The Car of Destiny

Part 1

THE CAR OF DESTINY BY C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON

Illustrations by Armand Both

NEW YORK THE McCLURE COMPANY MCMVII

*OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHORS*

Lady Betty Across the Water, My Friend the Chauffeur, The Princess Virginia, etc.

Copyright, 1907, by The McClure Company Copyright, 1906, by McClure, Phillips & Co.

LADY MONICA

To Doña María del Pilar Harvey, We Dedicate This Spanish Story

C.N. and A.M. Williamson

CONTENTS

The King’s Car The Girl The Guest Who Was Not Asked “I Don’t Threaten—I Warn” A Mystery Concerning a Chauffeur Puzzle: Find the Car The Impudence of Showing a Handkerchief Over the Border A Stern Chase The Unexpectedness of Miss O’Donnel María del Pilar to the Rescue Under a Balcony What Happened in the Cathedral Some Little Ideas of Dick’s How the Duke Changed A Secret of the King’s Like a Thief in the Night The Man Who Loved Pilar A Parcel for Lieutenant O’Donnel The Magic Word The Duchess’s Hand The Luck of the Dream-Book The Glorification of Monica The Goodwill of Mariquita What Cordoba Lacked In the Palace of the Kings Moonlight in the Garden Let Your Heart Speak The Garden of Flaming Lilies The Hand Under the Curtains Behind an Iron Grating On the Road to Cadiz The Seven Men of Ecija The Race The Moon in the Wilderness Wiles and Enchantments Dreams and an Awakening The Fountain Day After To-morrow Through the Night The Fifth Bull; and After

THE KING’S CAR

“Motor to Biarritz? You must be mad,” said Dick Waring.

“Why?” I asked; though I knew why as well as he. “A nice way to receive an invitation.”

“If you must know, it’s because the King of Spain will be there, visiting his English fiancée,” Dick answered.

“I wish him happiness,” said I. “I hear he’s a fine young fellow. Why isn’t there room in Biarritz for the King and for me?”

“The detectives won’t think there is, nor will they give you credit for your generous sentiments,” said Dick.

“They won’t know I’m there.”

“They knew when you went to Barcelona, from Marseilles.”

This was a sore subject. It is not my fault that my father was as recklessly brave a general, and as obstinately determined a partisan as Don Carlos ever had. If I had been born in those days, it is possible that I should have done as my father did; but I was not born, and therefore not responsible. Nor was it the King’s fault that we lost our estates which my ancestors owned in the days of Charles V; nor that we lost our fortune, we Casa Trianas; nor that my father was banished from Spain. For the King was not born, therefore he was not responsible; so why should I blame him for anything that has happened to me?

It was perhaps ill-judged to visit my father’s land, since to him it had been a land forbidden. But a few months after his death, when I was twenty-one, the longing to see Spain had become an obsession. And it must have been my evil star which influenced an anarchist to throw a bomb at a royal personage on the very day I arrived at Barcelona, thinly “disguised” under an English name.

My identity was discovered at once, as the son of the great dead Carlist. I was suspected and clapped into a cell, to wait until my innocence could be proved. This was not easy; but, on the other hand, there was no proof against me; and after an experience which scourged my pride and emptied my purse, I was released, only to be politely but firmly advised never again to show the undesirable face of a Casa Triana in Spain.

It was after this that I flung myself off to Russia, and through friendly influence got a commission in the army. I had some adventures in the Boxer rising; and though Heaven knows I have no grudge against the Japanese, the fight I made later on the Russian side gave me something to do for two years. After the Peace with Idleness, came the motor mania, and I thought of nothing else for a time. But when you have run your car for months, motoring for its own sake ceases to be all in all. You ask yourself what country you would like best to visit with the machine you love.

Pride kept me from answering that question with the name of “Spain”; but it was because Biarritz is at the door of Spain that I had just invited Dick Waring—the best of friends, the most delightful of Americans, who fought side by side with me, for fun, in China—to drive there in my Gloria car.

“Yes, they knew when I went to Barcelona,” I admitted; for Dick was familiar with the story. “But that was different. Anyhow, I’m going to Biarritz, whatever happens. You can do as you like.”

“If you will go, I’ll go too,” said Dick; “and if anything happens I’ll be in it with you. But you may regret your rashness.”

“I’ve never yet regretted rashness,” I said. “Things done on impulse always turn out for the best.”

So we started from Paris the next day, and had a splendid run, through scenery to set the spirit singing in tune with the thrumming of the motor.

Part 2

Whatever was to happen in Biarritz, and I was far enough from guessing then, nothing happened by the way; and we arrived on a morning of blue and gold.

We put up at a private hotel out of the way from fashionable thoroughfares; and, as my childhood and early youth were passed in England, I could use an English name without making myself ridiculous by a foreign accent. As for my brown face and black eyes, many a Cornishman has a face as brown and eyes as black; therefore, I edited the name of Triana into Cornish Trevenna, and changed Cristóbal, my middle name, into Christopher.

We took our first meal in the restaurant, and everyone at the little tables near by, was talking of the King and “Princess Ena”; how pretty she was, how much in love he; how charming their romance. My heart quite warmed to my youthful sovereign, who has had seven fewer years on earth than I. I felt that, if I had had a fair chance, I should have been his loyal subject.

“I’d like to have a look at him,” said I to Waring after lunch. “The lady with the nose who sat on our left said to her husband with the chin, that the King and the two Princesses motor every afternoon. We’ll motor too; and where they go, there we’ll go also.”

“Take care,” said Dick.

“A cat may look at a king. So may Chris Trevenna.”

“No good advising you to be cautious.”

“Of course not. You wouldn’t care a rap for me if there was.”

“Shouldn’t I? Anyhow, Chris Trevenna might as well wear goggles.”

“There’s no dust to-day,” said I. “It rained in the night.”

“I give you up,” said Dick. And if giving me up meant going out with me in my big blue car directly after lunch, then he kept his word. Ropes, my chauffeur, and right-hand man, who sits always in the tonneau, had already heard all about the King’s automobile, and was primed with particulars. He leaned across to describe its appearance, as well as mention the make; and when such a car as he was in the act of picturing passed us, going round a bend of the road which leads to Spain, there was no mistaking it.

“Let’s follow,” said I.

Dick sighed, but naturally I paid no attention to that.

There were five persons in the King’s car. The slim young owner, three ladies, two very slender and young, and the chauffeur, all five masked or goggled, so that it was impossible to see their faces.

“I wish something would happen to them,” I said.

Waring looked shocked.

“Just enough of a something to stop the car, and tempt the ladies to take off their motor-veils. I may never have another chance to see the future Queen of Spain.”

When I was a small lad in England, I used to lie under a favourite apple-tree in the orchard of the old place where we lived, and wish with all my might for the fall of a certain apple on which eyes and heart were fixed. It was extraordinary how often the apple would fall.

In a flash I remembered those wishes and those apples as we began to gain upon the King’s car. Its pace slackened, and then it stopped. The chauffeur jumped out, and two of the ladies were raising their thick veils as we came up.

As we were not supposed to know the King, who was “incog,” the ordinary civilities between motorists were in order. I slowed down, and taking off my hat, inquired in French if there were anything I could do.

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