r minutes.

But these rhapsodies were cut short by his arrival at the hotel
garage, with the displeasing discovery that no one named Dale had
reached Symon's Yat that evening, while the stolid fact stared him
in the face that his cherished Mercury demanded several hours of
hard-working attentions if it were to glisten and hum in its usual
perfection next morning.

"Queer thing," he said, thinking aloud rather than addressing the
stableman who had given this disconcerting news. "I have never before
known him fail; and I wired to Hereford early enough."

"Oh, he's in Hereford, is he?" inquired the man.

"He ought not to be, but he is, I fear."

"Then it'll be him who axed for ye on the telephone?"

"When?"

"It 'ud be somewheres about a quarter or half past eight. Lizzie tole
me after the old leddy kem up to see if you'd taken the car out."

Medenham's wits were alert enough now.

"I don't fully understand," he said. "What old lady, and why did she
come?"

"That's wot bothered me," was the reply. "Everybody knew that the
young leddy an' you were on the Wye: 'deed to goodness, some of us
thought you were in it. Anyways, it was long after ten when she----"

"You mean Mrs. Devar, I suppose--the older lady of the two who arrived
in my car?"

"Yes, that's her. She wanted to be sure the car wasn't gone, and
nothing would suit her but the key must be brought from the orfis an'
the coach-house door unlocked so's she could see it with her own eyes.
Well, Lizzie sez to me, 'That's funny, it is, because she watched they
two goin' on the river, and was in the box a long time telephonin' to
a shuffer called Dale, at Hereford.' Thinks I, 'It's funnier that the
shuffer who's here should be expectin' a chap named Dale,' but I said
nothink. I never does to wimmen. Lord luv yer, they'll twist a tale
twenty ways for Sundays to suit their own pupposes afterwards."

Lightning struck from a cloudless sky a second time that night at
Symon's Yat, and in its gleam was revealed the duplicity of Mrs.
Devar. Medenham could not guess the double significance of Dale's
message and failure to appear, but he was under no delusion now as
to the cause of those honeyed words. Dale had been indiscreet, had
probably blurted out his employer's title, and Mrs. Devar knew at
last who the chauffeur was whose interference had baffled her plans.

He laughed bitterly, but did not pursue the inquiry any further.

"Can you clean coachwork and brass?