“Can you be specific, Dale? You are hard to follow.”
“Well, my lord, I could do with a drink. It’s a long road that stretches between here an’ Chester, an’ I left there at ten o’clock this morning, runnin’ through any Gord’s quantity of traps, an’ all.”
Medenham did not smile. He touched a bell, and found that Dale’s specific was a bottle of beer.
“I never set eyes on Miss Cynthia,” continued the chauffeur, his wits quickening under the soothing draught. “Another lady kem out an’ looked me up an’ down. ‘Yes, that is the car,’ she said, an’ with that I remembered seein’ her at San Remo. Mrs. Devar seemed as if she wanted to say somethink, but she daren’t, because Mr. Vanrenen’s eye was on her. He made no bones about it, but told me to hike back to London the minnit Simmonds got the carrier off.”
“I am quite clear on that point. What I really want to know is the reason behind Simmonds’s statement about Count Marigny’s tale-pitching, as you term it.”
“Oh, of course Mr. Vanrenen didn’t say anythink. Simmonds was what you call puttin’ two an’ two together. From what Mr. Vanrenen arsked him it was easy enough to get at the Frenchman’s dirty tricks.”
“Tell me how Simmonds put it?” said Medenham, with the patience of a great anger. Dale scratched the back of his ear.
“For one thing, my lord, Mr. Vanrenen wanted to know if you was reelly a viscount. It was a long time before Simmonds could get him to believe that the accident in Down Street wasn’t a put up job. Then, he was sure you stopped in Symon’s Yat just in order to throw Mr. Marinny off your track. Simmonds is no fool, my lord, an’ he guesses that the Frenchman brought Mr. Vanrenen hot-foot from Paris so as to—to——”
Dale grinned, and sought inspiration in the bottom of an empty glass.