Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 29, 2025
In the servants' hall we were also having a pretty merry time. Medhurst, the maid of Mrs. Clayton, was a particularly prepossessing young woman, and I had many chats and a few walks with her. From her, at Bindo's instigation, I learned a good deal regarding her mistress's habits and tastes, all of which I, in due course, reported to my master.
One afternoon I drove Bindo, with Blythe, Madame, and Mademoiselle, over to the Beau Site, at Cannes, to tea, and the party was certainly a very merry one. Yet it puzzled me to discover in what direction Bindo's active brain was working, and what were his designs.
To York, to Castle Howard, to Driffield, and to Whitby we went the road to the last-named place, by the way, being execrable. Evidently Bindo's present object was to ingratiate himself with young Clayton, but with what ulterior motive I could not conceive. Sir Charles remained constantly in the background.
I spent the spring at Monte Carlo, and in May, the month of flowers, found myself back at Bindo's old villa in Florence, gloomy to me on account of my own loneliness. The two English dogs barked me welcome, and Charlie Whitaker that night came and dined; for Bindo was away.
And he passed on into the darkness beneath the trees, on his way back to his high-up humble room down in the heart of the town. At eight o'clock next morning, when I met Pietro, Bindo's man, I noticed an unusual expression upon his face, and asked him what had happened. "I have bad news for you, Signor Ewart," he answered with hesitation.
But Gilling was already there, kissing his wife and daughter. I glanced round, but was reassured to see both Bindo and Sir Charles were absentees. Did they know of Gilling's impending arrival? I ran up to the rooms of both my friends, but could not find them. In Bindo's room a dress-coat had been thrown upon the bed. He had changed since I had been up there for the books.
Bindo's dress-coat on the bed showed that he had left, therefore I had every hope that he had not been recognised by the jeweller. After I had changed the body at the coachbuilder's at Northampton, the run to the Essex coast proved an exciting one, for I had one narrow escape at a level crossing. But to give details of the journey would serve no purpose.
No doubt the fact that we had shipped the car across from Parkeston to Hamburg was well known to Scotland Yard, yet since that night it had undergone two or three transformations which had entirely disguised it. I was rapidly growing a moustache, too, and had otherwise altered my personal appearance since I posed as Bindo's chauffeur in Scarborough.
Through the grey, damp afternoon I drove on up the Great North Road, that straight, broad highway which you who motor know so well. Simmons, Bindo's new valet, was suffering from neuralgia; therefore I had left him in London, and, sitting alone, had ample time for reflection.
Times without number I wondered what was the nature of those documents, and why the gang desired to obtain possession of them. But it was all a mystery, inscrutable and complete. And I told the Count nothing. Our season at Florence was a gay one, and there were many pleasant gatherings at Bindo's villa. The season was, however, an empty one as far as coups were concerned.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking