Few of the hotel staff had as yet risen, and the travellers might perhaps have been received with less consideration had not their former visits, and their generous tips, been remembered. But a few minutes after they descended to the salle à manger an appetizing little breakfast was put before them.
“What a difference from England!” said George. “I say, Maurice, I’ll just run into the garage to see that things are going all right. The fellow looked rather sleepy. Pour out my coffee, will you? I shan’t be a minute.”
While he was in the garage, he heard the clatter of a horse’s hoofs and the hum of a motor-car in the street; the sounds struck his ear all the more forcibly because of the peacefulness of the neighbourhood. In mere unreflecting curiosity, he stepped to the door and glanced out. Next moment he started back, pushed the door outwards until he felt that he could not be seen, and peeped out through the narrow opening just as the motor-car passed. There were three vehicles. The first was a large racing motor, not unlike that with which he had become so familiar at home, but its colour was a bright green. In it were seated—and the sight sent a strange thrill through him—Count Slavianski and Major Rostopchin, his secretary. Behind it came a taxi-cab, and a few yards in the rear of this a fiacre, the driver of which was gee-hoing and whipping up his horse to its best pace, with the evident intention of keeping up with the motors in front. Within this two men were seated. One of them George recognised as a servant of the Count’s; the other’s head was at the moment turned away.
George was thunderstruck. By what means had these persistent foreigners arrived in advance of the mail?
“Tell me,” he said in his best French to the man who was rubbing the car down, “is there a train from London at this hour?”
“Ah non, monsieur,” replied the man, “but there is a train from Calais. It arrives at the Gare du Nord at 4:15, an hour and a half before the London mail.”
“A slow train?”
“Certainly, monsieur, a very slow train.”
“It must be the train we saw at Calais,” said George to himself. “Those fellows must have caught it: but how on earth did they cross the Channel so soon?”
He had the presence of mind to show no sign of his consternation and anxiety, but strolled out of the garage and then dashed into the salle à manger.