The Count's Chauffeur by William le Queux

It occurred about a month after my return from Germany. A strange affair, assuredly; and stranger still that my life should have been spared to relate it.

After luncheon at the Trocadero I mounted into the car, a new forty six-cylinder "Napier" that we had purchased only a week before, to drive to Barnack, an old-world Northamptonshire village near Stamford, where I had to meet the audacious rascal Count Bindo. From Piccadilly Circus, I started forth upon my hundred-mile run with a light heart, in keen anticipation of a merry time. The Houghs, with whom Bindo was staying, always had gay house-parties, for the Major, his wife, and Marigold, his daughter, were keen on hunting, and we usually went to the meets of the Fitzwilliam, and got good runs across the park, Castor Hanglands, and the neighbourhood.