“I don’t know how you managed to unearth all this,” he said at last, “or what you think you have discovered, but you’re right on one point. I was shielding some one.”
“You’ve tried to save Leslie and failed,” went on Fayre inflexibly. “What steps do you propose to take now?”
Kean hesitated.
“Before I answer that question,” he said slowly, “suppose you put your cards on the table. How much do you know?”
“I know that, for some reason I have so far failed to discover, you allowed it to be supposed that you travelled by rail to Staveley Grange on March 14th, when, as a matter of fact, you motored from London to some station north of York and picked up the train there. You were held up at York for driving without side-lights.”
Kean smiled.
“You’ve hit on a snag there,” he said. “Blake, my chauffeur, was held up and nearly lost his job on the strength of it.”
“I’ve seen Blake,” was Fayre’s quiet reply. “He was on his holiday in London and was with his wife that night. A summons was served on him which he brought to you and which you said you would deal with. He is under the impression that it was a mistake on the part of the police.”
There was a pause during which Kean smoked thoughtfully. He seemed in no way disconcerted.
“Given that I was in York that night, what do you infer from that? March 14th was not the night of the murder, if that’s what you are driving at,” he said at last.