Chapter Three.

Chapter Three.The Mysterious Sixty.When the smart chauffeur, Garrett, entered the cosy chambers of his Highness Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein, alias Charles Fotheringham, alias Henry Tremlett, in Dover Street, Piccadilly, he found him stretched lazily on the couch before the fire. He had exchanged his dinner jacket for an easy coat of brown velvet; between his lips was a Russian cigarette of his pet brand, and at his elbow a brandy and soda.“Ah! Garrett,” he exclaimed as the chauffeur entered. “Come here, and sit down. Shut the door first. I want to talk to you.”As chauffeur to the Prince and his ingenious companions, Garrett had met with many queer adventures and been in many a tight corner. To this day he wonders he was not “pinched” by the police a dozen times, and certainly would have been if it were not that the gay, good-looking, devil-may-care Prince Albert never left anything to chance. When acoupwas to be made he thought out every minute detail, and took precaution against every risk of detection. To his marvellous ingenuity and wonderful foresight Garrett, with his friends, owed his liberty.During the three years through which he had thrown in his lot with that select little circle of “crooks,” he had really had a very interesting time, and had driven them thousands of miles, mostly on the Continent, in the big “Mercédès” or the “sixty” six-cylinder “Minerva.”His Highness’s share in the plunder had been very considerable. At his bankers he possessed quite a respectable balance, and he lived in easy affluence the life of a prince. In the drawing-rooms of London and Paris he was known as essentially a ladies’ man; while in Italy he was usually Henry Tremlett, of London, and in France he was Charles Fotheringham, an Anglo-Frenchman and Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur.“Look here, Garrett,” he said, raising himself on his elbow and looking the man in the face as he tossed his cigarette in the grate. “To-day, let’s see, is December 16. You must start in the car to-morrow for San Remo. We shall spend a week or two there.”“To-morrow!” the chauffeur echoed. “The roads from Paris down to the Riviera are pretty bad just now. I saw in the paper yesterday that there’s heavy snow around Valence.”“Snow, or no snow, we must go,” the Prince said decisively. “We have a little matter in hand down there—you understand?” he remarked, his dark eyes still fixed upon the chauffeur.The man wondered what was the nature of thecoupintended.“And now,” he went on, “let me explain something else. There may be some funny proceedings down at San Remo. But just disregard everything you see, and don’t trouble your head about the why, or wherefore. You’re paid to be chauffeur, Garrett—and paid well, too, by your share of the profits—so nothing else concerns you. It isn’t, sparklers we’re after this time—it’s something else.”The Prince who, speaking English so well, turned his birth and standing to such good account, never told the chauffeur of his plans. His confederates, indeed, were generally kept completely in the dark until the very last moment. Therefore, they were all very frequently puzzled by what seemed to be extraordinary and motiveless actions by the leader of the party of adventurers.The lastcoupmade was in the previous month, at Aix-les-Bains, the proceeds being sold to the old Jew in Amsterdam for four thousand pounds sterling, this sum being divided up between the Prince, the Parson, a neat-ankled little Parisienne named Valentine Déjardin, and Garrett. And they were now going to spend a week or two in that rather dull and much over-rated little Italian seaside town, where the sharper and crook flourish to such a great extent in spring—San Remo.They were evidently about to change their tactics, for it was not diamonds they were after, but something else. Garrett wondered as the Count told him to help himself to a whisky and soda what that “something else” would turn out to be.“I daresay you’ll be a bit puzzled,” he said, lazily lighting a fresh cigarette, “but don’t trouble your head about the why or wherefore. Leave that to me. Stay at the Hotel Regina at San Remo—that big place up on the hill—you know it. You’ll find the Parson there. Let’s see, when we were there a year ago I was Tremlett, wasn’t I?—so I must be that again, I suppose.”He rose from his couch, stretched himself, and pulling a bookcase from the high old-fashioned wainscoting slid back one of the white enamelled panels disclosing a secret cavity wherein, Garrett knew, reposed a quantity of stolen jewels that he had failed to get rid of to the Jew diamond dealer in Amsterdam, who acted in most cases as receiver.The chauffeur saw within that small cavity, of about a foot square, a number of little parcels each wrapped in tissue paper—jewels for which the police of Europe for a year or so had been hunting high and low. Putting his hand into the back the Prince produced a bundle of banknotes, from which he counted one “fifty” and ten fivers, and handed them to his man.“They’re all right. You’ll want money, for I think that, after all, you’d better go to San Remo as a gentleman and owner of the car. Both the Parson and I will be perfect strangers to you—you understand?”“Perfectly,” was Garrett’s reply, as he watched him replace the notes, push back the panel into its place, and move the bookcase into its original position.“Then get away to-morrow night by Newhaven and Dieppe,” he said. “If I were you I’d go by Valence and Die, instead of by Grenoble. There’s sure to be less snow there. Wire me when you get down to Cannes.” And he pushed across his big silver box of cigarettes, one of which the chauffeur took, and seating himself, listened to his further instructions. They, however, gave no insight into the adventure which was about to be undertaken.At half-past seven on the following night, with his smartly-cut clothes packed in two suit-cases, his chauffeur’s dress discarded for a big leather-lined coat of dark-green frieze and motor-cap and goggles, and a false number-plate concealed beneath the cushion, Garrett drew the car out of the garage in Oxford Street, and sped along the Embankment and over Westminster Bridge on the first stage of his long and lonely journey.The night was dark, with threatening rain, but out in the country the big searchlight shone brilliantly, and he tore along the Brighton road while the rhythmic splutter of his open exhaust awakened the echoes of the country-side. With a loud shriek of the siren he passed village after village until at Brighton he turned to the left along that very dangerous switchback road that leads to Newhaven.How he shipped the car, or how for four weary days—such was the hopeless state of the roads—he journeyed due south, has no bearing upon this narrative of an adventurer’s adventure. Fortunately the car ran magnificently, the engines beating in perfect time against rain and blizzard, and tyre-troubles were few. The road—known well to him, for he had traversed it with the Prince at least a dozen times to and from Monte Carlo—was snow-covered right from Lyons down to Aix in Provence, making progress difficult, and causing him constant fear lest he should run into some deep drift.At last, however, in the bright Riviera sunshine, so different to the London weather he had left behind five days ago, and with the turquoise Mediterranean lying calm and picturesque on his right, he found himself passing along the Lower Corniche from Nice through Beaulieu, Monaco, and Mentone to Ventimiglia, the Italian frontier. Arrived there, he paid the Customs deposit at the little roadside bureau of the Italian dogana, got a leaden seal impressed upon the front of the chassis, and drew away up the hill again for a few short miles through Bordighera and Ospedaletti to the picturesque little town of San Remo, which so bravely but vainly endeavours to place itself forward as the Nice of the Italian Riviera.The Hotel Regina, the best and most fashionable, stands high above the sea-road, embowered in palms, oranges, and flowers, and as Garrett turned with a swing into the gateway and ran up the steep incline on his “second,” his arrival, dirty and travel-worn as he was, caused some stir among the smartly dressed visitors taking their teaal fresco.With an air of nonchalance the gentleman chauffeur sprang out, gave over the mud-covered car to a man from the hotel garage, and entering the place, booked a pretty but expensive sitting-room and bedroom overlooking the sea.Having tubbed and exchanged his rough tweeds for grey flannels and a straw hat, he descended to see if he could find the Parson, who, by the list in the hall, he saw was among the guests. He strolled about the town, and looked in at a couple ofcafés, but saw nothing of the Prince’s clever confederate.Not until he went in to dinner did he discover him.Wearing a faultless clerical collar and perfect-fitting clerical coat, and on his nose gold pince-nez, he was sitting a few tables away, dining with two well-dressed ladies—mother and daughter he took them to be, though afterwards he found they were aunt and niece. The elder woman, handsome and well-preserved, evidently a foreigner from her very dark hair and fine eyes, was dressed handsomely in black, with a bunch of scarlet roses in her corsage. As far as Garrett could see, she wore no jewellery.The younger of the pair was certainly not more than nineteen, fair-haired, with a sweet girlish face, blue eyes almost childlike in their softness, and a pretty dimpled cheek, and a perfectly formed mouth that invited kisses. She was in pale carnation—a colour that suited her admirably, and in her bodice, cut slightly low, was a bunch of those sweet-smelling flowers which grow in such profusion along the Italian coast as to supply the European markets in winter.Both women were looking at Garrett, noticing that he was a fresh arrival.In a Riviera hotel, where nearly every guest makes a long stay, a fresh arrival early in the season is always an event, and he or she is discussed and criticised, approved or condemned. Garrett could see that the two ladies were discussing him with the Reverend Thomas, who glared at him for a moment through his glasses as though he had never before seen him in his life, and then with some words to his companions, he went on eating his fish.He knew quite well of Garrett’s advent, but part of the mysterious game was that they did not recognise each other.When dinner was over, and everyone went into the hall to lounge and take coffee, Garrett inquired of the hall-porter the names of the two ladies in question.“The elder one, m’sieur,” he replied, in French, in a confidential tone, “is Roumanian, the Princess Charles of Krajova, and the young lady is her niece, Mademoiselle Dalrymple.”“Dalrymple!” he echoed. “Then mademoiselle must be English!”“Certainly, m’sieur.”And Garrett turned away, wondering with what ulterior object our friend “the Parson” was ingratiating himself with La Princesse.Next day, the gay devil-may-care Prince, giving his name as Mr Henry Tremlett, of London, arrived, bringing the faithful Charles, to whose keen observation more than one successfulcouphad owed its genesis. There were now four of them staying in the hotel, but with what object Garrett could not discern.The Prince gave no sign of recognition to the Parson or the chauffeur. He dined at a little table alone, and was apparently as interested in the two women as Garrett was himself.Garrett’s main object was to create interest, so acting upon the instructions the Prince had given him in London, he posed as the owner of the fine car, swaggered in the hall in his big coat and cap, and took runs up and down the white winding coast-road, envied by many of the guests, who, he knew, dearly wanted to explore the beauties of the neighbourhood.It was not, therefore, surprising that more than one of the guests of both sexes got into casual conversation with Garrett, and among them, on the second day after his arrival, the Princess Charles of Krajova.She was, he found, an enthusiastic motorist, and as they stood that sunny afternoon by the car, which was before the hotel, she made many inquiries regarding the long stretch from Dieppe to the Italian frontier. While they were chatting, the Parson, with Mademoiselle approached. The Rev. Thomas started a conversation, in which the young lady joined. The latter Garrett decided was very charming. Her speech was that of an educated English girl only lately from her school, yet she had evidently been well trained for her position in society, and though so young, carried herself extremely well.As yet, nobody had spoken to Tremlett. He seemed to keep himself very much to himself. Why, the chauffeur wondered?That evening he spent in the hall, chatting with the Parson and the ladies. He had invited them all to go for a run on the morrow by the seashore as far as Savona, then inland to Ceva, and back by Ormeo and Oneglia, and they had accepted enthusiastically. Then, when aunt and niece rose to retire, he invited the Rev. Thomas up to his sitting-room for a final whisky and soda.When they were alone with the door shut, Clayton said:“Look here, Garrett! This is a big game we’re playing. The Prince lies low, while we work it. To-morrow you must attract the girl, while I make myself agreeable to the aunt—a very decent old body, after all. Recollect, you must not fall in love with the girl. She admires you, I know.”“Not very difficult to fall in love with her,” laughed the other. “She’s uncommonly good-looking.”“Yes, but be careful that you don’t make a fool of yourself, and really allow yourself to be smitten,” he urged.“But what is the nature of this fresh game?” Garrett inquired, eager to ascertain what was intended.“Don’t worry about that, my dear fellow,” was his reply. “Only make love to the girl. Leave the rest to his Highness and myself.”And so it came about that next day, with the pretty Winnie—for that was her name—seated at his side, Garrett drove the car along to Savona, chatting merrily with her, and discovering her to be mostchicand charming. Her parents lived in London, she informed him, in Queen’s Gate. Her father was in Parliament, sitting for one of the Welsh boroughs.The run was delightful, and was the commencement of a very pleasant friendship. He saw that his little friend was in no way averse to a violent flirtation, and indeed, he spent nearly the whole of the next morning with her in the garden.The chauffeur had already disregarded the Parson’s advice, and had fallen desperately in love with her.As they sat in the garden she told him that her mother was a Roumanian lady, of Bucharest, whose sister had married the enormously wealthy landowner, Prince Charles of Krajova. For the past two years she had lived in Paris, Vienna and Bucharest, with her aunt, and they were now at San Remo to spend the whole winter.“But,” she added, with a wistful look, “I far prefer England. I was at school at Folkestone, and had a most jolly time there. I was so sorry to leave to come out here.”“Then you know but little of London?”“Very little,” she declared. “I know Folkestone better. We used to walk on the Leas every day, or play hockey and tennis. I miss my games so very much,” she added, raising her fine big eyes to his.At his invitation she walked down to the town and back before luncheon, but not without some hesitation, as perhaps she thought her aunt might not like it. On the Promenade they met his Highness, but he gave them no sign of recognition.“That gentleman is staying at our hotel,” she remarked after he had passed. “I saw on the list that he is a Mr Tremlett, from London.”“Yes—I also saw that,” remarked the chauffeur. “Looks a decent kind of fellow.”“Rather a fop, I think,” she declared. “My aunt, however, is anxious to know him, so if you make his acquaintance, will you please introduce him to us?”“I’ll be most delighted, of course, Miss Dalrymple,” he said, inwardly congratulating himself upon his good fortune.And an hour later he wrote a note to the Prince and posted it, telling him of what the girl had said.While the Parson monopolised the Princess, Garrett spent most of the time in the company of Winifred Dalrymple. That afternoon he took the Parson and the ladies for a run on the car, and that evening, it being Christmas Eve, there was a dance, during which he was on several occasions her partner.She waltzed splendidly, and Garrett found himself each hour more deeply in love with her. During the dance, he managed to feign to scrape acquaintance with the Prince, and presented him to his dainty little friend, as well as her aunt, whereat the latter at once went out of her way to be most gracious and affable. Already the handsome Tremlett knew most of the ladies in the hotel, as his coming and going always caused a flutter within the hearts of the gentler sex, for he was essentially a ladies’ man. Indeed, to his easy courtly manner towards them was due the great success of his many ingenious schemes.He would kiss a woman one moment and rifle her jewel-case the next, so utterly unscrupulous was he. He was assuredly a perfect type of the well-bred, audacious young adventurer.While the dance was proceeding Garrett was standing with Winifred in the hall, when they heard the sound of an arriving motor-car coming up the incline from the road, and going to the door he saw that it was a very fine sixty horse-power “Fiat” limousine. There were no passengers, but the driver was a queer grey-haired, hunchbacked old man. His face was splashed, his grey goat’s-skin coat was muddy, like the car, for it was evident that he had come a long distance.As he entered the big brilliantly-lit hall, his small black eyes cast a searching look around. Winifred, whom Garrett was at that moment leading back to the ballroom, started quickly. Had she, he wondered, recognised him? If so, why had she started. That she was acquainted with the stranger, and that she did not wish to meet him he quickly saw, for a few moments later she whispered something to the Princess, whose face instantly changed, and the pair pleading fatigue a few minutes later, ascended in the lift to their own apartments.So curious was the incident, that Garrett determined to ascertain something regarding the queer, wizened-faced old hunchback who acted as chauffeur, but to his surprise when he returned to the hall, he found the car had already left. The little old man in the fur motor-coat had merely called to make inquiry whether a certain German baron was staying in the hotel, and had then left immediately.He was much puzzled at the marked uneasiness of both the Princess and Winifred at the appearance of the mysterious “sixty.” Indeed, he saw her Highness’s maid descend the stairs half an hour later, evidently in order to gather some facts concerning the movements of the hunchback. Prince and Parson were both playing bridge, therefore Garrett was unable to relate to them what he had seen, so he retired to bed wondering what the truth might really be.Morning dawned. The Prince and his friend were both down unusually early, walking in the garden, and discussing something very seriously. But its nature they kept from their chauffeur.The morning he spent with Winifred, who looked very sweet and charming in her white serge gown, white shoes and big black hat. They idled in the garden among the orange groves for an hour, and then walked down to the town and back.At luncheon a surprise awaited them, for quite close to Garrett sat the little old man, clean and well-dressed, eating his meal and apparently taking no notice of anybody. Yet he saw what effect the man’s presence had produced upon the Princess and her niece, who having taken their seats could not well escape.Where was the big “sixty”? It was certainly not in the garage at the hotel! And why had the old man returned?Reviewing all the circumstances, together with what the Prince had explained to him in Dover Street, he found himself utterly puzzled. The whole affair was an enigma. What were the intentions of his ingenious and unscrupulous friends? The Prince had, he recollected, distinctly told him that diamonds were not in the present instance the object of their manoeuvres.About three o’clock that afternoon he invited the Princess and her pretty niece to go out for a run in the car to Taggia, the road to which first runs along by the sea, and afterwards turns inland up a beautiful fertile valley. They accepted, but both Prince and Parson pleaded other engagements, therefore he took the two ladies alone.The afternoon was bright and warm, with that blue sky and deep blue sea which is so characteristic of the Riviera, and the run to Taggia was delightful. They had coffee at a clean little osteria—coffee that was not altogether good, but quite passable—and then with Winifred up beside him, Garrett started to run home in the sundown.They had not gone more than a couple of miles when, of a sudden, almost before he could realise it, Garrett was seized by a contraction of the throat so violent that he could not breathe. He felt choking. The sensation was most unusual, for he broke out into a cold perspiration, and his head beginning to reel, he slowed down and put on the brake, for they were travelling at a brisk pace, but beyond that he remembered absolutely nothing. All he knew was that an excruciating pain shot through his heart, and then in an instant all was blank!Of only one other thing he had a hazy recollection, and it was this. Just at the moment when he lost consciousness the girl at his side, leant towards him, and took the steering-wheel, saying:“Let go, you fool!—let go, will you!” her words being followed by a weird peal of laughter.The darkness was impenetrable. For many hours Garrett had remained oblivious to everything. Yet as he slowly struggled back to consciousness he became aware that his legs were benumbed, and that water was lapping about him. He was lying in a cramped position, so cramped that to move was impossible. He was chilled to the bone. For a full hour he lay half-conscious, and wondering. The pains in his head were awful. He raised his hand, and discovered a nasty wound upon his left temple. Then he at last realised the astounding truth. He was lying upon rocks on the seashore, and it was night! How long he had been there, or how he had come there he had no idea.That woman’s laughter rang in his ears. It was a laugh of triumph, and caused him to suspect strongly that he had been the victim of feminine treachery. But with what motive?Was it possible that at Taggia, while he had been outside looking around the car, something had been placed in his coffee! He recollected that it tasted rather bitter. But where was the car? Where were the Princess and her pretty niece?It was a long time before his cramped limbs were sufficiently supple to enable him to walk, and then in the faint grey dawn he managed to crawl along a white unfamiliar high road that ran beside the rocky shore. For nearly two hours he walked in his wet clothes until he came to a tiny town which he discovered, was called Voltri, and was quite a short distance from Genoa.The fascinating Winifred had evidently driven the car with his unconscious form covered up in the tonneau for some time before the pair had deposited him in the water, their intention being that the sea should itself dispose of his body.For an hour he remained in the little inn drying his clothes and having his wound attended to, and then when able to travel, he took train back to San Remo, arriving late in the afternoon. He found to his astonishment he had remained unconscious at the edge of the tideless sea for about thirty hours.His bandaged head was put down by the guests as due to an accident in the car, for he made no explanation. Presently, however, the hotel proprietor came to his room, and asked the whereabouts of the Princess and her niece, as they had not been seen since they left with him. In addition, the maid had suddenly disappeared, while the party owed a little bill of nearly one hundred pounds sterling.“And Mr Tremlett?” Garrett asked. “He is still here, of course?”“No, signore,” was the courtly Italian’s reply. “He left in a motor-car with Mr Clayton and his valet late the same night.”Their destination was unknown. The little old hunchback had also left, Garrett was informed.A week later, as Garrett entered the cosy sitting-room in Dover Street the Prince sprang from his chair, exclaiming:“By Jove, Garrett! I’m glad to see you back. We began to fear that you’d met with foul play. What happened to you? Sit down, and tell me. Where’s the car?”The chauffeur was compelled to admit his ignorance of its whereabouts, and then related his exciting and perilous adventure.“Yes,” replied the handsome young adventurer, gaily. “It was a crooked bit of business, but we needn’t trouble further about the car, Garrett, for the fact is we’ve exchanged our ‘forty’ for that old hunchback’s mysterious ‘sixty.’ It’s at Meunier’s garage in Paris. But, of course,” he laughed, “you didn’t know who the hunchback really was. It was Finch Grey.”“Finch Grey!” gasped Garrett, amazed, for he was the most renowned and expert thief in the whole of Europe.“Yes,” he said, “we went to San Remo to meet him. It was like this. The Reverend Thomas was in Milan and got wind of a littlecoupat the Banca d’Italia which Finch Grey had arranged. The plot was one night to attack the strong-room of the bank, a tunnel to which had already been driven from a neighbouring house. The proceeds of this robbery—notes and gold—were to be brought down to San Remo by Finch Grey in his ‘sixty,’ the idea being to then meet the Princess and her niece, who were really only members of his gang. Our idea was to get friendly with the two ladies, so that when the car full of gold and notes arrived we should have an opportunity of getting hold of it. Our plans, however, were upset in two particulars, by the fact that a few days prior to my arrival the pair had quarrelled with the old hunchback, and secondly, because a friend of the Princess’s, staying at the hotel, had recognised you as a ‘crook.’ By some means the two women suspected that, on Finch Grey’s appearance, our intention was either to demand part of the proceeds of the bank robbery or expose them to the police. Therefore they put something in your coffee, the girl drove the car to the spot where you found yourself, and then they escaped to Genoa, and on to Rome. Finch Grey, who did not know who we were, was highly concerned with us regarding the non-return of the ladies. We suggested that we should go out in his ‘sixty’ with him to search for them, and he, fearing that you had met with an accident, consented. The rest was easy,” he laughed.“How?”“Well, we let him get half way to Oneglia, when we just slipped a handkerchief with a little perfume upon it, over his nose and mouth, and a few minutes later we laid him quietly down behind a wall. Then I turned the car back to where we had previously stored some pots of white paint and a couple of big brushes, and in an hour had transformed the colour of the car and changed its identification-plates. Imagine our joy when we found the back locker where the tools should have been crammed with bags of gold twenty lire pieces, while under the inside seat we found a number of neat packets of fifty and one-hundred and five-hundred lire notes. Just after midnight we slipped back through San Remo, and two days ago arrived safely in Paris with our valuable freight. Like to see some of it?” he added, and rising he pushed back the bookcase, opened the panel and took out several bundles of Italian notes. I saw also within a number of small canvas bags of gold.“By this time, Garrett,” he added, laughing and pouring me out a drink, “old Finch Grey is gnashing his teeth, for he cannot invoke the aid of the police, and the women who intended to be avenged upon us for our daring are, no doubt, very sorry they ran away with our car, which, after all, was not nearly such a good one as the mysterious ‘sixty.’ Theirs wasn’t a particularly cheery journey, was it?” and lifting his glass he added, “So let’s wish them very good luck!”

When the smart chauffeur, Garrett, entered the cosy chambers of his Highness Prince Albert of Hesse-Holstein, alias Charles Fotheringham, alias Henry Tremlett, in Dover Street, Piccadilly, he found him stretched lazily on the couch before the fire. He had exchanged his dinner jacket for an easy coat of brown velvet; between his lips was a Russian cigarette of his pet brand, and at his elbow a brandy and soda.

“Ah! Garrett,” he exclaimed as the chauffeur entered. “Come here, and sit down. Shut the door first. I want to talk to you.”

As chauffeur to the Prince and his ingenious companions, Garrett had met with many queer adventures and been in many a tight corner. To this day he wonders he was not “pinched” by the police a dozen times, and certainly would have been if it were not that the gay, good-looking, devil-may-care Prince Albert never left anything to chance. When acoupwas to be made he thought out every minute detail, and took precaution against every risk of detection. To his marvellous ingenuity and wonderful foresight Garrett, with his friends, owed his liberty.

During the three years through which he had thrown in his lot with that select little circle of “crooks,” he had really had a very interesting time, and had driven them thousands of miles, mostly on the Continent, in the big “Mercédès” or the “sixty” six-cylinder “Minerva.”

His Highness’s share in the plunder had been very considerable. At his bankers he possessed quite a respectable balance, and he lived in easy affluence the life of a prince. In the drawing-rooms of London and Paris he was known as essentially a ladies’ man; while in Italy he was usually Henry Tremlett, of London, and in France he was Charles Fotheringham, an Anglo-Frenchman and Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur.

“Look here, Garrett,” he said, raising himself on his elbow and looking the man in the face as he tossed his cigarette in the grate. “To-day, let’s see, is December 16. You must start in the car to-morrow for San Remo. We shall spend a week or two there.”

“To-morrow!” the chauffeur echoed. “The roads from Paris down to the Riviera are pretty bad just now. I saw in the paper yesterday that there’s heavy snow around Valence.”

“Snow, or no snow, we must go,” the Prince said decisively. “We have a little matter in hand down there—you understand?” he remarked, his dark eyes still fixed upon the chauffeur.

The man wondered what was the nature of thecoupintended.

“And now,” he went on, “let me explain something else. There may be some funny proceedings down at San Remo. But just disregard everything you see, and don’t trouble your head about the why, or wherefore. You’re paid to be chauffeur, Garrett—and paid well, too, by your share of the profits—so nothing else concerns you. It isn’t, sparklers we’re after this time—it’s something else.”

The Prince who, speaking English so well, turned his birth and standing to such good account, never told the chauffeur of his plans. His confederates, indeed, were generally kept completely in the dark until the very last moment. Therefore, they were all very frequently puzzled by what seemed to be extraordinary and motiveless actions by the leader of the party of adventurers.

The lastcoupmade was in the previous month, at Aix-les-Bains, the proceeds being sold to the old Jew in Amsterdam for four thousand pounds sterling, this sum being divided up between the Prince, the Parson, a neat-ankled little Parisienne named Valentine Déjardin, and Garrett. And they were now going to spend a week or two in that rather dull and much over-rated little Italian seaside town, where the sharper and crook flourish to such a great extent in spring—San Remo.

They were evidently about to change their tactics, for it was not diamonds they were after, but something else. Garrett wondered as the Count told him to help himself to a whisky and soda what that “something else” would turn out to be.

“I daresay you’ll be a bit puzzled,” he said, lazily lighting a fresh cigarette, “but don’t trouble your head about the why or wherefore. Leave that to me. Stay at the Hotel Regina at San Remo—that big place up on the hill—you know it. You’ll find the Parson there. Let’s see, when we were there a year ago I was Tremlett, wasn’t I?—so I must be that again, I suppose.”

He rose from his couch, stretched himself, and pulling a bookcase from the high old-fashioned wainscoting slid back one of the white enamelled panels disclosing a secret cavity wherein, Garrett knew, reposed a quantity of stolen jewels that he had failed to get rid of to the Jew diamond dealer in Amsterdam, who acted in most cases as receiver.

The chauffeur saw within that small cavity, of about a foot square, a number of little parcels each wrapped in tissue paper—jewels for which the police of Europe for a year or so had been hunting high and low. Putting his hand into the back the Prince produced a bundle of banknotes, from which he counted one “fifty” and ten fivers, and handed them to his man.

“They’re all right. You’ll want money, for I think that, after all, you’d better go to San Remo as a gentleman and owner of the car. Both the Parson and I will be perfect strangers to you—you understand?”

“Perfectly,” was Garrett’s reply, as he watched him replace the notes, push back the panel into its place, and move the bookcase into its original position.

“Then get away to-morrow night by Newhaven and Dieppe,” he said. “If I were you I’d go by Valence and Die, instead of by Grenoble. There’s sure to be less snow there. Wire me when you get down to Cannes.” And he pushed across his big silver box of cigarettes, one of which the chauffeur took, and seating himself, listened to his further instructions. They, however, gave no insight into the adventure which was about to be undertaken.

At half-past seven on the following night, with his smartly-cut clothes packed in two suit-cases, his chauffeur’s dress discarded for a big leather-lined coat of dark-green frieze and motor-cap and goggles, and a false number-plate concealed beneath the cushion, Garrett drew the car out of the garage in Oxford Street, and sped along the Embankment and over Westminster Bridge on the first stage of his long and lonely journey.

The night was dark, with threatening rain, but out in the country the big searchlight shone brilliantly, and he tore along the Brighton road while the rhythmic splutter of his open exhaust awakened the echoes of the country-side. With a loud shriek of the siren he passed village after village until at Brighton he turned to the left along that very dangerous switchback road that leads to Newhaven.

How he shipped the car, or how for four weary days—such was the hopeless state of the roads—he journeyed due south, has no bearing upon this narrative of an adventurer’s adventure. Fortunately the car ran magnificently, the engines beating in perfect time against rain and blizzard, and tyre-troubles were few. The road—known well to him, for he had traversed it with the Prince at least a dozen times to and from Monte Carlo—was snow-covered right from Lyons down to Aix in Provence, making progress difficult, and causing him constant fear lest he should run into some deep drift.

At last, however, in the bright Riviera sunshine, so different to the London weather he had left behind five days ago, and with the turquoise Mediterranean lying calm and picturesque on his right, he found himself passing along the Lower Corniche from Nice through Beaulieu, Monaco, and Mentone to Ventimiglia, the Italian frontier. Arrived there, he paid the Customs deposit at the little roadside bureau of the Italian dogana, got a leaden seal impressed upon the front of the chassis, and drew away up the hill again for a few short miles through Bordighera and Ospedaletti to the picturesque little town of San Remo, which so bravely but vainly endeavours to place itself forward as the Nice of the Italian Riviera.

The Hotel Regina, the best and most fashionable, stands high above the sea-road, embowered in palms, oranges, and flowers, and as Garrett turned with a swing into the gateway and ran up the steep incline on his “second,” his arrival, dirty and travel-worn as he was, caused some stir among the smartly dressed visitors taking their teaal fresco.

With an air of nonchalance the gentleman chauffeur sprang out, gave over the mud-covered car to a man from the hotel garage, and entering the place, booked a pretty but expensive sitting-room and bedroom overlooking the sea.

Having tubbed and exchanged his rough tweeds for grey flannels and a straw hat, he descended to see if he could find the Parson, who, by the list in the hall, he saw was among the guests. He strolled about the town, and looked in at a couple ofcafés, but saw nothing of the Prince’s clever confederate.

Not until he went in to dinner did he discover him.

Wearing a faultless clerical collar and perfect-fitting clerical coat, and on his nose gold pince-nez, he was sitting a few tables away, dining with two well-dressed ladies—mother and daughter he took them to be, though afterwards he found they were aunt and niece. The elder woman, handsome and well-preserved, evidently a foreigner from her very dark hair and fine eyes, was dressed handsomely in black, with a bunch of scarlet roses in her corsage. As far as Garrett could see, she wore no jewellery.

The younger of the pair was certainly not more than nineteen, fair-haired, with a sweet girlish face, blue eyes almost childlike in their softness, and a pretty dimpled cheek, and a perfectly formed mouth that invited kisses. She was in pale carnation—a colour that suited her admirably, and in her bodice, cut slightly low, was a bunch of those sweet-smelling flowers which grow in such profusion along the Italian coast as to supply the European markets in winter.

Both women were looking at Garrett, noticing that he was a fresh arrival.

In a Riviera hotel, where nearly every guest makes a long stay, a fresh arrival early in the season is always an event, and he or she is discussed and criticised, approved or condemned. Garrett could see that the two ladies were discussing him with the Reverend Thomas, who glared at him for a moment through his glasses as though he had never before seen him in his life, and then with some words to his companions, he went on eating his fish.

He knew quite well of Garrett’s advent, but part of the mysterious game was that they did not recognise each other.

When dinner was over, and everyone went into the hall to lounge and take coffee, Garrett inquired of the hall-porter the names of the two ladies in question.

“The elder one, m’sieur,” he replied, in French, in a confidential tone, “is Roumanian, the Princess Charles of Krajova, and the young lady is her niece, Mademoiselle Dalrymple.”

“Dalrymple!” he echoed. “Then mademoiselle must be English!”

“Certainly, m’sieur.”

And Garrett turned away, wondering with what ulterior object our friend “the Parson” was ingratiating himself with La Princesse.

Next day, the gay devil-may-care Prince, giving his name as Mr Henry Tremlett, of London, arrived, bringing the faithful Charles, to whose keen observation more than one successfulcouphad owed its genesis. There were now four of them staying in the hotel, but with what object Garrett could not discern.

The Prince gave no sign of recognition to the Parson or the chauffeur. He dined at a little table alone, and was apparently as interested in the two women as Garrett was himself.

Garrett’s main object was to create interest, so acting upon the instructions the Prince had given him in London, he posed as the owner of the fine car, swaggered in the hall in his big coat and cap, and took runs up and down the white winding coast-road, envied by many of the guests, who, he knew, dearly wanted to explore the beauties of the neighbourhood.

It was not, therefore, surprising that more than one of the guests of both sexes got into casual conversation with Garrett, and among them, on the second day after his arrival, the Princess Charles of Krajova.

She was, he found, an enthusiastic motorist, and as they stood that sunny afternoon by the car, which was before the hotel, she made many inquiries regarding the long stretch from Dieppe to the Italian frontier. While they were chatting, the Parson, with Mademoiselle approached. The Rev. Thomas started a conversation, in which the young lady joined. The latter Garrett decided was very charming. Her speech was that of an educated English girl only lately from her school, yet she had evidently been well trained for her position in society, and though so young, carried herself extremely well.

As yet, nobody had spoken to Tremlett. He seemed to keep himself very much to himself. Why, the chauffeur wondered?

That evening he spent in the hall, chatting with the Parson and the ladies. He had invited them all to go for a run on the morrow by the seashore as far as Savona, then inland to Ceva, and back by Ormeo and Oneglia, and they had accepted enthusiastically. Then, when aunt and niece rose to retire, he invited the Rev. Thomas up to his sitting-room for a final whisky and soda.

When they were alone with the door shut, Clayton said:

“Look here, Garrett! This is a big game we’re playing. The Prince lies low, while we work it. To-morrow you must attract the girl, while I make myself agreeable to the aunt—a very decent old body, after all. Recollect, you must not fall in love with the girl. She admires you, I know.”

“Not very difficult to fall in love with her,” laughed the other. “She’s uncommonly good-looking.”

“Yes, but be careful that you don’t make a fool of yourself, and really allow yourself to be smitten,” he urged.

“But what is the nature of this fresh game?” Garrett inquired, eager to ascertain what was intended.

“Don’t worry about that, my dear fellow,” was his reply. “Only make love to the girl. Leave the rest to his Highness and myself.”

And so it came about that next day, with the pretty Winnie—for that was her name—seated at his side, Garrett drove the car along to Savona, chatting merrily with her, and discovering her to be mostchicand charming. Her parents lived in London, she informed him, in Queen’s Gate. Her father was in Parliament, sitting for one of the Welsh boroughs.

The run was delightful, and was the commencement of a very pleasant friendship. He saw that his little friend was in no way averse to a violent flirtation, and indeed, he spent nearly the whole of the next morning with her in the garden.

The chauffeur had already disregarded the Parson’s advice, and had fallen desperately in love with her.

As they sat in the garden she told him that her mother was a Roumanian lady, of Bucharest, whose sister had married the enormously wealthy landowner, Prince Charles of Krajova. For the past two years she had lived in Paris, Vienna and Bucharest, with her aunt, and they were now at San Remo to spend the whole winter.

“But,” she added, with a wistful look, “I far prefer England. I was at school at Folkestone, and had a most jolly time there. I was so sorry to leave to come out here.”

“Then you know but little of London?”

“Very little,” she declared. “I know Folkestone better. We used to walk on the Leas every day, or play hockey and tennis. I miss my games so very much,” she added, raising her fine big eyes to his.

At his invitation she walked down to the town and back before luncheon, but not without some hesitation, as perhaps she thought her aunt might not like it. On the Promenade they met his Highness, but he gave them no sign of recognition.

“That gentleman is staying at our hotel,” she remarked after he had passed. “I saw on the list that he is a Mr Tremlett, from London.”

“Yes—I also saw that,” remarked the chauffeur. “Looks a decent kind of fellow.”

“Rather a fop, I think,” she declared. “My aunt, however, is anxious to know him, so if you make his acquaintance, will you please introduce him to us?”

“I’ll be most delighted, of course, Miss Dalrymple,” he said, inwardly congratulating himself upon his good fortune.

And an hour later he wrote a note to the Prince and posted it, telling him of what the girl had said.

While the Parson monopolised the Princess, Garrett spent most of the time in the company of Winifred Dalrymple. That afternoon he took the Parson and the ladies for a run on the car, and that evening, it being Christmas Eve, there was a dance, during which he was on several occasions her partner.

She waltzed splendidly, and Garrett found himself each hour more deeply in love with her. During the dance, he managed to feign to scrape acquaintance with the Prince, and presented him to his dainty little friend, as well as her aunt, whereat the latter at once went out of her way to be most gracious and affable. Already the handsome Tremlett knew most of the ladies in the hotel, as his coming and going always caused a flutter within the hearts of the gentler sex, for he was essentially a ladies’ man. Indeed, to his easy courtly manner towards them was due the great success of his many ingenious schemes.

He would kiss a woman one moment and rifle her jewel-case the next, so utterly unscrupulous was he. He was assuredly a perfect type of the well-bred, audacious young adventurer.

While the dance was proceeding Garrett was standing with Winifred in the hall, when they heard the sound of an arriving motor-car coming up the incline from the road, and going to the door he saw that it was a very fine sixty horse-power “Fiat” limousine. There were no passengers, but the driver was a queer grey-haired, hunchbacked old man. His face was splashed, his grey goat’s-skin coat was muddy, like the car, for it was evident that he had come a long distance.

As he entered the big brilliantly-lit hall, his small black eyes cast a searching look around. Winifred, whom Garrett was at that moment leading back to the ballroom, started quickly. Had she, he wondered, recognised him? If so, why had she started. That she was acquainted with the stranger, and that she did not wish to meet him he quickly saw, for a few moments later she whispered something to the Princess, whose face instantly changed, and the pair pleading fatigue a few minutes later, ascended in the lift to their own apartments.

So curious was the incident, that Garrett determined to ascertain something regarding the queer, wizened-faced old hunchback who acted as chauffeur, but to his surprise when he returned to the hall, he found the car had already left. The little old man in the fur motor-coat had merely called to make inquiry whether a certain German baron was staying in the hotel, and had then left immediately.

He was much puzzled at the marked uneasiness of both the Princess and Winifred at the appearance of the mysterious “sixty.” Indeed, he saw her Highness’s maid descend the stairs half an hour later, evidently in order to gather some facts concerning the movements of the hunchback. Prince and Parson were both playing bridge, therefore Garrett was unable to relate to them what he had seen, so he retired to bed wondering what the truth might really be.

Morning dawned. The Prince and his friend were both down unusually early, walking in the garden, and discussing something very seriously. But its nature they kept from their chauffeur.

The morning he spent with Winifred, who looked very sweet and charming in her white serge gown, white shoes and big black hat. They idled in the garden among the orange groves for an hour, and then walked down to the town and back.

At luncheon a surprise awaited them, for quite close to Garrett sat the little old man, clean and well-dressed, eating his meal and apparently taking no notice of anybody. Yet he saw what effect the man’s presence had produced upon the Princess and her niece, who having taken their seats could not well escape.

Where was the big “sixty”? It was certainly not in the garage at the hotel! And why had the old man returned?

Reviewing all the circumstances, together with what the Prince had explained to him in Dover Street, he found himself utterly puzzled. The whole affair was an enigma. What were the intentions of his ingenious and unscrupulous friends? The Prince had, he recollected, distinctly told him that diamonds were not in the present instance the object of their manoeuvres.

About three o’clock that afternoon he invited the Princess and her pretty niece to go out for a run in the car to Taggia, the road to which first runs along by the sea, and afterwards turns inland up a beautiful fertile valley. They accepted, but both Prince and Parson pleaded other engagements, therefore he took the two ladies alone.

The afternoon was bright and warm, with that blue sky and deep blue sea which is so characteristic of the Riviera, and the run to Taggia was delightful. They had coffee at a clean little osteria—coffee that was not altogether good, but quite passable—and then with Winifred up beside him, Garrett started to run home in the sundown.

They had not gone more than a couple of miles when, of a sudden, almost before he could realise it, Garrett was seized by a contraction of the throat so violent that he could not breathe. He felt choking. The sensation was most unusual, for he broke out into a cold perspiration, and his head beginning to reel, he slowed down and put on the brake, for they were travelling at a brisk pace, but beyond that he remembered absolutely nothing. All he knew was that an excruciating pain shot through his heart, and then in an instant all was blank!

Of only one other thing he had a hazy recollection, and it was this. Just at the moment when he lost consciousness the girl at his side, leant towards him, and took the steering-wheel, saying:

“Let go, you fool!—let go, will you!” her words being followed by a weird peal of laughter.

The darkness was impenetrable. For many hours Garrett had remained oblivious to everything. Yet as he slowly struggled back to consciousness he became aware that his legs were benumbed, and that water was lapping about him. He was lying in a cramped position, so cramped that to move was impossible. He was chilled to the bone. For a full hour he lay half-conscious, and wondering. The pains in his head were awful. He raised his hand, and discovered a nasty wound upon his left temple. Then he at last realised the astounding truth. He was lying upon rocks on the seashore, and it was night! How long he had been there, or how he had come there he had no idea.

That woman’s laughter rang in his ears. It was a laugh of triumph, and caused him to suspect strongly that he had been the victim of feminine treachery. But with what motive?

Was it possible that at Taggia, while he had been outside looking around the car, something had been placed in his coffee! He recollected that it tasted rather bitter. But where was the car? Where were the Princess and her pretty niece?

It was a long time before his cramped limbs were sufficiently supple to enable him to walk, and then in the faint grey dawn he managed to crawl along a white unfamiliar high road that ran beside the rocky shore. For nearly two hours he walked in his wet clothes until he came to a tiny town which he discovered, was called Voltri, and was quite a short distance from Genoa.

The fascinating Winifred had evidently driven the car with his unconscious form covered up in the tonneau for some time before the pair had deposited him in the water, their intention being that the sea should itself dispose of his body.

For an hour he remained in the little inn drying his clothes and having his wound attended to, and then when able to travel, he took train back to San Remo, arriving late in the afternoon. He found to his astonishment he had remained unconscious at the edge of the tideless sea for about thirty hours.

His bandaged head was put down by the guests as due to an accident in the car, for he made no explanation. Presently, however, the hotel proprietor came to his room, and asked the whereabouts of the Princess and her niece, as they had not been seen since they left with him. In addition, the maid had suddenly disappeared, while the party owed a little bill of nearly one hundred pounds sterling.

“And Mr Tremlett?” Garrett asked. “He is still here, of course?”

“No, signore,” was the courtly Italian’s reply. “He left in a motor-car with Mr Clayton and his valet late the same night.”

Their destination was unknown. The little old hunchback had also left, Garrett was informed.

A week later, as Garrett entered the cosy sitting-room in Dover Street the Prince sprang from his chair, exclaiming:

“By Jove, Garrett! I’m glad to see you back. We began to fear that you’d met with foul play. What happened to you? Sit down, and tell me. Where’s the car?”

The chauffeur was compelled to admit his ignorance of its whereabouts, and then related his exciting and perilous adventure.

“Yes,” replied the handsome young adventurer, gaily. “It was a crooked bit of business, but we needn’t trouble further about the car, Garrett, for the fact is we’ve exchanged our ‘forty’ for that old hunchback’s mysterious ‘sixty.’ It’s at Meunier’s garage in Paris. But, of course,” he laughed, “you didn’t know who the hunchback really was. It was Finch Grey.”

“Finch Grey!” gasped Garrett, amazed, for he was the most renowned and expert thief in the whole of Europe.

“Yes,” he said, “we went to San Remo to meet him. It was like this. The Reverend Thomas was in Milan and got wind of a littlecoupat the Banca d’Italia which Finch Grey had arranged. The plot was one night to attack the strong-room of the bank, a tunnel to which had already been driven from a neighbouring house. The proceeds of this robbery—notes and gold—were to be brought down to San Remo by Finch Grey in his ‘sixty,’ the idea being to then meet the Princess and her niece, who were really only members of his gang. Our idea was to get friendly with the two ladies, so that when the car full of gold and notes arrived we should have an opportunity of getting hold of it. Our plans, however, were upset in two particulars, by the fact that a few days prior to my arrival the pair had quarrelled with the old hunchback, and secondly, because a friend of the Princess’s, staying at the hotel, had recognised you as a ‘crook.’ By some means the two women suspected that, on Finch Grey’s appearance, our intention was either to demand part of the proceeds of the bank robbery or expose them to the police. Therefore they put something in your coffee, the girl drove the car to the spot where you found yourself, and then they escaped to Genoa, and on to Rome. Finch Grey, who did not know who we were, was highly concerned with us regarding the non-return of the ladies. We suggested that we should go out in his ‘sixty’ with him to search for them, and he, fearing that you had met with an accident, consented. The rest was easy,” he laughed.

“How?”

“Well, we let him get half way to Oneglia, when we just slipped a handkerchief with a little perfume upon it, over his nose and mouth, and a few minutes later we laid him quietly down behind a wall. Then I turned the car back to where we had previously stored some pots of white paint and a couple of big brushes, and in an hour had transformed the colour of the car and changed its identification-plates. Imagine our joy when we found the back locker where the tools should have been crammed with bags of gold twenty lire pieces, while under the inside seat we found a number of neat packets of fifty and one-hundred and five-hundred lire notes. Just after midnight we slipped back through San Remo, and two days ago arrived safely in Paris with our valuable freight. Like to see some of it?” he added, and rising he pushed back the bookcase, opened the panel and took out several bundles of Italian notes. I saw also within a number of small canvas bags of gold.

“By this time, Garrett,” he added, laughing and pouring me out a drink, “old Finch Grey is gnashing his teeth, for he cannot invoke the aid of the police, and the women who intended to be avenged upon us for our daring are, no doubt, very sorry they ran away with our car, which, after all, was not nearly such a good one as the mysterious ‘sixty.’ Theirs wasn’t a particularly cheery journey, was it?” and lifting his glass he added, “So let’s wish them very good luck!”

Chapter Four.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, Burchell-Laing, Drummond, Lord Nassington, 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 snobs to bow and dust his boots, and who took good care to prey upon their snobbishness, was a perfect marvel of cunning. His cool audacity was unequalled. The times which he passed 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, “anothercoup?” 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 goincognitoas 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.”“Whatisthe 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 Albertincognito. 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-glass. 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 mysteriouscoupwhich 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 militaryattachéin the service of the German Government, and this self-assumed profession often gained him admission to the most exclusive circles here, and on the Continent.Garrett’s alias of Herbert Hebberdine he had assumed on one or two previous occasions—once at Biarritz, when his Highness successfully secured the splendid pearl necklace of the Duchess of Taormino, and again a few months later at Abbazia, on the beautiful shore of the Adriatic. On both occasions theircouphad 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 analyse 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 button 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 stayingincognitoas 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 daintychic, 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 thegaucherieof the school-girl. He noticed that she dropped her eyes quickly, and upon her cheeks arose just thesoupçonof 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.After a whisky and soda, brought by the grave, antiquated butler, Garrett drove the car round to the garage some little distance from the house, where he found three fine cars belonging to his host.Then, as he went to his room to change for dinner, he passed his Highness on the stairs.“The game’s quite easy,” whispered the latter as he halted for a second. “It remains for you to make the running with Elfrida. Only be careful. Old Blair-Stewart is pretty sly—as you’ll see.”At dinner in the long old-fashioned panelled room, hung with the portraits of what were supposed to be the ancestors of the Blair-Stewarts of Glenblair, Garrett first met the rather stout, coarse-featured shipbuilder who had assumed the head of that historic house, and had bought the estate at three times its market value. From the first moment of their meeting Garrett saw that he was a blatant parvenu of the worst type, for he began to talk of “my hothouses,” “my motors,” and “my yacht” almost in the first five minutes of their conversation.The party numbered about fifteen at dinner, and he had the good fortune to be placed next the dainty little girl in turquoise towards whom the part allotted to him was to act as lover.She was, he saw, of very different type to her father. She had been at school in Versailles, and afterwards had studied music in Dresden she told him, and she could, he found, speak three languages quite well. She had apparently put off her school-girl shyness when she put up her hair, and indeed she struck him as being an amusing little friend to any man. Motoring was her chief hobby. She could drive one of her father’s cars, a “sixteen-twenty” herself, and often did so. Therefore they were soon upon a topic in which they were mutually enthusiastic.A yellow-haired, thin-faced young man of elegant appearance, for he had a velvet collar to his dress-coat and amethyst buttons to his vest, was looking daggers at them. From that Garrett concluded that Archie Gould was the lover of the winning Elfrida, and that he did not approve of their mutual merriment. The Parson, who said grace, was a perfect example of decorum, and was making himself delightful to his hostess, while his Highness was joking with a pretty little married woman who, without doubt, was full of admiration of his handsome face.What would the good people of Glenblair have thought had they been aware of the identity of the trio they were entertaining at their table? As Garrett reflected, he smiled within himself. His fellow guests were mostly wealthy people, and as he looked around the table he saw several pieces of jewellery, necklets, pendants and the like for which the old Jew in the Kerk Straat at Amsterdam would have given them very fair prices.If jewellery was not the object of their visit, then what was?Two days passed, and Garrett took Elfrida and the Prince for several runs on the “sixty,” much to the girl’s delight. He watched closely the actions of his two companions, but could detect nothing suspicious. Blair-Stewart’s wife was a quaint old crow with a faint suspicion of a moustache, who fancied herself hugely as wife of the wealthy laird of Glenblair. She was busy visiting the poor of the grey straggling Highland village, and his Highness, flattering her vanity, was assisting her. Next to the Prince, the Parson was the most prominent person in the house-party, and managed to impress on every occasion his own importance upon the company.With the dainty Elfrida, Garrett got on famously, much to the chagrin and disgust of her yellow-headed young admirer, Gould, who had recently inherited his father’s estate up in Inverness-shire, and who it was currently reported, was at that moment engaged in the interesting occupation of “going through” it.Elfrida, though extremely pretty, with a soft natural beauty all her own, was an essentially out-door girl. It being a hard frost, they had been out together on the “sixty” in the morning, and later she had been teaching him curling on the curling-pond in the park, and initiated him into the mysteries of “elbow in” and “elbow out.” Indeed, every afternoon the whole party curled, a big bonfire being lit on the side of the pond, and tea being taken in the open. He had never practised the sport of casting those big round stones along the ice before, but he found it most invigorating and amusing, especially when he had as instructress such a charming and delightful little companion.Just as the crimson light of sundown was tinting the snow with its blood-red glow one afternoon, she suddenly declared her intentions to return to the house, whereupon he offered to escort her. As soon, however, as they were away from the rest of the party she left the path by which they were approaching the avenue, saying that there was a shorter cut to the castle. It was then that they found themselves wandering over the snow in the centre of a leafless forest, where the deep crimson afterglow gleamed westward among the black trunks of the trees, while the dead silence of winter was upon everything.Garrett was laughing with her, as was his habit, for their flirtation from the first had been a desperate one. At eighteen, a girl views nothing seriously, except her hobbies. As they walked together she presented a very neat-ankled and dainty appearance in her short blue serge skirt, little fur bolero, blue Frenchberet, and thick white gloves. In the brief time he had been her father’s guest, he had not failed to notice how his presence always served to heighten the colour of her cheeks, or how frequently she met him as if by accident in all sorts of odd and out-of-the-way corners. He was not sufficiently conceited to imagine that she cared for him any more than she did for young Gould, though he never once saw him with her. He would scowl at them across the table; that was all.Of a sudden, as they went on through the leafless wood she halted, and looking into his face with her beautiful eyes, exclaimed with a girl’s frankness:“I wonder, Mr Hebberdine, if I might trust you?—I mean if you would help me?”“Trust me!” he echoed very surprised, as their acquaintanceship had been of such short duration. “If you repose any confidence in me, Miss Blair-Stewart, I assure you I shall respect itssecrecy.”Her eyes met his, and he was startled to see in them a look of desperation such as he had not seen in any woman’s gaze before. In that moment the mask seemed to have fallen from her, and she stood there before him craving his pity and sympathy—his sympathy above that of all other men!Was not his position a curious one? The very girl whom he had come to trick and to deceive was asking him to accept her confidences.“You are very kind indeed to say that,” she exclaimed, her face brightening. “I hardly know whether I dare ask you to stand my friend, for we’ve only known each other two or three days.”“Sufficiently long, Miss Elfrida, to win me as your faithful champion,” the young man declared, whereupon her cheeks were again suffused by a slight flush.“Well, the fact is,” she said with charming bluntness, “though I have lots of girl friends, I have no man friend.”“There is Archie Gould,” he remarked, “I thought he was your friend!”“He’s merely a silly boy,” she laughed. “I said a man friend—like yourself.”“Why are you so anxious to have one?”She hesitated. Her eyes were fixed upon the spotless snow at their feet, and he saw that she held her breath in hesitation.“Men friends are sometimes dangerous, you know,” he laughed.“Not if the man is a true gentleman,” was her rather disconcerting answer. Then, raising her eyes again, and gazing straight into his face she asked, “Will you really be my friend?”“As I’ve already said, I’d only be too delighted. What do you want me to do?”“I—I want you to help me, and—and to preserve my secret.”“What secret?” he inquired, surprised that a girl of her age should possess a secret.He saw the sudden change in her countenance. Her lips were trembling, the corners of her mouth hardened, and, without warning, she buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.“Oh! come, come, Elfrida!” he exclaimed quickly, placing his hand tenderly upon her shoulder. “No, don’t give way like this! I am your friend, and will help you in what ever way you desire, if you will tell me all about it. You are in distress. Why? Confide in me now that I have promised to stand your friend.”“And—and you promise,” she sobbed. “You promise to be my friend—whatever happens.”“I promise,” he said, perhaps foolishly. “Whatever happens you may rely upon my friendship.”Then, next instant, his instructions from his Highness flashed across his mind. He was there for some secret reason to play a treacherous part—that of the faithless lover.She stood immovable, dabbing her eyes with a little wisp of lace. He was waiting for her to reveal the reason of her unhappiness. But she suddenly walked on mechanically, in her eyes a strange look of terror, nay of despair.He strode beside her, much puzzled at her demeanour. She wished to tell him something of which she was ashamed. Only the desperation of her position prompted her to make the admission, and seek his advice.They had gone, perhaps, three hundred yards still in the wood. The crimson light had faded, and the December dusk was quickly darkening, as it does in Scotland, when again she halted and faced him, saying in a faltering tone:“Mr Hebberdine, I—I do hope you will not think any the worse of me—I mean, I hope you won’t think me fast, when I tell you that I—well, somehow, I don’t know how it is—but I feel that Fate has brought you here purposely to be my friend—and to save me!”“To save you!” he echoed. “What do you mean? Be more explicit.”“I know my words must sound very strange to you. But it is the truth! Ah!” she cried, “you cannot know all that I am suffering—or of the deadly peril in which I find myself. It is because of that, I ask the assistance of you—an honest man.”Honest! Save the mark! He foresaw himself falling into some horrible complication, but the romance of the situation, together with the extreme beauty of his newly found little friend held the young man fascinated.“I cannot be of assistance, Miss Elfrida, until I know the truth.”“If we are to be friends you must call me Elfrida,” she said in her girlish way, “but in private only.”“You are right. Other people might suspect, and misconstrue what is a platonic friendship,” he said, and he took her hand in order to seal their compact.For a long time he held it, his gaze fixed upon her pale, agitated countenance. Why was she in peril? Of what?He asked her to tell him. A slight shudder ran through her, and she shook her head mournfully, no word escaping her lips. She sighed, the sigh of a young girl who had a burden of apprehension upon her sorely troubled mind. He could scarcely believe that this was the bright, happy, laughing girl who, half an hour ago, had been putting her stones along the ice, wielding her besom with all her might, and clapping her dainty little hands with delight when any of her own side knocked an opponent off “the pot lid.”At last, after long persuasion, during which time dusk had almost deepened into darkness in that silent snow-covered wood, she, in a faltering voice, and with many sentences broken by her emotion, which she vainly strived to suppress, told him a most curious and startling story to which he listened with breathless interest.The first of the series of remarkable incidents had occurred about two years ago, while she was at school in Versailles. She, with a number of other elder girls, had gone to spend the summer at a branch of the college close to Fontainebleau, and they often succeeded, when cycling, in getting away unobserved and enjoying long runs in the forest alone. One summer’s evening she was riding alone along a leafy by-way of the great forest when, by some means, her skirt got entangled in the machine and she was thrown and hurt her ankle. A rather well-dressed Frenchman who was coming along assisted her. He appeared to be very kind, gave her a card, with the name “Paul Berton” upon it, was told her name in response, and very quickly a friendship sprang up between them. He was an engineer, and staying at the Lion d’Or, in Fontainebleau, he said, and having wheeled her machine several miles to a spot quite near the college, suggested another meeting. She, with the school-girl’s adventurous spirit, consented, and that proved to be the first of many clandestine rendezvous. She was not quite seventeen while he was, she thought, about twenty-six.She kept her secret from all, even from her most intimate schoolmate, fearing to be betrayed to the head governess, so all the summer these secret meetings went on, she becoming more and more infatuated on every occasion, while he, with apparent carelessness, learned from her the history of her family, who they were, and where they resided.“One thing about Paul puzzled me from the very first evening we met,” she said reflectively as she was describing those halcyon days of forbidden love. “It was that I noticed, high upon his left wrist, about four inches from the base of the hand, a scarlet mark, encircling the whole arm. It looked as though he had worn a bracelet that had chafed him, or perhaps it had been tattooed there. Several times I referred to it, but he always evaded my question, and seemed to grow uneasy because I noticed it. Indeed, after a few meetings I noticed that he wore shirts with the cuffs buttoned over with solitaires, instead of open links. Well—” she went on slowly with a strange, far-away look in her face. “I—I hardly like to tell you further.”“Go on, little friend,” he urged, “your secret is in safe keeping with me—whatever it may be. You loved the man, eh?”“Ah! yes!” she cried. “You are right. I—I loved him—and I did not know. We met again in Paris—many times. All sorts of ruses I resorted to, in order to get out, if only for half an hour. He followed me to London—when I left school—and he came up here.”“Up here!” he gasped. “He loved you, then?”“Yes. And when I went to Dresden he went there also.”“Why?”She held her breath. Her eyes looked straight into his, and then were downcast.“Because—because,” she faltered hoarsely, “because he is my husband!”“Your husband. Great heavens!”“Yes. I married him six months ago at the registry office in the Blackfriars Road, in London,” she said in a strangely blank voice. “I am Madame Berton.”He stood utterly dumbfounded. The sweet, refined face of the child-wife was ashen pale, her white lips were trembling, and tears were welling in her eyes. He could see she wished to confide further in him.“Well?” he asked. It was the only word he could utter.“We parted half an hour after our marriage, and I have only seen him six times since. He comes here surreptitiously,” she said in a low voice of despair.“Why?”“Because evil fortune has pursued him. He—he confessed to me a few weeks ago that he was not so rich as he had been. He will be rich some day, but now he is horribly poor. He being my husband, it is my duty to help him—is it not?”Garrett’s heart rose against this cowardly foreigner, who had inveigled her into a secret marriage, whoever he might be, for, according to French law, he might at once repudiate her. Poor child! She was evidently devoted to him.“Well,” he said, “that depends upon circumstances. In what manner is he seeking your assistance?”She hesitated. At last she said:“Well—I give him a little money sometimes. But I never have enough. All the trinkets I dare spare are gone.”“You love him—eh?” asked the young man seriously.“Yes,” was her frank reply. “I am looking forward to the day when he can acknowledge me as his wife. Being an engineer he has a brilliant idea, namely, to perform a great service to my father in furthering his business aims, so that it will be impossible for him to denounce our marriage. Towards this end I am helping him. Ah! Mr Hebberdine, you don’t know what a dear, good fellow Paul is.”The young man sniffed suspiciously.“He has invented a new submarine boat which will revolutionise the naval warfare of the future. Father, in secret, builds submarine boats, you know. But Paul is anxious to ascertain what difference there is between those now secretly building and his own invention, prior to placing it before dear old dad.”“Well?”She hesitated.“I wanted to ask you, Mr Hebberdine, if you will do me a favour to-night,” she said presently. “Paul is staying at the ‘Star,’ down in the village, in the name of Mr James. I dare not go there, and he dare not approach me. There have been thieves about in this neighbourhood lately, and dad is having the castle watched at night by detectives.”At this Garrett pricked up his ears. Glenblair was, in those circumstances, no place for his Highness and his clerical companion.“I wonder,” she suggested, “whether you would do me a great favour and go down to the village to-night about ten and—and give him this.”From within her fur bolero she produced an envelope containing what seemed to be a little jewellery box about two inches long by an inch and a half broad. This she handed to him saying, “Give it into the hand of nobody except Paul personally. Tell him that you are my friend—and his.”So devoted was the girl-wife to her husband, and so unhappy did she seem that Garrett, filled with the romance of the affair, at once agreed to carry out his promise. Her remarkable story had amazed him. He alone knew her secret.As they sat at dinner that night, her eyes met his once or twice, and the look they exchanged was full of meaning. He was the bearer of some secret message to her husband.At half-past nine when the men had gone to the billiard-room, Garrett slipped upstairs to his room to put on a pair of thick boots, for he had a walk through the snow a good couple of miles to the village.Scarcely had he closed the door when it opened again, and the Prince, his finger raised in silence, entered, and in a low excited whisper exclaimed:“It’s all up! We must get away on the car as soon as possible. Every moment’s delay means increased peril. How have you got on with Elfrida?”The chauffeur stared at him without uttering a word.“Elfrida!” he echoed at last. “Well, she’s told me a most remarkable story, and made me her confidante.” Then, as briefly as possible, he told him everything. How her husband was staying in Glenblair village as Mr James; and how he had promised to convey the little packet to him.When he had finished the Prince fell back in his chair utterly dumbfounded. Then, taking the little packet, he turned it over in his hand.“Great Heavens!” he cried. “You don’t know what you’ve done, Garrett. There’s something very funny about all this!” he added quickly. “Wait here, and I’ll run along to Clayton,” and he left the young man instantly, carrying the packet in his hand.An hour later Garrett was driving the Prince and the Rev. Thomas Clayton in the car due south, and they were travelling for all they were worth over the hard frozen snow. Of the reason of that sudden flight, Garrett was in complete ignorance. All he knew was that he had orders to creep out to the garage, get the car, and await his companions who, in a few moments, came up out of the shadows. Their big overcoats were in the car, therefore their evening clothes did not trouble them. Then, with as little noise as possible, they ran down a back drive which his Highness, having reconnoitred, knew joined the main Perth road. An idling constable saw them, and wished them good evening. They were guests from the Castle, therefore he allowed them to pass unmolested.The constable would scarcely have done this, however, had he known what they were carrying away with them.They took the road by Dunblane and Stirling, and then straight south into Glasgow, where at two o’clock in the morning, Garrett’s two companions alighted in a deserted snow-covered street in the suburbs of the city, and bidding him farewell, gave him orders to get back to London with all haste.The run was a most dismal one. All through the snowstorm next day he kept on, making but poor progress.Next night, Garrett spent alone in Carlisle, and on the following morning started direct for London, being compelled, owing to the abominable state of the roads, to take two days over the run.A week of suspense went by, when one evening he received a note from his Highness, in consequence of which he went to Dover Street, where he found him smoking one of his “Petroffs,” as was his wont.“Well, Garrett?” he laughed. “Sit down, and have a drink. I’ve got eight hundred pounds for you here—your share of the boodle?”“But I don’t understand,” he exclaimed. “What boodle?”“Of course you don’t understand!” he laughed. “Just carry your mind back. You told me the story of little Elfrida’s unfortunate secret marriage, and that her husband had a red ring tattooed around his left wrist. That conveyed nothing to you; but it told me much. That afternoon I was walking with the ladies up Glenblair village when, to my surprise, I saw standing at a door no less a person than Jacques Fourrier, or ‘Le Bravache,’ as he’s known in Paris, an ‘international,’ like ourselves.”“Le Bravache!” gasped Garrett, for his reputation was that of the most daring and successful adventurer on the Continent, besides which he knew him as his Highness’s arch-enemy owing to a little love affair of a couple of years before.“Yes. ‘Le Bravache’!” the Prince went on. “He recognised me, and I saw that our game was up. Then you told me Elfrida’s story, and from the red circle on the man’s arm I realised that Paul Berton, the engineer, and ‘Le Bravache’ were one and the same person! Besides, she had actually given you to take to her husband the very thing we had gone to Glenblair to obtain!”“What was it?” he asked excitedly.“Well, the facts are these,” answered the audacious, good-looking Prince, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips. “Old Blair-Stewart has taken, in secret, a contract from the German Government to build a number of submarine boats for naval use. The plans of these wonderful vessels are kept in a strong safe in the old chap’s private office in Dumbarton, and both Fourrier and ourselves were after them—the French Intelligence Department having, in confidence, offered a big sum to any one bringing them to the Quay d’Orsay. Now you see the drift of the story of the exemplary Paul to his pretty little wife, and why he induced her to take impressions in wax of her father’s safe-key, she believing that he merely wanted sight of the plans in order to ascertain whether they were any better than his own alleged invention. Fortunately for us, she induced you to be her messenger. When we sent you up there with orders to be nice to Elfrida we never anticipated such acontretempsas Fourrier’s presence, or that the dainty little girl would actually take the impressions for us to use.”“Then you have used it?”“Of course. On the night after leaving you, having made the false key in Glasgow, we went over to Dumbarton and got the plans quite easily. We crossed by Harwich and Antwerp to Brussels on to Paris, and here we are again. The Intelligence Department of the Admiralty are very satisfied—and so are we. The pretty Elfrida will no doubt remain in ignorance, until her father discovers his loss, but I’m half inclined to write anonymously to her and tell the poor girl the truth regarding her mysterious husband. I think I really shall, for my letter would cast a good deal of suspicion upon 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, Burchell-Laing, Drummond, Lord Nassington, 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 snobs to bow and dust his boots, and who took good care to prey upon their snobbishness, was a perfect marvel of cunning. His cool audacity was unequalled. The times which he passed 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, “anothercoup?” 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 goincognitoas 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.”

“Whatisthe 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 Albertincognito. 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-glass. 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 mysteriouscoupwhich 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 militaryattachéin the service of the German Government, and this self-assumed profession often gained him admission to the most exclusive circles here, and on the Continent.

Garrett’s alias of Herbert Hebberdine he had assumed on one or two previous occasions—once at Biarritz, when his Highness successfully secured the splendid pearl necklace of the Duchess of Taormino, and again a few months later at Abbazia, on the beautiful shore of the Adriatic. On both occasions theircouphad 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 analyse 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 button 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 stayingincognitoas 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 daintychic, 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 thegaucherieof the school-girl. He noticed that she dropped her eyes quickly, and upon her cheeks arose just thesoupçonof 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.

After a whisky and soda, brought by the grave, antiquated butler, Garrett drove the car round to the garage some little distance from the house, where he found three fine cars belonging to his host.

Then, as he went to his room to change for dinner, he passed his Highness on the stairs.

“The game’s quite easy,” whispered the latter as he halted for a second. “It remains for you to make the running with Elfrida. Only be careful. Old Blair-Stewart is pretty sly—as you’ll see.”

At dinner in the long old-fashioned panelled room, hung with the portraits of what were supposed to be the ancestors of the Blair-Stewarts of Glenblair, Garrett first met the rather stout, coarse-featured shipbuilder who had assumed the head of that historic house, and had bought the estate at three times its market value. From the first moment of their meeting Garrett saw that he was a blatant parvenu of the worst type, for he began to talk of “my hothouses,” “my motors,” and “my yacht” almost in the first five minutes of their conversation.

The party numbered about fifteen at dinner, and he had the good fortune to be placed next the dainty little girl in turquoise towards whom the part allotted to him was to act as lover.

She was, he saw, of very different type to her father. She had been at school in Versailles, and afterwards had studied music in Dresden she told him, and she could, he found, speak three languages quite well. She had apparently put off her school-girl shyness when she put up her hair, and indeed she struck him as being an amusing little friend to any man. Motoring was her chief hobby. She could drive one of her father’s cars, a “sixteen-twenty” herself, and often did so. Therefore they were soon upon a topic in which they were mutually enthusiastic.

A yellow-haired, thin-faced young man of elegant appearance, for he had a velvet collar to his dress-coat and amethyst buttons to his vest, was looking daggers at them. From that Garrett concluded that Archie Gould was the lover of the winning Elfrida, and that he did not approve of their mutual merriment. The Parson, who said grace, was a perfect example of decorum, and was making himself delightful to his hostess, while his Highness was joking with a pretty little married woman who, without doubt, was full of admiration of his handsome face.

What would the good people of Glenblair have thought had they been aware of the identity of the trio they were entertaining at their table? As Garrett reflected, he smiled within himself. His fellow guests were mostly wealthy people, and as he looked around the table he saw several pieces of jewellery, necklets, pendants and the like for which the old Jew in the Kerk Straat at Amsterdam would have given them very fair prices.

If jewellery was not the object of their visit, then what was?

Two days passed, and Garrett took Elfrida and the Prince for several runs on the “sixty,” much to the girl’s delight. He watched closely the actions of his two companions, but could detect nothing suspicious. Blair-Stewart’s wife was a quaint old crow with a faint suspicion of a moustache, who fancied herself hugely as wife of the wealthy laird of Glenblair. She was busy visiting the poor of the grey straggling Highland village, and his Highness, flattering her vanity, was assisting her. Next to the Prince, the Parson was the most prominent person in the house-party, and managed to impress on every occasion his own importance upon the company.

With the dainty Elfrida, Garrett got on famously, much to the chagrin and disgust of her yellow-headed young admirer, Gould, who had recently inherited his father’s estate up in Inverness-shire, and who it was currently reported, was at that moment engaged in the interesting occupation of “going through” it.

Elfrida, though extremely pretty, with a soft natural beauty all her own, was an essentially out-door girl. It being a hard frost, they had been out together on the “sixty” in the morning, and later she had been teaching him curling on the curling-pond in the park, and initiated him into the mysteries of “elbow in” and “elbow out.” Indeed, every afternoon the whole party curled, a big bonfire being lit on the side of the pond, and tea being taken in the open. He had never practised the sport of casting those big round stones along the ice before, but he found it most invigorating and amusing, especially when he had as instructress such a charming and delightful little companion.

Just as the crimson light of sundown was tinting the snow with its blood-red glow one afternoon, she suddenly declared her intentions to return to the house, whereupon he offered to escort her. As soon, however, as they were away from the rest of the party she left the path by which they were approaching the avenue, saying that there was a shorter cut to the castle. It was then that they found themselves wandering over the snow in the centre of a leafless forest, where the deep crimson afterglow gleamed westward among the black trunks of the trees, while the dead silence of winter was upon everything.

Garrett was laughing with her, as was his habit, for their flirtation from the first had been a desperate one. At eighteen, a girl views nothing seriously, except her hobbies. As they walked together she presented a very neat-ankled and dainty appearance in her short blue serge skirt, little fur bolero, blue Frenchberet, and thick white gloves. In the brief time he had been her father’s guest, he had not failed to notice how his presence always served to heighten the colour of her cheeks, or how frequently she met him as if by accident in all sorts of odd and out-of-the-way corners. He was not sufficiently conceited to imagine that she cared for him any more than she did for young Gould, though he never once saw him with her. He would scowl at them across the table; that was all.

Of a sudden, as they went on through the leafless wood she halted, and looking into his face with her beautiful eyes, exclaimed with a girl’s frankness:

“I wonder, Mr Hebberdine, if I might trust you?—I mean if you would help me?”

“Trust me!” he echoed very surprised, as their acquaintanceship had been of such short duration. “If you repose any confidence in me, Miss Blair-Stewart, I assure you I shall respect itssecrecy.”

Her eyes met his, and he was startled to see in them a look of desperation such as he had not seen in any woman’s gaze before. In that moment the mask seemed to have fallen from her, and she stood there before him craving his pity and sympathy—his sympathy above that of all other men!

Was not his position a curious one? The very girl whom he had come to trick and to deceive was asking him to accept her confidences.

“You are very kind indeed to say that,” she exclaimed, her face brightening. “I hardly know whether I dare ask you to stand my friend, for we’ve only known each other two or three days.”

“Sufficiently long, Miss Elfrida, to win me as your faithful champion,” the young man declared, whereupon her cheeks were again suffused by a slight flush.

“Well, the fact is,” she said with charming bluntness, “though I have lots of girl friends, I have no man friend.”

“There is Archie Gould,” he remarked, “I thought he was your friend!”

“He’s merely a silly boy,” she laughed. “I said a man friend—like yourself.”

“Why are you so anxious to have one?”

She hesitated. Her eyes were fixed upon the spotless snow at their feet, and he saw that she held her breath in hesitation.

“Men friends are sometimes dangerous, you know,” he laughed.

“Not if the man is a true gentleman,” was her rather disconcerting answer. Then, raising her eyes again, and gazing straight into his face she asked, “Will you really be my friend?”

“As I’ve already said, I’d only be too delighted. What do you want me to do?”

“I—I want you to help me, and—and to preserve my secret.”

“What secret?” he inquired, surprised that a girl of her age should possess a secret.

He saw the sudden change in her countenance. Her lips were trembling, the corners of her mouth hardened, and, without warning, she buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

“Oh! come, come, Elfrida!” he exclaimed quickly, placing his hand tenderly upon her shoulder. “No, don’t give way like this! I am your friend, and will help you in what ever way you desire, if you will tell me all about it. You are in distress. Why? Confide in me now that I have promised to stand your friend.”

“And—and you promise,” she sobbed. “You promise to be my friend—whatever happens.”

“I promise,” he said, perhaps foolishly. “Whatever happens you may rely upon my friendship.”

Then, next instant, his instructions from his Highness flashed across his mind. He was there for some secret reason to play a treacherous part—that of the faithless lover.

She stood immovable, dabbing her eyes with a little wisp of lace. He was waiting for her to reveal the reason of her unhappiness. But she suddenly walked on mechanically, in her eyes a strange look of terror, nay of despair.

He strode beside her, much puzzled at her demeanour. She wished to tell him something of which she was ashamed. Only the desperation of her position prompted her to make the admission, and seek his advice.

They had gone, perhaps, three hundred yards still in the wood. The crimson light had faded, and the December dusk was quickly darkening, as it does in Scotland, when again she halted and faced him, saying in a faltering tone:

“Mr Hebberdine, I—I do hope you will not think any the worse of me—I mean, I hope you won’t think me fast, when I tell you that I—well, somehow, I don’t know how it is—but I feel that Fate has brought you here purposely to be my friend—and to save me!”

“To save you!” he echoed. “What do you mean? Be more explicit.”

“I know my words must sound very strange to you. But it is the truth! Ah!” she cried, “you cannot know all that I am suffering—or of the deadly peril in which I find myself. It is because of that, I ask the assistance of you—an honest man.”

Honest! Save the mark! He foresaw himself falling into some horrible complication, but the romance of the situation, together with the extreme beauty of his newly found little friend held the young man fascinated.

“I cannot be of assistance, Miss Elfrida, until I know the truth.”

“If we are to be friends you must call me Elfrida,” she said in her girlish way, “but in private only.”

“You are right. Other people might suspect, and misconstrue what is a platonic friendship,” he said, and he took her hand in order to seal their compact.

For a long time he held it, his gaze fixed upon her pale, agitated countenance. Why was she in peril? Of what?

He asked her to tell him. A slight shudder ran through her, and she shook her head mournfully, no word escaping her lips. She sighed, the sigh of a young girl who had a burden of apprehension upon her sorely troubled mind. He could scarcely believe that this was the bright, happy, laughing girl who, half an hour ago, had been putting her stones along the ice, wielding her besom with all her might, and clapping her dainty little hands with delight when any of her own side knocked an opponent off “the pot lid.”

At last, after long persuasion, during which time dusk had almost deepened into darkness in that silent snow-covered wood, she, in a faltering voice, and with many sentences broken by her emotion, which she vainly strived to suppress, told him a most curious and startling story to which he listened with breathless interest.

The first of the series of remarkable incidents had occurred about two years ago, while she was at school in Versailles. She, with a number of other elder girls, had gone to spend the summer at a branch of the college close to Fontainebleau, and they often succeeded, when cycling, in getting away unobserved and enjoying long runs in the forest alone. One summer’s evening she was riding alone along a leafy by-way of the great forest when, by some means, her skirt got entangled in the machine and she was thrown and hurt her ankle. A rather well-dressed Frenchman who was coming along assisted her. He appeared to be very kind, gave her a card, with the name “Paul Berton” upon it, was told her name in response, and very quickly a friendship sprang up between them. He was an engineer, and staying at the Lion d’Or, in Fontainebleau, he said, and having wheeled her machine several miles to a spot quite near the college, suggested another meeting. She, with the school-girl’s adventurous spirit, consented, and that proved to be the first of many clandestine rendezvous. She was not quite seventeen while he was, she thought, about twenty-six.

She kept her secret from all, even from her most intimate schoolmate, fearing to be betrayed to the head governess, so all the summer these secret meetings went on, she becoming more and more infatuated on every occasion, while he, with apparent carelessness, learned from her the history of her family, who they were, and where they resided.

“One thing about Paul puzzled me from the very first evening we met,” she said reflectively as she was describing those halcyon days of forbidden love. “It was that I noticed, high upon his left wrist, about four inches from the base of the hand, a scarlet mark, encircling the whole arm. It looked as though he had worn a bracelet that had chafed him, or perhaps it had been tattooed there. Several times I referred to it, but he always evaded my question, and seemed to grow uneasy because I noticed it. Indeed, after a few meetings I noticed that he wore shirts with the cuffs buttoned over with solitaires, instead of open links. Well—” she went on slowly with a strange, far-away look in her face. “I—I hardly like to tell you further.”

“Go on, little friend,” he urged, “your secret is in safe keeping with me—whatever it may be. You loved the man, eh?”

“Ah! yes!” she cried. “You are right. I—I loved him—and I did not know. We met again in Paris—many times. All sorts of ruses I resorted to, in order to get out, if only for half an hour. He followed me to London—when I left school—and he came up here.”

“Up here!” he gasped. “He loved you, then?”

“Yes. And when I went to Dresden he went there also.”

“Why?”

She held her breath. Her eyes looked straight into his, and then were downcast.

“Because—because,” she faltered hoarsely, “because he is my husband!”

“Your husband. Great heavens!”

“Yes. I married him six months ago at the registry office in the Blackfriars Road, in London,” she said in a strangely blank voice. “I am Madame Berton.”

He stood utterly dumbfounded. The sweet, refined face of the child-wife was ashen pale, her white lips were trembling, and tears were welling in her eyes. He could see she wished to confide further in him.

“Well?” he asked. It was the only word he could utter.

“We parted half an hour after our marriage, and I have only seen him six times since. He comes here surreptitiously,” she said in a low voice of despair.

“Why?”

“Because evil fortune has pursued him. He—he confessed to me a few weeks ago that he was not so rich as he had been. He will be rich some day, but now he is horribly poor. He being my husband, it is my duty to help him—is it not?”

Garrett’s heart rose against this cowardly foreigner, who had inveigled her into a secret marriage, whoever he might be, for, according to French law, he might at once repudiate her. Poor child! She was evidently devoted to him.

“Well,” he said, “that depends upon circumstances. In what manner is he seeking your assistance?”

She hesitated. At last she said:

“Well—I give him a little money sometimes. But I never have enough. All the trinkets I dare spare are gone.”

“You love him—eh?” asked the young man seriously.

“Yes,” was her frank reply. “I am looking forward to the day when he can acknowledge me as his wife. Being an engineer he has a brilliant idea, namely, to perform a great service to my father in furthering his business aims, so that it will be impossible for him to denounce our marriage. Towards this end I am helping him. Ah! Mr Hebberdine, you don’t know what a dear, good fellow Paul is.”

The young man sniffed suspiciously.

“He has invented a new submarine boat which will revolutionise the naval warfare of the future. Father, in secret, builds submarine boats, you know. But Paul is anxious to ascertain what difference there is between those now secretly building and his own invention, prior to placing it before dear old dad.”

“Well?”

She hesitated.

“I wanted to ask you, Mr Hebberdine, if you will do me a favour to-night,” she said presently. “Paul is staying at the ‘Star,’ down in the village, in the name of Mr James. I dare not go there, and he dare not approach me. There have been thieves about in this neighbourhood lately, and dad is having the castle watched at night by detectives.”

At this Garrett pricked up his ears. Glenblair was, in those circumstances, no place for his Highness and his clerical companion.

“I wonder,” she suggested, “whether you would do me a great favour and go down to the village to-night about ten and—and give him this.”

From within her fur bolero she produced an envelope containing what seemed to be a little jewellery box about two inches long by an inch and a half broad. This she handed to him saying, “Give it into the hand of nobody except Paul personally. Tell him that you are my friend—and his.”

So devoted was the girl-wife to her husband, and so unhappy did she seem that Garrett, filled with the romance of the affair, at once agreed to carry out his promise. Her remarkable story had amazed him. He alone knew her secret.

As they sat at dinner that night, her eyes met his once or twice, and the look they exchanged was full of meaning. He was the bearer of some secret message to her husband.

At half-past nine when the men had gone to the billiard-room, Garrett slipped upstairs to his room to put on a pair of thick boots, for he had a walk through the snow a good couple of miles to the village.

Scarcely had he closed the door when it opened again, and the Prince, his finger raised in silence, entered, and in a low excited whisper exclaimed:

“It’s all up! We must get away on the car as soon as possible. Every moment’s delay means increased peril. How have you got on with Elfrida?”

The chauffeur stared at him without uttering a word.

“Elfrida!” he echoed at last. “Well, she’s told me a most remarkable story, and made me her confidante.” Then, as briefly as possible, he told him everything. How her husband was staying in Glenblair village as Mr James; and how he had promised to convey the little packet to him.

When he had finished the Prince fell back in his chair utterly dumbfounded. Then, taking the little packet, he turned it over in his hand.

“Great Heavens!” he cried. “You don’t know what you’ve done, Garrett. There’s something very funny about all this!” he added quickly. “Wait here, and I’ll run along to Clayton,” and he left the young man instantly, carrying the packet in his hand.

An hour later Garrett was driving the Prince and the Rev. Thomas Clayton in the car due south, and they were travelling for all they were worth over the hard frozen snow. Of the reason of that sudden flight, Garrett was in complete ignorance. All he knew was that he had orders to creep out to the garage, get the car, and await his companions who, in a few moments, came up out of the shadows. Their big overcoats were in the car, therefore their evening clothes did not trouble them. Then, with as little noise as possible, they ran down a back drive which his Highness, having reconnoitred, knew joined the main Perth road. An idling constable saw them, and wished them good evening. They were guests from the Castle, therefore he allowed them to pass unmolested.

The constable would scarcely have done this, however, had he known what they were carrying away with them.

They took the road by Dunblane and Stirling, and then straight south into Glasgow, where at two o’clock in the morning, Garrett’s two companions alighted in a deserted snow-covered street in the suburbs of the city, and bidding him farewell, gave him orders to get back to London with all haste.

The run was a most dismal one. All through the snowstorm next day he kept on, making but poor progress.

Next night, Garrett spent alone in Carlisle, and on the following morning started direct for London, being compelled, owing to the abominable state of the roads, to take two days over the run.

A week of suspense went by, when one evening he received a note from his Highness, in consequence of which he went to Dover Street, where he found him smoking one of his “Petroffs,” as was his wont.

“Well, Garrett?” he laughed. “Sit down, and have a drink. I’ve got eight hundred pounds for you here—your share of the boodle?”

“But I don’t understand,” he exclaimed. “What boodle?”

“Of course you don’t understand!” he laughed. “Just carry your mind back. You told me the story of little Elfrida’s unfortunate secret marriage, and that her husband had a red ring tattooed around his left wrist. That conveyed nothing to you; but it told me much. That afternoon I was walking with the ladies up Glenblair village when, to my surprise, I saw standing at a door no less a person than Jacques Fourrier, or ‘Le Bravache,’ as he’s known in Paris, an ‘international,’ like ourselves.”

“Le Bravache!” gasped Garrett, for his reputation was that of the most daring and successful adventurer on the Continent, besides which he knew him as his Highness’s arch-enemy owing to a little love affair of a couple of years before.

“Yes. ‘Le Bravache’!” the Prince went on. “He recognised me, and I saw that our game was up. Then you told me Elfrida’s story, and from the red circle on the man’s arm I realised that Paul Berton, the engineer, and ‘Le Bravache’ were one and the same person! Besides, she had actually given you to take to her husband the very thing we had gone to Glenblair to obtain!”

“What was it?” he asked excitedly.

“Well, the facts are these,” answered the audacious, good-looking Prince, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips. “Old Blair-Stewart has taken, in secret, a contract from the German Government to build a number of submarine boats for naval use. The plans of these wonderful vessels are kept in a strong safe in the old chap’s private office in Dumbarton, and both Fourrier and ourselves were after them—the French Intelligence Department having, in confidence, offered a big sum to any one bringing them to the Quay d’Orsay. Now you see the drift of the story of the exemplary Paul to his pretty little wife, and why he induced her to take impressions in wax of her father’s safe-key, she believing that he merely wanted sight of the plans in order to ascertain whether they were any better than his own alleged invention. Fortunately for us, she induced you to be her messenger. When we sent you up there with orders to be nice to Elfrida we never anticipated such acontretempsas Fourrier’s presence, or that the dainty little girl would actually take the impressions for us to use.”

“Then you have used it?”

“Of course. On the night after leaving you, having made the false key in Glasgow, we went over to Dumbarton and got the plans quite easily. We crossed by Harwich and Antwerp to Brussels on to Paris, and here we are again. The Intelligence Department of the Admiralty are very satisfied—and so are we. The pretty Elfrida will no doubt remain in ignorance, until her father discovers his loss, but I’m half inclined to write anonymously to her and tell the poor girl the truth regarding her mysterious husband. I think I really shall, for my letter would cast a good deal of suspicion upon the Man with the Red Circle.”

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