Fayre did not turn back to Staveley when he left Gregg’s house, but
rode straight on to Whitbury and lunched at the hotel there.
For one thing he did not feel equal just at that moment to facing any
of the members of the Staveley party and, for another, the heading on
the bill in Gregg’s garage had been that of the Station Garage at
Whitbury and he had a weakness for tackling nasty jobs at once and
getting them over as quickly as possible. He did not conceal from
himself that he dreaded the result of this next step.
He did not linger over his solitary meal, and by two o’clock he had
already broached the subject of the car to the owner of the garage, a
good-natured, chatty little man who seemed anxious to give him any
information within his power. He adopted much the same story that he
had used at Carlisle, only that, in this case, taking into account the
manner in which news flies in a small town, he did not rely on the
carter, but explained that he was acting for a friend in London whose
motorcycle had been run down by a car on the night of the
twenty-third, and who had narrowly escaped serious injury. The manager
led him into the hutch that served him for an office and produced a
ledger.
“A big, closed car, make unknown,” he muttered. “London number with a
seven in it.”
He ran his finger down the page.
“Nothing of the sort in that night. It was the day of the murder,
wasn’t it? Blowing big guns and bitterly cold and there weren’t many
people out. We had nothing in at all, from lunch-time onwards, and I’m
not surprised.”
“You didn’t let out any car answering to that description?”
“It’s not much of description, if you’ll excuse me!” said the man with
a friendly grin. “You can’t say you’ve given us much to go by! I’ve
only two cars for hire and naturally neither of them has got a London
number. One’s too small for you and the other’s well known round
here.”
He referred to his book again.
“Dr. Gregg had it that night. His own car was laid up. He took it out
about five-thirty.”
“Is it in now?” asked Fayre. “I know the doctor and I certainly don’t
suspect him of careless driving, but I promised my friend I’d have a
thorough look round.”
“Righto, I’ll show it to you. If it was anybody but the doctor I might
suspect a faked number. It’s been done often enough. Except for the
number, the car answers to your description, such as it is. So do half
the other cars in this county, for the matter of that.”
He was closing the book when his eye fell on another entry and he gave
a sudden exclamation.
“Wait a minute! There was a car went out on the evening of the
twenty-third, at about six o’clock. I’ve a kind of feeling it was a
London car, too. Owner’s name, Page. The number ought to have been
entered, but my wife evidently forgot to do it. She’s usually in
charge of the desk here, and you know what women are!”
“Then six o’clock was the last you saw of it?”
“Yes. It didn’t come back.”
He was looking through the back pages of the book.
“Here it is. It came in on March 14th, and was fetched out on March
23rd. It’s a pity we haven’t got the number. I’ll see if my wife
remembers anything about it and I can show you the other car on the
way.”
He led the way to a somewhat weather-beaten, but still presentable,
Daimler and Fayre gave the mud-guards a keen, but hasty, scrutiny.
“You haven’t had this repaired at all lately, I suppose?” he asked.
“My friend’s pretty certain that he injured the paint on the
mud-guard.”
“Haven’t had this touched for over a year. Besides, it was all right
when the doctor brought it back. I always look over them pretty
carefully, even when it’s a customer I know who’s had them out. You
never know what damage you’ll find. No, I’ll vouch for it that car
hasn’t been messed up in any way since I’ve had it.”
He went off to find his wife, leaving Fayre battling with mingled
feelings of relief and disappointment. Search as he might, he could
find no trace of red paint on any of the mud-guards and they were
quite intact. He seemed to have run into a blind alley, after all,
unless the doctor were even cleverer than he had supposed. It was
still within the bounds of possibility that he had changed cars again
after leaving the garage in the hireling. If so, where? Fayre made up
his mind to find that second car, if there was one, even if he had to
search every garage in the county.
His thoughts were broken into by the arrival of the manager and his
wife.
“It’s no good, I’m afraid,” he announced. “The wife, here, says she
can’t recall the number, even if she ever noted it, which is doubtful,
seeing that she forgot to put it down. She says she does remember the
owner, though, if that’s any use to you.”
Fayre started.
“You remember the man who brought it in? That’s capital!”
She shook her head.
“Not the man who brought it in,” she said. “That’s too long ago, but I
do remember the man who took it out that night. You see, what with it
being the night of the murder and such awful weather, added to the
fact that my sister and her husband came over from Carlisle for the
night, that evening seems to stand out more clearly than most. Then,
there were very few people in and out that day, so that one noticed a
stranger. Not that I really saw him, though, if you understand me.”
Fayre didn’t, but he showed exemplary patience and left her to tell
her story in her own way.
“I can remember it as if it was yesterday,” she went on. “My sister
was sitting at the desk with me, just chatting, and we watched him
come in. As I say, he was the only one we’d had that afternoon and we
were naturally interested and passed one or two remarks about him. He
spoke about the car and then came over to the desk to pay his bill.
What struck me was that he never took off his goggles. You know the
way most people push them up on their foreheads, even if they don’t
take them off, but he didn’t even take the trouble to do that. They
were those big ones with the leather nose-flap and they pretty well
covered his whole face. That’s why I said I’d never seen him, really.
My sister joked about it afterwards.”
“What sort of man was he?” asked Fayre.
“Well-to-do, I should say. Tall and thin, and he had a big motoring
coat and a cap with a peak. I remember that, because it and the
goggles hid nearly the whole of his face.”
“You didn’t notice his voice, I suppose?”
“No. I don’t think he spoke except just to ask for the bill. He may
not have done that. A lot of people just stand and wait till I give it
to them. He must have given his name when he brought the car in
because it’s down in the book there. Page, wasn’t it?”
Her husband nodded.
“Was there nothing else you noticed about him? I’m in luck’s way to
have hit off such an observant person as yourself,” said Fayre with a
smile.
“I was always one to take an interest in things and, what with so many
coming in and out here, you find yourself wondering about them. I do
remember one thing, now you mention it: his hands. He took off his
gloves to pay the bill, and I noticed how thin they were and yet how
strong-looking. I was in the manicure before I married and I suppose
that’s why I’m such a one to notice hands. My husband’s always
laughing at me about it. I said something about it at supper that
night and I remember them all laughing.”
“Quite true,” put in her husband. “I remember it now. It’s always been
a joke of ours, but we chaffed her a lot that night about one thing
and another and that was one of them. There was another joke Lotty had
that night, too, about a bottle. Do you remember?”
“Rather! That was that particular man, too. When he turned away from
the desk his coat swung against the corner and something heavy came an
awful thump up against the wood. Lotty said: ‘Well, he’s got his
little drop of comfort with him, anyway,’ meaning it sounded like a
bottle. That was what she was laughing over at supper. She was always
one for a joke and she’ll make one over anything.”
“Well, thanks to you, I’ve got some idea what the chap was like and he
may be the one my friend’s after. Page by name, tall and thin, with a
bottle in his pocket! And if my friend can find him he may get the
money for his broken lamp out of him! It doesn’t sound a hopeful
prospect, does it! I’m deeply grateful to you, all the same. I wish
everybody had a memory like yours!”
“I’m sorry about that number,” she said regretfully. “It isn’t often I
forget, but I must have been taken up with my sister.”
Fayre rode back to Staveley very much divided in his mind between the
mysterious Mr. Page and Gregg. Of the two, he was inclined to suspect
the doctor, who seemed to be getting more and more involved in the
whole business and for whose brains he had already conceived a
wholesome respect. The other man was probably nothing but a harmless
motorist who wanted his car badly enough to brave the weather and
fetch it.
He found Cynthia writing letters in the drawing-room and gave her a
short account of his visit to the garage.
She fastened onto the Page episode with an enthusiasm Fayre found
pathetic. He told her frankly that he considered it of minor
importance.
“You must remember that there may have been any number of people
fetching their cars from garages just about that time. It isn’t as if
we’d been able to trace the number of the car. There is nothing except
its size that answers to the carter’s description.”
“Still, that’s about all we’ve got to go on anyway, Uncle Fayre, and
the time does fit in. He could have gone round by Miss Allen’s and
reached the farm just about the time the tramp saw him. I know,
because I’ve done it in a car myself.”
“And the bottle in his pocket was a revolver, I suppose?” laughed
Fayre, knowing the disappointment that lay in store for her if the
whole thing petered out and determined not to encourage her in a false
hope.
“Why not?” she said seriously. “And why did he keep his goggles down
all the time? That woman was right: it _is_ unusual.”
“All right, my dear, we’ll add him to our list of suspects; but I
don’t quite see what we’re going to do about it.”
“I do,” was Cynthia’s decisive answer. “I’m going to put the garages
at Carlisle through a small sieve. I’ll bet he did stay there, if he
was going south, and, if he did, he must have garaged the car.”
“But I told you I’d drawn Carlisle the other day. It was hopeless.”
“What did you do?” she burst out scornfully. “You went to three or
four of the big, obvious places. That’s not where I’d park my car if I
were trying to get away on the quiet. You wait, Uncle Fayre. If he
went there at all, I’ll run him to earth, you’ll see!”
“And what do you propose to do? You can’t go sleuthing about Carlisle
all by yourself. They must know you pretty well there and we don’t
want this affair talked about.”
“I’m not going by myself. I’m going with Tubby Campbell.”
“Tubby Campbell?” murmured Fayre helplessly.
“If you weren’t just a measly bicyclist you’d know his name at
Brooklands,” she scoffed. “He married the clergyman’s daughter at
Galston and they’ve settled at Carlisle. I’ve always promised I’d stay
with them. I’ll ring them up and go over for a few days and see what
Tubby can do. If anybody will know how to set about it, he will. It’s
a gorgeous idea, Uncle Fayre; you must admit it!”
“You’ll probably do the thing much more efficiently than I did, I
admit that. But don’t let your enthusiasm run away with you. Don’t
forget that it is probably a very forlorn hope!”
“If you think that, really, it means that you’ve got something else up
your sleeve,” was Cynthia’s shrewd and unexpected comment. “What is
it? Is it Dr. Gregg?”
Fayre was taken unawares.
“I have got an idea,” he said slowly. “But it’s so vague at present
that I tell you frankly I’m going to keep it to myself. If it comes to
anything, you shall be the first to know, but, so far, it’s only fair
to say that I’ve come up against a blank wall. I think your field of
investigation is likely to prove quite as fruitful as mine.”
For a moment she looked disappointed. Then:
“All right,” she agreed. “You get to work at your end and I’ll see
what I can do at mine. If you only knew the relief it is to do
something instead of sitting watching other people!”
The cry came so straight from her heart that Fayre was glad he had not
succeeded better in his efforts to discourage her. At least the search
would keep her employed during a very anxious period and he felt, too,
that he could tackle Sybil and her questions better without Cynthia.
He had been dreading the time when the two would get their heads
together over Dr. Gregg and begin putting two and two together in
earnest. Cynthia, he knew, already suspected that there was something
behind his own visit to Carlisle. He would be able to pursue his
investigations more freely in her absence.