Willie Thornton stepped up to the window of the car. He noticed as he did so that an earl’s coronet surmounting the letter R was painted on the door. He spoke apologetically, but he was still quite firm. A coronet painted on the door of a car is no proof that the man inside is an earl. The Colonel had warned Willie that “these fellows” were as cute as foxes.
“I’m afraid I must trouble you to get out, sir,” said Willie. “My orders are to search every car that goes through the village.”
Lord Ramelton had once been a soldier himself. He knew that the word “orders” has a sacred force.
“Oh, all right,” he said. “It’s damned silly; but if you’ve got to do it, get it over as quick as you can.”
He turned up the collar of his coat and stepped out into the rain. The chauffeur left his seat and stood in the mud with the air of a patient but rather sulky martyr. What is the use of belonging to the aristocracy of labour, of being a member of the Motor Drivers’ Union, of being able to hold up civilisation to ransom, if you are yourself liable to be held up and made to stand in the rain by a common soldier, a man no better than an unskilled labourer. Nothing but the look of the rifle in the unskilled labourer’s hand would have induced Simpkins to leave his sheltered place in the car.
Willie Thornton had every intention of conducting his search rapidly, perhaps not very thoroughly. Lord Ramelton’s appearance, his voice, and the coronet on the panel, all taken together, were convincing evidence that he was not one of “these fellows,” and might safely be allowed to pass.
Unfortunately there was something in the car which Willie did not in the least expect to find there. In the front of the tonneau was a large packing-case. It was quite a common-looking packing-case made of rough wood. The lid was neatly but firmly nailed down. It bore on its side in large black letters the word “cube sugar”.
Willie’s suspicions were aroused. The owners of handsome and beautifully-upholstered cars do not usually drive about with packing-cases full of sugar at their feet. And this was a very large case. It contained a hundredweight or a hundredweight and a half of sugar—if it contained sugar at all. The words of the Colonel recurred to Willie: “There’s not a trick they’re not up to. They’d deceive the devil himself.” Well, no earl or pretended earl should deceive Willie Thornton. He gave an order to the sergeant.
“Take that case and open it,” he said.
“Damn it,” said the Earl, “you mustn’t do that.”