The Secret of the Silver Car by Wyndham Martyn (best classic romance novels txt) 📕

They fell to talking technicalities and kept it up till the hour when Michael, Count Temesvar went to dine at a house in Bruton street. He told his host that as a compliment to this country, his second home, he had just bought an English car and engaged an English chauffeur. The other guests thought it so broad-minded of him. He further endeared himself to his company by deploring the retirement of his old adversary, that eminent diplomat, the Earl of Rosecarrel.

His old adversary’s occupation at the moment would have surprised him. The earl was devising an ingenious cipher code having, it would seem to the uninitiated, the various parts of a Lion motor which might need replacing by telegram to the London factory. Anthony Trent would take a copy with him, carefully concealed, and any telegram sent by him to the works would instantly be forwarded to the code’s inventor.

“What makes you so cheerful?” his daughter asked as she bade him goodnight.

“That amazing American of yours,” he answered.

” ‘Of mine,’” she repeated. But even in the grip of her unhappiness she was not sure that the dim future did not hold some alleviation.

Few people were more careful of appearances than Anthony Trent. He was always dressed with quiet distinction. In the early days of a profession where it is not well to be too prominent, he chafed at this restraint. Later he saw that it was the sign of sartorial eminence.

On assuming the name and characteristics of Alfred Anthony he also had to dress the part and talk the part. From the men in the Lion shop he had, with his mimic’s cleverness, taken on their peculiar intonations and slang until he certainly could deceive a foreigner. And since he was thorough he forced himself to smoke the part.

He accompanied his great silver car across the channel to Ostend dressed as the men in the shop dressed. And he moved with their brisk, perky quickness and he alternated between shag in a bulldog pipe and Woodbine cigarettes. He was glad that Mr. Hentzi, the count’s secretary observed his altercation at the Belgian port with a customs official who made him pay duty on an excess number of cigarettes.

“Ah,” said Mr. Hentzi with condescension, “the cigarette of the Briteesh Tommee!”

At Ostend, Trent superintended the despatch of his charge by fast freight and then took the transcontinental express to Budapest. He was to wait for the car and drive it to its new home. During the few days he was forced to idle in the Hungarian capital he deplored the fact that new status prevented him from going to the Bristol or the Grand Hotel Royal. He stayed, instead, at an hotel of the second class and encountered little friendliness. English or Americans, it seemed, were still regarded as enemies.

He was saved from any violence by Hentzi’s announcement that he must be fitted for the Temesvar livery. It was no use to rebel. With incredible swiftness the tailor turned it out. Trent looked at himself in the glass with the utmost distaste. The color scheme was maroon and canary yellow. He likened himself to those who stood before the fashionable stores on Fifth avenue and opened limousine doors.

“With that livery,” Hentzi said impressively, “you will be safe; you will be respected.”

Anthony Trent was too much overwhelmed to answer him. Certainly the Anthony Trent who stared back at him from the mirror was a stranger. He was wearing his hair longer than usual and a small moustache was already sprouting. The hawklike look was not evident. He wore, instead, an air of innocence that was Chaplinesque. Hentzi took this look of scrutiny to be one of pride.

“You must have your photograph taken and send it to your best girl,” he laughed, “she will make all the other ones jealous.”

“Yes,” said the man who suddenly remembered he was Alfred Anthony of Vauxhall Bridge Road, “she’ll be fair crazy about it. Just like me.”

But he did not wear it much. He preferred the chance of a row with the populace to his unwished for splendor. The days of delay gave him leisure to think over coming difficulties. He conceded he had been led away by emotion and enthusiasm when he was betrayed into boasting of his prowess. The two men who had failed had been good men no doubt and they were dead.

Such a man as Temesvar must know that the brain who originated the attempt at recovery of the draft was still scheming. The count must constantly be on the watch. And if so, why had he engaged Alfred Anthony with so little investigation? Like most high grade criminals, Anthony Trent was apt to suspect simple actions when performed by men of the Temesvar type and impute to them subtle motives. He wished he had been able to take a longer look at the count instead of his momentary talk.

He reminded Trent very much of the celebrated painting of Francis the First, that sensual monarch who was devoted to the chase, masquerades, jewelry and the pursuit of the fair. But Francis, for all his accomplishments, was weak and frivolous while Temesvar was ruthless and a power, if Lord Rosecarrel was. to be believed.

Before he left London Trent had secured what road maps he could of Hungary and particularly the Adriatic coast of Dalmatia and Croatia. At his hotel he spread them out on the table and spent hours poring over them.

He ventured to ask Mr. Hentzi some particulars of the place, and why Count Michael had gone to the expense of importing the chauffeur and the car when he had many machines in his garage and so many men at his command.

Hentzi told him the count needed a clear-eyed, temperate man who could make great speed and make it safely.

“Most of our men,” Hentzi declared, “drink shlivovitza, a brandy made of plums, and there are people who visit the count whose lives must not be imperilled by recklessness.”

“What about the roads?” Trent asked thinking of the weight of the Lion and its tremendous wheelbase.

“From Karlstadt to Fiume runs the Maria Louise road which is superb. It is one over which you will pass many times. Then there is the Josephina road from Zengg and many fine highways built not for the Croatian peasants but for strategic purposes. You have seen in this war which is passed what good roads mean, eh?”

“You ‘it it on the ‘ed, Guv’ner,” Trent said cheerfully. “What do I go down to Fiume for?”

“To meet passengers from the steamers or from the count’s yacht. It is one hundred and twenty miles from Fiume to Radna Castle. What could you do that distance in? The road down the mountain to Karlstadt is good but narrow.”

Alfred Anthony spat meditatively.

“The old girl will do it in three hours,” he said, “she’ll shake ‘em up a bit inside but if there aren’t no traffic cops or big towns I can do it in three hours or bit more.”

“No. No,” Hentzi cried nervously, “that is suicide. We have been satisfied to take six hours.”

“With ‘orses?” Alfred Anthony demanded, “pretty good time with ‘orses, but this is a Lion.”

Hentzi sat on the front seat during the long drive and pointed out the path. On the whole he was a good natured man but he did not permit the count’s chauffeur to forget that he was talking to the count’s secretary. Hentzi had formerly been a clerk in the estate office of the Temesvar family and had been promoted to his present position because he was faithful and a good linguist.

He was afraid of the count. Trent could detect a fear of him whenever the name was mentioned. When Hentzi warned the new chauffeur to be careful if his employer was in an angry mood the American demanded the reason.

“If I do my duty,” said the pseudo mechanic, “he can’t hurt me.”

“You talk as a child talks,” Hentzi laughed. “He will do as he likes and as the devils that are in him at the moment. He fears neither God, man, nor devil. Pauline only may mock when he rages.” “Who is Pauline?” Trent asked, “the missus?” “The Countess,” Hentzi said with dignity, “is in perpetual retreat with the Ursuline sisters near Vienna.”

“Is Pauline the daughter?”

“His daughters are married.” Hentzi laughed, “Castle Radna is not a place where it is wise to ask questions. You think because his excellency was cheerful when you last saw him he is like that always? I tell you if Pauline has been unkind he may visit it on you. I prefer that he does. I am tired of his humours and you are younger and stronger.”

“You don’t mean he might hit me?” Trent cried.

Hentzi seemed to find Trent’s anxious manner amusing.

“Most certainly he will,” the secretary assured him, “but you need not be alarmed. He will fling you gold when his temper has spent itself.”

“I’m not going to let any man strike me,” Trent said doggedly. “It would raise the devil in me and I might be sorry for it.”

“You would,” Hentzi said thinking that the chauffeur meant he might lose his job.

Anthony Trent, instead, was thinking that he might, in order to succeed in his venture, have to submit to indignities that would be torture to one of his temperament. It would not be wise to let the secretary know this so he turned the subject to the woman who dared laugh when the count was angry.

“Who is Pauline?” he asked.

“She was a skater from the Winter Palace in Berlin. She is beautiful or she would not be at Castle Radna; she is clever or she could not control Count Michael who has broken many women’s hearts. She is bad or she would not have driven the countess from her home. For myself I hate her and the men and women with whom she fills the place.”

“So they keep a lot of company up there?”

“Company!” Hentzi replied, “there is no such castle in Europe. I have seen life hi Buda and Vienna but up there! You may be sure when the master drinks champagne the servants will drink shlivovitza. But do not think they are all Pauline’s friends. No. No. The great of the world come there too and Pauline’s friends are banished. You will drive great personages up from Fiume and you will not know who they are or what their errand.”

“Is the count a politician?”

Hentzi laughed with good natured contempt at such a naive query. Not to know Michael, Count Temesvar’s reputation in the field of world politics was to admit ignorance of all the troubled currents which worried kings and presidents.

He was rudely brought back from his lofty attitude by the sudden stopping of the car. He was almost thrown from his seat.

“Look!” Trent cried, pointing to a piece of close cropped turf, “a golf green as I live.”

“What of it?” Hentzi snapped, “what do you know of golf?”

“I used to be a caddie,” Trent lied glibly. “Who plays there?”

“The count because his doctor tells him to. I because I hate it, and Pauline that her figure may remain seductive. Thank God there are but nine holes! It encourages our master to have one man who always plays worse than he. Look, that is the castle.”

Almost under the shadows of Mount Sljeme the rugged building lay. Around it, nestling at its gates were many other lesser stone buildings which Hentzi told him were stables, dwellings and outhouses. It was situated in the Zagorje or land beyond the hills and had, despite its fine gardens and the green turf of the links a forbidding air.

When