



Produced by Al Haines









[Illustration: Cover art]





THE MAN WHO

DROVE THE CAR


BY

MAX PEMBERTON



AUTHOR OF

"THE GIRL WITH THE RED HAIR"

"THE IRON PIRATE" ETC.




LONDON

EVELEIGH NASH

FAWSIDE HOUSE

1910




Printed by BALLANTYNE & Co. LIMITED

Tavistock Street, Coven Garden, London




CONTENTS

   I. THE ROOM IN BLACK
  II. THE SILVER WEDDING
 III. IN ACCOUNT WITH DOLLY ST. JOHN
  IV. THE LADY WHO LOOKED ON
   V. THE BASKET IN THE BOUNDARY ROAD
  VI. THE COUNTESS




I

THE ROOM IN BLACK

They say that every man should have a master, but, for my part, I
prefer a mistress.  Give me a nice young woman with plenty of money in
her pocket, and a bit of taste for seeing life, and I'll leave you all
the prying "amatoors" that ever sniffed about a gear-box without
knowing what was inside that same.

I have driven plenty of pretty girls in my life; but I don't know that
the prettiest wasn't Fauny Dartel, of the Apollo.  This story isn't
about her--except in a way--so it doesn't much matter; but when I first
knew Fauny she was getting thirty bob a week in "The Boys of Boulogne,"
and, as she paid me three pound ten every Saturday, and the car cost
her some four hundred per annum to run, she must have been of a saving
disposition.  Certainly a better mistress no man wants--not Lal
Britten, which is yours truly.  I drove her for five months, and never
had a word with her.  Then a man, who said he was a bailiff, came and
took her car away, and there was no money for me on the Saturday.  So I
suppose she married into the peerage.

My story isn't about Fauny Dartel, though it's got to do with her.
It's about a man who didn't know who he was--at least, he said so--and
couldn't tell you why he did it.  We picked him up outside the Carlton
Hotel, Fauny and me,[1] three nights before "The Boys of Boulogne" went
into the country, and "The Girls" from some other shop took their
place.  She was going to sup with her brother, I remember--astonishing
how many brothers she had, too--and I was to return to the mews off
Lancaster Gate, when, just as I had set her down and was about to drive
away, up comes a jolly-looking man in a fine fur coat and an opera hat,
and asks me if I was a taxi.   Lord, how I stared at him!

"Taxi yourself," says I, "and what asylum have you escaped out of?"

"Oh, come, come," says he, "don't be huffy.  I only wanted to go as far
as Portman Square."

"Then call a furniture van," says I, "and perhaps they'll get you
aboard."

My dander was up, I tell you, for I was on the box of as pretty a
Daimler landaulette as ever came out of Coventry, and if there's
anything I never want to be, it's the driver of a pillar-box with a
flag in his left ear.  No doubt I should have said much more to the
gentleman, when what do you think happens--why, Fauny herself comes up
and tells me to take him.

"I'm sure we should like some one to do the same for us if no taxis
were about," says she very sweetly; "please take the gentleman,
Britten, and then you can go home."

Well, I sat there as amazed a man as any in the Haymarket.  It's true
there weren't any taxis on the rank at the minute; but he could have
got one by walking a hundred yards along Trafalgar Square, and she must
have known it as well as he did.  All the same, she smiled sweetly at
him and he at her--and then, with a tremendous sweep of his hat, he
makes a gallant speech to her.

"I am under a thousand obligations," says he; "really, I couldn't
intrude."

"Oh, get in and go off," says she, almost pushing him.  "I shall lose
my supper if you don't."

He obeyed her immediately, and away we went.  You will remember that
his talk had been of a house in Portman Square; but no sooner had I
turned the corner by the Criterion than he began speaking through the
tube, and telling me to go