“Remind me this evening if you are right. I shall not forget to damn you if you are wrong.”
Tomkinson ignored the chance of error and its consequences.
“Your lordship will be home for dinner?”
“Yes, I have no other engagement. All ready, Dale?” for the chauffeur was in his seat, and the engine was purring with the placid hum of a machine in perfect tune.
Tomkinson moved grandly down the steps, ushered Viscount Medenham into the car, and watched its graceful swoop into Holles Street.
“Times have changed,” said he to himself. “Twenty years ago, when I first came here, his lordship’s father would have given me a tip, and he wouldn’t have been coming home for dinner, neether.”
By that last fatal word Tomkinson betrayed the cloven hoof. At least, he was no prelate—and his assumption of the prophetic rôle would soon be put to the test. But he had answered the Great Question.
The Mercury crossed Oxford Street and insinuated itself into the aristocratic narrowness of Mayfair. It stopped in Curzon Street, opposite a house gay with flowers in window-boxes. The Viscount looked at his watch.
“How far to Epsom?” he asked over Dale’s shoulder.