The Inspector had been examining the ground.
“It's frozen fairly hard,” he reported. “There's no hope of tracing the car's track on a night like this, even if one could have done that through all the marks of the town traffic. That's a blank end.”
“You may as well take the number, Inspector. It's just possible that some constable may have noticed it, though the chances are about a thousand to one against that, on a night of this sort.”
Flamborough went round to the rear number-plate and jotted down the figures in his pocket-book, repeating them aloud as he did so:
“GX.6061.”
He came round the car again and subjected the whole interior to a minute scrutiny under the light of his flashlamp.
“Here's a girl's handkerchief lying on the floor,” he said, as he peered down at the place beside the driver. Then, holding it in the light from the side-lamp, he turned it over and reported.
“It's got ‘Y.S.’ embroidered in one corner. That would be for Yvonne Silverdale, I suppose. It doesn't take us much further. Except that it proves this was the car she went off in with young Hassendean, and I expect we could have got better proof of that elsewhere.”
“Nothing else you can find?” Sir Clinton inquired.
“No, sir.”