Ten

Adam and Miss Runcible and Miles and Archie Schwert went up to the motor races in Archie Schwert’s car. It was a long and cold drive. Miss Runcible wore trousers and Miles touched up his eyelashes in the dining room of the hotel where they stopped for luncheon. So they were asked to leave. At the next hotel they made Miss Runcible stay outside, and brought her cold lamb and pickles in the car. Archie thought it would be nice to have champagne, and worried the wine waiter about dates (a subject which had always been repugnant to him). They spent a long time over luncheon because it was warm there, and they drank Kümmel over the fire until Miss Runcible came in very angrily to fetch them out.

Then Archie said he was too sleepy to drive any more, so Adam changed places with him and lost the way, and they traveled miles in the wrong direction down a limitless bypass road.

And then it began to be dark and the rain got worse. They stopped for dinner at another hotel, where everyone giggled at Miss Runcible’s trousers in a dining room hung with copper warming pans.

Presently they came to the town where the race was to be run. They drove to the hotel where the dirt-track racer was staying. It was built in the Gothic style of 1860, large, dark and called the Imperial.

They had wired him to book them rooms, but “Bless you,” said the woman at the counter marked “Reception,” “all our rooms have been booked for the last six months. I couldn’t fit you in anywhere, not if you was the Speed Kings themselves, I couldn’t. I don’t suppose you’ll find anything in the town tonight. You might try at the Station Hotel. That’s your only chance.”

At the Station Hotel they made Miss Runcible wait outside, but with no better success.

“I might put one of you on the sofa in the bar parlor, there’s only a married couple in there at present and two little boys, or if you didn’t mind sitting up all night, there’s always the palm lounge.” As for a bed, that was out of the question. They might try at the “Royal George,” but she doubted very much whether they’d like that even if there was room, which she was pretty sure there was not.

Then Miss Runcible thought that she remembered that there were some friends of her father who lived quite near, so she found out their telephone number and rang them up, but they said no, they were sorry, but they had a completely full house and practically no servants, and that as far as they knew they had never heard of Lord Chasm. So that was no good.

Then they went to several more hotels, sinking through the various gradations of Old Established Family and Commercial, plain Commercial, High Class Board Residence pension terms, Working Girls’ Hostel, plain Pub and Clean Beds: Gentlemen Only. All were full. At last, by the edge of a canal, they came to the “Royal George.” The landlady stood at the door and rounded off an argument with an elderly little man in a bowler hat.

“First ’e takes off ’is boots in the saloon bar,” she said, enlisting the sympathy of her new audience, “which is not the action of a gentleman.”

“They was wet,” said the little man, “wet as ’ell.”

“Well, and who wants your wet boots on the counter, I should like to know. Then, if you please, he calls me a conspiring woman because I tells him to stop and put them on before he goes ’ome.”

“Want to go ’ome,” said the little man. “ ’Ome to my wife and kids. Trying to keep a man from ’is wife.”

“No one wants to keep you from your wife, you old silly. All I says is for Gawd’s sake put on your boots before you go ’ome. What’ll your wife think of you comin’ ’ome without boots.”

“She won’t mind ’ow I come ’ome. Why, bless you, I ain’t been ’ome at all for five years. It’s ’ard to be separated from a wife and kids by a conspiring woman trying to make yer put on yer boots.”

“My dear, she’s quite right, you know,” said Miss Runcible. “You’d far better put on your boots.”

“There, ’ear what the lady says. Lady says you’ve to put on your boots.”

The little man took his boots from the landlady, looked at Miss Runcible with a searching glance, and threw them into the canal. “Lady,” he said with feeling. “Trousers,” and then he paddled off in his socks into the darkness.

“There ain’t no ’arm in ’im really,” said the landlady, “only he do get a bit wild when he’s ’ad the drink. Wasting good boots like that… I expect he’ll spend the night in the lockup.”

“Won’t he get back to his wife, poor sweet?”

“Lor’ bless you, no. She lives in London.”

At this stage Archie Schwert, whose humanitarian interests were narrower than Miss Runcible’s, lost interest in the discussion.

“The thing we want to know is, can you let us have beds for the night?”

The landlady looked at him suspiciously.

“Bed or beds?”

“Beds.”

“Might do.” She looked from the car to Miss Runcible’s trousers and back to the car again, weighing them against each other. “Cost you a quid each,” she said at last.

“Can you find room for us all?”

“Well,” she said, “which of you’s with the young lady?”

“I’m afraid I’m all alone,” said Miss Runcible. “Isn’t it too shaming?”

“Never you mind, dearie, luck’ll turn one day. Well, now, how can we all fit in? There’s one room empty. I can sleep with our Sarah, and that leaves a bed for the gentlemen—then if the young lady wouldn’t mind coming in with me and Sarah…”

“If you don’t think it rude, I think I’d sooner have the empty bed,” said Miss Runcible, rather faintly. “You see,” she added, with tact, “I snore so terribly.”

“Bless you, so does our Sarah. We don’t mind… still, if you’d rather…”

“Really, I think I should,” said Miss Runcible.

“Well then, I could put Mr. Titchcock on the floor, couldn’t I?”

“Yes,” said Miles, “just you put Mr. Titchcock on the floor.”

“And if the other gentleman don’t mind going on the landing… Well, we’ll manage somehow, see if we don’t.”

So they all drank some gin together in the back parlor and they woke Mr. Titchcock up and made him help with the luggage and they gave him some gin, too, and he said it was all the same to him whether he slept on the floor or in bed, and he was very pleased to be of any service to anyone and didn’t mind if he did have another drop just as a nightcap, as they might say; and at last they all went to bed, very tired, but fairly contented, and oh, how they were bitten by bugs all that night.

Adam had secured one of the bedrooms. He awoke early to find rain beating on the window. He looked out and saw a gray sky, some kind of factory and the canal from whose shallow waters rose little islands of scrap iron and bottles; a derelict perambulator lay partially submerged under the opposite bank. In his room stood a chest of drawers full of horrible fragments of stuff, a wash-hand stand with a highly colored basin, an empty jug and an old toothbrush. There was also a rotund female bust covered in shiny red material, and chopped off short, as in primitive martyrdoms, at neck, waist and elbows; a thing known as a dressmaker’s “dummy” (there had been one of these in Adam’s home which they used to call “Jemima”—one day he stabbed “Jemima” with a chisel and scattered stuffing over the nursery floor and was punished. A more enlightened age would have seen a complex in this action and worried accordingly. Anyway he was made to sweep up all the stuffing himself).

Adam was very thirsty, but there was a light green moss in the bottom of the water bottle that repelled him. He got into bed again and found someone’s handkerchief (presumably Mr. Titchcock’s) under the pillow.

He woke again a little later to find Miss Runcible dressed in pajamas and a fur coat sitting on his bed.

“Darling,” she said, “there’s no looking glass in my room and no bath anywhere, and I trod on someone cold and soft asleep in the passage, and I’ve been awake all night killing bugs with drops of face lotion, and everything smells, and I feel so low I could die.”

“For heaven’s sake let’s go away,” said Adam.

So they woke Miles and Archie Schwert, and ten minutes later they all stole out of the “Royal George” carrying their suitcases.

“I wonder, do you think we ought to leave some money?” asked Adam, but the others all said no.

“Well, perhaps we ought to pay for the gin,” said Miss Runcible.

So they left five shillings on the bar and drove away to the “Imperial.”

It was still very early, but everyone seemed to be awake, running in and out of the lifts carrying crash helmets and overalls. Miles’ friend, they were told, had been out before dawn, presumably at his garage. Adam met some reporters whom he used to see about the Excess office. They told him that it was anyone’s race, and that the place to see the fun was Headlong Corner, where there had been three deaths the year before, and it was worse this year, because they’d been putting down wet tar. It was nothing more or less than a death trap, the reporters said. Then they went away to interview some more drivers. All teams were confident of victory, they said.

Meanwhile Miss Runcible discovered an empty bathroom, and came down half an hour later all painted up and wearing a skirt and feeling quite herself again and ready for anything. So they went in to breakfast.

The dining room was very full indeed. There were Speed Kings of all nationalities, unimposing men mostly with small mustaches and apprehensive eyes; they were reading the forecasts in the morning papers and eating what might (and in some cases did) prove to be their last meal on earth. There were a great number of journalists making the best of an “out-of-town” job; there were a troop of nondescript “fans,” knowledgeable young men with bright jumpers tucked inside their belted trousers, old public-school ties, check tweeds, loose mouths and scarcely discernible Cockney accents; there were R.A.C. officials and A.A. officials, and the representatives of oil firms and tire manufacturers. There was one disconsolate family who had come to the town for the christening of a niece. (No one had warned them that there was a motor race on; their hotel bill was a shock.)

“Very better-making,” said Miss Runcible with approval as she ate her haddock.

Scraps of highly technical conversation rose on all sides of them.

“… Changed the whole engine over after they’d been scrutineered. Anyone else would have been disqualified…”

“… just cruising round at fifty…”

“… stung by a bee just as he was taking the corner, missed the tree by inches and landed up in the Town Hall. There was a Riley coming up behind, spun round twice, climbed the bank, turned right over and caught fire…”

“… local overheating at the valve heads. It’s no sense putting a supercharger in that engine at all…”

“… Headlong Corner’s jam. All you want to do is to brake right down to forty or forty-five at the white cottage, then rev up opposite the pub and get straight away in second on the near side of the road. A child could do it. It’s the double bend just after the railway bridge where you’ll get the funny stuff.”

“… kept flagging him down from the pits. I tell you that bunch don’t want him to win.”

“… She wouldn’t tell me her name, but she said she’d meet me at the same place tonight and gave me a sprig of white heather for the car. I lost it, like a fool. She said she’d look out for it too…”

“… Only offers a twenty pound bonus this year…”

“… lapped at seventy-five…”

“… Burst his gasket and blew out his cylinder heads…”

“… Broke both arms and cracked his skull in two places…”

“… Tailwag…”

“… Speed-wobble…”

“… Merc…”

“… Mag…”

“… crash…”

When they finished breakfast Miss Runcible and Adam and Archie Schwert and Miles went to the garage to look for their Speed King. They found him hard at work listening to his engine. A corner of the garage had been roped off and the floor strewn with sand as though for a boxing match.

Outside this ring clustered a group of predatory little boys with autograph albums and leaking fountain pens, and inside, surrounded by attendants, stood the essential parts of a motor car. The engine was running and the whole machine shook with fruitless exertion. Clouds of dark smoke came from it, and a shattering roar which reverberated from concrete floor and corrugated iron roof into every corner of the building so that speech and thought became insupportable and all the senses were numbed. At frequent intervals this high and heartbreaking note was varied by sharp detonations, and it was these apparently which were causing anxiety, for at each report Miles’ friend, who clearly could not have been unduly sensitive to noise, gave a little wince and looked significantly at his head mechanic.

Apart from the obvious imperfection of its sound, the car gave the impression to an uninstructed observer of being singularly unfinished. In fact, it was obviously still under construction. It had only three wheels; the fourth being in the hands of a young man in overalls, who, in the intervals of tossing back from his eyes a curtain of yellow hair, was beating it with a hammer. It also had no seats, and another mechanic was screwing down slabs of lead ballast in the place where one would have expected to find them. It had no bonnet; that was in the hands of a sign painter, who was drawing a black number 13 in a white circle. There was a similar number on the back, and a mechanic was engaged in fixing another number board over one of the headlights. There was a mechanic, too, making a windscreen of wire gauze, and a mechanic lying flat doing something to the back axle with a tin of grate polish and a rag. Two more mechanics were helping Miles’ friend to listen to the bangs. “As if we couldn’t have heard them from Berkeley Square,” said Miss Runcible.

(The truth is that motor cars offer a very happy illustration of the metaphysical distinction between “being” and “becoming.” Some cars, mere vehicles with no purpose above bare locomotion, mechanical drudges such as Lady Metroland’s Hispano Suiza, or Mrs. Mouse’s Rolls-Royce, or Lady Circumference’s 1912 Daimler, or the “general reader’s” Austin Seven, these have definite “being” just as much as their occupants. They are bought all screwed up and numbered and painted, and there they stay through various declensions of ownership, brightened now and then with a lick of paint or temporarily rejuvenated by the addition of some minor organ, but still maintaining their essential identity to the scrap heap.

Not so the real cars, that become masters of men; those vital creations of metal who exist solely for their own propulsion through space, for whom their drivers, clinging precariously at the steering wheel, are as important as his stenographer to a stockbroker. These are in perpetual flux; a vortex of combining and disintegrating units; like the confluence of traffic at some spot where many roads meet, streams of mechanism come together, mingle and separate again.)

Miles’ friend, even had it been possible in the uproar, seemed indisposed to talk. He waved abstractedly and went on with his listening. Presently he came across and shouted:

“Sorry I can’t spare a moment, I’ll see you in the pits. I’ve got you some brassards.”

“My dear, what can that be?”

He handed them each a strip of white linen, terminating in tape.

“For your arms,” he shouted. “You can’t get into the pits without them.”

“My dear, what bliss! Fancy their having pits.”

Then they tied on their brassards. Miss Runcible’s said, “SPARE DRIVER”; Adam’s, “DEPOT STAFF”; Miles’, “SPARE MECHANIC”; and Archie’s, “OWNER’S REPRESENTATIVE.”

Up till now the little boys round the rope had been skeptical of the importance of Miss Runcible and her friends, but as soon as they saw these badges of rank they pressed forward with their autograph books. Archie signed them all with the utmost complaisance, and even drew a slightly unsuitable picture in one of them. Then they drove away in Archie’s car.

The race was not due to start until noon, but any indecision which they may have felt about the employment of the next few hours was settled for them by the local police, who were engaged in directing all traffic, irrespective of its particular inclinations, on the road to the course. No pains had been spared about this point of organization; several days before, the Chief Constable had issued a little route map which was to be memorized by all constables on point duty, and so well had they learned their lesson that from early that morning until late in the afternoon no vehicle approaching the town from any direction escaped being drawn into that broad circuit marked by the arrows and dotted line A–B which led to the temporary car park behind the Grand Stand. (Many doctors, thus diverted, spent an enjoyable day without apparent prejudice to their patients.)

The advance of the spectators had already assumed the form of a slow and unbroken stream. Some came on foot from the railway station, carrying sandwiches and camp stools; some on tandem bicycles; some in “runabouts” or motor cycle sidecar combinations, but most were in modestly priced motor cars. Their clothes and demeanor proclaimed them as belonging to the middle rank; a few brought portable wireless sets with them and other evidence of gaiety, but the general air of the procession was one of sobriety and purpose. This was no Derby day holiday-making; they had not snatched a day from the office to squander it among gypsies and roundabouts and thimble-and-pea men. They were there for the race. As they crawled along in bottom gear in a fog of exhaust gas, they discussed the technicalities of motor car design and the possibilities of bloodshed, and studied their maps of the course to pick out the most dangerous corners.

The detour planned by the Chief Constable was a long one, lined with bungalows and converted railway carriages. Banners floated over it between the telegraph posts, mostly advertising the Morning Despatch, which was organizing the race and paying for the victor’s trophy—a silver gilt figure of odious design, symbolizing Fame embracing Speed. (This at the moment was under careful guard in the steward’s room, for the year before it had been stolen on the eve of the race by the official timekeeper, who pawned it for a ridiculously small sum in Manchester, and was subsequently deprived of his position and sent to jail.) Other advertisements proclaimed the superiorities of various sorts of petrol and sparking plugs, while some said “£100 FOR LOSS OF LIMB. INSURE TODAY.” There was also an elderly man walking among the motor cars with a blue and white banner inscribed, “WITHOUT SHEDDING OF BLOOD IS NO REMISSION OF SIN,” while a smartly dressed young man was doing a brisk trade in bogus tickets for the Grand Stand.

Adam sat in the back of the car with Miles, who was clearly put out about his friend’s lack of cordiality. “What I can’t make out,” he said, “is why we came to this beastly place at all. I suppose I ought to be thinking of something to write for the Excess. I know this is just going to be the most dreary day we’ve ever spent.”

Adam felt inclined to agree. Suddenly he became aware that someone was trying to attract his attention.

“There’s an awful man shouting ‘Hi’ at you,” said Miles. “My dear, your friends.”

Adam turned and saw not three yards away, separated from him by a young woman riding a push bicycle in khaki shorts, her companion, who bore a knapsack on his shoulders, and a small boy selling programs, the long-sought figure of the drunk Major. He looked sober enough this morning, dressed in a bowler hat and Burberry, and he was waving frantically to Adam from the dicky of a coupe car.

“Hi!” cried the drunk Major. “Hi! I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“I’ve been looking for you,” shouted Adam. “I want some money.”

“Can’t hear—what do you want?”

“Money.”

“It’s no good—these infernal things make too much noise. What’s your name? Lottie had forgotten.”

“Adam Symes.”

“Can’t hear.”

The line of traffic, creeping forward yard by yard, had at last reached the point B on the Chief Constable’s map, where the dotted lines diverged. A policeman stood at the crossing directing the cars right and left, some to the parking place behind the Grand Stand, others to the mound above the pits. Archie turned off to the left. The drunk Major’s car accelerated and swept away to the right.

“I must know your name,” he cried. All the drivers seemed to choose this moment to sound their horns; the woman cyclist at Adam’s elbow rang her bell; the male cyclist tooted a little horn like a Paris taxi, and the program boy yelled in his ear, “Official program—map of the course—all the drivers.”

“Adam Symes,” he shouted desperately, but the Major threw up his hands in despair and he disappeared in the crowd.

“The way you pick people up…” said Miles, startled into admiration.

“The pits” turned out to be a line of booths, built of wood and corrugated iron immediately opposite the Grand Stand.

Many of the cars had already arrived and stood at their “pits,” surrounded by a knot of mechanics and spectators; they seemed to be already under repair. Busy officials hurried up and down, making entries in their lists. Over their heads a vast loud speaker was relaying the music of a military band.

The Grand Stand was still fairly empty, but the rest of the course was already lined with people. It stretched up and down hill for a circle of thirteen or fourteen miles, and those who were fortunate enough to own cottages or public houses at the more dangerous corners had covered their roofs with unstable wooden forms, and were selling tickets like very expensive hot cakes. A grass-covered hill rose up sharply behind the pits. On this had been erected a hoarding where a troop of Boy Scouts were preparing to score the laps, passing the time contentedly with ginger beer, toffee, and rough-and-tumble fights. Behind the hoarding was a barbed-wire fence, and behind that again a crowd of spectators and several refreshment tents. A wooden bridge, advertising the Morning Despatch, had been built on the road. At various points officials might be seen attempting to understand each other over a field telephone. Sometimes the band would stop and a voice would announce, “Will Mr. So-and-So kindly report at once to the timekeeper’s office”; then the band would go on.

Miss Runcible and her party found their way to the pit numbered 13 and sat on the matchboard counter smoking and signing autograph books. An official bore down on them.

“No smoking in the pits, please.”

“My dear, I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t know.”

There were six open churns behind Miss Runcible, four containing petrol and two water. She threw her cigarette over her shoulder, and by a beneficent attention of Providence which was quite rare in her career it fell into the water. Had it fallen into the petrol it would probably have been all up with Miss Runcible.

Presently No. 13 appeared. Miles’ friend and his mechanic, wearing overalls, crash helmets, and goggles, jumped out, opened the bonnet and began to reconstruct it again.

“They didn’t ought to have a No. 13 at all,” said the mechanic. “It isn’t fair.”

Miss Runcible lit another cigarette.

“No smoking in the pits, please,” said the official.

“My dear, how awful of me. I quite forgot.”

(This time it fell in the mechanic’s luncheon basket and lay smoldering quietly on a leg of chicken until it had burned itself out.)

Miles’ friend began filling up his petrol tank with the help of a very large funnel.

“Listen,” he said. “You’re not allowed to hand me anything direct, but if Edwards holds up his left hand as we come past the pits, that means we shall be stopping next lap for petrol. So what you’ve got to do is to fill up a couple of cans and put them on the shelf with the funnel for Edwards to take. If Edwards holds up his right hand…” elaborate instructions followed. “You’re in charge of the depot,” he said to Archie. “D’you think you’ve got all the signals clear? The race may depend on them, remember.”

“What does it mean if I wave the blue flag?”

“That you want me to stop.”

“Why should I want you to stop?”

“Well, you might see something wrong—leaking tank or anything like that, or the officials might want the number plate cleaned.”

“I think perhaps I won’t do anything much about the blue flag. It seems rather too bogus for me.”

Miss Runcible lit another cigarette.

“Will you kindly leave the pits if you wish to smoke?” said the official.

“What a damned rude man,” said Miss Runcible. “Let’s go up to that divine tent and get a drink.”

They climbed the hill past the Boy Scouts, found a gate in the wire fence, and eventually reached the refreshment tent. Here an atmosphere of greater geniality prevailed. A profusion of men in plus-fours were having “quick ones” before the start. There was no nonsense about not smoking. There was a middle-aged woman sitting on the grass with a bottle of stout and a baby.

“Home from home,” said Miss Runcible.

Suddenly the military band stopped and a voice said, “Five minutes to twelve. All drivers and mechanics on the other side of the track, please.”

There was a hush all over the course, and the refreshment tent began to empty quickly.

“Darling, we shall miss the start.”

“Still, a drink would be nice.”

So they went into the tent.

“Four whiskies, please,” said Archie Schwert.

“You’ll miss the start,” said the barmaid.

“What a pig that man was,” said Miss Runcible. “Even if we weren’t supposed to smoke, he might at least have asked us politely.”

“My dear, it was only you.”

“Well, I think that made it worse.”

“Lor’, Miss,” said the barmaid. “You surely ain’t going to miss the start?”

“It’s the one thing I want to see more than anything… my dear, I believe they’re off already.”

The sudden roar of sixty high-power engines rose from below. “They have started… how too shaming.” They went to the door of the tent. Part of the road was visible over the heads of the spectators, and they caught a glimpse of the cars running all jammed together like pigs being driven through a gate; one by one they shook themselves free and disappeared round the bend with a high shriek of acceleration.

“They’ll be round again in quarter of an hour,” said Archie. “Let’s have another drink.”

“Who was ahead?” asked the barmaid anxiously.

“I couldn’t see for certain,” said Miss Runcible, “but I’m fairly sure it was No. 13.”

“My!”

The refreshment tent soon began to fill up again. The general opinion seemed to be that it was going to be a close race between No. 13 and No. 28, a red Omega car, driven by Marino, the Italian “ace.”

“Dirtiest driver I ever seen,” said one man with relish.

“Why, over at Belfast ’e was just tipping ’em all into the ditches, just like winking.”

“There’s one thing you can be sure of. They won’t both finish.”

“It’s sheer murder the way that Marino drives—a fair treat to see ’im.”

“He’s a one all right—a real artist and no mistake about it.”

Adam and Miss Runcible and Archie and Miles went back to their pit.

“After all,” said Miss Runcible, “the poor sweet may be wanting all sorts of things and signaling away like mad, and no one there to pay any attention to him—so discouraging.”

By this time the cars were fairly evenly spread out over the course. They flashed by intermittently with dazzling speed and a shriek; one or two drew into their pits and the drivers leaped out, trembling like leaves, to tinker with the works. One had already come to grief—a large German whose tire had burst—punctured, some said, by a hireling of Marino’s. It had left the road and shot up a tree like a cat chased by a dog. Two little American cars had failed to start; their team worked desperately at them amid derisive comments from the crowd. Suddenly two cars appeared coming down the straight, running abreast within two feet of each other.

“It’s No. 13,” cried Miss Runcible, really excited at last. “And there’s that Italian devil just beside it. Come on, thirteen! Come on!” she cried, dancing in the pit and waving a flag she found at hand. “Come on. Oh! Well done, thirteen.”

The cars were gone in a flash and succeeded by others.

“Agatha, darling, you shouldn’t have waved the blue flag.”

“My dear, how awful. Why not?”

“Well, that means that he’s to stop next lap.”

“Good God. Did I wave a blue flag?”

“My dear, you know you did.”

“How shaming. What am I to say to him?”

“Let’s all go away before he comes back.”

“D’you know, I think we’d better. He might be furious, mightn’t he? Let’s go to the tent and have another drink—don’t you think, or don’t you?”

So No. 13 pit was again deserted.

“What did I say?” said the mechanic. “The moment I heard we’d drawn this blinkin’ number I knew we was in for trouble.”

The first person they saw when they reached the refreshment tent was the drunk Major.

“Your boy friend again,” said Miles.

“Well, there you are,” said the Major. “D’you know I’ve been chasing you all over London. What have you been doing with yourself all this time?”

“I’ve been staying at Lottie’s.”

“Well, she said she’d never heard of you. You see, I don’t mind admitting I’d had a few too many that night, and to tell you the truth I woke up with things all rather a blur. Well then I found a thousand pounds in my pocket, and it all came back to me. There’d been a cove at Lottie’s who gave me a thousand pounds to put on Indian Runner. Well, as far as I knew, Indian Runner was no good. I didn’t want to lose your money for you, but the devil of it was I didn’t know you from Adam.” (“I think that’s a perfect joke,” said Miss Runcible.) “And apparently Lottie didn’t either. You’d have thought it was easy enough to trace the sort of chap who deals out thousands of pounds to total strangers, but I couldn’t find one fingerprint.”

“Do you mean,” said Adam, a sudden delirious hope rising in his heart, “that you’ve still got my thousand?”

“Not so fast,” said the Major. “I’m spinning this yarn. Well, on the day of the race I didn’t know what to do. One half of me said, keep the thousand. The chap’s bound to turn up some time, and it’s his business to do his own punting—the other half said, put it on the favorite for him and give him a run for his money.”

“So you put it on the favorite?” Adam’s heart felt like lead again.

“No, I didn’t. In the end I said, well, the young chap must be frightfully rich. If he likes to throw away his money, it’s none of my business, so I planked it all on Indian Runner for you.”

“You mean…”

“I mean I’ve got the nice little packet of thirty-five thou. waiting until you condescend to call for it.”

“Good heavens… look here, have a drink, won’t you?”

“That’s a thing I never refuse.”

“Archie, lend me some money until I get this fortune.”

“How much?”

“Enough to buy five bottles of champagne.”

“Yes, if you can get them.”

The barmaid had a case of champagne at the back of the tent. (“People often feel queer through watching the cars go by so fast—ladies especially,” she explained.) So they took a bottle each and sat on the side of the hill and drank to Adam’s prosperity.

“Hullo, everybody,” said the loud speaker. “Car No. 28, the Italian Omega, driven by Captain Marino, has just completed the course in twelve minutes one second, lapping at an average speed of 78.3 miles per hour. This is the fastest time yet recorded.”

A burst of applause greeted this announcement, but Adam said, “I’ve rather lost interest in this race.”

“Look here, old boy,” the Major said when they were well settled down, “I’m rather in a hole. Makes me feel an awful ass, saying so, but the truth is I got my notecase pinched in the crowd. Of course, I’ve got plenty of small change to see me back to the hotel and they’ll take a check of mine there, naturally, but the fact is I was keen to make a few bets with some chaps I hardly know. I wonder, old boy, could you possibly lend me a fiver? I can give it to you at the same time as I hand over the thirty-five thousand.”

“Why, of course,” said Adam. “Archie, lend me a fiver, can you?”

“Awfully good of you,” said the Major, tucking the notes into his hip pocket. “Would it be all the same if you made it a tenner while we’re about it?”

“I’m sorry,” said Archie, with a touch of coldness. “I’ve only just got enough to get home with.”

“That’s all right, old boy, I understand. Not another word… Well, here’s to us all.”

“I was on the course at the November Handicap,” said Adam. “I thought I saw you.”

“It would have saved a lot of fuss if we’d met, wouldn’t it? Still, all’s well that ends well.”

“What an angelic man your Major is,” said Miss Runcible.

When they had finished their champagne, the Major—now indisputably drunk—rose to go.

“Look here, old boy,” he said. “I must be toddling along now. Got to see some chaps. Thanks no end for the binge. So jolly having met you all again. Bye-bye, little lady.”

“When shall we meet again?” said Adam.

“Any time, old boy. Tickled to death to see you any time you care to drop in. Always a pew and a drink for old friends. So long everybody.”

“But couldn’t I come and see you soon? About the money, you know.”

“Sooner the better, old boy. Though I don’t know what you mean about money.”

“My thirty-five thousand.”

“Why, yes, to be sure. Fancy my forgetting that. I tell you what. You roll along tonight to the Imperial and I’ll give it to you then. Jolly glad to get it off my chest. Seven o’clock at the American bar—or a little before.”

“Let’s go back and look at the motor cars,” said Archie.

They went down the hill feeling buoyant and detached (as one should if one drinks a great deal before luncheon).

When they reached the pits they decided they were hungry. It seemed too far to climb up to the dining tent, so they ate as much of the mechanic’s lunch as Miss Runcible’s cigarette had spared.

Then a mishap happened to No. 13. It drew into the side uncertainly, with the mechanic holding the steering wheel. A spanner, he told them, thrown from Marino’s car as they were passing him under the railway bridge, had hit Miles’ friend on the shoulder. The mechanic helped him get out, and supported him to the Red Cross tent. “May as well scratch,” he said. “He won’t be good for anything more this afternoon. It’s asking for trouble having a No. 13.” Miles went to help his friend, leaving Miss Runcible and Adam and Archie staring rather stupidly at their motor car. Archie hiccoughed slightly as he ate the mechanic’s apple.

Soon an official appeared.

“What happened here?” he said.

“Driver’s just been murdered,” said Archie. “Spanner under the railway bridge. Marino.”

“Well, are you going to scratch? Who’s spare driver?”

“I don’t know. Do you, Adam? I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if they hadn’t murdered the spare driver, too.”

“I’m spare driver,” said Miss Runcible. “It’s on my arm.”

“She’s spare driver. Look, it’s on her arm.”

“Well, do you want to scratch?”

“Don’t you scratch, Agatha.”

“No, I don’t want to scratch.”

“All right. What’s your name?”

“Agatha. I’m the spare driver. It’s on my arm.”

“I can see it is—all right, start off as soon as you like.”

“Agatha,” repeated Miss Runcible firmly as she climbed into the car. “It’s on my arm.”

“I say, Agatha,” said Adam. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“It’s on my arm,” said Miss Runcible severely.

“I mean, are you quite certain it’s absolutely safe?”

‘Not absolutely safe, Adam. Not if they throw spanners. But I’ll go quite slowly at first until I’m used to it. Just you see. Coming too?”

“I’ll stay and wave the flag,” said Adam.

“That’s right. Good-bye… goodness, how too stiff-scaring…”

The car shot out into the middle of the road, missed a collision by a foot, swung round and disappeared with a roar up the road.

“I say, Archie, is it all right being tight in a car, if it’s on a race course? They won’t run her in or anything?”

“No, no, that’s all right. All tight on the race course.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.” “All of them?”

“Absolutely everyone—tight as houses.”

“That’s all right then. Let’s go and have a drink.”

So they went up the hill again, through the Boy Scouts, to the refreshment tent.

It was not long before Miss Runcible was in the news.

“Hullo, everybody,” said the loud speaker. “No. 13, the English Plunket-Bowse, driven by Miss Agatha, came into collision at Headlong Corner with No. 28, the Italian Omega car, driven by Captain Marino. No. 13 righted itself and continued on the course. No. 28 overturned and has retired from the race.”

“Well done, Agatha,” said Archie.

A few minutes later:

“Hullo, everybody. No. 13, the English Plunket-Bowse, driven by Miss Agatha, has just completed the course in nine minutes forty-one seconds. This constitutes a record for the course.”

Patriotic cheers broke out on all sides, and Miss Runcible’s health was widely drunk in the refreshment tent.

A few minutes later:

“Hullo, everybody; I have to contradict the announcement recently made that No. 13, the English Plunket-Bowse, driven by Miss Agatha, had established a record for the course. The stewards have now reported that No. 13 left the road just after the level crossing and cut across country for five miles, rejoining the track at the Red Lion corner. The lap has therefore been disallowed by the judges.”

A few minutes later:

“Hullo, everybody; No. 13, the English Plunket-Bowse car, driven by Miss Agatha, has retired from the race. It disappeared from the course some time ago, turning left instead of right at Church Corner, and was last seen proceeding south on the byroad, apparently out of control.”

“My dear, that’s lucky for me,” said Miles. “A really good story my second day on the paper. This ought to do me good with the Excess—very rich-making,” and he hurried off to the post office tent—which was one of the amenities of the course—to dispatch a long account of Miss Runcible’s disaster.

Adam accompanied him and sent a wire to Nina: Drunk Major in refreshment tent not bogus thirty-five thousand married tomorrow everything perfect Agatha lost love Adam.

“That seems quite clear,” he said.

They went to the hospital tent after this—another amenity of the course—to see how Miles’ friend was getting on. He seemed in some pain and showed anxiety about his car.

“I think it’s very heartless of him,” said Adam. “He ought to be worried about Agatha. It only shows…”

“Motor men are heartless,” said Miles, with a sigh.

Presently Captain Marino was borne in on a stretcher. He turned on his side with a deep groan and spat at Miles’ friend as he went past him. He also spat at the doctor who came to bandage him and bit one of the V.A.D.’s.

They said Captain Marino was no gentleman in the hospital tent.

There was no chance of leaving the course before the end of the race, Archie was told, and the race would not be over for at least two hours. Round and round went the stream of cars. At intervals the Boy Scouts posted a large red R against one or other of the numbers, as engine trouble or collision or Headlong Corner took its toll. A long queue stretched along the top of the hill from the door of the luncheon tent. Then it began to rain.

There was nothing for it but to go back to the bar.

At dusk the last car completed its course. The silver gilt trophy was presented to the winner. The loud speaker broadcast “God Save the King,” and a cheerful “Good-bye, everybody.” The tail of the queue outside the dining tent were respectfully informed that no more luncheons could be served. The barmaids in the refreshment tent said, “All glasses, ladies and gentlemen, please.” The motor ambulances began a final round of the track to pick up survivors. Then Adam and Miles and Archie Schwert went to look for their car.

Darkness fell during the drive back. It took an hour to reach the town. Adam and Miles and Archie Schwert did not talk much. The effects of their drinks had now entered on that secondary stage, vividly described in temperance handbooks, when the momentary illusion of well-being and exhilaration gives place to melancholy, indigestion and moral decay. Adam tried to concentrate his thoughts upon his sudden wealth, but they seemed unable to adhere to this high pinnacle, and as often as he impelled them up, slithered back helplessly to his present physical discomfort.

The sluggish procession in which they were moving led them eventually to the center of the town and the soberly illuminated front of the Imperial Hotel. A torrential flow of wet and hungry motor enthusiasts swept and eddied about the revolving doors.

“I shall die if I don’t eat something soon,” said Miles. “Let’s leave Agatha until we’ve had a meal.”

But the manager of the “Imperial” was unimpressed by numbers or necessity and manfully upheld the integrity of British hotel-keeping. Tea, he explained, was served daily in the Palm Court, with orchestra on Thursdays and Sundays, between the hours of four and six. A table d’hôte dinner was served in the dining room from seven-thirty until nine o’clock. An à la carte dinner was also served in the grill room at the same time. It was now twenty minutes past six. If the gentlemen cared to return in an hour and ten minutes he would do his best to accommodate them, but he could not promise to reserve a table. Things were busy that day. There had been motor races in the neighborhood, he explained.

The commissionaire was more helpful, and told them that there was a teashop restaurant called the Café Royal a little way down the High Street, next to the Cinema. He seemed, however, to have given the same advice to all comers, for the Café Royal was crowded and overflowing. Everyone was being thoroughly cross, but only the most sarcastic and overbearing were given tables, and only the gross and outrageous were given food. Adam and Miles and Archie Schwert then tried two more teashops, one kept by “ladies” and called “The Honest Injun,” a workmen’s dining room and a fried-fish shop. Eventually they bought a bag of mixed biscuits at a cooperative store, which they ate in the Palm Court of the “Imperial,” maintaining a moody silence.

It was now after seven, and Adam remembered his appointment in the American bar. There, too, inevitably, was a dense crowd. Some of the “Speed Kings” themselves had appeared, pink from their baths, wearing dinner jackets and stiff white shirts, each in his circle of admirers. Adam struggled to the bar.

“Have you seen a drunk Major in here anywhere?” he asked.

The barmaid sniffed. “I should think not, indeed,” she said. “And I shouldn’t serve him if he did come in. I don’t have people of that description in my bar. The very idea.”

“Well, perhaps he’s not drunk now. But have you seen a stout, red-faced man, with a single eyeglass and a turned-up mustache?”

“Well, there was someone like that not so long ago. Are you a friend of his?”

“I want to see him badly.”

“Well, all I can say is I wish you’d try and look after him and don’t bring him in here again. Going on something awful he was. Broke two glasses and got very quarrelsome with the other gentlemen. He had three or four pound notes in his hand. Kept waving them about and saying, ‘D’you know what? I met a mutt today. I owe him thirty-five thousand pounds and he lent me a fiver.’ Well, that’s not the way to talk before strangers, is it? He went out ten minutes ago. I was glad to see the back of him, I can tell you.”

“Did he say that—about having met a mutt?”

“Didn’t stop saying it the whole time he was in here—most monotonous.”

But as Adam left the bar he saw the Major coming out of the gentlemen’s lavatory. He was walking very deliberately, and stared at Adam with a glazed and vacant eye.

“Hi!” cried Adam. “Hi!”

“Cheerio,” said the drunk Major distantly.

“I say,” said Adam. “What about my thirty-five thousand pounds?”

The drunk Major stopped and adjusted his monocle.

“Thirty-five thousand and five pounds,” he said. “What about them?”

“Well, where are they?”

“They’re safe enough. National and Provincial Union Bank of England, Limited. A perfectly sound and upright company. I’d trust them with more than that if I had it. I’d trust them with a million, old boy, honest I would. One of those fine old companies, you know. They don’t make companies like that now. I’d trust that bank with my wife and kiddies… You mustn’t think I’d put your money into anything that wasn’t straight, old boy. You ought to know me well enough for that…”

“No, of course not. It’s terribly kind of you to have looked after it—you said you’d give me a check this evening. Don’t you remember?”

The drunk Major looked at him craftily. “Ah,” he said. “That’s another matter. I told someone I’d give him a check. But how am I to know it was you?… I’ve got to be careful, you know. Suppose you were just a crook dressed up. I don’t say you are, mind, but supposing. Where’d I be then? You have to look at both sides of a case like this.”

“Oh, God… I’ve got two friends here who’ll swear to you I’m Adam Symes. Will that do?”

“Might be a gang. Besides I don’t know that the name of the chap who gave me the thousand was Adam what-d’you-call-it at all. Only your word for it. I’ll tell you what,” said the Major, sitting down in a deep armchair. “I’ll sleep on it. Just forty winks. I’ll let you know my decision when I wake up. Don’t think me suspicious, old boy, but I’ve got to be careful… other chap’s money, you know…” And he fell asleep.

Adam struggled through the crowd to the Palm Court, where he had left Miles and Archie. News of No. 13 had just come through. The car had been found piled up on the market cross of a large village about fifteen miles away (doing irreparable damage to a monument already scheduled for preservation by the Office of Works). But there was no sign of Miss Runcible.

“I suppose we ought to do something about it,” said Miles. “This is the most miserable day I ever spent. Did you get your fortune?”

“The Major was too drunk to recognize me. He’s just gone to sleep.”

“Well.”

“We must go to this beastly village and look for Agatha.”

“I can’t leave my Major. He’ll probably wake up soon and give the fortune to the first person he sees.”

“Let’s just go and shake him until he gives us the fortune now,” said Miles.

But this was impracticable, for when they reached the chair where Adam had left him, the drunk Major was gone.

The hall porter remembered him going out quite clearly. He had pressed a pound into his hand, saying, “Met-a-mutt-today,” and taken a taxi to the station.

“D’you know,” said Adam. “I don’t believe that I’m ever going to get that fortune.”

“Well, I don’t see that you’ve very much to complain of,” said Archie. “You’re no worse off than you were. I’ve lost a fiver and five bottles of champagne.”

“That’s true,” said Adam, a little consoled.

They got into the car and drove through the rain to the village where the Plunket-Bowse had been found. There it stood, still smoking and partially recognizable, surrounded by admiring villagers. A constable in a waterproof cape was doing his best to preserve it intact from the raids of souvenir hunters who were collecting the smaller fragments.

No one seemed to have witnessed the disaster. The younger members of the community were all at the races, while the elders were engaged in their afternoon naps. One thought he had heard a crash.

Inquiries at the railway station, however, disclosed that a young lady, much disheveled in appearance, and wearing some kind of band on her arm, had appeared in the booking office early that afternoon and asked where she was. On being told, she said, well, she wished she wasn’t, because someone had left an enormous stone spanner in the middle of the road. She admitted feeling rather odd. The stationmaster had asked her if she would like to come in and sit down and offered to get her some brandy. She said, “No, no more brandy,” and bought a first-class ticket to London. She had left on the 3:25 train.

“So that’s all right,” said Archie.

Then they left the village and presently found an hotel on the Great North Road, where they dined and spent the night. They reached London by luncheon-time next day, and learned that Miss Runcible had been found early that morning staring fixedly at a model engine in the central hall at Euston Station. In answer to some gentle questions, she replied that to the best of her knowledge she had no name, pointing to the brassard on her arm, as if in confirmation of this fact. She had come in a motor car, she explained, which would not stop. It was full of bugs which she had tried to kill with drops of face lotion. One of them threw a spanner. There had been a stone thing in the way. They shouldn’t put up symbols like that in the middle of the road, should they, or should they?

So they conveyed her to a nursing-home in Wimpole Street and kept her for some time in a darkened room.