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 _via_
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 manoeuvring, 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.

"I've come a long way round, Ewart, in order to enter France unobserved.
I've been travelling hard these last three days. Blythe is with
Mademoiselle, I suppose?" he asked, as we went along.

I responded in the affirmative.

"Tell me all that's happened. Go on, I'm listening--everything. Tell
me exactly, for a lot depends upon how matters now stand," he said,
buttoning the collar of his heavy overcoat more tightly around his neck,
for the icy blast cut one like a knife at the rate we were travelling.

I settled down to the wheel, and related everything that ha