He held it to his ear.
“It’s going. Not much sign of damage there.”
“Perhaps it needed regulating,” Armadale suggested.
“Perhaps,” Sir Clinton’s tone was noncommittal. “Take a note of the time as compared with your own watch, Inspector; and just check whether it’s going fast or slow in a few hours. Try it for finger-prints along with the rest of the stuff.”
He replaced it gently in its bed of cotton-wool and closed the box, taking care not to finger the cardboard.
“Now, if you’ll send for the chauffeur, we may get something from him.”
But the chauffeur proved a most unsatisfactory witness. He admitted that Foss had ordered him to bring round the car at 3.15 and wait for further orders; but he was unable to give any clear account of the talk he had with his employer when the order was given.
“I can’t remember what he said exactly; but I got the notion he was leaving here to-day. I’m dead sure of that; for I packed up my own stuff and had it ready to go off at a moment’s notice. It’s on the grid of the car now. I was so taken aback that I haven’t thought of unpacking it.”
Sir Clinton could get nothing further out of the man, and he was eventually dismissed.
“Now we’ll have a run over the late Mr. Foss’s goods,” the Chief Constable proposed, when they had dismissed the chauffeur.