The millionaire had watched the faces of father and son with very keen eyes while the detective had been speaking: "Off you go, Buist!" he broke in. "I know where I am! Go, man! Go!"
The detective jumped out of the car, and Sir Tancred said, "Go to M. Lautrec at the Police Bureau at Monte Carlo. He's the best man to set things moving. Tell him to wire as far as Genoa: there's nothing like being on the safe side." And Tinker started the car.
Two miles further on they came upon a peasant woman tramping slowly along, with a heavy basket on her head. Tinker stopped the car, and Sir Tancred asked her if she had seen a lady and a little girl walking on the Corniche between that spot and Monte Carlo. She said she had not seen a lady and a little girl walking, but a mile out of Monte Carlo she had seen a lady and a little girl in a carriage with two gentlemen; and the horses were galloping: oh, but they did gallop; they had nearly run over her. The young lady had cried out to her as they passed. She had not caught what she said; she had thought it a joke.
"It looks very like them: we had better follow this carriage. What do you think, Mr. Rainer?" said Sir Tancred. "Of course they may be back at the hotel by now, and we may be on a wild-goose chase."
"I guess we can afford to be laughed at; but we can't afford to lose a chance," said the millionaire.
"They passed this woman a mile out of Monte Carlo, and we're four miles and a half out," said Tinker. "She doesn't walk above three miles an hour with that basket: they're an hour and twenty minutes ahead."
"You're smart, sonny," said the millionaire.
"Right away!" said Sir Tancred: and he tossed a five-franc piece to the woman.
Tinker set the car going, and began to try his hardest to get her best speed out of her.
The millionaire leaned forward, and said to Sir Tancred, "The scum are hardly up-to-date to use a carriage instead of a motor-car."