“Yes. And he has not returned. No other machine has passed.”
The secret-service men exchanged glances. There was more to this than appeared. Somewhere ahead, then, was Nikky Larisch, with a motor that did got belong to him, and wearing clothing which his victim described as a chauffeur’s coat of leather, breeches and puttees, and a fur greatcoat over all.
“Had the snow commenced when this happened?”
“Not then; sir. Shortly after.”
“Go out with the driver,” the Chancellor ordered one of his men, “and watch the road for the tracks of another car. Go slowly.”
So it was that, after an hour or so, they picked up Nikky’s trail, now twenty-four hours old but still clear, and followed it. The Chancellor was awake enough by this time, and bending forward. The man they had rescued slept heavily. As the road descended into the foothills, there were other tracks in the thin snow, and more than once they roused Nikky’s victim to pick out his own tire marks. He obeyed dully. When at last the trail turned from the highway toward the shooting-box at Wedeling, Mettlich fell back with something between a curse and a groan.
“The fool!” he muttered. “The young fool! It was madness.”
At last they drew up at an inn in the village on the royal preserve, and the Chancellor, looking rather gray, alighted. He directed that the man they had rescued be brought in. The Chancellor was not for losing him just yet. He took a room for him at the inn, and rather cavalierly locked him in it.
The dull-eyed landlord, yawning as he lighted the party upstairs with candles, apparently neither noticed nor cared that the three of them surrounded a fourth, and that the fourth looked both sullen and ill.
The car, with one of the secret-service men, Mettlich sent on to follow Nikky’s trail, and to report it to him. The other man was assigned to custody of the chauffeur. The Chancellor, more relieved than he would have acknowledged, reflected before a fire and over a glass of hot milk that he was rather unpropitiously bringing Karl a bride!