“We’ll look up that carter,” he said decisively. “After all, he may have seen you in the light of the lamps. If he did, you’ve got your alibi. Good-by and good luck. I hope your leg’s mending.”
For the first time the man’s gloom lifted. Fayre’s friendliness was, as usual, infectious and the tramp looked after him with something of the wistfulness of a stray dog.
“Good luck to you, mister,” he croaked in his hoarse voice.
Back at the hotel Grey went carefully through his notes.
“Not a bad morning’s work, on the whole,” he said. “I shouldn’t wonder if that car brought Mrs. Draycott.”
Fayre nodded thoughtfully.
“It looks like it. She was in thin evening slippers when they found her and it struck me at the inquest that she could never have walked that distance in them. And it went back without her and that poor little beggar at the infirmary never grasped the importance of what he’d seen. I wonder if the police got as much out of him as we did!”
Grey laughed.
“I’m willing to bet they didn’t. He’s a suspicious customer and wouldn’t say more than he was obliged and he obviously didn’t think it worth the telling. What about tackling the carter? It shouldn’t take long to run him to earth, given the white horse and the collision.”
Fayre thought of Kean and the snubbing he had received at his hands and hugged himself. Now, at last, he had a definite plan of action.