THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume). Charles Norris Williamson

      We had met nobody for a long time now; for, since leaving the region of pines, we seemed to have passed beyond the road-mender zone, and the zone of waggons loaded with dry branches like piled elks' horns. Still, as one could never be sure what might not be lurking behind some rocky shoulder, where the road turned like a tight belt, our musical siren sang at each turn its gay little mocking notes.

      After a lonely mountain village, named St. Germain-en-Calberte, and famous only because the tyrant-priest Chayla was burned there, the surface of the road changed with startling abruptness. Till this moment we'd known no really bad roads anywhere, and almost all had been as white as snow, as pink as rose leaves, and smooth as velvet; but suddenly the Aigle sank up to her expensive ankles in deep, thick mud.

      "Hullo, what's this bumping? Anything wrong with the car?"

      Out popped Sir Samuel's anxious head from its luxurious cage.

      "The trouble is with the road," answered the chauffeur, without so much as an "I told you so!" expression on his face. "I'm afraid we've come to that déclassée part."

      Poor Sir Samuel looked so humble and sad that I was sorry for him. "My mistake!" he murmured meekly. "Had we better turn after all?"

      "I fear we can't turn, or even run back, sir," said Mr. Dane. "The road's so bad and so narrow, it would be rather risky."

      This was a mild way of putting it; and he was considerate in not mentioning the precipice which fell abruptly down under the uneven shelf he generously called a road.

      Sir Samuel gave a wary glance down, and said no more. Luckily Lady Turnour, sitting inside her cage, on the side of the rock wall we were following up the mountains, could not see that unpleasant drop under the shelf, or even quite realize that she was on a shelf at all. Her husband sat down by her side, more quietly than he had got up, even forgetting to shut the window; but he was soon reminded of that duty.

      "Are you frightened?" the chauffeur asked me; and I thought it no harm to answer: "Not when you're driving."

      "Do you mean that? Or is it only an empty little compliment?" he catechized me, though his eyes did not leave the narrow slippery road, up which he was steering with a skill of a woman who aims for the eye of a delicate needle with the end of a thread a size too big.

      "I mean it!" I said.

      "I'm glad," he answered. "I was going to tell you not to be nervous, for we shall win through all right with this powerful car. But now I will save my breath."

      "You may," I said, "I'm very happy." And so I was, though I had the most curious sensation in my toes, as if they were being done up in curl papers.

      On we climbed, creeping along the high shelf which was so untidily loaded with rough, fallen stones and layers of mud, powdered with bits of ice from the rocky wall that seemed sheathed in glass. Icicles dangled heavy diamond fringes low over the roof of the car; snow lay in dark hollows which the sun could never reach even in summer noons; and as we ploughed obstinately on, always mounting, the engine trembling, our fat tyres splashed into a custardy slush of whitish brown. The shelf had been slippery before; now, slopping over with this thick mush of melting snow or mud, it was like driving through gallons of ice pudding. The great Aigle began to tremble and waltz on the surface that was no surface; yet it would have been impossible to go back. I saw by my companion's set face how real was the danger we were in; I saw, as the car skated first one way, then another, that there were but a few inches to spare on either side of the road shelf; the side which was a rocky wall, the side which was a precipice; I saw, too, how the man braced himself to this emergency, when three lives besides his own depended on his nerve and skill, almost upon his breath—for it seemed as if a breath too long, a breath too short, might hurl us down—down—I dared not look or think how far. Yet the fixed look of courage and self-confidence on his face was inspiring. I trusted him completely, and I should have been ashamed to feel fear.

      But it was at this moment, when all hung upon the driver's steadiness of eye and hand, that Lady Turnour chose to begin emitting squeaks of childish terror. I hadn't known I was nervous, and only found out that I was highly strung by the jump I gave at her first shriek behind me. If the chauffeur had started—but he didn't. He showed no sign of having heard.

      I would not venture to turn, and look round, lest the slightest movement of my body so near his arm might disturb him; but poor Sir Samuel, driven to desperation by his wife's hysterical cries, pushed down the glass again.

      "Good Lord, Dane, this is appalling!" he said. "My wife can't bear it. Isn't it possible for us to—to—" he paused, not knowing how to end so empty a sentence.

      "All that's possible to do I'm doing," returned the chauffeur, still looking straight ahead. And instead of advising the foolish old bridegroom to shake the bride or box her ears, as surely he was tempted to do, he added calmly that her ladyship must not be too anxious. We were going to get out of this all right, and before long.

      "Tell him to go back. I shall go back!" wailed Lady Turnour.

      "Dearest, we can't!" her husband assured her.

      "Then tell him to stop and let me get out and walk. This is too awful. He wants to kill us."

      "Can you stop and let us get out?" pleaded Sir Samuel.

      "To stop here would be the most dangerous thing we could do," was the answer.

      "You hear, Emmie, my darling."

      "I hear. Impudence to dictate to you! Whatever you are willing to do, I won't be bearded."

      One would have thought she was an oyster. But she was quite right in not wishing to add a beard to her charms, as already a moustache was like those coming events that cast a well-defined shadow before. For an instant I half thought that Mr. Dane would try and stop, her tone was so furious, but he drove on as steadily as if he had not a passenger more fit for Bedlam than for a motor-car.

      Seeing that Dane stuck like grim death to his determination and his steering-wheel, Sir Samuel shut the window and devoted himself to calming his wife who, I imagine, threatened to tear open the door and jump out. The important thing was that he kept her from doing it, perhaps by bribes of gold and precious stones, and the Aigle moved on, writhing like a wounded snake as she obeyed the hand on the wheel. If the slightest thing should go wrong in the steering-gear, as we read of in other motor-cars each time we picked up a newspaper—but other cars were not in charge of Mr. Jack Dane. I felt sure, somehow, that nothing would ever go wrong with a steering-gear of whose destiny he was master.

      Not a word did he speak to me, yet I felt that my silence of tongue and stillness of body was approved of by him. He had said that we would be "out of this before long," so I believed we would; but suddenly my eyes told me that something worse than we had won through was in store for us ahead.

Chapter XXI

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      All this time we'd been struggling up hill, but abruptly we came to the top of the ascent, and had to go sliding down, along the same shelf, which now seemed narrower than before. Looking ahead, it appeared to have been bitten off round the edge here and there, just at the stiffest zigs and zags of the nightmare road. And far down the mountain the way went winding under our eyes, like the loops of a lasso; short, jerky loops, as we came to each new turn, to which the length of our chassis forced us to bow and curtsey on our slippery, sliding skates. Forward the Aigle had to go until her bonnet hung over the precipice, then to be cautiously backed for a foot or two, before she could glide ticklishly down the next steep gradient.

      Involuntarily I shrank back against the cushions, bit my lip, and had to force myself not to catch at the arm of the seat in those giddy seconds when it felt as if we were dropping from sky to earth in a leaky balloon; but if the blood in your veins has been put there by decent ancestors who trail gloriously in a long line behind you, I suppose it's easier for you not to be a coward than it is for people