“But, according to your story, it was driven back to Staveley that afternoon. The car you saw going back to Staveley could not have been the car that was wrecked on Friday, unless the driver turned round again and went back towards Ashlingsea—but that seems impossible.”
“That’s what he did, sir. That’s what I was going to tell you, only I hadn’t come to it. What I said was, I hadn’t dug more’n a row and half of taters after dinner afore I see this car coming back Staveley way, and when I’d got to end of second row I happened to look up the road and there was this car coming back again. I didn’t know what to think—that is, at first. I stood there with the fork in my hand thinking and thinking and saying to myself I’d not give it up—I’m a rare one, sir, when I make up my mind. I don’t wonder it’s puzzled you, sir, just as it puzzled me. What has he been driving up and down for—backwards and forwards? That’s how it puzzled me. Then it came to me quite sudden like—he’d lost something and had drove back along the road until he found it.”
CHAPTER XII
It was not Elsie Maynard’s first visit to London, but her visits had been so few that London had presented itself to her as a vast labyrinth of streets, shops and houses. The prevailing impression of all previous visits was that, since it was a simple matter to get lost involuntarily in the labyrinth, it would be a simple matter for any one to disappear voluntarily and remain hidden from search. But on this occasion, when there was need for secrecy as to her visit and its object, she fancied the vast city to be full of prying eyes.
It seemed improbable that among the thousands of people she met in the streets there would not be some one who knew her. There might be some one watching her—some one who had received a telephone message regarding her journey by train from Ashlingsea. To disappear from some one who was watching her seemed to be impossible, for among the throng of people it was impossible to single out the watcher.
From Victoria Station she took a tube ticket to Earl’s Court, so as to give the impression to any one who was following her that her destination was in the west of London. She inspected closely all the people who followed her into the carriage. She alighted at South Kensington and changed to the Piccadilly tube. She got out at Holborn and then took a bus to Aldgate. She walked along to the junction of Whitechapel Road and Commercial Road, where she took a tram. After a short journey by tram along Commercial Road she got out and walked along the south side of the street, keeping a look out for the names of the side streets.
When she reached Quilter Street she turned down it, and eventually stopped at the door of No. 23. It was a short street with a monotonous row of houses on each side. At one side of the corner where it joined Commercial Road was a steam laundry, and at the other side a grocer’s which was also a post office. The faded wrappings of the tinned goods which had been displayed for many months in the windows were indicative of the comparative poverty of the locality. In the ground-floor windows of most of the houses were cardboard notices showing that tailoring was the craft by which the inhabitants earned their bread. It was here that a great deal of the work sent out by tailors’ shops in the City was done, and the placards in the windows proclaimed a desire for work from chance customers whose clothes needed repairs and pressing.
There were dirty ragged children playing in the gutters, and dirty slatternly women, with black shawls over their heads and shoulders and jugs in their hands, were to be seen hurrying along the pavement for milk and beer. Although Miss Maynard had taken care not to dress herself elaborately for her journey to London, she was aware that her appearance before the door of No. 23 was attracting some attention among the women standing at their doors and gossiping across area railings. When the door was opened by a girl in her early teens who had her sleeves rolled up and was wearing a piece of sacking as an apron, Miss Maynard entered hurriedly and closed the door after her.
“Does Mr. Miller live here?” she asked.