's off. Is that old cove licensed?"

"All in order at Scotland Yard," says I. "He's took out a license to drive, and his papers are passed. That's my missis' husband."

"Oh," he remarked, in a dreamy kind of way, "which one?"

"Why, the gentleman who just went in."

"Poor soul!" says he, in a most aggravating manner, "how fast she do lose 'em. I wonder who pays for the headstones?"

"Do you know her?" asked I, for his words took me aback.

He shook his head at this, and then scratched it as though he were trying to think.

"Larst time," he said presently, "larst time she dropped one or two at Cannes, I'm thinking---- But, Lord love me, what's that?"

He stepped back on the pavement and looked up to the window of the room 113. I had heard the shindy as well as he--a regular scream, as though a woman was mad in her tantrums, and upon that a crash of glass and silence--while the porter and me, we just stared at one another.

"Votes for women!" says he, presently, and in so droll a way that I had to laugh in spite of myself; but before I could answer him, what do you think? Why, out come the old gentleman, just as calm and smiling as he had been ten minutes ago.

"You will drive me back to Monaco," he began. I asked him by whose orders; but at that he looked like a devil incarnate, and spoke so loud that I was right down frightened of him.

"You will drive me back to Monaco or spend the night in prison!" he shouted. "Now, which do you prefer?"

"Oh," says I, "in you get!" And in he did get, as I'm a Dutchman, and I drove him back to the hotel at Monaco--which was about the hour of one in the morning, and no mistake at all. When he got out at last, no babe in frocks could have looked more innocent, and he just handed me up a couple of louis, like a father blessing his only son.

"You drive very well, my lad. Where did you learn?"

"On a good car, sir. Henri Fourtnier taught me about the time of the second Gordon Bennett. But I don't suppose you remember that."

"Certainly I remember it. The late Count Zborowski was one of my friends. Let me give you a little piece of advice. It is better to drive for a gentleman than a lady."

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

But he waved his hand with a flourish, and crying, "A bonny arntarndure," or something of that kind, he disappeared into his hotel and left me to think what I liked. And a lot I did think as I drove back to Nice, I do assure you--for a rummier game I had never been engaged in, and that's the truth, upon my word and honour.

It was daylight when I reached the garage, and out of the question, of course, to think of seeing Madame. Speaking for myself, I was too dog-tired to ask if she wanted me or not; and going up to my bedroom, I must have slept till nine o'clock without lifting an eyelid. At that hour the boots waked me in a deuce of a stew, telling me that Madame must see me without a moment's loss of time. I dressed anyhow and went down to her. Poor little woman, what a state she was in! I don't think I ever saw a sorrier picture in all my life.

No fluffy stuff and fine pink satin now, but a shabby old morning gown and her hair anyhow upon her shoulders, and in her eyes the look of a woman who has been hunted and does not know where on God's earth she is going to find a habitation. I've seen it twice in my life, and I never want to see it again--for what man with a heart would wish to do so?

"Britten," she says, almost like a play-actress on the stage of a theatre, "Britten, do you know what happened last night?"

"Well," says I, "for that matter lots of things happened; but if you're speaking of the gentleman, your husband----"

"My husband!"--you should have heard her laugh; it was just like one of the animals at the Zoo--"my husband! That wasn't my husband! That was the Baron Albert--the man I dread more than any one in the world. How could you make such a mistake, Britten?"

I shook my head.

"Madame," says I, "I'm very sorry, but I took the first one that came along and answered to the name. It must have been the head waiter's fault."

She clenched her hands and began to step up and down the room, wild with perplexity.

"It was all planned, Britten--all planned. They knew that I should send for Count Joseph, and this villain came from Vienna to thwart me. He must have bribed the servants at the hotel. And now, what do you say to it? I am to be banished from France--he swears it. They have written to Paris, and the decree may come at any moment. I am to be banished, Britten--driven out like a common criminal! Oh, what shall I do? My God, what shall I do?"

That was a question I couldn't answer, but it did seem a wicked thing to treat a woman so, and I wasn't ashamed to admit it.

"Is there any law in France that can turn you out, madame?" I asked. She answered that quickly enough.

"Certainly there is, Britten. I know all about it. They can turn me out at twenty-four hours' notice."

"Why not go to the American Consulate, madame?"

"Oh, you don't understand. If my husband were but here! Oh, they would not insult me then--even if you were my husband, Britten."