The Admiralty launch made the Harbour of Calais about a quarter-past eight. There was a train for Paris waiting at the Gare Maritime, but learning that it did not arrive until 4.15, the Bucklands decided to stick to their plan of riding through the night. The production of George’s card of membership of the Automobile Club, and a short and pleasant interview between the naval lieutenant and the Custom House officer, sufficed to frank the gyro-car without the payment of import duty. Having enjoyed a meal on board the launch, the brothers were ready to start at once, and with cordial good-wishes from the officer, and amid many “Hé’s” and “Ah’s” and other exclamations from the onlookers, they set off on their journey.
The distance from Calais to Paris is a hundred and eighty odd miles. George had cycled over the route in the previous spring, and knew its general features. It would be easy, he thought, to maintain an average speed of at least twenty-five miles on a highway kept in such admirable repair as are all the French main roads, even allowing for slowing down when passing through villages and towns. The sky was clear, and illuminated by a half-moon, and the powerful acetylene lamp which he carried at the front of the car shed its rays many yards ahead. The interior of the car was lit by two small electric lamps, one on each side.
“There’s no chance of their catching us, is there?” said George, as the car spun merrily along.
“I think not,” replied Maurice. “They will have to wait for the train, which doesn’t get to Paris until 5:50. We ought to be there before four, so that at the worst we shall have an hour and a half before they can arrive.”
Before they had been two hours on the road, they were glad to think that they had so much margin. George was not accustomed to steering the car at a rapid pace by night, and Maurice’s experience was even less than his brother’s, so that they found it by no means easy to maintain the speed that George had mentioned. Until they reached Béthune they had a clear run, but thenceforward they had to slow down more often than they wished. There were octroi barriers, where they were halted and examined, much to George’s disgust. He found also that the places through which they passed had quite a different aspect at night from what he remembered of them by day, and more than once he had to stop to allow Maurice to ask the way of a gendarme or an innkeeper. At such times the curiosity excited by the unusual appearance of the car found expression in questions which had to be evaded rather than answered.
It was growing light by the time they reached the Porte Maillot. Here they had to submit to an interrogatory by the officer of the gate, and George smiled discreetly as he witnessed for the first time his brother’s diplomatic manner.
“I never knew you could be so polite,” he said, as they ran down the Avenue de la Grande Armée. “Perhaps it sounds politer in French than it really is. But it’s rotten to have to pay a tax on the petrol we carry.”
A few yards from the gate they saw a taxi-cab standing at the side of the road. The driver was in his seat, and two men were entering the cab as the gyro-car sped by.
“Early birds—or late,” said Maurice.
The street cleaners paused in the work to wonder and admire, and when the car came to the Place de l’Etoile Maurice turned about to glance back at an old fellow whose comical expression of face amused him. He noticed the taxi-cab coming at a good pace behind them; but the road was so broad, and so clear of traffic, that George drove the gyro-car through the Champs Elysées at a much higher speed than he would have dared in Hyde Park, and moment by moment it increased. He turned left into the Rue Royale, then to right into the Rue St. Honoré, and ran the car into the garage of the Hotel St. James where he and Maurice had both stayed during previous visits to the city. Having arranged for the replenishment of the petrol tanks and the cleaning of the car, they went into the hotel to get a wash and brush up, which they much needed after their long journey over dusty roads. It was half-past four.
Few of the hotel staff had as yet risen, and the travellers might perhaps have been received with less consideration had not their former visits, and their generous tips, been remembered. But a few minutes after they descended to the salle à manger an appetizing little breakfast was put before them.
“What a difference from England!” said George. “I say, Maurice, I’ll just run into the garage to see that things are going all right. The fellow looked rather sleepy. Pour out my coffee, will you? I shan’t be a minute.”
While he was in the garage, he heard the clatter of a horse’s hoofs and the hum of a motor-car in the street; the sounds struck his ear all the more forcibly because of the peacefulness of the neighbourhood. In mere unreflecting curiosity, he stepped to the door and glanced out. Next moment he started back, pushed the door outwards until he felt that he could not be seen, and peeped out through the narrow opening just as the motor-car passed. There were three vehicles. The first was a large racing motor, not unlike that with which he had become so familiar at home, but its colour was a bright green. In it were seated—and the sight sent a strange thrill through him—Count Slavianski and Major Rostopchin, his secretary. Behind it came a taxi-cab, and a few yards in the rear of this a fiacre, the driver of which was gee-hoing and whipping up his horse to its best pace, with the evident intention of keeping up with the motors in front. Within this two men were seated. One of them George recognised as a servant of the Count’s; the other’s head was at the moment turned away.
George was thunderstruck. By what means had these persistent foreigners arrived in advance of the mail?
“Tell me,” he said in his best French to the man who was rubbing the car down, “is there a train from London at this hour?”
“Ah non, monsieur,” replied the man, “but there is a train from Calais. It arrives at the Gare du Nord at 4:15, an hour and a half before the London mail.”
“A slow train?”
“Certainly, monsieur, a very slow train.”
“It must be the train we saw at Calais,” said George to himself. “Those fellows must have caught it: but how on earth did they cross the Channel so soon?”
He had the presence of mind to show no sign of his consternation and anxiety, but strolled out of the garage and then dashed into the salle à manger.
“I say, Maurice”—he began, but then remembering that the garçon had a thorough command of English, he checked his impetuous tongue, and sat down beside his brother, who had already started upon his breakfast.
“Send him to fetch something,” he said in a low tone.
“Bring me an omelette aux fines herbes,” said Maurice to the waiter.
“Certainly, sir, in five minutes.”
“What is it?” asked Maurice, when the man had gone.
“Those fellows are on our track,” said George breathlessly. “The whole gang by the look of it. I have just seen a large green motor, a taxi, and a fiacre go down the street. The Count and his secretary were in the first.”
“They went by?” said Maurice in amazement.
“Yes.”
“Then they don’t know our whereabouts, yet,” said Maurice, heaving a sigh of relief. “But it won’t be long before they do. The place is full of German spies, and if this so-called Russian is a German, as I suspect, he’ll soon learn from one of his agents about the appearance of an odd-looking thing like the gyro-car. Indeed, I shouldn’t be surprised if those fellows I saw get into a taxi just this side of the Porte Maillot were his men.”
“But how did they get here in the time?”
“They must have had a swift vessel with steam up waiting at Dover. There’s no end to their resources when anything big is at stake. We’re in for a race, George.”
“You take it pretty coolly,” said George, who was quivering with excitement.
“That’s the first lesson I learnt from my chief. ‘Never get flustered,’ he dinned into me. We shall have to trust to the speed of your car. They don’t know where we are, nor which way we are going, which is one to us. Get on with your breakfast; I’ll think it out.”
He ate his omelet with an air of abstraction. After a few minutes he called the waiter.
“Have you got a road-guide?” he asked.
“Yes, sir: I will fetch it.”
He soon returned with a copy of the Guide Taride. Maurice glanced at the title page: “Les Routes de France, à l’usage des conducteurs d’automobiles et cyclistes.”
“The very thing. I will buy this, waiter; the proprietor can easily replace it. It gives everything we want, George.”
He turned over the pages until he came to the section dealing with the roads out of Paris.
“They’ll watch the bridges, as they did in London,” he said, “but they can’t watch all the gates, unless they have a much larger number of men than is likely. We mustn’t cross the river, so we can’t take any of the three roads to Marseilles; they all go by the Porte de Choisy, and that’s on the other side of the Seine. Here we are: Paris to Melun, forty kilometres. They don’t recommend the first route, by the Porte Daumesnil and the Bois de Vincennes, so we’ll choose that. We shall join the direct road at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, thirteen kilometres distant. And the sooner we start the better. Go and set your gyroscopes working, while I pay the bill.”
It took several minutes to set the gyroscopes running at full speed. Maurice was anxious to start before this, but George pointed out that they had better not appear in the street until the car was thoroughly ready, in case any of the Slavianski scouts were on the watch.
A few minutes after 5 o’clock they set off, running back through the Rue Royale thence into the Rue de Rivoli, until, having crossed the Place de la Bastille, they struck into the Avenue Daumesnil. There was little traffic as yet in that broad thoroughfare, except for the wagons of tradesmen and market gardeners coming into the city from the suburbs.
“We mustn’t go too fast while we’re within the walls,” said George, “but as soon as we’re outside I’ll let her rip, old man. Keep your eye on the map and tell me how to steer.”
Maurice had opened the map of Paris and spread it on his knees. Directed by him, George turned into the Rue de Charenton, left the city at the Charenton gate, after exchanging a pleasant word with the officer, and then set the car spinning along until they came to the bridge over the Canal de Marne. Being now beyond the probable risk of interference, George increased the speed to thirty-five miles an hour, which he maintained for forty minutes, until they reached the outskirts of Melun. There the road made a sharp descent.
“Slow down here,” said Maurice anxiously. “This hill is dangerous, according to the Guide, and the pavé is rather slippery with dew. A sideslip here would break us up.”
Reducing speed to fifteen miles an hour, they ran down the hill. Before they had reached the foot of it they saw, on turning a bend, that the road about two hundred yards ahead was broken for mending on the right-hand side—the side on which they were travelling, according to the rule of the road in France. A thin rope was stretched half-way across the road, supported on a light iron rod, from which hung a lantern, that had, no doubt, been lit during the night. It was not yet 6 o’clock, and no labourers were on the spot; but on the left-hand side of the road, where there was a space between the excavation and a wall just wide enough for the passage of an ordinary market cart, a small motor-car was approaching the gap in the same direction as the gyro-car at a low speed. There was plenty of time for it to pass through the narrowed portion of the roadway before the gyro-car overtook it, so George did not reduce his speed any further, but sounded his hooter as a measure of precaution.
The motor-car crawled on towards the gap, the chauffeur throwing a glance over his shoulder, as if to see whether he had time to win through before the vehicle behind overtook him. Moment by moment the space between the two cars diminished. The gyro-car was within a few yards of the narrow portion of the road, when suddenly the motor stopped dead, completely blocking the passage, and the chauffeur sprang from his seat towards the wall bordering the road on the near side. George involuntarily let out a cry. There was no time to consult with Maurice, nor even to hesitate between two courses. The momentum of the gyro-car was so great that it could not be checked before dashing into the stationary vehicle. To the left was the wall, to the right an excavation several feet deep. Across it lay a narrow plank, used, no doubt, by the workmen in wheeling their barrows from one side of the hole to the other.
It was supported on the nearer side upon some loose earth that had been thrown up from below. What the support on the further side was George could not pause to determine. His brother had waxed satirical about his unpunctuality, but in this critical moment, when there was only an instant of time for decision, the boy showed a surprising quickness. There was one desperate chance of avoiding a collision, which, even if it did not result in personal injury, might at least cripple the car. He steered straight for the plank.
There was a jolt, a sudden dip, and the sixteen-foot plank sagged under the weight of the car. A moment of suspense; then there was a more serious jolt as the front wheel apparently left the plank and struck the bank of earth on the further side, just high enough to make a passage for itself through the loose soil at the edge. The two front wheels were through. Alter an almost imperceptible interval the third wheel dropped from the end of the plank on to the earth, and immediately afterwards the fourth wheel. The gyro-car was safely across.
Almost before either George or his brother could fully realise the narrow escape they had had, the car was forty or fifty yards down the road.
“Shall we stop?” asked George, panting with relief. “I’d like a word with that ass.”
“No, go on,” said Maurice quietly. He was looking back towards the gap. “They are there!”
“The Count?”
“I don’t see him, but there are others. You were too busy to notice them, but just as we came to the gap I saw several men jump up from behind the wall and help to hoist the chauffeur over. The whole thing was planned.”
“Great Scott! How in the world did they get there in time?”
“I expect they wired or ’phoned from Calais last night. They knew we must take this road if making for Italy, and their agents must have left Paris early to find a convenient place for waylaying us. They couldn’t have chosen a better one, though, of course, the opening in the road was purely accidental You’re a wonder, George. I should never have had the nerve to do it.”
“My dear chap, you would run the car across Niagara on a tight-rope if you knew it as well as I do. But hang it all!—I hope it isn’t damaged. Don’t you think we might pull up for a minute to have a look?”
“We had better go on. The Count will be here before long to see how his trap had succeeded, and the sooner we are beyond his lordship’s reach the better. We are not out of the wood yet.”
“Can’t we stop at Melun and put the authorities up to collaring the fellows as German spies?”
“We’ve no proof that they are, and it would never do for me, in my position, to set France and Germany by the ears. It would mean delay, too. No: our job is to get to Brindisi as soon as we can. Run a few miles farther; then we’ll halt to examine the car; but it goes so easily that I don’t think much damage is done.”
“All right. Are they after us?”
“There’s no sign of them. We win the trick.”
