The Car of Destiny 7The Impudence of Showing a Handkerchief
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Literature · Romance
The Car of Destiny 7
The Impudence of Showing a Handkerchief
WilliamsonEnglish
Fifteen minutes later we were off.
I love driving my car, as I love the breath of life, and I’m conceited enough to fancy that no one else, not even Ropes, can get out of her what I can. Still, this was not destined to be precisely a pleasure trip, and prudence bade me give the helm to Dick. He is a good enough driver; and the car was his car now; I was but an insignificant passenger, with a case of visiting cards in his pocket, newly engraved with the name of Mr. George Smith. I sat on the front seat beside Dick, however, silently criticising his every move; Ropes was in the tonneau; such luggage as we had, on top.
It was scarcely eight o’clock, and there was so little traffic in the town that we did not need to trouble about a legal limit. We slipped swiftly along the rough white road to the railway station, past large villas and green lawns, and took the sharp turn to the right that leads out from the pleasant land of France straight to romantic Spain, the country of my dreams. We sped past houses that looked from their deep sheltering woods upon a silver lake, and away in the distance we caught glimpses of the sea. Before us were graceful, piled mountains, the crenelated mass of Les Trois Couronnes glittering with wintry diamonds. Against the morning sky, stood up, clear and cold, the cone of far La Rune.
Looking ahead, in my ears sang the song of my blood, sweet with hope, as the name of the girl I love and the land I love, mingled together in music.
Gaining the first outskirts of straggling St. Jean de Luz my eyes and Dick’s fell at the same time upon something before us; a big grey automobile, its roof piled with luggage, stationary by the roadside, a chauffeur busy jacking up the driving wheels, a tall man standing to watch the work, his hands in the pockets of his fur coat. Instantly Dick slowed down our car, to lean out as we came within speaking distance, while I sat still, secure from recognition behind elaborately hideous goggles.
“Is there anything we can do?” asked Dick with the generosity of an automobilist in full tide of fortune to another in ill fortune. I noticed as he spoke, that he made his American accent as marked as possible; so marked, that it was almost like hoisting the stars and stripes over the transformed and repainted Gloria.
“No, thank you,” said Carmona; for it was he who stood in the road looking on while his chauffeur worked. He had glanced up with anxiety and vexation on his ungoggled, dark face, at the first sound of an approaching car, and I knew well what thought sprang into his head. But a red car, with an American driving, was not what he had half expected to see. He was visibly relieved; nevertheless, he was slow enough in answering to bring us to a standstill, while he peered at our wheel-caps.
The deceitful name, glittering up to his eyes, so evidently reassured him that a temptation seized me, and I yielded without a struggle.
I had come prepared for a quick signal to Monica whenever an opportunity should arise, and, as I was anxious to let her know that she was not unprotected, it seemed to me that the first chance of doing so was better than the second.
In an inner breast pocket of my coat I had the lace handkerchief which I had stolen on the night of the ball. As Dick questioned Carmona, and Carmona answered, I flashed out the wisp of lace and passed it across my lips, not turning to look full at the slim, grey-coated figure on the front seat, yet conscious by a side glance that a veiled face regarded us.
What I did was done so quickly, that I think it would have passed unnoticed by the Duke; but Monica, taken completely by surprise, bent suddenly forward; then, remembering the need for caution, hurriedly leaned back against the cushions.
Carmona caught her nervous movement, saw how self-consciously, almost rigidly, she sat when she had recovered herself, and, suspicion instantly alert, turned a searchlight gaze on us.
The lace handkerchief had vanished. I was sitting indifferently, with arms folded, my interest concentrated upon the busy chauffeur. Still I felt there was no detail of my figure and motoring clothes that Carmona was not noting as he explained to Dick the nature of his mishap.
“A simple puncture,” he said. “And we have all necessary means to mend it, thank you.”
Dick and I lifted our caps to the ladies and went our way; but it was not until we had passed the charming Renaissance house where Louis Quatorze was born, that Waring made any comment on the incident.
“If that Moor-faced chap isn’t on to the game, he’s getting mighty ‘warm,’ as the children say,” he remarked dryly.
“He can’t possibly be certain,” said I. “Even if he saw my face, he couldn’t swear to identifying it, as the only sight he ever had of me was in that asinine, yellow Romeo wig. Besides, Romeo had no moustache, and, thanks to your advice, I have. It’s the one thing that’s conspicuous under the goggles.”
“A sort of ‘coming event casting its shadow before.’ I didn’t say he knew. I said he guessed. See here, while he’s waiting for his tyre, could we wire from this town to the frontier in time to have you stopped?”
“We ought to get there before any telegram he could send,” said I, hopefully. “However, there’ll be a lot of formalities at the custom-house. They might catch us before we finished. But, uncertain as he must be, it would hardly be worth his while—”
“I wouldn’t bet much on that,” said Dick.
“Let’s rush it,” said I.
“Too risky. You’d feel such a limp ass to be detained by a fat policeman at the door of Spain, while Carmona and Lady Monica went through, and disappeared.”
“I’d shoot the fat policeman first.”
“There you are, being Spanish again, just when you ought to develop a little horse-sense.”
This put me on my mettle, and in two minutes I had thought out a plan, while Dick whistled and reflected.
It was rather an odd plan, and could only be carried out by the aid of another. But that other had never failed me yet, when loyalty or devotion were needed; and I had not got out half the suggestion when he understood all, and begged to do what I had hardly liked to ask.
We took exactly eight minutes, by Dick’s watch, in making arrangements to meet an emergency which I hoped might not arise if our speed were good and our luck held.
Already Hendaye, the last French town, was but just beyond our sight. We ran through it at high speed, passed on through little Béhobie; and next moment our tyres were rolling through a brown mixture of French and Spanish mud on the international bridge that crosses the swirling Bidasoa. We had passed from Gaul to Iberia. At the central iron lamp-post, carrying on one side the “R.F.” of France, on the other the Royal Arms of Spain, I lifted my cap in salutation to my native land, just where, had I been an Englishman, I should have lifted it to memories of grand old Wellington.
The broad river was rushing, green and swift, down to Fuenterrabia and the sea, eddying past the little Ile des Faisans, where so much history has been made; where Cardinals treated for royal marriages; where Francis the First, a prisoner, was exchanged for his two sons. We were across the dividing water now, in Irun, and on Spanish soil. High-collared Spanish soldiers lounging by their sentry boxes, looked keenly at us, but made no move, little guessing that the accused bomb-thrower of Barcelona was driving past them through this romantic gate to Spain. We turned abruptly to the right, and, hoping still to escape trouble, pulled up at the custom-house.
To hurry a Spanish official, I had often heard my father say, in old days, is a thing impossible, and we avoided an air of anxiety. The three men in the big red car appeared to desire nothing better than to linger in the society of the douaniers. Nevertheless, the chauffeur was as brisk in his movements as he dared to be.
He it was who jumped from the tonneau, and in passable Spanish asked our inquisitor which, if any, of our suit-cases he wished to open. At the same instant a propitiatory cigarette was offered and accepted.
Carefully the overcoated man selected with his eye a piece of luggage on the car roof. Luck was with us. It was the one easiest to unlock.
In the twinkling of an eye (an American, not a Spanish eye), the thing was down and in the office. The douanier was about to inspect, in his leisured way, when a peasant entered with some bags to be weighed.
Naturally the official fell into chat with the new-comer, and it was necessary to remind him that we had the right of precedence. Every moment was of importance, for already there was time for a telegram to have arrived. Presently there would be time for its instructions to be acted on as well. And at this moment I realized, as I had not fully realized before, all that it would mean to me of humiliation and defeat to fail ignominiously on the threshold of my adventure.
It was hard to show no impatience as the douanier’s lazy, cigarette-stained hand wandered among the contents of the suit-case. When any article puzzled him, he paused; another precious minute gone. But eventually, having had a safety-razor explained, he was satisfied with the inspection of the luggage, and indicated that it might be replaced. Then came the question of the deposit of money for the car, on entering Spain.
Very carefully did the imperturbable official examine each Spanish bank-note we tendered; laboriously did he make out the receipt. Had he meant to detain us, his movements, his words, could not have been more deliberate. How I had longed to hear again the Spanish language spoken by Spaniards in Spain, yet how little was I able to appreciate the fulfilment of my long-cherished wish! At last, however, every formality was complied with, and we were free to go.
With all speed we took our man at his word. The leather-coated, leather-legginged chauffeur set the engine’s heart going in time with his own, flung himself into the tonneau, and had not shut the door when Waring slipped in the clutch, muttering “Hooray!”
Another second and we should have been beyond recall; but hardly was the brake off than it had to go crashing on again to avoid running over a sergeant and two soldiers who rushed up and sprang in front of us, puffing with unwonted haste.
In his hand the sergeant held an open telegram.
“You speak Spanish?” he panted.
“A little,” said Dick. “French better.”
“I have no French, señor,” replied the sergeant, “But my business is not so much with you as with this gentleman,” he glanced at the telegram, “in the grey coat with the fur collar, the grey cap, the goggles in a grey felt mask, the small dark moustache, the grey buckskin gloves.” (Carmona had noticed everything.) “Our instructions are to prevent the Marqués de Casa Triana from going into Spain.”
“Casa Triana? What do you mean?” cried Dick. Then he laughed. “Is the person you’re talking about a Spaniard?”
“He is, señor.”
Dick laughed a great deal more. “Well, I guess you’ll have to look somewhere else. There’s a mistake. The gentleman in the grey coat and all the other grey things has hardly enough Spanish to know what you’re driving at.”
The sergeant shrugged his shoulders and looked determined. “There is no mistake in my instructions, señor. I am sorry, but it is my duty to detain that gentleman. If there is an error there will be apologies.”
“I should say there jolly well was an error,” sputtered Dick, in his wild combination of Spanish and English and American. “George, show your card. He thinks you’re a Spaniard, who’s ‘wanted.’ ”
The gentleman in the grey coat showed the visiting cards of Mr. George Smith, and the Spanish soldier examined them gloomily. “Anybody might have these,” said he, half to us, half to a group of his countrymen. “Señor, I must reluctantly ask you to descend and to come with me. It will be much better to do so quietly.”
“Of all the monstrous indignities,” shouted Dick. “I’m a newspaper correspondent on a special detail. I’ll wire the American minister in Madrid, and the English Ambassador too. I’ll—”
But the gentleman in the grey coat had obeyed the sergeant. He had also taken off his goggles.
“It will be all right in a few hours, or a few days,” said he in English. “You must go on. Don’t worry about me.”
“Go on without you?” echoed Dick, breaking again into astonishing Spanish for the benefit of the official. “Well, if you really don’t mind, as I’m in the dickens of a hurry. You can follow by train, you know, as soon as you’ve proved to these blunderers that you’re George Smith.”
“If you are Señor George Smith, you will be free as soon as the photograph of the Marqués de Casa Triana has been sent on by the police at Madrid,” said the sergeant. “If not—” he did not finish his sentence; but the break was significant. And the soldiers closed in to separate the alleged George Smith from his companions of the car, lest at the last moment they should attempt a rescue.
“We’ll make them sorry for this, George,” said Dick. “But as we really can’t do much for you here, we’ll get on somewhere else, where we can.”
“I must ask also for the name of the owner of this automobile, and for that of his chauffeur,” insisted the sergeant, “before I can let you go.”
“Oh, all right,” said Dick, crossly, producing his passport, and cards with the names of the papers for which he had engaged to correspond. “Ropes, fork out your credentials.”
The chauffeur brought forth his French papers, and pointed to the name of Peter Ropes. The sergeant industriously wrote down everything in his note-book, a greasy and forbidding one.
“It is satisfactory,” he said with dignity; “you can proceed, señores.”
The engine had not been stopped during the scene; and as the gentleman in the grey coat was marched off to the guard-house with a jostling Spanish crowd at his heels, the red car in which he had lately been a passenger slipped away and left him behind.
Through the streets of Irun it passed at funeral pace, as if in respect and regret for a friend who was lost; but once out in the green, undulating country beyond, it put on a great spurt of speed, after the chauffeur had scrambled into the front seat.
“Great Scott, but I’m as hot as if I’d come out of a Turkish bath,” growled Dick.
“It was a warm ten minutes,” said I. “Poor old Ropes—bless him!” And I sent back a sigh of gratitude to the staunch friend in my grey overcoat, cap, goggles, and gloves, to whose loyalty I owed freedom.
