Thus more than a week passed—a week of grave apprehension and constant wonderment—during which time the long-nosed stranger seemed to turn up everywhere in a manner quite unaccountable.
Late one night, on going to my room in the Paris, I found a welcome telegram from Bindo, dated from Milan, ordering me to meet him with the car at the Hotel Umberto, in Cuneo, on the following day. Now, Cuneo lay over the Italian frontier, in Piedmont, half-way between Monte Carlo and Turin. To cross the Alps by the Col di Tenda and the tunnel would, I knew, take about six hours from Nice by way of Sospel. The despatch was sent from Milan, from which I guessed that for some reason Bindo was about to enter France by the back door, namely, by the almost unguarded frontier at Tenda. At Calais, Boulogne, or Ventimiglia there are always agents of police, who eye the traveller entering France, but up at that rural Alpine village are only idling douaniers, who never suspected the affluent owner of a big automobile.
What, I wondered, had occurred to cause the Count to travel around viâ Ostend, Brussels, and Milan, as I rightly suspected he had done?
At nine o’clock next morning I ran along to Nice, and from there commenced to ascend by that wonderful road which winds away, ever higher and higher, through Brois and Fontan to the Tenda, which it passes beneath by a long tunnel lit by electricity its whole length, and then out on to the Italian side. Though the sun was warm and balmy along the Lower Corniche, here was sharp frost and deep snow, so deep, indeed, that I was greatly delayed, and feared every moment to run into a drift.
On both sides of the Tenda were hidden fortresses, and at many points squads of Alpine soldiers were manœuvring, for the frontier is very strongly guarded from a military point of view, and both tunnel and road is, it is said, so mined that it might be blown up and destroyed at any moment.
In the twilight of the short wintry day I at last ran into the dull little Italian town, where there is direct railway communication from Turin, and at the small, uninviting-looking Hotel Umberto I found Bindo, worn and travel-stained, impatiently awaiting me.
An hour only I remained, in order to get a hot meal, for I was half perished by the cold, and then, after refilling my petrol-tank and taking a look around the engines, we both mounted, and I turned the car back into the road along which I had travelled.
It was already nearly dark, and very soon I had to put on the search-light.
Bindo, seated at my side, appeared utterly worn-out with travel.
I was, I found, quite right in my surmise.