replied the Count, who then went upstairs, and I saw him
no more that evening.

For nearly a fortnight the car remained in the garage. It now bore a
different identification-plate, and to kill time, I idled about,
wondering when we should start again. It was a strange _menage_. Count
Bindo was a very easy-going cosmopolitan, who treated both Henderson and
myself as intimates, inasmuch as we ate at table with him, and smoked
together each evening.

We were simply waiting. The papers were, of course, full of the clever
theft from Gilling's, and the police, it appeared, were doing their
utmost to track the tricksters--but in vain. The Count, under the name
of Mr. Claude Fielding, seemed to be very popular in the neighbourhood,
though he discouraged visitors. Indeed, no one came there. He dined,
however, at several houses during the second week of his concealment,
and seemed to be quite confident of his safety.

At last we left, but not, however, before Sir Charles Blythe had stayed
one night with us and made some confidential report to his friend. It
being apparent that all was clear, some further alteration was made both
in the appearance of the car and in the personal aspect of Count Bindo
and myself, after which we started for the Continent by way of
Southampton.

We crossed and ran up to Paris, where we stayed at the Ritz. The Count
proved a devil-may-care fellow, with plenty of friends in the French
capital. When with the latter he treated me as a servant; when alone as
a friend.

Whatever the result of the clever piece of trickery in Bond Street, it
was quite clear that my employer was in funds, for he spent freely,
dined and supped at the expensive restaurants, and thoroughly enjoyed
himself with his chums.

We left Paris, and went on the broad good road to Lyons and to Monte
Carlo. It was just before Christmas, and the season had, of course, not
yet commenced. We stayed at the Hotel de Paris--the hotel where most men
_en garcon_ put up--and the car I put into the Garage Meunier.

It was the first time I had seen "Monty," and it attracted me, as it
does every man and woman. Here, too, Bindo di Ferraris seemed to have
hosts of friends. He dined at the Grand, the Metropole, or the Riviera
Palace, and supped each night at Ciro's, indulging in a little mild play
in the Rooms in the interval between the two meals.

He did not often go out in the car, but frequently went to Nice and
Cannes by train. About a fort