"Oh, he's a count, is he?" said the waitress saucily. "My, isn't he mashed on the young one?"

"Who wouldn't be?" declared Smith. "She's the sort of girl a fellow 'ud leave home for."

"Fine feathers go a long way. There's as good as her in the world,"

came the retort, not without a favorable glance at Medenham.

"Meanwhile the tea is getting cold," said he.

"Dear me, you needn't hurry. Her ma is goin' to write half-a-dozen picture postcards. But what a voice! The old girl drowns the waterfall."

The waitress flounced off. She was pretty, and no wandering chauffeur had ever before turned aside the arrows of her bright eyes so heedlessly.

"Then you have seen Miss Vanrenen?" inquired Medenham, sipping his tea.

"Ra-ther!" said Smith. "Saw her in Paris, at the Ritz, when my people sent me over there to learn the mechanism of this car. The Count was always hanging about, and I thought he wanted the old man to buy a Du Vallon, but it's all Lombard Street to a china orange that he was after the daughter the whole time. I don't blame him. She's a regular daisy. But you ought to know best. How do _you_ get on with her?"

"Capitally."

"Why did Dale and you swop jobs?"

"Oh, a mere matter of arrangement," said Medenham, who realized that Smith would blurt out every item of information that he possessed if allowed to talk.

"He's a corker, is Dale," mused the other. "I can do with a pint or two meself when the day's work is finished an' the car safely locked up for the night. But that Dale! he's a walkin' beer-barrel. Lord love a duck! what a soakin' he gev' me in Brighton. Some lah-di-dah toff swaggered into the garage that evenin', and handed Dale a fiver--five golden quidlets, if you please--which my nibs had won on a horse at Epsom. I must say, though, Dale did the thing handsome--quart bottles o' Ba.s.s opened every ten minutes. Thank you, my dear"--this to the waitress, "next to beer give me tea. Now, my boss, bein' a Frenchy, won't touch eether--wine an' corfee are his specials."

"He seemed to be enjoying his tea when I caught sight of him in the garden a little while ago," said Medenham.

"That's his artfulness, my boy. You wait a bit. You'll see something before you reach Bristol to-night; anyway, you'll hear something, which amounts to pretty much the same in the end."

"They're just off to the caves," put in the girl.

"While Mrs. Devar writes her postcards, I suppose?" said Medenham innocently.

"What! Is that the old party with the hair? I thought she was the young lady's mother. She's gone with them. She looks that sort of meddler--not half. Two's company an' three's none is my motto, cave or no cave."

She tried her most bewitching smile on Medenham this time. It was a novel experience to be the recipient of a serving-maid's marked favor, and it embarra.s.sed him. Smith, his mouth full of currant bun, spluttered with laughter.

"A fair offer," he cried. "You two dodge outside and see which cave the aristocracy chooses. Then you can take a turn round the other one.

I'll watch the cars all right."

The girl suddenly blushed and looked demure. A sweet voice said quietly:

"We shall remain here half an hour or more, Fitzroy. I thought I would tell you in case you wished to smoke--or occupy your time in any other way."

The pause was eloquent: Cynthia had heard.

"Thank you, Miss Vanrenen," he said, affecting to glance at his watch.

He felt thoroughly nonplussed. She would surely think he had been flirting with this rosy-cheeked servant, and he might never have an opportunity of telling her that his sole reason for encouraging the conversation lay in his anxiety to learn as much as possible about Marigny and his a.s.sociates.

"My, ain't she smart!" said the girl when Cynthia had gone.

Medenham put his hand in his pocket and gave her half-a-crown.

"They have forgotten to tip you, Gertie," he said. Without heeding a stare of astonishment strongly tinctured with indignation, he stooped in unnecessary scrutiny of the Mercury's tires. The minx tossed her head.

"Some folks are as grand as their missuses," she remarked, and went back to her garden.

But Smith looked puzzled. Medenham, no good actor at any time, had dropped too quickly the air of camaraderie which had been a successful pa.s.sport hitherto. His voice, his manner, the courtly insolence of the maid's dismissal, evoked vague memories in Smith's mind. The square-shouldered, soldierly figure did not quite fit into the picture, but he seemed to hear that same authoritative voice speaking to Dale in the Brighton garage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You may occupy your time in any way you wish, Fitzroy," said Cynthia. _Page 102_]

The conceit was absurd, of course. Chauffeurs do not swagger through the world dressing for dinner each night and distributing gold in their leisure moments. But Smith's b.u.mp of inquisitiveness was well developed, as the phrenologists say, and he was already impressed by the fact that no firm could afford to send out for hire a car like Medenham's.

"Funny thing," he said at last. "I seem to have met you somewhere or other. Who do you work for?"

"Myself."

Medenham caught the note of bewilderment, and was warned. He straightened himself with a smile, though it cost him an effort to look cheerful.

"Have a cigarette?" he said.

"Don't mind if I do. Thanks." Then, after a pause, and some puffing and tasting: "Sorry, old man, but this baccy ain't my sort. It tastes queer. What is it? Flor de Cabbagio? Here, take one of mine!"

Medenham, in chastened mood, accepted a "five a penny" cigarette, and saw Smith throw away the exquisite brand that Sevastopolo, of Bond Street, supplied to those customers only who knew the price paid by connoisseurs for the leaf grown on one small hillside above the sun-steeped bay of Salonika.

"Yes," he agreed, bravely poisoning the helpless atmosphere, "this is better suited to the occasion."

"A bit of all right, eh? I can't stand the Count's cigarettes eether--French rubbish, you know. An' the money they run into--well, there!"

"But if he is a rich man----"

"Rich!" Smith exploded with merriment. "If he had what he owes he might worry along for a year or so, but, you mark my words, if he doesn't--Well, it's no business of mine, only just keep your eyes open. You're going through with this tour?"

"I--believe so," said Medenham slowly--and thus he took the great resolution which till that moment was dim in his mind.

"In that case we'll be having a jaw some other time, and then, mebbe, we'll both be older an' wiser."

Notwithstanding the community of taste established by Smith's weeds, the man was still furtively racking his brains to account for certain discrepancies in his new acquaintance's bearing and address.

Medenham's hands, for instance, were too well kept. His boots were of too good a quality. His reindeer driving gloves, discarded and lying on the front seat, were far too costly. The disreputable linen coat might hide many details, but not these. Every now and then Smith wanted to say "sir," and he wondered why.

Medenham was sure that at the back of Smith's head lay some scheme, some arranged trick, some artifice of intrigue that would find its opportunity between Cheddar and Bristol. The distance was not great--perhaps eighteen miles--by a fairly direct second-cla.s.s road, and on this fine June evening it was still safe to count on three long hours of daylight. It was doubly irritating, therefore, to think that by his own lack of diplomacy he had almost forfeited Smith's confidence. Twice had the man been on the very brink of revelation, for he was one of those happy-go-lucky beings not fitted for the safeguarding of secrets, yet on each occasion his tongue faltered in subconscious knowledge that he was about to betray his master's affairs.

Feeling that Dale would have managed this part of the day's adventures far better than himself, Medenham took his seat and touched the switch.

"We have to make Bristol by seven o'clock, so I shall pull out in front; I suppose Count Marigny will give the ladies the road?" he remarked casually.

Smith was listening to the engine.