“We might go at eleven,” Laroche proposed, and so they did.
Keeping as much as possible in the shelter of the bushes, they approached the mill. Willis had got a sketch-plan of the building from Merriman, and he moved round to the office door. His bent wire proved as efficacious with French locks as with English, and in a few moments they stood within, with the door shut behind them.
“Now,” said Willis, carefully shading the beam of his electric torch, “let’s see those lorries first of all.”
As has already been stated, the garage was next to the office, and passing through the communicating door, the two men found five of the ponderous vehicles therein. A moment’s examination of the number plates showed that on all the machines the figures were separate from the remainder of the lettering, being carried on small brass plates which dropped vertically into place through slots in the main castings. But the joint at each side of the number was not conspicuous because similar vertical lines were cut into the brass between each letter of the whole legend.
“That’s good,” Laroche observed. “Make a thing unnoticeable by multiplying it!”
Of the five lorries, two were loaded with firewood and three empty. The men moved round examining them with their torches.
“Hallo,” Laroche called suddenly in a low voice, “what have we here, Willis?”
The inspector crossed over to the other, who was pointing to the granolithic floor in front of him. One of the empty lorries was close to the office wall, and the Frenchman stood between the two. On the floor were three drops of some liquid.
“Can you smell them?” he inquired.
Willis knelt down and sniffed, then slowly got up again.