The man grinned. He was shrewd enough to realize that, no matter what mystery lay behind all this, the aid of the police would not be requisitioned. "I believe----" he began. Then he made off, with a cry of "Wait just a few seconds, my lord. I'll bring Dale." And Dale appeared, picking bits of hay off his uniform, and striving vainly to compose his features into their customary expression of a stolid alertness that hears nothing but his master's orders, sees nothing that does not concern his duties. He gave one sharp glance at the car, and his face grew chauffeurish, but the look of hang-dog despair returned when he met Medenham's eyes. "I couldn't get away to save me life, my lord," he grumbled. "It was a fair cop at Bristol, an' no mistake. His lordship swooped down on me an' Simmonds at the station, so wot could I do?" Medenham laughed. "I don't blame you, Dale. You could not have been more nonplussed than I at this moment. Will you kindly remember that I know nothing whatever of the Earl's appearance either at Bristol or Hereford----" "Gord's trewth! Didn't they tell you I telephoned, my lord?" Dale would not have spoken in that fashion were he not quite woebegone and down-hearted; and not without reason, for the Earl had dismissed him with contumely not once but a dozen times. Medenham saw that his retainer would be more muddled than ever if he realized that Mrs. Devar had intercepted the telephone message, so he slurred over that element of the affair, and Dale quickly enlightened him as to the course taken by events after the departure of the Mercury's tourists from Bristol. The Earl, too, had referred to Lady St. Maur's correspondent at Bournemouth, and Medenham could fill in blanks in the story quite easily, but the allusions to Marigny were less comprehensible. Dale's distress arose chiefly from the Earl's vows of vengeance when he discovered that his son's baggage had been spirited away during the breakfast hour that morning, but Medenham reassured him. "Don't bother your head about that," he said. "I'll telegraph and write to my father a full explanation to-day. You have obeyed my orders, and he must blame me, not you, if they ran counter to his. Take charge of the car while I change my clothes and make a few inquiries. To save any further mix-up, you had better come with me to Symon's Yat." Within five minutes he ascertained that Count Edouard Marigny had occupied a room in the Mitre Hotel, just across the street, since the previous afternoon. More than that, the Frenchman was traveling to London by the same train as the Earl. Then Medenham felt really angry. It was inconceivable that his father should have allowed himself to be drawn into a pitiful intrigue by such doubtful agents as Marigny and the Countess of Porthcawl.