“Still, that’s about all we’ve got to go on anyway, Uncle Fayre, and the time does fit in. He could have gone round by Miss Allen’s and reached the farm just about the time the tramp saw him. I know, because I’ve done it in a car myself.”
“And the bottle in his pocket was a revolver, I suppose?” laughed Fayre, knowing the disappointment that lay in store for her if the whole thing petered out and determined not to encourage her in a false hope.
“Why not?” she said seriously. “And why did he keep his goggles down all the time? That woman was right: it is unusual.”
“All right, my dear, we’ll add him to our list of suspects; but I don’t quite see what we’re going to do about it.”
“I do,” was Cynthia’s decisive answer. “I’m going to put the garages at Carlisle through a small sieve. I’ll bet he did stay there, if he was going south, and, if he did, he must have garaged the car.”
“But I told you I’d drawn Carlisle the other day. It was hopeless.”
“What did you do?” she burst out scornfully. “You went to three or four of the big, obvious places. That’s not where I’d park my car if I were trying to get away on the quiet. You wait, Uncle Fayre. If he went there at all, I’ll run him to earth, you’ll see!”
“And what do you propose to do? You can’t go sleuthing about Carlisle all by yourself. They must know you pretty well there and we don’t want this affair talked about.”
“I’m not going by myself. I’m going with Tubby Campbell.”
“Tubby Campbell?” murmured Fayre helplessly.