The Secret of the Silver Car Part 19

The mechanic had indeed crawled again under the huge car. The count could have added that he was cautious for he drew his legs well into cover.

The count and the secretary went off. The secretary was to call at the office next day and arrange things. The manager was deferential, but when they had left the gla.s.s-roofed hall he permitted himself to laugh.

Then he crossed to the car and bent down.

"It's all right, Mr. Trent," he said, "they've gone now; you can come out."

Anthony Trent looked up at him and grinned.

"You can always get a job as an actor," he said.

"Your accent is a bit of all right," the manager returned, gratified.

"If it's etiquette for a manager to have a drink with a mere oil-stained mechanic as I am, lead on to the nearest place."

"Well," said the manager later, "what do you think of him?"

Anthony Trent rubbed his leg.

"He struck me," said Trent in a curious, musing way. There was something in his tone which made the manager look at him quickly. Anthony Trent's face was grim and set.

"I don't think he meant it that way," Mr. King replied. He had visions of a.s.sault and battery.

"Some day I shall give him the opportunity to apologize," said the American.

Mr. King had received personal instructions from the chairman of the Lion Motor, Ltd., to obey Mr. Anthony Trent in every particular. Mr.

Trent was to be allowed to have the run of the shops and the most expert mechanics in the firm were to put all they knew at his disposal.

Anthony Trent started by giving the manager the best dinner he had ever eaten. Then he coached him in the _role_ of a manager anxious not to lose his best demonstrator. King was delighted that Count Michael walked into the trap set for him eagerly. He liked Trent but thought poorly of his chances in a tussle with this big girthed foreigner.

"Must be fifty inches round the chest," he observed, sipping his drink delicately, "and most of it muscle. One of the most powerful men I've ever laid eyes on, Mr. Trent. Built like a wrestler. About five feet ten I judge, a couple of inches less than you but five stone heavier."

"What was the big car on the aisle opposite us at the show?" Trent asked, as King thought, irrelevantly.

"The 'Amazon,'" King answered scornfully. "All varnish and silver plate and upholstery with a motor that isn't worth a tinker's dam."

"That's like the count," Trent smiled, "champagne, high living and general dissipation have made a sh.e.l.l of him. He looks well enough to the eye, like that Amazon car, but call on the motor and you'll see 'em both hang out distress signals."

"Maybe," King conceded, "I'll put my bet on the Lion," he smiled in a friendly fas.h.i.+on at the other, "and the Eagle."

They fell to talking technicalities and kept it up till the hour when Michael, Count Temesvar went to dine at a house in Bruton street. He told his host that as a compliment to this country, his second home, he had just bought an English car and engaged an English chauffeur. The other guests thought it so broad-minded of him. He further endeared himself to his company by deploring the retirement of his old adversary, that eminent diplomat, the Earl of Rosecarrel.

His old adversary's occupation at the moment would have surprised him.

The earl was devising an ingenious cipher code having, it would seem to the uninitiated, the various parts of a Lion motor which might need replacing by telegram to the London factory. Anthony Trent would take a copy with him, carefully concealed, and any telegram sent by him to the works would instantly be forwarded to the code's inventor.

"What makes you so cheerful?" his daughter asked as she bade him goodnight.

"That amazing American of yours," he answered.

"'Of mine,'" she repeated. But even in the grip of her unhappiness she was not sure that the dim future did not hold some alleviation.

Few people were more careful of appearances than Anthony Trent. He was always dressed with quiet distinction. In the early days of a profession where it is not well to be too prominent, he chafed at this restraint.

Later he saw that it was the sign of sartorial eminence.

On a.s.suming the name and characteristics of Alfred Anthony he also had to dress the part and talk the part. From the men in the Lion shop he had, with his mimic's cleverness, taken on their peculiar intonations and slang until he certainly could deceive a foreigner. And since he was thorough he forced himself to smoke the part.

He accompanied his great silver car across the channel to Ostend dressed as the men in the shop dressed. And he moved with their brisk, perky quickness and he alternated between s.h.a.g in a bull-dog pipe and Woodbine cigarettes. He was glad that Mr. Hentzi, the count's secretary observed his altercation at the Belgian port with a customs official who made him pay duty on an excess number of cigarettes.

"Ah," said Mr. Hentzi with condescension, "the cigarette of the Briteesh Tommee!"

At Ostend, Trent superintended the despatch of his charge by fast freight and then took the trans-continental express to Budapest. He was to wait for the car and drive it to its new home. During the few days he was forced to idle in the Hungarian capital he deplored the fact that new status prevented him from going to the Bristol or the Grand Hotel Royal. He stayed, instead, at an hotel of the second cla.s.s and encountered little friendliness. English or Americans, it seemed, were still regarded as enemies.

He was saved from any violence by Hentzi's announcement that he must be fitted for the Temesvar livery. It was no use to rebel. With incredible swiftness the tailor turned it out. Trent looked at himself in the gla.s.s with the utmost distaste. The color scheme was maroon and canary yellow.

He likened himself to those who stood before the fas.h.i.+onable stores on Fifth avenue and opened limousine doors.

"With that livery," Hentzi said impressively, "you will be safe; you will be respected."

Anthony Trent was too much overwhelmed to answer him. Certainly the Anthony Trent who stared back at him from the mirror was a stranger. He was wearing his hair longer than usual and a small moustache was already sprouting. The hawklike look was not evident. He wore, instead, an air of innocence that was Chaplinesque. Hentzi took this look of scrutiny to be one of pride.

"You must have your photograph taken and send it to your best girl," he laughed, "she will make all the other ones jealous."

"Yes," said the man who suddenly remembered he was Alfred Anthony of Vauxhall Bridge Road, "she'll be fair crazy about it. Just like me."

But he did not wear it much. He preferred the chance of a row with the populace to his unwished for splendor. The days of delay gave him leisure to think over coming difficulties. He conceded he had been led away by emotion and enthusiasm when he was betrayed into boasting of his prowess. The two men who had failed had been good men no doubt and they were dead.

Such a man as Temesvar must know that the brain who originated the attempt at recovery of the draft was still scheming. The count must constantly be on the watch. And if so, why had he engaged Alfred Anthony with so little investigation? Like most high grade criminals, Anthony Trent was apt to suspect simple actions when performed by men of the Temesvar type and impute to them subtle motives. He wished he had been able to take a longer look at the count instead of his momentary talk.

He reminded Trent very much of the celebrated painting of Francis the First, that sensual monarch who was devoted to the chase, masquerades, jewelry and the pursuit of the fair. But Francis, for all his accomplishments, was weak and frivolous while Temesvar was ruthless and a power, if Lord Rosecarrel was to be believed.

Before he left London Trent had secured what road maps he could of Hungary and particularly the Adriatic coast of Dalmatia and Croatia. At his hotel he spread them out on the table and spent hours poring over them.

He ventured to ask Mr. Hentzi some particulars of the place, and why Count Michael had gone to the expense of importing the chauffeur and the car when he had many machines in his garage and so many men at his command.

Hentzi told him the count needed a clear-eyed, temperate man who could make great speed and make it safely.

"Most of our men," Hentzi declared, "drink _shlivovitza_, a brandy made of plums, and there are people who visit the count whose lives must not be imperilled by recklessness."

"What about the roads?" Trent asked thinking of the weight of the Lion and its tremendous wheel-base.

"From Karlstadt to Fiume runs the Maria Louise road which is superb. It is one over which you will pa.s.s many times. Then there is the Josephina road from Zengg and many fine highways built not for the Croatian peasants but for strategic purposes. You have seen in this war which is pa.s.sed what good roads mean, eh?"

"You 'it it on the 'ed, Guv'ner," Trent said cheerfully. "What do I go down to Fiume for?"

"To meet pa.s.sengers from the steamers or from the count's yacht. It is one hundred and twenty miles from Fiume to Radna Castle. What could you do that distance in? The road down the mountain to Karlstadt is good but narrow."

Alfred Anthony spat meditatively.

"The old girl will do it in three hours," he said, "she'll shake 'em up a bit inside but if there aren't no traffic cops or big towns I can do it in three hours or bit more."