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

      Not only had each mountain at least one cavern, but every really eligible crag had its ruined castle; and each ruin had its romance, which clung like the perfume of roses to a shattered vase. There were rocks shaped like processions of marching monks following uplifted crucifixes; and farther on, one would have thought that half the animals had scrambled out of the ark to a height where they had petrified before the flood subsided. As we wound through the gorge the landscape became so strange, hewn in such immensity of conception, that it seemed prehistoric. We, in the blue car, were anachronisms, or so I felt until I remembered how, in pre-motoring days, I used to think that owning an automobile must be like having a half-tamed minotaur in the family. As for the Aigle, she was a friendly, not a vicious, monster, and as if to make up for her mistakes of yesterday, she was to-day more like a demi-goddess serving an earthly apprenticeship in fulfilment of a vow than a dragon of any sort. Swinging smoothly round curve after curve, the noble car running free and cooing in sheer joy of fiery life, as she swooped from height to depth, I, too, felt the joy of life as I had hardly ever felt it before. The chauffeur and I did not speak often, but I looked up at him sometimes because of the pleasure I had in seeing and re-seeing the face in which I had come to have perfect confidence; and I fancied from its expression that he felt as I felt.

      So we came to Les Vignes, and lunched together at a table set out of doors, close to the car, that she might not be left alone. We had for food a strange and somewhat evil combination; wild hare and wild boar; but they seemed to suit the landscape somehow, as did the mystical music of the conch-shells, blown by passing boatmen. It was like being waked from a dream of old-time romance, by a rude hand shaking one's shoulder, to hear the voices of Sir Samuel and Lady Turnour, he mildly arguing, she disputing, as usual.

      Poetry fled like a dryad of some classic wood, scared by a motor omnibus; and, though the gorge as far as Le Rozier was magnificent, and the road all the way to Millau beautiful in the sunset, it was no longer our gorge, or our road. That made a difference!

Chapter XXIV

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      There was a telegram from "Bertie" at Millau. The invitation to the château where he was stopping near Clermont-Ferrand, had been asked for and given. I heard all about it, of course, from the conversation between the bride and groom; for Lady Turnour prides herself on discussing things in my presence, as if I were deaf or a piece of furniture. She has the idea that this trick is a habit of the "smart set"; and she would allow herself to be tarred and feathered, in Directoire style, if she could not be smart at smaller cost.

      Nothing was ever more opportune than that telegram, for her ladyship had burnt her frock and chilled her liver in the boat, and though the hotel at Millau was good, she arrived there with the evident intention of making life a burden to Sir Samuel. The news from Bertie changed all that, however; and though the weather was like the breath of icebergs next morning, Lady Turnour was warmed from within. She chatted pleasantly with Sir Samuel about the big luggage which had gone on to Clermont-Ferrand, and asked his advice concerning the becomingness of various dresses. The one unpleasant thing she allowed herself to say, was that "certainly Bertie wasn't doing this for nothing," and that his stepfather might take her word for it, Bertie would be neither slow nor shy in naming his reward. But Sir Samuel only grinned, and appeared rather amused than otherwise at the shrewdness of his wife's insight into the young man's character.

      I was conscious that my jacket hadn't been made for motoring, when I came out into the sharp morning air and took my place in the Aigle. I was inclined to envy my mistress her fur rugs, but to my surprise I saw lying on my seat a Scotch plaid, plaider than any plaid ever made in Scotland.

      "Does that belong to the hotel?" I asked the chauffeur, as he got into the car.

      "It belongs to you," said he. "A present from Millau for a good child."

      "Oh, you mustn't!" I exclaimed.

      "But I have," he returned, calmly. "I'm not going to watch you slowly freezing to death by my side; for it won't be exactly summer to-day. Let me tuck you in prettily."

      I groaned while I obeyed. "I've been an expense to you all the way, because you wouldn't abandon me to the lions, even in the most expensive hotels, where I knew you wouldn't have stayed if it hadn't been for me. And now, this!"

      "It cost only a few francs," he tried to reassure me. "We'll sell it again—afterward, if that will make you happier. But sufficient for the day is the rug thereof—at least, I hope it will be. And don't flaunt it, for if her ladyship sees there's an extra rug of any sort on board she'll be clamouring for it by and by."

      Northward we started, in the teeth of the wind, which made mine chatter until I began to tingle with the rush of ozone, which always goes to my head like champagne. Our road was a mere white thread winding loosely through a sinuous valley, and pulled taut as it rose nearer and nearer to the cold, high level of les Causses, the roof of that gnome-land where we had journeyed together yesterday. From snow-covered billows which should have been sprayed with mountain wild-flowers by now, a fierce blast pounced down on us like a swooping bird of prey. We felt the swift whirr of its wings, which almost took our breath away, and made the Aigle quiver; but like a bull that meets its enemy with lowered horns, the brave car's bonnet seemed to defy the wind and face it squarely. We swept on toward the snow-reaches whence the wind-torrent came. Soon we were on the flat plateau of the Causse, where last year's faded grass was frosted white, and a torn winding-sheet wrapped the limbs of a dead world. There was no beauty in this death, save the wild beauty of desolation, and a grandeur inseparable from heights. Before us grouped the mountains of Auvergne, hoary headed; and looking down we could see the twistings of the road we had travelled, whirling away and away, like the blown tail of a kite trailed over mountain and foothill.

      "The people at Millau told me I should get up to St. Flour all right, in spite of the fall of snow," said the chauffeur, his eyes on the great white waves that piled themselves against a blue-white sky, "but I begin to think there's trouble before us, and I don't know whether I ought to have persisted in bringing you."

      "Persisted!" I echoed, defending him against himself. "Why, do you suppose wild horses would have dragged Lady Turnour in any other direction, now that she's actually invited to be the guest of a marquis in a real live castle?"

      "A railway train could very well have dragged her in the same direction and got her to the castle as soon, if not a good deal sooner than she's likely to get in this car, if we have to fight snow. I proposed this way originally because I wanted you to see the Gorge of the Tarn, and because I thought that you'd like Clermont-Ferrand, and the road there. It was to be your adventure, you know, and I shall feel a brute if I let you in for a worse one than I bargained for. Even this morning it wasn't too late. I could have hinted at horrors, and they would have gone by rail like lambs, taking you with them."

      "Lady Turnour can do nothing like a lamb," I contradicted him. "I should never have forgiven you for sending me away from—the car. Besides, Lady Turnour wants to teuf-teuf up to the château in her sixty-horse-power Aigle, and make an impression on the aristocracy."

      "Well, we must hope for the best now," said he. "But look, the snow's an inch thick by the roadside even at this level, so I don't know what we mayn't be in for, between here and St. Flour, which is much higher—the highest point we shall have to pass in getting to the Château de Roquemartine, a few miles out of Clermont-Ferrand."

      "You think we may get stuck?"

      "It's possible."

      "Well, that would be an adventure. You know I love adventures."

      "But I know the Turnours don't. And if—" He didn't finish his sentence.

      Higher we mounted, until half France seemed to lie spread out before us, and a solitary sign-post with "Paris-Perpignans" suggested unbelievable distances. The Aigle glided up gradients like the side of a somewhat toppling house, and scarcely needed to change speed, so well did she like the rarefied mountain air. I liked it too, though I had