Chauffeurs -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories; Short stories
I slept upon this--for you will understand that Moss had no real
intention of going on that night, after he heard about the tubes--and
at nine o'clock next morning I had my car ready, and drove her round to
the "Lord Warden." The run to Sandwich is not over-exciting in an
ordinary way, but I found it quite lively enough on that particular
occasion, when there were all sorts of doubts and fears in my head
about Miss Dolly, and the sure and certain knowledge that I should get
the sack whatever happened. Indeed, I might properly have been more
anxious about myself than the lady, for I never doubted that she would
have made a bolt for London by the time we arrived, and there was no
more disappointed man in Thanet when, on reaching the inn, Biggs told
me that she was still at the house. An inquiry whether he had
delivered my letter met with the amazing response that they had given
him no letter, and when I rushed into the house to ask what had become
of it, there it was, on the mantelshelf of the bar-parlour, just where
I had left it. Never did a man meet with a worse blow. I knew then
that Miss Dolly was done for, and I did not believe that the day could
pass and keep the police from Lord Badington's doorstep.
I should tell you that Moss had called at the police station at
Sandwich as we drove through, and that a sergeant and a constable came
over to the inn on bicycles about midday. Their questioning me helped
them a mighty lot, for I contrived to look as foolish as a yokel when
you ask him the way to Nowhere; and all I could tell them was that the
lady had come down upon Lord Badington's invitation, and, when she was
tired of it, I supposed she would go away again. All of which they
took down in pocket-books about as large as a family Bible, and then
set out for the house, while I watched them with my heart in my very
boots, and the sort of feeling that might overtake a man if the police
set out to arrest his own sweetheart.
Biggs, I should tell you, was with me when this happened, and mighty
curious he was about it all. Of course, I told him that Moss was
making a fool of himself, and that there would be a pretty action
afterwards if he didn't behave properly to Miss Dolly. None the less,
he was just as curious as I was, and directly the other party had left,
we followed on their heels, and were through the lodge gates almost as
soon as they were. As for Lal Britten, his heart went pat-a-pat, like
a girl's at a wedding. I could have knocked Moss down cheerful, and
paid forty bob for doing it with the greatest pleasure in my life. But
that wouldn't have helped Miss Dolly, you see, so I just trudged up the
drive after Moss, and said nothing whatever to anybody.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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