“Twenty minutes or perhaps twenty-five, I’d put it.”
Fayre’s little bit of flattery had done its work and the man was now anxious to show off his ability to reckon time.
“It was going fast, you say?”
“Dangerous fast, I should call it. If I’d been a bit nearer the corner it’d ’ave caught me. As it was, it come near to smashin’ up a farm-cart that was goin’ peaceable and quiet down the main road. The carter didn’t ’alf ’ave something to say about it and I don’t blame ’im.”
“Too dark to see the farm-cart, I suppose? You wouldn’t know the carter?”
“Wouldn’t reckernize ’im, though ’e passed me close a minute or two later. The cart ’ad a white ’orse, though. I see that in the light of the lamps. And I see the man in the car, too, when the light ’it ’im. He was alone then.”
“You couldn’t identify him?” asked Fayre quickly.
But the man shook his head.
“I only see ’im for a second,” he said.
Fayre rose to his feet.