“What happened to the woman?” he asked carelessly.
Gregg turned away to light his cigarette. Fayre, watching him closely, noticed that his hand was steady as a rock, but his voice was not quite so certain as he answered.
“I lost sight of her,” he said; “but, judging from the pace she was going, she’s probably got her deserts by now.”
He accompanied his guest to the door and stood chatting with him for a moment. He had regained his usual bluff manner; but Fayre, for all his quiet cordiality, was sick at heart. For the photograph was that of Baxter, and Gregg had once more flatly denied all knowledge of the identity of Mrs. Draycott.
Chapter XII
Fayre did not turn back to Staveley when he left Gregg’s house, but rode straight on to Whitbury and lunched at the hotel there.
For one thing he did not feel equal just at that moment to facing any of the members of the Staveley party and, for another, the heading on the bill in Gregg’s garage had been that of the Station Garage at Whitbury and he had a weakness for tackling nasty jobs at once and getting them over as quickly as possible. He did not conceal from himself that he dreaded the result of this next step.
He did not linger over his solitary meal, and by two o’clock he had already broached the subject of the car to the owner of the garage, a good-natured, chatty little man who seemed anxious to give him any information within his power. He adopted much the same story that he had used at Carlisle, only that, in this case, taking into account the manner in which news flies in a small town, he did not rely on the carter, but explained that he was acting for a friend in London whose motorcycle had been run down by a car on the night of the twenty-third, and who had narrowly escaped serious injury. The manager led him into the hutch that served him for an office and produced a ledger.
“A big, closed car, make unknown,” he muttered. “London number with a seven in it.”
He ran his finger down the page.