A Butterfly on the Wheel Part 12

"Refres.h.i.+ng, but not very filling," he said. "Staying here?"

"No," Lord Ellerdine replied; "they would not let us in. It's race-week, you know. They are packed out. The place is full of big bookies and racing fellows. We had to go to the St. Denis. A nice fix you've got us all in, Collingwood!"

Collingwood turned away from the window.

"Fix? I've got you in? How do you mean?"

Lord Ellerdine struggled to find words in which to express his meaning.

"I'm blowed if I know--quite. Anyway, we're in it."

"I don't understand," Collingwood answered.

"Oh, come on!" replied Lord Ellerdine. "Chuck that business, Colling! I know your beastly way of putting a fellow off, but you can't leave me out of this."

Collingwood lit a cigarette very deliberately. "Leave you out?" he said.

"Wish to heavens you could!" was the rejoinder.

Collingwood perched himself on the end of the sofa, swinging his legs.

"Look here, what's up?"

"Are we at St. Moritz?" Lord Ellerdine asked.

"No," Collingwood answered coolly.

"Are we in Switzerland?"

"No."

"Well, where are we?"

"I make a good guess," Collingwood said, "that we are in Paris."

Lord Ellerdine flushed up and began to get angry.

"Well, there you are!" he said. "d.a.m.n it, there you are! And you have got the sublime cheek to ask me what's up."

Collingwood smiled. "Now, don't get ratty, d.i.c.ky," he said. "It's all right. Only a trifling contretemps. We got on the wrong train--by mistake."

Lord Ellerdine began to stroll up and down the room. He tried to be judicial in his manner. "Now, are you telling me that for a fact or for a joke?" he asked.

"Fact--absolute fact. We were kept until the last moment paying duty on Peggy's cigarettes, and had to rush for the train----"

He had been going to say something further, but Lord Ellerdine interrupted him. "I saw you," he said.

Here Collingwood cut in suddenly: "Yes, getting into the train that was on the move."

"Yes," Lord Ellerdine said, "the Paris express. You jumped Peggy on and sprang after her, dragging her maid with you. A clever bit of work, my friend."

Collingwood shrugged his shoulders. "Well, where were you?" he replied.

"In the other train--the right one. With Alice. It was a rotten thing for you to do."

"What, leave you with Alice?"

Lord Ellerdine shook his head impatiently. "No, no," he said irritably; "to leave us in the lurch like that."

"But I telegraphed to you to Chalons that we had got on the wrong train."

"Yes, you wired to Chalons right enough, but that didn't make it true. I would not have gone if Alice had not persuaded me that the train was running in two parts, and that you would be sure to join us at Chalons."

"Well, it's all right now," Collingwood replied, still preserving the perfect _sang-froid_ with which he had listened to all the other's remarks. "It's all right now, so don't let's say any more about it."

"All right now, by Jove!" Ellerdine replied. "Is it? Suppose Admaston hears about it--what?"

"Of course," Collingwood said, "if you think it is absolutely necessary, we'll invent some yarn that will satisfy him."

"I do think it necessary. But _you'll_ have to do it. I never could invent--never. No good at it. Confound you, Colling, leaving us...."

Collingwood's manner changed from coolness to something more intimate.

"Now, look here, d.i.c.ky," he said persuasively. "I didn't think you'd cut up rough about it. I thought Alice possibly might, but not you."

"Oh, she doesn't mind," Ellerdine answered. "She never believes that people get on the wrong train, or have motor accidents so that they can have a night off."

Collingwood put his feet down to the floor and threw the end of his cigarette into the fireplace. "Now, look here," he said; "do you mean that you think that I----" He hesitated for a moment.

"No, I don't," Lord Ellerdine answered; "but what will Admaston think?

He is sure to hear of it. I'll bet you a fiver it's known in London to-night. There is always someone on the spot to notice things that go wrong, and this is so suspicious--so d.a.m.ned suspicious, mind you. Why, _I_ don't like the look of it--mind, the look of it--myself."

"Then we must set your conscience at rest, that's all," Collingwood replied.

"How?"

"Well, we must all have a proper, coherent, connected yarn to tell.

That's quite simple."

Ellerdine shook his head thoughtfully. "I don't think it will work," he said. "You can't get four people to tell the same yarn without variation. There's sure to be one let it down just where it ought to be kept up."

"If it were a long, complicated yarn, perhaps," said Collingwood; "but I don't mean that at all. Just a plain, unvarnished tale."

"Unvarnished!" the peer replied. "Well, it'll take a deuce of a lot of paint to make this one look all right."

"Not a bit of it," Collingwood replied. "Easy as anything."

Lord Ellerdine went to the fireplace once more and stood with his back to the flames. "Right ho," he said; "go ahead."

"Here you are, then," Collingwood began. "We all got on the wrong train."