"Well, he was there when I left Five Corners——"
"What! you've come from his house?"
"Straight away," says I, "and no calls. Ask him for yourself."
He could see that I was flabbergasted and telling him the truth. There was the landaulette as empty as a box of chocolates when the parlourmaid has done with them. How Lord Crossborough got out or where he had gone to when he did get out, I knew no more than the dead. One thing was plain—I was as clean sold as any greenhorn at any country fair. And I made no bones about telling the sergeant as much.
"He asked me to drive him down from town to his house at Five Corners. My mistress told me to take him, and I did. I was to have fifteen of the best for the job—and here you see what I get. Oh, you bet I'm happy."
I spoke with some feeling, and you may be sure I felt pretty kind towards Lord Crossborough just then. To be kept up all night and run about like a "yellow breeches," to have my ears crammed with promises and my skin drenched with the mists, to find myself stranded in Barnet at the end. It was more than any man's temper could stand, and that I told the sergeant.
"Well," says I, "next time I meet him, I shall have something pretty strong to say to that same Lord Crossborough, and you may tell him so when you see him."
"See him—I wish we could see him. There's half the county police looking for him this minute. Oh, we'd like to see him all right, and a few others as well. Now, you come down to the station and tell us all about it. There'll be a cup of hot coffee there, and I daresay you won't mind that."
I said that I wouldn't, and went along with him. An inspector at the station took my story down from the time I set off from the Carlton to the moment I quitted Five Corners. What he wanted it for, what Lord Crossborough had done, or what he was going to do, they didn't tell me, nor did I care. But they gave me a jolly good breakfast before they sent me off, and that was about the best thing I had had for twelve long hours. It was eleven o'clock when I got back to town at last. And at three o'clock precisely I saw my mistress again.
You will readily imagine that I was glad of this interview, and had been looking forward to it anxiously from the time I drove the car into the stable until the moment it came off. Miss Dartel had a flat in Bayswater just then; but she didn't send for me there, and it was at the theatre I saw her, in her own dressing-room between the acts of a rehearsal. A clean-shaven gentleman was talking to her when I went in, and for a little while I didn't recognise him; but presently he turned round, and something in his manner and tone of voice caused me to look up sharp enough.