CHAPTER XIII
A “NEAR-ADVENTURE”
JUST as Betty discovered Mr. Blake he looked up and discovered her.
“How do you do?” he inquired gaily, striding across the street and up the steps to shake hands. “I’m extra glad to see you because I regard your appearance as a good omen. You’ve got another scoop up your sleeve for me, now haven’t you?”
“Do you mean that you haven’t found Mr. Morton yet?” demanded Betty, dispensing with formal greetings in her haste to explain Mr. Morton’s whereabouts. “Why, you just met him, Mr. Blake. He went around that corner just now in his car.”
“The mischief he did!” Mr. Blake turned and surveyed the corner ruefully. “I was thinking of somebody—something else. I didn’t know a car passed me. I say, I suppose you haven’t any idea where he was going?”
“To Dol. He told me he was staying there.”
“He’ll change his mind on the way—I’ve chased him long enough now to know his habits. Still it’s worth trying. See here, Miss Wales, don’t you want to come along and introduce me,—or just countenance the expedition by your presence? Jasper J. hates newspaper men, and you might be a lot of help. It won’t take ten minutes to round him up. We can go in that car.” He waved his hand at one drawn up by the curbing.
“Of course I’ll come,” agreed Betty, “only I ought to go in and tell Mrs. Hildreth first.”
“No time,” objected Dick brusquely. “Every minute counts.” He ran down the steps and began cranking the engine vigorously. “Get up in front beside me, so we can talk.”
Betty hesitated an instant and then, reflecting that ten minutes couldn’t matter much, and wishing to be obliging, she jumped in. Mr. Blake was beside her in an instant, and before she had had time to button her coat or pull her veil tight, they were fairly whizzing down the hill.
“You don’t mind going fast, do you?” asked Mr. Blake absently, his eyes on the sharp rise beyond.
Betty’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “I never went fast enough yet. I didn’t know you had a car with you, Mr. Blake.”
“Oh, I haven’t,” he explained quickly. “This belongs to an old pal of mine—somebody you know, by the way. Remember Mrs. Bob, who chaperoned Madeline’s house-party? Well, this is her husband’s car. You remember him, too, and the awful daubs he painted? We guyed him about them until he took it to heart and went West to make his fortune. Put all his money in a Texas oil well, had beginner’s luck, and now he’s drawing a thousand a week from that well. And prosperity has improved his painting, too, until he turns out very decent things. He’s working in the garden next the Casino this afternoon. I was to come for him about this time, and we were going for a little spin in the cool of the afternoon.”
“Won’t he be worried about his car?”
“Probably, if he goes out to look for it,” said Mr. Blake calmly. “But he ought to have something to worry over. He’s getting disgracefully fat. Do you know, Miss Wales, our friend Jasper J. is going the pace all right, if that cloud of dust ahead is his outfit.”
“We’re catching up a little though, aren’t we?” asked Betty anxiously.
“We certainly are,” Dick assured her, “but I’m afraid it’s no ten minute job we’ve tackled. I didn’t know he was such a reckless driver. I’m sorry I got you out here on false pretences, Miss Wales. Will Mrs. Hildreth worry?”
“Not unless I’m awfully late,” said Betty cheerfully. “And, anyway, we can’t help it now. I certainly can’t walk back and you can’t take me back; you’d surely lose Mr. Morton if you did that.”
“Exactly.” Mr. Blake’s eyes were on the white road ahead, and he spoke in jerky sentences, keeping time to the throb of the machine. “I should lose the trail, and the last chance of making good on this assignment. Time’s up to-morrow, you know. When I met you I was blue as indigo—saw myself sailing back to New York with my reputation for being the best sleuth in town knocked to splinters. So Mrs. Hildreth and Bob Enderby will both have to bear up as best they can.”
“It’s queer how I’ve happened on Mr. Morton twice just in time to accommodate you,” laughed Betty.
“Mighty lucky for me,” said Richard briefly. “You’re cold, Miss Wales. Reach under the seat and you’ll find something in the way of a wrap.”
Betty reached, and drew out a leather coat. “How stunning!” she said, pulling it around her shoulders. “Is it yours or Mr. Enderby’s?”
“It’s Bob’s.” He turned to look. “I say, that’s a new one on me. Bob’s blossoming out in awfully swell togs all of a sudden. He’s been sporting an old corduroy coat that his wife wouldn’t have in the studio.”
“Mr. Blake, the other car has stopped!” cried Betty eagerly.
“It has, for sure. You certainly do bring luck, Miss Wales! Now here goes for one last desperate spurt.”
They dashed along the straight white road in silence, Betty wondering rather anxiously how Jasper J. Morton would receive them, Mr. Blake intent on his work, until suddenly he gave an impatient little exclamation, and slowing down, leaned forward to listen to his engine.
“The gasoline can’t be low,” he muttered angrily. “I took her to be filled myself and Bob just ran her around the town a bit afterward.” He went slower still to make sure. “It is low,” he told Betty dejectedly. “It’s horribly low. We shall be lucky if we catch him where he is now. If he starts on we’re lost.”
“Oh, well, perhaps he won’t start on,” said Betty cheerfully, “at least not if we hurry.”
Dick started the car again. “I say, but you’re game,” he declared admiringly. “A good many girls would dislike the charming prospect of having to go home in a Brittany farm-wagon.” He squinted at the big car ahead. “Jasper J. can’t take us back. He’s punctured one of his back tires. He’ll be in an angelic mood to receive us.”
Betty gave a nervous little laugh. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Mr. Blake sighed. “I oughtn’t to have brought you, Miss Wales—I don’t see how I ever thought of such a foolish scheme. But now that you’re here you’re just to sit in the car, while I go and inquire the way to the nearest gasoline supply, and incidentally, as I inquire, discover that I’m talking to a man I want most awfully to see. It’s all going to be beautiful and casual, and I shall refer to you only if everything else fails.”
By this time they were very near Mr. Morton’s car, and their own was crawling so slowly that Mr. Blake drew it up by the roadside and, tooting his horn a few times by way of encouraging Mr. Morton to wait for him, started briskly off to his interview.
“You’ll be in plain sight of us,” he told Betty, “so you can’t get lonely, and you can have oceans of fun watching Jasper J. turn me down—or try to.”
Betty, watching him go, wished she had thought it fair to tell him about the railroad presidents who were waiting at Dol. “But I couldn’t do that,” she reflected. “I’m afraid I’ve told him too much as it is.”
Meanwhile there was a good deal of excitement at the Dinard Casino—the “high-life Casino,” so read the tickets of admission and the placard by the door. It wasn’t about Betty; Mrs. Hildreth and the girls had been wondering about her non-appearance, but they had scarcely reached the worrying stage as yet. The excitement had to do with a scandal in “high-life.” A young Frenchman had driven his car in from a near-by château, had barely stepped inside the Casino, and come back to find the car gone. He had immediately borrowed a racing machine and rushed off in hot pursuit, leaving the Casino piazzas agog with strange rumors. These flew about chiefly in French, but Madeline and Babbie caught snatches and told the others. The most picturesque detail was the fact that the Casino’s porter had stood unsuspectingly and watched the thief and his confederate, a pretty young girl, drive off. The girl had come and stood on the steps,—looking in, supposedly, to make sure that the coast was clear. She was English or perhaps American, was young, with curly golden hair, was dressed all in white, and had nothing of the air of the adventuress about her. Madeline and Babbie exchanged bewildered glances, suppressed some details, and covertly assured each other that Betty was too old and too sensible to let herself be kidnapped in broad daylight. And how otherwise should she be helping to steal automobiles? It was too ridiculous!
This was just what an excited young Frenchman, having stopped his racing car with a skilful turn close beside her, and caught her attention by a low bow and a deferential “Pardon, Madame,” was demanding of her in rapid-fire French, which dazzled poor Betty’s mind into absolute blankness.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,” she said sadly at last. “That is, Jé ne comprend pas. If you can’t speak English, you’d better ask Mr. Blake. Demandez à ce monsieur.” She pointed ahead.
“Ah!” The Frenchman’s black eyes flashed with pleasure as he noticed Mr. Blake. He turned to a man in uniform in the tonneau and they conversed in more rapid-fire French, after which the man in uniform jumped out of the Frenchman’s car and then with another “Pardon, Madame,” calmly climbed into Betty’s. This was strange enough, but the effect of the Frenchman’s communication on Mr. Blake, who spoke French like a native, was even stranger. He listened a minute, asked a quick question, and then started on the run toward Betty, with Jasper J. Morton panting behind him. When Mr. Blake started, the man in uniform hopped nimbly out and stood in the middle of the road, as if to intercept his passage, and when he rushed around to the back of the car the man in uniform was instantly beside him.
“It’s true, all right,” he told Betty a minute later, coming around to her side. “Oh, you didn’t understand? He says I’ve stolen a car, and I have. That’s not Bob’s number. This car is absolutely like his in every other way—except for the lack of gasoline and the different coat, of course. And how was I to know that Bob hadn’t squandered his gasoline and bought a new coat?”
“Miss B. A.! Are you here?” cried Mr. Morton, coming up behind Dick. “Then perhaps you’ll be good enough to explain. This gentleman asked me to lend him gasoline enough to get to a garage, and instead of waiting for my answer he begins to jabber French and then runs off like a madman.”
“Why, we’ve stolen a car,” explained Betty. “That is, Mr. Blake took the wrong one by mistake, and these people thought he did it on purpose.”
“Took the wrong car by mistake,” muttered Mr. Morton. “Well, I don’t doubt it, since you vouch for the gentleman, but otherwise it would look very black to me. Is he given to making mistakes of that sort?”
“Oh, no,” cried Betty quickly. “But you see we were in such a hurry, and I suppose he was pretty much excited because it was his last chance and so important and all——”
“Wait a minute,” commanded Mr. Morton peremptorily. “I don’t follow you. What was your tremendous hurry? What was the gentleman’s last chance that it was of the utmost importance he should utilize?”
“Oh, hadn’t he told you?” asked Betty. “But of course he hadn’t had time to. Why—please don’t be angry, Mr. Morton, but we were chasing you. Mr. Blake’s newspaper sent him over here to interview you, and he has missed you ever so many times, and he couldn’t stay any longer than to-day.” She paused to see what the effect of her announcement would be.
“You and a New York reporter chasing me in a stolen automobile! A pretty story that would make!” Jasper J. Morton’s tone was deeply indignant. Then he looked from Betty’s solemn face to Mr. Blake, who was hot from his run and his valiant efforts to convince the Dinard police sergeant of his innocence, then at the Frenchman, alert and smiling, as he awaited the outcome of the discussion, and his eyes began to twinkle. “Does he know about those railroad presidents in Dol?” he demanded, jerking his thumb toward Mr. Blake.
Betty explained that she hadn’t considered herself at liberty to tell Mr. Blake that.
“Just chased me on general principles,” he chuckled. “Well, I’ve been chased pretty hard sometimes, but never by a pretty girl in a stolen automobile, so far as I remember. Hi there, young man,” he raised his voice. “Come over here and tell me how all this happened.” Then, as Dick deserted the sergeant, he added, “Miss B. A. here is trying to make me think that I’m to blame.”
Dick laughed. “Then I suppose she’s told you that it was awfully important to me to see you. If I could just ask you a few questions, Mr. Morton, before I go back with this man, I should be everlastingly obliged. He insists on putting me under arrest. I’ve got a friend in Dol who’ll go bail for me, but until then the best I can do is to make him let Miss Wales off.” He smiled dejectedly at Betty.
“Put you under arrest, indeed!” sniffed Jasper J. Morton. “Why, it was a clear case of mistake, wasn’t it? She says it was. You’ve got a friend who’s got a car like that, haven’t you? You can show ’em—the car and the friend—as soon as we get into Dinard. You’ll ride back with me, both of you, if my man ever gets that puncture mended.” Jasper J. Morton pulled out a roll of fifty-franc notes and flourished them at the sergeant, who was staring uncomprehendingly. “How much do you want, my good fellow? I’ll go bail, or whatever you please to call it. Ask him how much he wants, Miss B. A. Where’s your dictionary? No,” as Mr. Blake started forward, “you wait a minute. She’ll manage him best.”
So Betty explained what Mr. Morton wanted, with frequent promptings from that impatient gentleman; and the sergeant, accepting a small fee “for the accommodation,” agreed to take the gentleman’s word and his friend’s word that they would both appear in court at Dinard, if, after the aggrieved Frenchman had seen Mr. Bob’s car and interviewed its owner, he was not willing to accept Mr. Blake’s apology and withdraw his suit. As a matter of fact, all the Frenchman wanted was his car back unharmed; he had brought the police sergeant only in case of emergency. And as the policeman couldn’t drive a car, he was glad to accept Mr. Morton’s offer that his chauffeur, who had at last finished repairing the tire, should put in enough gasoline from his machine to carry the stalled car to a garage and should then drive it back to Dinard.
“I’m going to drive mine myself,” Mr. Morton announced. “That’s another thing that my doctor told me not to do, you know. Blake, get in behind with Miss B. A.”
But Betty protested that she was tired and wanted the tonneau to herself. As a matter of fact, she was sure that if Mr. Blake and Mr. Morton rode together, Mr. Morton would never be able to resist telling about the railroad presidents cooped up in Dol waiting for him. And sure enough, it was only a few minutes before she heard him say, “That’ll make a great story, you know. Sleepy French town—nothing happened there for centuries—doesn’t know the meaning of high finance. Americans choose it as neutral ground on which to discuss biggest traffic coup in history. Wall Street feels the shock. Oh, I suppose you can turn out that sort of thing much better than I can. You come over to Dol and see the fun. I’ll introduce you as my secretary. Can you act a little like a secretary?”
After a while she heard him ask, “Do you always chase everything you want as hard as you chased me? I like to see a man chase hard.”
Madeline and Babe were on the Casino steps waiting to get the first possible sight of the crowd coming up from the ferry, for if Betty didn’t come on this boat they were all going back to Saint Malo in the hope of finding her there. But before Betty, assisted by Mr. Blake and Mr. Morton, had finished explaining herself, the Frenchman, who had waited to pilot his own car to a garage, came up, and Madeline deserted her friends to rush at him with such a friendly greeting and such a torrent of questions in French, that she immediately became the centre of interest.
“Dick Blake,” she began, bringing the smiling Frenchman over to the other group, “do you mean to tell me that you’ve forgotten my cousin Edmond, after all the fun we had together in Paris? That’s as bad as Edmond’s having forgotten his English, so that he couldn’t tell Betty in plain terms that she was a thief.”
“Ah, Madeline!” He turned to Betty, eager to deny such an intention, but his face fell and he made a comical gesture of inadequacy. “It ez so far away! I cannot say my meaning.”
“So long ago, you mean, don’t you, young man?” asked Mr. Morton, eyeing him as if he were some sort of strange animal. “See here, these reunions are all very interesting, but I’m getting hungry. Now, why can’t you all have dinner with me at that hotel over there? Baedeker says it’s the best in the place. A sort of peace festival, you know. Miss B. A., suppose you take me in and present me to Mrs. Hildreth and see what she says about it.”
Babe had hurried in ahead of them with the news of Betty’s safe return, without waiting to have any conversation with Mr. Morton. But when the dinner project was approved by Mrs. Hildreth and Mr. Morton insisted that “the little tomboy” must sit on his left, Babe made no objection, and she had spirited repartees ready for all Mr. Morton’s sallies. She even went so far as to tell him about the Harvard-Cambridge race and ask him, as she had promised John she would, to take her to see it.
“Sure you won’t throw me over for a younger beau?” he asked her. “He’s likely to be in London then if I am, you know.”
But Babe only laughed unconcernedly, and assured him that she never, never broke engagements.
The party separated early because, as Mr. Morton explained jovially, he and Mr. Blake had urgent business in Dol. Mr. Blake had managed to sit beside Madeline at dinner, and had told her all about his success with Mr. Morton, and what he hoped might come of it.
“I just must tell some one or I’ll burst,” Blake confided. “Mr. Morton has been asking me about the magazine. ‘If you had a hundred thousand or so and a free hand, could you win out with it?’ he asked me. So who knows, Madeline—my chance may have come at last!”
“Oh, Dick,” Madeline began, breathlessly, “wouldn’t that be—— I’m going to touch wood right away,” she added, suiting the action to the word. Dick laughed, but his eyes were shining with a new hope and purpose.
“He never mentioned Eleanor, of course,” Madeline told the others, as they brushed their hair in Babe’s room and discussed the events of the most exciting day of the summer. “But that’s why he cares so much. He used to be the most indifferent, blasé person you ever saw.”
“What I don’t understand,” said Babbie, carefully barricading herself from a storm of pillows, “is why a person who doesn’t want to see another person as long as she lives should invite another person’s father to take her to a boat-race, knowing that another person will be there too.”
“Your English is mixed,” retorted Babe with all her customary levity, “but if you mean me and Mr. Morton and the race in London, why I promised to ask him ages ago, and I wouldn’t back down now just because John and I were silly and quarreled. John was your friend to begin with, and if he tags his father to the race you can look after him, I guess.”
“I don’t look after men; I let them look after me,” announced Babbie with dignity.
“Don’t squabble,” said Madeline. “I’ve got an idea. I believe Arthur Lestrange Trevelyan, or Lestrange Arthur Trevelyan, is all right. Think how black things looked for Dick to-day, with only the thin excuse of having made a mistake about the automobiles. If Edmond had been a bad-tempered person and the police sergeant had been incorruptible, they’d certainly have arrested him.”
“And Betty too,” put in Babbie. “Think of poor innocent little Betty’s being arrested!”
“He must be all right—Mr. Trevelyan, I mean,” suggested Babe, “because as soon as John got your letter, he and Mr. Benson would have gone to work to find out about him, and if he hadn’t been all right they’d certainly have written to us before this.”
“Well, I’m going to bed,” said Betty, yawning vigorously. “I’m sleepy, and if your cousin is going to take us automobiling all day to-morrow and comes for us as early as he said, we’ve got to be up betimes.”
“Too true,” agreed Madeline. “But please don’t hold us responsible for the strenuous life we’re leading. It’s all your fault, Miss B. A.”
“I didn’t do a single thing I could help,” protested Betty.
But Madeline insisted gaily that it had all been a preconceived plan on Betty’s part to make her dominant interest fill most space in the annals of “B. A.’s Abroad.”
“You began with mild little benevolent adventures,” she said, “and now you’ve had what Roberta Lewis would call a near-adventure. Next thing you know you’ll plunge us all into a real adventure—the kind you read about in novels.”
“Wouldn’t that be great?” sighed Babe sleepily. “Now please run away and let me have a little peace.”
But Madeline and Babbie were still wide awake. They sat on the edge of poor Babe’s bed for an hour longer inventing “real adventures” that should materialize in Paris.
“The thing we need is an adventurer,” complained Madeline sadly, “that is, unless Mr. Trevelyan will ‘oblige with the part,’ as they say at actors’ benefits. We’ll ask Edmond about the haunts of adventurers. Perhaps he’ll be able to put us on the track of a king in exile looking for an American wife, or a prime minister watching for a lady to drop her handkerchief as a signal that she is his fellow conspirator. You see I have to leave you in Paris and I do want a grand excitement of some sort before I go.”
“Paris gowns are quite exciting,” suggested Babbie, dragging Madeline off to bed at last. “I’m not counting on the ball, because it’s so uncertain.”
“Why how stupid of us to have forgotten the ball,” began Madeline eagerly. “We could start a perfectly magnificent adventure with that.”
But Babbie put her fingers over her ears and ran away. “It’s awfully late,” she explained, “and besides, I shall want to go to the dance more than ever if you make up a lovely story about it. So good-night.”