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1.
They drove past a number of small villages. Lord Bannister forgot to worry about his dress clothes except when his flesh was pierced by a stud whenever he leaned forward.
Evelyn broke the silence.
"Ha-have you any idea," she said timidly, "where we can find the nearest garage where I could hire a car?"
For a few seconds, he wondered if he should answer her question at all. At last he decided that it was his duty to give at least a curt reply.
"There is one, so far as I know, at La Roselle. It's quite a big place. I hope I'll also find some appropriate accommodation there till tomorrow."
Again they relapsed into silence. Trees painted with white bands were racing past them like an army of legless soldiers. The ancient beauty of the countryside had been spoiled by this ungainly belt of whitewash for the sake of motorists.
Lord Bannister continued to mutter to himself, since the thought of accommodation now reminded him of the possibility of another calamity he had luckily avoided.
"It's a mercy I always keep my toilet case in the car," he mumbled.
The small patent leather case lay on the seat beside him.
"Why a mercy?" inquired Evelyn, somewhat nervously.
"Otherwise I shouldn't be able to shave at La Roselle tomorrow morning. And I hate going about with a stubbly chin."
"What a prig!" she thought; and when she inspected her own condition - bruised and scratched all over, her clothes torn and spattered with mud, chased by thugs in the middle of the Continent - she very nearly burst into tears. And this stuffed shirt was worried about his shaving-kit!
But perhaps her anxious effort to scorn Lord Bannister sprang from an involuntary desire to allay the suspicion that she was developing a more tender regard for the man.
She was still clutching her handbag, also of black leather, conscious that it contained the important orange-coloured envelope which was to pay for the Dreaming Buddha!
And also that unfortunate Commander Brandon's honour. What was the alias under which he was serving in the Legion?
Münster... Münster... Münster...
She repeated the name as if to memorise a lesson.
At last, they reached La Roselle.
Lord Bannister pulled up outside the only inn in the village, and when he emerged in all the splendour of white tie-and-tails he caused quite a sensation among the locals who happened to be sipping their wine there. Lord Bannister blushed to the roots of his hair when a short, red-headed, bandy-legged fellow walked all round him, eyeing him up and down as if he was a dashed advertisement kiosk. One vine dresser suggested in an audible whisper to the innkeeper that perhaps they'd better send for the district health officer while some of the boys were about.
Lord Bannister's trousers were patterned with oil stains. His shirt-collar, drenched and screwed up like a concertina, had chafed his neck and the crouched, driving position in which he had been sitting had caused his collar-stud to leave a deep imprint on his throat.
"Could you direct me to a garage, please?" Evelyn asked the patron.
"You'll find one next-door, madame. Some ten yards from this place. This way. You'll see a large barrel outside the entrance."
"Thank you... Could you please have a parcel of cold meat and fruit made up for me? I'll come back for it when I have hired a car."
"Very good, madame."
"I would like to book a room," Lord Bannister said.
The night patrol peered through the window of the bar and crossed himself.
"I can give you a quiet room on the first floor overlooking the garden," the innkeeper said. "Er," he added, somewhat hesitantly, "have you no attendant with you, sir?"
"I've had to drive the lady here urgently. Hadn't time to change... Will you please tell these people here to stop gaping at me. Or at least to stop feeling me."
As he snorted fiercely after the last word, the peasants scampered away from him in alarm, and listened uneasily to the vine-dresser's account of how the double-bass player of the Corbeille players' company had gone mad and walked about the village at night, wearing a silver crown on his head and pretending to be a widowed queen.
"Will you be taking dinner?"
"No! I want to sleep!" he said firmly as if everyone was opposed to the idea.
Now at last Evelyn ventured to hold out her hand to him.
"God bless you for what you've done for me."
"That's all right."
They shook hands briefly.
Long after the door had shut behind her he continued to gaze after the girl. How sadly, how hesitantly she had walked away!
He swallowed, trying to reject the feeling of bitterness with which their encounter had left him. He felt sorry for the girl.
At least that is how he accounted for the vague uneasiness which made him want to say a few soothing words to her and to go with her part of the way.
He went up to his room. The innkeeper offered him one of his freshly laundered dressing-gowns.
After the exhausting journey, Lord Bannister ached in every limb. He found that he had left his toilet case in the car but was too weary to fetch it; he need not shave until morning. For the moment, his only concern was to go to bed. To bed! To bed! The innkeeper's freshly laundered dressing-gown had a musty smell, but he could scarcely care about that; he wanted only to sleep... to sleep.
This vexatious adventure had quite exhausted him. He had found all that excitement very trying; he loathed unclear, awkward and embarrassing situations.
He flung himself down full length on the bed and stretched his limbs contentedly.
He switched the light off, happy in the knowledge that the incident was safely in the past, and before long he was sleeping soundly and deeply.
But he had slept soundly and deeply for only ten minutes when he was shaken out of his sleep.
Evelyn was standing by his bed, whispering into his ear:
"Hurry! You must climb through the window immediately! I've propped a ladder against the window-sill."
2.
Evelyn had arranged to hire a car from the owner of the garage, and then hurried back to the inn. She was only a few yards away when there was a flash of headlights and the sound of a car braking to a sudden halt. Six men jumped out of the car, and she had just time to conceal herself behind a nearby tree to avoid being seen. She immediately recognised Adams and Gordon; that gaudily dressed, monocled man was with them too. Evidently the men had been in hot pursuit all the way from Paris but their car had been outstripped. They held a brief discussion. Concealed behind her tree, Evelyn could hear every word.
"It seems they've been fools enough to put up at this inn," said Adams. "We got to dispatch 'em. Both of 'em."
"Wait a minute," Gordon said, after peering through the window. "There are three blokes in there. Better wait till they've gone. Our two little birds can't get away from here anyway. So we might as well go in quietly and sit down. We've got them in our hands."
Meanwhile it had begun to rain. The six sinister-looking men went into the bar. Evelyn had stopped trembling; custom can make one calm even before the threat of death. She was now more alarmed by the news that these thugs proposed to kill that splendid personality, the kind-hearted Lord Bannister, the man for whom, in spite of his moroseness, she had come to feel such a warm regard. She peered through the window of the bar. The men were sitting in one corner, watching the door. Quickly, she walked back to the huge red car in which her pursuers had arrived.
She knew something about cars. When her father had been alive they had owned a large Ford which Evelyn had sometimes driven. Now her experience stood her in good stead. She screwed off the caps from all four tyres and loosened the valves until the air came rushing out. She opened the bonnet, snapped the cable leading to the magneto and allowed the water and oil to escape. Then she hurried to the rear of the building. As there was only one room overlooking the garden, she could not go wrong. Lord Bannister was sleeping behind the open window of the first-floor room. Luckily, she found a ladder leaning against the door of the loft; she had to use all her strength to manoeuvre this to the window-sill, then, with trembling knees, she began to climb. It was the first time she had ever climbed a ladder.
3.
Lord Bannister sat up in bed; an oath rose to his lips, but when he looked at the girl, the words stuck in his throat.
"For heaven's sake... I beseech you!" she said. "Please don't ask any questions. Come with me at once or you'll be killed. There is a gang of murderers down in the bar. They may come here any moment! Please, please, don't lose a second! They think you're in it too. I overheard them say that they'd shoot you!"
A cold shiver ran down Lord Bannister's spine. He knew that she was speaking the truth. He slipped into his shoes.
"No! Don't dress! A single moment may cost us our lives. You can buy clothes anywhere on the way. Come on! Please!"
Lord Bannister picked up his wallet, wrapped a towel round his neck, then, wearing only his patent-leather shoes and the innkeeper's freshly laundered dressing-gown, followed the girl down the ladder. It was pouring with rain.
They reached the Alfa-Romeo in safety. Seconds went by before the engine began to purr, seconds that seemed hours.
Then they were away.
On the instant, warned by the roar of the accelerating engine, the gangsters came tumbling out of the inn.
But the car was already racing towards the main road, raising fountains of mud on either side. The gangsters could pursue them only with bullets, one of which went straight through the rear window and out through the wind-screen between Evelyn and Lord Bannister. Both heard the brief, swift whizz past their ears; and Lord Bannister was compelled to admit later that in describing their situation Evelyn's account of their perilous plight was no more than sober truth.
They were putting distance between them and dangerous La Roselle at 70 m.p.h. and it was a happy thought for Evelyn that the gangsters must be stamping their feet in impotent rage around their unroadworthy car. Of course they might try to hire the village grocer's Mercedes-Benz, but it was a museum piece and its chances of overtaking their Alfa-Romeo were about equal to those of a cow attempting to chase a golden eagle.
Frankly, the appearance of Lord Bannister, clad in a sodden dressing-gown, with a towel round his tousled hair, was a sight rarely seen on the road to Lyons at night. At this moment, he would have been happy to put on even his tails.
Evelyn's dress, too, was soiled, crumpled and torn.
"Don't you think, Miss Weston, that you're going a bit far in honouring me with your confidence by calling in my aid to this extent?" he said in a whisper, for his throat felt strained and sore. "Furthermore, if it isn't impertinent to ask: What is the cause for which you are risking my life?"
"I am carrying a man's honour in my handbag."
"Is it possible that the family jewel has undergone such a metamorphosis? On the channel boat, when you first upset my night's repose - I do not say this to reproach you, for I have become accustomed to these invasions - you said you wanted me to help you to recover some family jewel. Yet now I find myself, in my dressing-gown, tearing along at 70 m.p.h. like a madman, making for Lyons, to save the honour of a gentleman I do not know. I hope I am not a coward, Miss Weston, but I consider I am acting within my rights if I object to your attempt to foist upon me the combined duties of a film star and an officer of the fire-brigade. To say nothing of being obliged to risk my paltry life..."
Without warning, Evelyn threw herself on his shoulder and again broke into bitter sobs. Lord Bannister muttered a smothered imprecation, then subsided into silence. Through villages and townships they sped without once slackening speed. He was resolved not to slow down until he found a shop at which he could buy himself a suit. Day was beginning to break.
"There are many things about which I must not speak," Evelyn sobbed. "But, believe me, I am an honest girl. I apologise for exposing you to so much danger, but I couldn't help it."
"I wish I could at least have a shave," he muttered. His untidy state gave him an almost physical pain. He felt somewhat embarrassed, too, for she had stopped crying and there was no longer any reason why she should rest her head on his shoulder. 'It would be quite ridiculous,' he found himself thinking, 'if I were to kiss her after what I've just said.' He couldn't imagine how he had come to harbour such an extraordinary idea.
For her part, Evelyn was hoping that her seemingly absent-minded posture would not strike him as peculiar; she found it most agreeable. She was so grateful for the agreeable sensation that she relaxed and closed her eyes; the next minute she was actually sleeping on Lord Bannister's shoulder. Every now and then as they raced along, he would steal a sideways glance at her, and mutter incomprehensibly.
'She's most peculiar,' he thought; 'I've only seen her in three conditions so far: running away, crying, and sleeping.'
4.
In the bleak light of day, the situation became decidedly awkward. The occupants of oncoming cars nearly ditched their vehicles in surprise as they saw at the wheel of the approaching Alfa-Romeo a man who looked like a mad athlete, supporting on his shoulder some poor beggar-woman. As the traffic increased they attracted more and more attention. He thought with exasperation of the scandal that was bound to ensue once he was recognised as the English nobleman whose scientific lecture had been prominently reported in the morning papers.
"Look," said Evelyn, who had been thinking along similar lines; "I know how to drive a car. Suppose you let me take the wheel?"
"And what about me?" he said, suspiciously.
"Well... You might... perhaps... get behind the front seat... and huddle up on the floor... You'd escape detection that way..."
"Do you insist on this new stunt? I can't tell you how deplorably the instruction of acrobatics is neglected in the medical faculties of the universities. Still, if you insist - I give in."
"Oh dear. Why do you scoff at me? I am concerned for your reputation."
"I too have an idea that this is not how my admirers imagine me to look... Oh no! Don't do that. I can't stand the sight of tears... Very well, I'll go and double myself in two and tie myself in a knot. I only hope I won't have to do a trapeze stunt."
He relinquished his seat at the wheel, clambered into the back of the car and, groaning miserably, crouched on the floor, hugging his knees. In the meantime, they had stopped to fill up with petrol.
From now on, she would be in charge. Unfortunately the youth at the filling-station noticed that an elderly lady with short hair was hiding on the floor of the car, and he called out his mother and sister, three younger brothers and a grandfather. The clan gathered round the car and stared at Lord Bannister through the windows as if he was a shark in a fish-tank. One of the children ran off to the village to tell his friends. As soon as the tank was full, they drove quickly on.
Lord Bannister had ceased his reproaches. He said nothing. He sat on the floor, hugging his knees and contemplating his muddy ankles which showed above his patent-leather shoes, and smoked listlessly like one who despairs of any improvement in his lot.
Later, like some tamed beast of prey, he endured his captivity with melancholy stoicism while Evelyn brought tea and sandwiches from a pub, fed them to him, waited patiently till he finished his tea, and returned the dishes. During this repast, the village priest happened to pass by; he stopped by the car, peered inside and suggested that Evelyn should hire a strong peasant lad from the village to accompany her for the rest of the journey so that she would have someone to help her to attend to the patient. Lord Bannister was shocked to hear her thank the priest for his advice and declare that she needed no assistance, since her unfortunate brother was behaving calmly.
In describing his behaviour as calm, Evelyn was speaking the truth. Lord Bannister was behaving calmly for a man who had achieved remarkable results in curing sleeping-sickness and was a hopeful candidate for this year's Nobel Prize. For a man of his reputation and standing, and considering that he was constrained to sit cowering on the floor of his car, rigged out in a freshly laundered dressing-gown belonging to the innkeeper of La Roselle, with a towel wrapped round his neck, his hair dishevelled and his legs spattered with mud, it was no exaggeration to say that Lord Bannister was behaving calmly.
And as it was the Blonde Hurricane who was now at the steering-wheel, the Alfa-Romeo began to reveal that she was not unaffected by the change.
The front mudguards became dented, and the fender was twisted slightly in a minor brush with a level-crossing gate. Soon afterwards, the near-side door accidentally swung open as they were passing under a viaduct, and as she applied the brakes, a projecting buttress on the wall buckled the door so much that it was left looking like a concertina. This operation was accompanied by ear-splitting sounds of strained brakes and collapsing metal.
"I've still got to get my hand in," she said apologetically, over her shoulder.
"Oh, you have, have you," Lord Bannister responded ruefully, removing some splinters of glass from his hair. At this moment, the car received a frightful jolt from the rear, and an eloquent Gallic oath issued from the car behind them. Evelyn drove on.
"Could you remember to draw in the indicator?" he pleaded. "You always leave it sticking out and the people behind think you are turning right; that's why they try to overtake you on the left, and one of them will certainly crash into us. The best idea is to retract the indicator immediately after use."
"But it won't retract!" she cried, turning a switch in despair.
"Not if you turn the switch for the wind-screen wipers. It's the one next to that. No! No! That's the tail-lamp!... Oh... At last."
She stifled a sob.
"Don't," he said in a hoarse whisper, gently imploring. "No crying, please. I can't bear that sort of thing. Much rather have you sleeping or running away. No crying. I don't even mind if, in the end, there are only the three of us left: you, the steering-wheel and me... Ugh!... It's nothing. Only my head... May I ask you to be more careful when you change gear... Don't cry. You'll get your hand in. Oh, can you give me the iodine?"
In her anxiety to be able to give him the iodine promptly, Evelyn applied the hand-brake so vigorously that Lord Bannister was jerked against the door like a battering ram. He thought his head must be split open and to complete the illusion, there was at that precise moment a loud bang as the left rear tyre exploded. The vehicle shuddered, lurched and skidded, fortunately at a diminishing speed, towards a tree, where it came to rest, the radiator quite staved in, a melancholy sight indeed.
5.
They set about changing the wheel.
While they were thus employed, a little boy came by leading three cows, and all four watched, wide-eyed with amazement, as the insane gentleman-driver crawled about in the dust under the vehicle. It seemed that Evelyn had still not got her hand in properly, for she had unfortunately dislodged the jack, and the car had fallen with such a thud that the dilapidated door had broken off and was now lying in the middle of the road; the jack was submerged beneath the chassis, and Lord Bannister had no alternative but to creep between the wheels to try and extricate it.
That was how matters stood at 11 a.m.
By 12.30, it seemed that the car might possibly be roadworthy again.
"Off we go!" said Evelyn.
"Let her rip!" exclaimed Lord Bannister and he resumed his position on the floor.
With the assistance of the young cowherd, they had wedged the door behind the driving seat, and as it was not fixed to anything, it fell, from time to time, on Lord Bannister's head; but such trifles were as nothing to him now.
Evelyn prepared to back the car away from the battered tree-trunk and the young cowherd made a hasty retreat with his cows to watch from a safe distance. The engine emitted a singing whine like the last notes of a dying tenor and stopped immediately. Evelyn tried again. This time she managed to put the engine into gear, and she accelerated: the engine roared for a second and then stopped again. Lord Bannister peered above the door he was now holding in his arms.
"Try to reverse," he suggested. "We haven't a ghost of a chance of felling that big tree and going over it, you know!"
Poor Evelyn realised that she had engaged in bottom gear; now, after a few unsuccessful attempts, she managed to adjust the gear lever.
Slowly the car slid back from the tree. Something fell to the ground with a clatter - the bumper this time. They made a place for it next to the door; Lord Bannister was by now travelling in the company of a number of spare parts.
However, in spite of these minor losses, they found they were able to race along at a good speed.
"You asked for the iodine," she said.
Lord Bannister, anticipating another application of the brakes, sought desperately to secure his position.
"Do you think I should risk it?"
"Here. Take your toilet case." She handed over the small leather case.
He opened it, but all he could see in it was an enormous orange-coloured envelope.
"Sorry, that's mine," she stammered, and quickly shut the case.
"First of all I want to have a shave; the iodine can wait," he declared resolutely.
She was exasperated.
"We are being followed! Think! If they haven't got a good car..."
"Miss Weston! On several occasions, you have managed to win me over to your somewhat peculiar views. This time you have absolutely no hope of doing so. No arguments, please. It's possible that we're being followed. It is also possible that we shall be killed. All the same, I intend to have a shave - and that's final! After that, let me fall if fall I must: I'll be a victim in the name of hygiene."
There was a touch of malicious pleasure in her voice as she now exclaimed, "Why, we've lost your toilet case somewhere!"
For the first time during the trip, he showed genuine alarm.
"Look carefully! It's impossible! My soap! My gargle! My shaving kit!"
"Oh!" At that moment she felt like killing him. Thinking of his shaving set and gargle at a time like this! What a cissie! This was a matter of life and death, and he felt worried about the loss of his shaving kit!
"We must turn back at once!"
"But..."
"Miss Weston! You're wasting your breath."
"We would be driving into the jaws of deadly peril!"
"Our trip hasn't been child's play so far. We have only survived because Providence is guiding our car in spite of our own activities. That should be a source of hope for us. Miss Weston! We must now turn back and find my toilet case!"
She saw that it would be useless to protest further.
In that moment, she conceived a violent hatred for that toilet case. She hated it fiercely and whole-heartedly, because she loved its owner, and the toilet case was in danger of spoiling their relationship.
Thus she ruminated as she turned the car about. First she went into reverse again so as to adjust the steering-wheel, and she backed straight into a tree. She turned round to see the cause of their sudden halt, inadvertently put her foot on the accelerator and shot the car into a lamp-post. Lord Bannister said nothing. Supporting his chin in his cupped palms, he crouched sadly on the floor of his car, the very image of Marius meditating on the ruins of Carthage.
But the car, it seemed, was indestructible, and at last they started back along the road. Luckily, only a couple of miles back, they came upon the cowherd and his three cows once again, and saw that the boy was holding Lord Bannister's case. A few coins changed hands and the case was restored to its owner. It was an even luckier day for the boy who had also found a brand-new motor horn on the road, but he had not cared to mention this to this down-at-the-heel gentleman-driver.
"Let's hurry now!" she said agitatedly, pulling the first lever that came to hand, and causing yet another warning groan to issue from the engine. She drowned the noise with a blast on the klaxon, switched on the lights once or twice and, for no known reason, the sinister noise was silenced. By this time Lord Bannister had come to respect her quite individual style at the wheel. She always put her hand on the wrong switch, and yet the car was running.
"We will stop here," he said firmly. "I will now have a shave and comb my hair. Will you please pass me my toilet case."
"Here you are!" She flung the case back over her shoulder with such vehemence that it struck hard against the lamp lying on the back seat.
Angrily, she turned her back. Lord Bannister was a tidy soul, and he now placed the mudguard carefully on the seat so as to have some support for his mirror and shaving-dish, and then he started to shave.
While Lord Bannister was busy with his toilet, Evelyn walked impatiently up and down a little way off, on the highway.
Yet she would have done well to have shown more interest in Lord Bannister's mania of cleanliness.
Had she done so she would have seen Lord Bannister take from his toilet case a small enamelled box on the top of which there was a little ceramic statuette with a bowed head representing the Buddha, and she would have seen that in this box the noble lord kept his shaving kit.
Yes, Lord Bannister kept his shaving kit in the box surmounted with the Dreaming Buddha, and he had not the faintest idea that he owned the world's most valuable toilet box, worth one million pounds sterling.
6.
It was drizzling quietly and they travelled on to the regular swishing sound of the windscreen wipers. There was nothing on the road except a few barrows laden with fruit and firewood coming from the opposite direction.
As they neared Lyons the oncoming traffic became heavier and Evelyn sounded her klaxon continuously to forge a way ahead for her zigzagging vehicle. Sometimes, by way of a more urgent signal, she would use in turn the klaxon, the sliding ash-tray, and the tail-lamp switch. Miraculously they met with no greater disaster than to overturn a barrow piled high with firewood, but they calmed the owner with a few francs. During the rest of the trip, the car consumed three chickens, one sheep-dog and two bicycles.
"There is less and less of this car," he remarked despondently. Doggedly she drove on.
Now they were in Lyons and she began to look forward to the prospect of buying a new dress and having a wash. There was so much traffic, she had to sound the klaxon every second. She would not have to do that in the centre of the city for fear of attracting attention. Suddenly she realised that the water in the radiator was boiling.
There followed an excruciating ten minutes in the middle of a crowd of onlookers. When they were able to go on again they found that they had left the radiator cap on the pavement. But they could not worry about that, so great was their relief that they had arrived safely in Lyons. They were not likely to run into any serious trouble now, they thought.
They were wrong.
They slowed down, looking for a dress shop at which they could make an unobtrusive halt. But the next time she sounded the klaxon she could not release the knob, and as she jabbed desperately at every button in sight, they lurched forward to the continuous piercing screech of the klaxon. Lord Bannister leaned over to give what assistance he could with his one available hand, for the other was wedged fast behind the mudguard. They were then overtaken by a lorry which brushed past them with only inches to spare and Evelyn, relaxing with relief, next overturned a barrow of fruit into the gutter.
So they made their noisy entry into Lyons, advertising their arrival like an emergency ambulance. Terrified citizens looked out of their windows; pedestrians stopped to stare and one butcher said knowingly to his customers:
"There has been a fire every day lately."
Evelyn let go of the steering-wheel with both hands and clapped her hands over her ears.
"Cut the wire!" Lord Bannister cried in exasperation.
She snipped wildly: immediately the wind-screen wipers ceased to function.
"Stop! No more!" he entreated quickly.
He leaned forward and cut through the lead himself. It was fortunate that they were in a quiet side-street while engaged in these desperate activities for Evelyn in her excitement ran the car onto the pavement and had to make a detour round a telegraph-pole before getting back into the road.
"Of course," she panted triumphantly, "when I do something well, as I did just now, you don't bother to praise me."
At last she spotted the long-desired dress shop.
"I can't go and buy you a suit until I have found something to wear myself," she said. "So don't think I am being selfish."
"You are a skilful and selfless person," he replied dryly. He was nervous because so many people stopped to gape at his car. Yet it was certainly worth a second glance. It looked like one of the old tractors one used to see with small travelling circus companies but now discarded for scrap; it was nothing more than a collection of parts hardly holding together. When Evelyn crashed the hand-brake to bring this pitiful wreck to a halt in front of the shop there was a clatter like that of a falling box full of pebbles.
She went into the shop and quickly made her purchases so that she would be presentable enough to shop for Lord Bannister. She even washed her face and hands in the shop, claiming that she had had an accident. When she reappeared she was wearing an off-the-peg suit in which she looked like the wife of an assistant concierge dressed for a Sunday afternoon family visit.
When she came out of the shop, she had to push her way through the crowd which had collected round the car.
Evelyn then plunged into an arcade where she selected various items of clothing for Lord Bannister without too much regard for sartorial effect. Then she drove round and round the city while the noble lord performed the most agile feat he had yet attempted, for he managed to clothe himself in his new wardrobe while crouched in the back seat of the wrecked car. He was not unduly perturbed to find that she had chosen a Tyrolese hat with an outsize feather. A more painful choice was the checked plus-fours which should rather have been called minus, and a sea-green velvet jacket which flapped round his knees. In such garments he could hardly expect not to attract a crowd but he could at least travel in the normal way by sharing the front seat with the girl. When they drew up outside a hotel, the porter knew at a glance that he was opening the door for an eccentric corn-chandler and his wife who came from across the border.
"Lord Bannister," she murmured as soon as they were standing in the lobby, "the time has come when I need inconvenience you no longer."
"Miss Weston, from now on you should never say that. We are all in God's hands, more or less. I would only ask you this: when you next need me, don't wait till I have gone to sleep. In return, I promise you that from this day on I'll do some exercises every day." Once again he saw her eyes fill with tears. "Don't you think you had better be frank with me and make a clean breast of it? You may yet need the assistance of a man."
"I can't. I should only drag you into danger. I am very grateful for what you have done for me. In this case I am carrying the honour of a very unhappy gentleman; an honour with which my own happiness is not unconnected. I have inherited a vast fortune, but I must find it for myself and I am now on the right trail. I must go to Morocco. That is all I can disclose. You have every right to curse the day you ran into me."
"I think that's something of an exaggeration, don't you know. You might say that now and then while in your company, I have not always found the comfort and luxury to which I am accustomed but that's all. By the way, if you're bound for Morocco you might make the trip together with me tomorrow. I won't be going back to Paris now; I'll have my luggage sent after me."
"God forbid! You have exposed yourself to danger enough on my account, and I am happy to think that you've come through unscathed. Thank you... and good-bye."
He heard her ask the reception clerk at what time there was a flight for Morocco, and he heard the reply that a plane was due to take off in twenty-five minutes. Then she turned and left the hotel.
As on two previous occasions, Lord Bannister was left gazing after her with mixed feelings.
He seemed disturbed and unhappy whereas he should surely have felt relief at having rid himself of Evelyn Weston's inconvenient company.
What was this 'honour' she was talking about? No doubt, after all they had been through together, a more courageous man would continue to hover about this helpless and persecuted girl. She must think him a coward. He had been intent on saving his own skin, while Evelyn Weston continued her flight to Morocco.
She would go on running away, crying and sleeping.
She was at her sweetest when asleep, he decided.
He went up to his room looking forward to a nice long sleep himself.
He flung himself into an arm-chair, exhausted by the nightmarish car trips; then he rang for the porter and asked him to fetch his toilet case from the car. He was looking forward to a hot bath and was already imagining its soothing effect on every bone.
Through the window he could see his quondam car, from which the porter had no difficulty in extracting the toilet case: there wasn't even a door left for him to open.
The door, the mudguards, the bumpers and one reflector were stacked in the back seat and a crowd had gathered to wonder at the small heap of battered scrap iron which not so long before had been his elegant Alfa-Romeo.
The hot water gurgled into the bath and he was ready now for towel, soap, sponge. He opened the black case - and found in it a large orange-coloured envelope with five seals.
7.
They had each taken the other's case, and Evelyn was on her way to Morocco carrying with her not the unknown gentleman's honour but Lord Bannister's razor and gargle!
Where now was his duty? This girl had risked death to gain possession of the envelope which he was now holding in his hand. There was no doubt as to his next step. He must follow her. He must go now, in the wake of the hurricane, all thought of his own comfort dismissed in the face of such devotion.
He saw to his horror that it was already four o'clock and feared that he would miss the plane. It was all one with him now: he would arrange for his luggage to be sent on to Morocco when it arrived in Lyons from Paris.
And he would tell them to have the wreck of his car towed away and stored somewhere.
He cast a parting glance at the gurgling hot water... the turned-down bed... and was away.
He tipped the driver so generously that it could only be due to a watchful Providence that there were no fatal accidents on the road to the airport. As he leaped from the taxi he could see that the propeller was already revolving. There was just time for him to scramble through the door before the gangway was rolled away, and the plane began to move down the runway.
A cordial voice spoke by his side:
"Good afternoon, Lord Bannister. Lady Ann must have been worried that you were going to miss the plane. I say, where on earth did you get that marvellous hat?"
It was editor Holler, who had left Paris by this very plane. It had taken him some seconds to recognise Lord Bannister under his Tyrolean folk costume; the learned gentleman appeared to have unconventional tastes in travelling costume.
8.
When Evelyn noticed Lord Bannister, the sad expression on her face disappeared immediately and she glowed with hope and beauty.
"We have taken the wrong cases," he said as he lowered himself, panting, into the seat next to her. "I couldn't have kept with me the honour of an unknown gentleman."
Evelyn had not yet noticed the exchange. In dismay, she snatched at the case he handed to her, and heaved a sigh of relief when she saw that it still contained the envelope.
"I shall never be able to repay you for this," she breathed, handing over his toilet case which until then she had been jealously guarding.
"Be careful. You must call me Henry. That awful editor is on the plane and he's going to Morocco too. Look, he is coming now."
So he was. He was bringing coffee in a thermos-flask and several picnic cups.
"You must have come at a formidable speed from Paris to have got to Lyons so soon," began Holler, as he poured out coffee.
"Yes. We had quite a good run."
They drank coffee.
"You look a bit tired, Lord Bannister," Holler said, eyeing that gentleman. "Yet I should imagine your car is pretty comfortable."
"Not always," said Lord Bannister ruefully. "What's the news in Paris?" he continued, trying to change the conversation from this painful subject.
"There's always something happening. You should always read the morning papers. The whole nation's in a ferment. Someone has quite by accident exposed a major espionage ring. True, their activities were directed against Britain, but as you know, that means that they were also opposed to France. Two killed, five seriously wounded, eighty arrests, and one hundred thousand francs reward for anyone giving information that could lead to the arrest of the ringleader. By the way, the master spy seems to be a compatriot of ours - a Miss Evelyn Weston. Hullo!... that went down the wrong way! Here, take this paper napkin."
Lord Bannister coughed helplessly and the obliging Holler sponged his lapel.
Evelyn sat as if frozen to her seat.
Lord Bannister had gone very pale, and he spoke in a hoarse whisper.
"How remarkable. Do you happen to have a morning paper with you?"
"Here you are."
Holler handed him the paper.
On the front page, in the boldest type ever used Lord Bannister read the headline:
100,000 FRANCS REWARD FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE ARREST OF EVELYN WESTON
There followed, in somewhat more modest type, a number of sensational sub-headings about police raids, assassinations, espionage, larceny and burglary; and all these activities were, without exception, closely associated with the name of the spy, Evelyn Weston. She was described as Enemy Number One of both France and England, a woman who had stopped at nothing to possess herself of some vital military secret and who was suspect Number One to the detectives who were looking for the murderer. The public were warned that she was armed and would be a dangerous adversary.
Next came two closely printed pages summarizing all the major crimes that had been committed in recent decades and commenting on them with reference to Evelyn Weston's possible complicity. The Paris police had for some months been observing the activities of a number of suspects. They had made no arrests, hoping to give the spies a false sense of security in which they might inadvertently reveal the whereabouts of a valuable document which had fallen into their hands. For some weeks past, a certain house had been under police observation. It would not have been in the public interest to disclose further details while the investigation was still in progress. The one item of information they now wished to make widely known was the name of the spy - Evelyn Weston. The entire district surrounding the key building was the headquarters of various international intelligence agents. The moment had come when it appeared that the man who had stolen the document wanted to sell it, and the police saw their chance to arrest a number of dangerous individuals. There was a large-scale police raid in which many persons were wounded. The raid had centred round the flat of a man who was said to be a company manager and this flat had been virtually besieged by the police. Two individuals named Fleury and Donald were shot dead on the stairs. It was possible that here too the first shot had been fired by Evelyn Weston. The company manager was found mortally wounded inside the flat and some time later made a death-bed confession. It seemed that he had been shot by a fellow-spy with whom he had been bargaining. Two other men had escaped from the flat, one unidentified, the other a notorious intelligence agent called Adams. The dying man had also revealed that a woman had been present in the apartment, and that he had seen this woman snatch the precious document from the writing-desk, and run away with it. At that moment he had been hit by a bullet and could remember nothing more. He had, however, recognized the woman as the person who had visited him earlier that day to inquire about a ceramic statuette, when she had given her name as Evelyn Weston. It had been ascertained that Evelyn Weston had crossed the Channel on board the S.S. Kingsbay. A charwoman at the flat had given evidence that during the afternoon, Evelyn Weston had gamed admittance to the apartment by posing as an employee from a delicatessen shop; it was possible that she had concealed herself in the apartment on that occasion.
Evelyn Weston was remarkably pretty, of medium height, blonde, etc.
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