“You are your own chauffeur, then, Miss Abbeway?” her inquisitor asked.
“Absolutely.”
“You can change a wheel, perhaps?”
“Theoretically I can, but as a matter of fact I have never had to do it.’”
“Your tyres,” Colonel Henderson continued, “are of somewhat unusual pattern.”
“They are Russian,” she told him. “I bought them for that reason. As a matter of fact, they are very good tyres.”
“Miss Abbeway,” the Colonel said, “I don’t know whether you are aware that my police are in search of a spy who is reported to have escaped from the marshes last night in a small motor-car which was left at a certain spot in the Salthouse road. I do not believe that there are two tyres such as yours in Norfolk. How do you account for their imprint being clearly visible along the road to a certain spot near Salthouse? My police have taken tracings of them this morning.”
Catherine remained perfectly speechless. A slow smile of triumph dawned upon her accuser’s lips. Lord Maltenby’s eyebrows were upraised as though in horror.
“Perhaps,” Julian interposed, “I can explain the tyre marks upon the road. Miss Abbeway drove me down to Furley’s cottage, where I spent the night, late in the afternoon. The marks were still there when I returned this morning, because I noticed them.”
“The same marks?” the Colonel asked, frowning.