Inspector Harding allowed this aspersion on his integrity to pass without demur, and merely remarked that he thought it would be difficult.
"A pity," said Miss Fawcett regretfully. "She's a frightful cad. And if she comes oiling up to you, as I rather think she may, with a whole lot of tales about anybody else, don't encourage her! You can't place the slightest reliance on anything she says, and she'll only lead you on quite the wrong track."
"Thank you very much for warning me," said Harding meekly.
Miss Fawcett blushed. "You're laughing at me."
"I shouldn't dream of laughing at you," he said.
Miss Fawcett became aware suddenly that Inspector Harding was regarding her with a light in his grey eyes that was far from professional. She felt her cheeks groom rather warmer. "Well, I must go and do the rest of the flowers," she said, with great presence of mind, and got up. "I suppose there's nothing you want? You'll ring it there is, won't you?"
"No, I don't think I shall ring for it," said Harding, with a faint smile. He held open the door, and Miss Fawcett retired in good order.
Chapter Sixteen
The police car which had conveyed the Sergeant to Bramhurst did not return to Ralton until quite a late hour. The Sergeant found Inspector Harding at the police station, and at once proceeded to give him a faithful account of his investigations. These had been most thorough, for, acting on the Inspector's instructions, he had made inquiries at numerous points along the road, and although in most instances he had drawn blank, he had traced an A.A. official to his home, and ascertained from him that Captain Billington-Smith's car had passed the big cross-roads a few miles south of Bramhurst shortly after one o'clock. The A.A. man remembered the car, for he had held it up to allow a lorry to pass first, but he had not noticed whether it was running badly. This, coupled with a positive statement from the mechanic at the garage in Bramhurst that Captain Billington-Smith had driven his car into the yard at one-thirty precisely, seemed to prove that either Captain Billington-Smith's watch had been an hour slow when he looked at it, or that he had his own reasons for wanting to make the police believe that it was twelve thirty when he arrived at Bramhurst. As to the choked jet, it had certainly been cleaned, but whether it had been in a bad enough condition seriously to impede the running of the car was a point on which the Sergeant could not induce the garage hands to put forward an opinion. The spare tyre had certainly been flat, and he had mended this while Captain Billington-Smith was having lunch. The waiter at the Stag corroborated the evidence in as much as he was able to state that the Captain had not entered the dining-room until a quarter to two, which circumstance he remembered perfectly, the Captain having been the last person to order lunch that day.
Inspector Harding had also been making investigations, and the results of one of these came to hand , at ten o'clock that evening, when he received a note from the Superintendent summoning him back to the police station. Here there awaited him a spare and weather beaten man in a plain suit who had certain information to give him. He was the postman who served the Lyndhurst district, and he was able to state definitely that on Monday morning at eleven-thirty when he was on hip way up to Dean Farm by the cart-track that ran between Moorsale Park and the Grange, he had passed Captain Billington-Smith's car, parked a little way up the track hard against the spinney at the bottom of the Grange garden. The track was scarcely ever used, the main approach to Dean Farm being from the main road on the other side, but he himself always used this back entrance, to save a long detour.