The Secret of the Silver Car Part 21

"The guv'nor?" she repeated.

"The count," he said, "the old toff with the beard."

Trent produced a Woodbine and lighted it luxuriously. He had all the quick nervous gestures of the c.o.c.kney.

"Where did you learn to play golf like that?" she asked, looking at the white speck almost three hundred yards distant.

"Anyone can make a fluky drive," he said, "one drive doesn't make a golfer, Miss. I used to be a caddie at the Royal Surrey Club."

"Then you can carry my clubs," she said. She looked at him with a frown.

"How is it the door is open?"

"Someone must have forgot to shut it," Trent said simply. "I just walked in."

All his excuses to get back to his garage were ineffectual.

"You will understand later," she said imperiously, "that if I order a servant to obey me he must do so. I wish you to teach me to play better golf. I shall pay you."

"I'll be glad to have a little extra money to send the mis'sus," said Trent cheerfully.

"That means you are married, eh?" she said.

"You've 'it it," he smiled.

He misjudged Pauline if he thought this would have any effect upon her.

She was a specialist in husbands, an expert in emotional reactions.

Pauline played a very fair game. She had not been properly taught. But she was strong and lithe and although she had begun the game in order to keep her figure she played it now because she liked it. When she had performed professionally in London and big provincial cities she had seen that efficiency in some sport or another was _de rigueur_ among women of importance and she hankered after the social recognition that unusual skill at sports often brought with it.

"Make another such drive," she commanded after she had driven only a hundred yards. "Not like mine, but like your first."

Trent having committed himself to a term of caddiedom at a great club where caddies have risen to the heights as professionals, he was not compelled to play a bad game. Pauline had never seen such golf and she wors.h.i.+pped bodily skill at games or sports more than any mental attainments. His short approaches amazed her. The skill with which at a hundred yards he could drop on a green and remain there with the back spin on the ball seemed miraculous.

"I shall play every day," she decided, "and you shall tell me how to become a great player."

"What about me and my motor?" he objected, "I came to drive a car and not a golf ball."

"I shall arrange it," she said, "Peter Sissek can drive."

"Not my car," he cried, "I'm not going to have no blooming mucker like him drive my Lion."

Her green eyes were narrowed when she looked at him.

"There are a hundred men who would give all they had for such an opportunity," she said slowly.

"Let 'em," he said quickly, "I'm a chauffeur and mechanic."

At the last hole she made a poor topped drive and the ball landed in a bad lie. It was an awkward stroke and he corrected her stance and even showed her how to grip the club when suddenly he was struck a tremendous blow on the back of the head. He was thrown off his balance but was up like a cat, dazed a little but anxious to see what had hit him. He thought it was a golf ball. It was Count Michael instead. He looked more like Francis the First than ever. His eyes were blazing with anger. He had stolen upon them unaware at a moment when Trent's hand was holding the white hand of Pauline as he tried to explain the grip.

The count was too angry to understand the look that Trent threw at him or to realize how nearly the pseudo-chauffeur lost control of himself.

But Trent pulled himself together, dissembled his wrath, remembered his mission, and even presented a rueful but free from resentment appearance.

"'Ere guv'nor," he cried, "steady on! I 'aven't done anythink."

"It is you I blame," the count said to Pauline. He spoke in German and ignored Alfred Anthony. "Why is it unknown to me you bring my servant to play with you?"

Certainly Pauline had no fear of the magnate.

"Because he has been a professional caddie and plays so well I can learn the game. Since your game is contemptible with whom can I play here?"

"I beat Hentzi every time," stormed the Count.

"Hentzi," she laughed, "he is afraid of you. I am not. This man is useful. I have told him he is to carry my clubs when I play. Do you object to that?"

"By no means," the count said becoming more amiable. "I see no objection; but as he has two arms he can carry mine also. He is a _beau garcon_ Pauline and I do not permit his filthy fingers to touch the hand I kiss." He turned to Trent. "How is it you are here and not at your work?"

"I took a bit of a walk," Trent answered.

"And finding him near the pavilion I told him to carry my clubs,"

Pauline added in English. "What is strange in that?"

Sissek with a Fiat car was waiting by the pavilion. He had driven his master down and took Pauline back as well. He did not understand why the new man was carrying golf clubs. He brightened when the count spoke to him in rapid Croatian.

"I am telling him," the count said, "that there is plenty of work for you to do. He will find it if you cannot. And as Peter is very strong and as short tempered as his lord I bid you be careful."

Trent's temper was not sufficiently under control to keep a sneer from his face.

His grin was superbly insolent. He forgot his c.o.c.kney accent and his acquired vocabulary.

"I'm afraid," he said, "you are not as good a judge of men as you are of women."

"What is this you say?" the count demanded frowning.

"I mean that if your fool-faced Peter there can make me do anything against my will he shall have _my_ salary as well as his own. You came behind me when I wasn't looking and hit me. I can't resent that--yet, but warn him if he tries anything on me like that I'll--" He paused conscious of having said too much and aware that Pauline was gazing at him with vivid interest. "I'll make him sorry." Trent felt it was a weak ending.

"He is funny, this new chauffeur from London is he not Pauline?"

But Pauline had a mischievous idea. She spoke to Peter Sissek, that powerful and jealous servant, and he flashed a look of hatred at Trent.

He thoroughly believed that the new man had indeed made the insulting remarks Pauline ascribed to him.

"Michael," said Pauline caressingly, "let us see what this bold man would do if Peter threatened him. We will not let Peter hurt him but it will be a lesson." Pauline knew men and she saw in Trent one who could not easily be forced to do anything.

Poor Peter Sissek urged by his master to avenge himself upon this hated alien rushed to his fate. In a way Trent was sorry. He had no real grievance against the man. But Peter was immensely strong and spurred on by a lively hatred. It was his idea to get his long arms about the slenderer man and throw him to the ground and there beat his sneering face in. He was stopped in his rush by a stinging left jab which caught him square on an eye. While he stood still in amazement another blow fell, this time on his nose.

The big man paused in angry amazement that one built so much more slenderly than he could hit with this terrific force. Pauline leaned forward her lips parted and the red flush of excitement victor over art's rouge. She was a woman of violent loves and hates and had urged many a love sick swain into unequal contest for amus.e.m.e.nt's sake.

Although Trent had attracted her she was not sure that she did not want to see Sissek punish him. He had paid as little attention to her charms as though he thought she was old and ugly.

As she looked at the foreigner she noted that his face had changed. He looked keen, hawklike, dangerous. It would have been wiser for Anthony Trent had he allowed Peter Sissek to triumph.