The Lady in the Car

“He’s missing. Nobody has seen him this morning,” answered the distressed woman. “Ah, Prince, you were right – quite right in your surmise. I believed in him, but you summed him up very quickly. I intended to discharge him to-morrow, but I never dreamed he possessed a second key.”

“He has the jewels, evidently,” remarked Sir Henry Hutton, himself a county magistrate. “I’ll run into Whitby, and inform the police, Mrs Edmondson. We have no idea which direction the fellow has taken.”

At that moment the door opened, and Garrett, cap in hand, stood on the threshold.

“Well, what’s the matter?” asked his master.

“Please, your Highness, our car’s gone. It’s been stolen from the garage in the night!”

The announcement caused an electrical effect upon the assembly.

“Then this man could also drive a car, as well as wait at table!” exclaimed Sir Henry. “Myself, I always distrust foreign servants.”

“Ferrini had one or two lessons in driving from my chauffeur, I believe,” remarked the widow, now in a state of utter collapse.

“Never mind, Mrs Edmondson,” said his Highness cheerily. “Allow Sir Henry and myself to do our best. The fellow is bound to be caught. I’ll give the police the number of my car, and its description. And what’s more, we have something very valuable here.” And he drew out his pocket-book. “You recollect the suspicions of Ferrini which I entertained, and which I explained in confidence to you? Well, my valet has a pocket camera, and with it three days ago I took a snap-shot of your exemplary servant. Here it is!”

“By Jove. Excellent!” cried Sir Henry. “This will be of the greatest assistance to the police.”

And so it was arranged that the police of Whitby should be at once informed.

At breakfast – a hurried, scrappy meal that morning – every one condoled with the Prince upon the loss of his car. Surely the whole affair had been most cleverly contrived by Ferrini, who had got clear away.

Just as the meal had concluded and the Parson had promised to accompany Sir Henry over to Whitby to see the police, he received a telegram calling him to his brother, who had just landed in Liverpool from America, and who wished to see him at the Adelphi Hotel that evening.

To his hostess he explained that he was bound to keep the appointment, for his brother had come from San Francisco on some important family affairs, and was returning to New York by the next boat.

Therefore he bade adieu to Mrs Edmondson – “de-ah Mrs Edmondson,” he always called her – and was driven in the dog-cart to Grosmont station, while a few minutes later, the Prince and Sir Henry set out in the widow’s Mercédès for Whitby.

The pair returned about one o’clock, and at luncheon explained what they had done.

In the afternoon, the widow met his Highness out in the tent upon the lawn, and they sat together for some time, he enjoying his eternal “Petroff.” Indeed, he induced her to smoke one, in order to soothe her nerves.

“Don’t upset yourself too much, my dear Gertrude,” he urged, placing his hand upon hers. “We shall catch the fellow, never fear. Do you know, I’ve been wondering whether, if I went up to town and saw them at Scotland Yard, it would not be the wisest course. I know one of the superintendents. I met him when my life was threatened by anarchists, and the police put me under their protection. The Whitby police seem very slow. Besides, by this time Ferrini is far afield.”

“I really think, Albert, that it would be quite a good plan,” exclaimed the widow enthusiastically. “If you went to Scotland Yard they would, no doubt, move heaven and earth to find the thief.”

“That’s just what I think,” declared his Highness. “I’ll go by the six-twenty.”

“But you’ll return here to-morrow, won’t you?” urged the widow. “The people I have here will be so disappointed if you don’t – and – and as for myself,” she added, her fat face flushing slightly – “well, you know that I am only happy when you are near me.”

“Trust me, Gertrude. I’ll return at once – as soon as ever I’ve set the machinery of Scotland Yard in motion. I have the negative of the photo I took, and I’ll hand it to them.”

And so that evening, without much explanation to his fellow guests, he ran up to town, leaving Charles and most of his baggage behind.

Next day, Mrs Edmondson received a long and reassuring telegram from him in London.

Two days passed, but nothing further was heard. Garrett, without a car, and therefore without occupation, decided to go up to London. The theft of the car had utterly puzzled him. Whatever coup his master and his friends had intended had evidently been effected by the man Ferrini. All their clever scheming had been in vain.

They had been forestalled.

Chapter Twelve

Conclusion

A week later.

The soft summer afterglow flooded the pretty pale-blue upholstered sitting-room in the new Palast Hotel, overlooking the Alster at Hamburg, wherein the Prince, the Parson, and the pale-faced Englishman, Mason, were seated together at their ease.

The Prince had already been there two days, but Clayton was staying over at the Hamburgerhof, while Mason, who had arrived via Copenhagen only a couple of hours before, had taken up his quarters at the Kronprinzen, a smaller establishment in the Jungfernstieg.

The trio had been chatting, and wondering. Mason had just shown them a telegram, which apparently caused them some apprehension.

Suddenly, however, a waiter entered with a card for Herr Stoltenberg, as the Prince was there known.

“Show the gentleman in,” he ordered in German.

A moment later a well-dressed gentlemanly-looking young Englishman in light travelling overcoat and dark-green felt hat entered. It was the valet Charles.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, as soon as the door had closed, “I had a narrow squeak – a confoundedly narrow squeak. You got my wire from Amersfoort?” he asked of Mason.

“Yes. I’ve just been explaining to the Prince what happened on the night of the dinner-party,” replied the pale-faced man.

“Tell me. I’m all anxiety to know,” urged the valet. “I left Garrett in Rosendaal. He’s utterly puzzled.”

“I expect he is,” Mason responded. “The fact is that he’s just as much puzzled as the wily Italian himself. It’s a good job I was able to locate that fellow as one of old Blair-Stewart’s servants up at Glenblair Castle. You remember – when we met ‘Le Bravache’ on his own ground,” Mason went on. “Well, I played the part of detective, and wrote to him secretly, asking him to meet me in Whitby. He did so, and to him I confided my suspicions of you all, promising him a police reward of two hundred pounds if he kept his eye on you, watched, and informed me of all that was in progress. Of course I bound him to the most complete secrecy. He tumbled into the trap at once. The Prince had, of course, previously got wax-impressions of the widow’s safe-key, for she had one day inadvertently given her key to him to go and unlock a cabinet in the library. Three times the suspicious butler met me, and made secret reports on your doings. He watched you like a cat. Then, on the night of the dinner-party, I had an appointment with him at one o’clock in the morning. I stole our car, and ran it noiselessly by the back road through the park to the spot where he was to meet me. He came punctually, and got in the car at my side to be driven into Whitby, where he supposed three detectives were in waiting. My story was that we were to pick them up at the hotel, drive back to the Hall, and arrest the lot of you. He was delighted with the project, and on joining me had a nip of whisky from my flask just to keep out the night air. Ten minutes later he was hors de combat. I’d doctored the whisky, so, pulling up, I bound and gagged him, and deposited him in a disused cow-house on the opposite side of a field on the edge of Roxby High Moor – a place I’d previously prospected. Having thus got rid of him, I turned the car back again to a spot within a mile of Milnthorpe lodge-gates – previously arranged with the Prince – and there, close by a stile, I found a biggish packet wrapped hurriedly in brown paper. Its feel was sufficient to tell me that it was the boodle. The Prince and the Parson had secured it after Ferrini had absented himself, and having placed it there in readiness for me, had quietly returned to their beds. With it under the seat I drove south as hard as I could by Driffield into Hull. Before I got there I changed the identification plate, obliterated the coronets on the panels with the enamel I found in readiness, and leaving the car in a garage, got across to Bergen, in Norway, and thence by train down to Christiania, Copenhagen, and here.”

“Well, you put me into a fine hole, Prince,” protested the valet good-humouredly. “I waited, expecting to hear something each day. The old woman telegraphed frantically to London a dozen times at least, but got no reply. She was just about to go up to town herself to see what had become of you, and I was beginning to feel very uneasy, I confess, when an astounding thing happened. The Italian on the morning of the third day turned up, dirty, dazed, and in a state of terrible excitement. I saw him in the hall where he made a long rambling statement, mostly incoherent. The old woman and Sir Henry, however, would hear no explanation, and, calling the village constable, had him arrested at once. An hour later they carted him off to Whitby. Then I made an excuse, cleared out, and here I am! But I tell you,” he added, “I had a narrow shave. He made an allegation that I was in the swindle, but every one thought he’d either gone mad, or was trying to bluff them.”

“It was unavoidable, my dear Charles. I couldn’t communicate with you,” the Prince explained. “Never mind, my boy. There’s a good share coming to you. The sparklers are worth at least ten thousand to our old friend the Jew, and they’ll be in his hands and out of their settings by this time to-morrow. Besides, the silly old crow who thought she’d got a mug, and was going to marry me, has put up twenty thousand pounds in cash to get into the St. Christopher car deal. I got the money out of my bank safely yesterday, and it’s now paid into a new account in the Dresdener Bank, in the name of Karl Stoltenberg.”

“Well, you absolutely misled me,” Charles declared.

“Because it was imperative,” replied Herr Stoltenberg, as he said he wished to be known in the immediate future. “The old crow was a fool from the very first. She was too ambitious, and never saw through our game or how the record at Brooklands was faked entirely for her benefit. The Parson’s first idea was mere vulgar burglary. If we’d brought it off we should have found only a lot of worthless electro. But I saw a little farther. She had money, and with a little working would no doubt part. She did. I suppose by this time the poor vain old woman has given up all idea of becoming Princess Albert of Hesse-Holstein.”

“Well, my dear Prince,” exclaimed the Parson, “my own idea is that we should separate and all lie doggo for at least a year, now that we have so successfully touched the widow’s mite.”

And this course was at once unanimously agreed.

I happen, as an intimate friend of his audacious Highness, to know his whereabouts at the present moment, and also the snug and unsuspected hiding-places of each of his four accomplices. But to reveal them would most certainly put my personal friends at New Scotland Yard upon their track.

As a matter of fact, I am pledged to absolute secrecy. If I were not, my old college chum would never have dared to furnish me with the details of these stirring adventures of a romantic life of daring and subterfuge – adventures which I have here recounted, and in which perhaps the most prominent if sadly-deceived character has always been “The Lady in the Car.”

The End.