CHAPTER XII
THE GRAY CAR
I was divided between exasperation and pity. The old fellow was in abad way; I felt sorry for him. Dunny had an ancient butler, a householdinstitution, who had presided over our destinies since my childhood andwould, I fancied, look something like this if he should hear that I wasdead. But in heaven's name, what was wrong here, and was nothing in theworld clear and aboveboard any longer? On the chance that the lettermight enlighten me I tore open the envelope and read with mixed feelingsthe following note:
DEAR Mr. BAYNE:
The news that I found waiting for me was not good, as I had hoped. Itwas bad, very bad--as bad as news can be. I must leave Paris at once,and I can see no one, talk to no one, before I go. Please believe thatI am sorry, and that I shall never forget the kindness you showed me onthe ship.
Sincerely yours,
ESME FALCONER.
That was all. Well, the episode was ended--ended, moreover, with a gooddeal of cavalierness. She had treated me like a meddlesome, pertinaciousidiot who had insisted on calling and had to be taught his place. Thiswas a Christian country where the formalities of life prevailed; I couldnot--unless escorted and countenanced by gendarmes--seize upon a cluband batter down that grille.
I was resentful, wrathful, in the very deuce of a humor. Black gloomsettled over me. I admitted that Van Blarcom had been right. I recalledthe girl's vague explanations as we sat over our dinner; her denials,unbolstered save by my willingness to accept them; all the chain ofincriminating circumstances that I had pondered over in the cab. Hercharm and the mystery that enveloped her had thrilled and stirred me;she had seen it. To gain a few hours' leeway she had once again dupedme; and this hotel, with its deceptive air of family and respectability,was a blind, a rendezvous, another such setting for intrigue as the St.Ives.
Her work might be already accomplished. Perhaps she had left Paris. Itold myself with some savageness that I did not know and did not care.From the first my presence in this luridly adventurous galley had beenincongruous; I would get back with all despatch to the Ritz and theorderly world it typified.
I had gone perhaps twenty feet when a grating noise attracted me.Glancing back across my shoulder, I saw that the old majordomo wasunlocking and setting wide the gate. The hum of a self-starter reachedme faintly, and a moment later there rolled slowly forth a dark-bluetouring-car of luxurious aspect, driven by a chauffeur whose coat andcap and goggles gave him rather the appearance of a leather brownie, andbearing in the tonneau Miss Falconer, elaborately coated and veiled.
She was turning to the right, not the left; she would not pass me. Istood transfixed, watching from my post against the wall. As the carcrept by the old majordomo, he saluted, and she spoke to him, bendingforward for a moment to rest her fingers on his sleeve.
"Be of courage, Marcel, my friend! All will be well if _le bon Dieu_wills it," I heard her say. Then to the chauffeur she added: "_En avant,Georges! Vite, a_ Bleau!" The motor snorted as the car gained speed, andthey were gone.
The ancient Marcel, reentering, locked the grille behind him. I was leftalone, more astounded than before. The girl's kind speech to the oldservant, her gentle tones, her womanly gesture, had been bewildering.Despite all the accusing features her case offered, I should have saidjust then, as I watched Miss Esme Falconer, that she was nothing more orless than a superlatively nice girl.
"Honk! Honk! Honk!"
I swung round, startled. A moment earlier the length and breadth of thestreet had stretched before me, empty; yet now I saw, sprung apparentlyout of nowhere, a long, lean, gray car, low-built like a racer, carryingfour masked and goggled men. Steadily gaining speed as it came, it boredown upon me and, after grazing me with its running-board and nearlydeafening me with the powerful blast of its horn, flew on down thestreet and vanished in Miss Falconer's wake.
Trying to clarify my emotions, I stared after this Juggernaut. Wasit merely the sudden appearance of the thing, its look, so lean andsnake-like and somber-colored, and the muffled air of its occupants thathad struck me as sinister when it went flashing by? I wasn't sure, but Ihad formed the impression that these men were following Miss Falconer. Apatently foolish idea! And yet, and yet--
My experiences at the St. Ives and on the _Re d'Italia_ had contributedto my education. I could no longer deny that melodrama, howeverunwelcome, did sometimes intrude itself into the most unlikely lives.The girl was bound somewhere on a secret purpose. Could these four menbe her accomplices? Were they going too?
"_A_ Bleau!"
Those had been her words to the chauffeur; for Bleau, then, she wasbound. But where did such a place exist? I had never heard of it;and yet I possessed, I flattered myself, through the medium ofmotor-touring, a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the map of France.
The affair was becoming a veritable nightmare. It seemed incredible thata few minutes earlier I had resolved to wash my hands of it all. If thegirl had a disloyal mission, it was my plain duty to intercept her.I could not denounce her to the police. I didn't analyze the why andwherefore of my inability to take this step; I simply knew and acceptedit. If I interfered with what she was doing, I must interfere quietly,alone.
Ordinarily I have as much imagination as a turnip, but now I indulgedin a sudden and surprising flight of fancy. Might it be, I found myselfwondering, that the men in the gray care were not Miss Falconer'saccomplices, but her pursuers? In that case, high as was her courage,keen as were her wits,--I found myself thinking of them with a sort ofpride,--she was laboring under a handicap of which she could not dream.
Again, where had that long, lean, pursuing streak sprung from? Could ithave lurked somewhere in the neighborhood, spying on the hotel that MissFalconer had just left, waiting for her to emerge? I was aware of myabsurdity, but I couldn't put an end to it; with each instant that wentby my uneasiness seemed to grow. So I yielded, not without qualms asto whether the quarter would take me for a gibbering idiot. Grimly anddoggedly I stalked the length of the rue St.-Dominique, and the statelyhouses on both sides seemed to scorn me, their shutters to eye mepityingly, as I peered to right and left for the possible cache of thecar.
And within four hundred feet I found it. Against all reason andprobability, there it was. At my left there opened unostentatiously oneof those short, dark, neglected blind alleys so common in the older partof Paris, with the houses meeting over it and forming an arched roof.Running back twenty feet or so, it ended in a blank wall of stone; and,amid the dust and debris that covered its rough paving, I distinctlymade out the tracks of tires, with between them, freshly spilt, a tiny,gleaming pool of oil.
At this psychological moment a taxicab came meandering up the street. Itwas unoccupied, but its red flag was turned down. The driver shook hishead vigorously as I signaled him.
"I go to my _dejeuner_, Monsieur!" he explained.
"On the contrary," said I fiercely, "you go to the tourist bureauof Monsieur Cook in the Place de l'Opera, at the greatest speed the_sergents de ville_ allow!"
I must have mesmerized him, for he took me there obediently, castinghunted glances back at me from time to time when the traffic momentarilyhalted us, as if fearing to find that I was leveling a pistol at hishead.
It being noon, the office of the tourist bureau was almost deserted,a single, bored-looking, young French clerk keeping vigil behindthe travelers' counter. With the sociable instinct of his nation hebrightened up at my appearance.
"I want," I announced, "to ask about trains to Bleau."
For a moment he looked blank; then he smiled in understanding.
"Monsieur is without doubt an artist," he declared.
I was not, decidedly; but the words had been an affirmation and not aquestion. It seemed clear that for some cryptic reason I ought to havebeen an artist. Accordingly, I thought it best to bow.
He seemed childishly pleased with his acumen.
"Monsieur will understand," he explained, "that before the war we soldtickets to many artists, who, l
ike monsieur, desired to paint the oldmill on the stream near Bleau. It has appeared at the Salon many times,that mill! Also, we have furnished tickets to archaeologists who desiredto see the ruins of the antique chapel, a veritable gem! But monsieurhas not an archaeologist's aspect. Therefore, monsieur is an artist."
"Perfectly," I agreed.
"As to the trains," he continued contentedly, "there is but one a day.It departs at two and a half hours, upon the Le Moreau route. Monsieurwill be wise to secure, before leaving Paris, a safe-conduct from the_prefecture_; for the village is, as one might say, on the edge of thezone of war. With such a permit monsieur will find his visit charming;regrettable incidents will not occur; undesirable conjectures aboutmonsieur's identity will not be roused. I should strongly advise thatmonsieur provide himself with such a credential, though it is not,perhaps, absolutely _de rigueur_."
Back in my room at the Ritz, I consulted my watch. It was a quarter oftwo; certainly time had marched apace. Should I, like a sensible man,descend to the restaurant and enjoy a sample of the justly famouscuisine of the hotel? Or should I throw all reason overboard and postoff on--what was it Dunny had called my mission--a wild-goose chase?
I glanced at myself in the mirror and shook a disapproving head. "You'reno knight-errant," I told my impassive image. "You're too correct, tooindifferent-looking altogether. Better not get beyond your depth!" Idecided for luncheon, followed by a leisurely knotting of the threadsof my Parisian acquaintance. Then, as if some malign hypnotist hadprojected it before me, I saw again a vision of that flashing, lean,gray car.
"I'm hanged if I don't have a shot at this thing!"
The words seemed to pop out of my mouth entirely of their own accord.By no conscious agency of my own, I found myself madly hurling collars,handkerchiefs, toilet articles, whatever I seemed likeliest to need in abrief journey, into a bag. Lastly I realized that I was standing, hatin hand, overcoat across my arm, considering my revolver, and wonderingwhether taking it with me would be too stagy and absurd.
"No more so than all the rest of it," I decided, shrugging. Dropping thething into my pocket, I made for the _ascenseur_.
"I shan't be back to-night," I informed the hall porter woodenly. "Orperhaps to-morrow night. But, of course, I'm keeping my room."
With his wish for a charming trip to speed me, I left the Ritz, andluckily no vision was vouchsafed me of the condition in which I shouldreturn: Two crutches, a bandaged head, an utterly disreputable aspect;my bedraggled state equaled--and this I would maintain with swords andpistols if necessary--that of any poilu of them all.
As I drove toward the station, various headlines stared at me from thekiosks. "Franz von Blenheim Rumored on Way to France," ran one of them.Hang Franz. I had had enough of him to last the rest of my life. "Dukeof Raincy-la-Tour Still Missing," proclaimed another. I knew somethingabout him, too; but what? Ah, to be sure, he was the Firefly of France,the hero of the Flying Corps, the young nobleman of whose suspectedtreason I had read in that extra on the ship. In that damned extra, Iamended, with natural feeling. For it was like Rome; everything seemedto lead its way.