“The proprietor further states,” continued Hannasyde unemotionally, “that at one-forty-five a.m., on Sunday, he was awakened by the sound of one of the garages being opened. Apparently the garage you rent is immediately beneath his bedroom. He declares that he recognised the engine-note of the car being driven into the garage.”
“Of course that's perfectly preposterous!” Mesurier said. “In any case, it wasn't my car. Unless, of course, someone else had her out. If I forgot to lock the garage they might easily have done so, you know.”
“Who?” asked Hannasyde.
“Who?” Mesurier looked quickly across at him, and away again. “I'm sure I don't know! Anybody!”
“Whoever took your car out on Saturday evening must have had a key to the garage, Mr Mesurier. The proprietor states that when you had left the mews in the car shortly after five he himself shut the doors. When he went to bed at ten-thirty they were still locked.”
“I daresay he was mistaken. Not that I'm saying anyone did take my car out. It's much more likely that the car he heard at one-forty-five was someone else's. I mean, he was probably half-asleep, and anyway he could not recognise the engine-note as positively as that.”
“You will agree, then, that it is highly improbable that anyone should have taken your car out of the garage on Saturday night?”
“Well, I - it looks like it, certainly, but I don't know that no one did. I mean… Look here, I don't in the least see why you should bother so much about my car when I've told you -”
“I'm bothering about it, Mr Mesurier, because your car was seen by a Constable on patrol-duty, at a point known as Dimbury Corner, ten miles from Hanborough, on the London Road, at twenty-six minutes to one on Sunday morning,” said Hannasyde.
Again Mesurier moistened his lips, but for a moment or two he did not speak. The ticking of a solid-looking clock on the mantelpiece became Budding audible. Mesurier glanced at it, as though the measured sound got on his nerves, and said: “He must be mistaken, that's all I can say.”