“It may have been with one of the many friends of whom she knew her sister would disapprove. In fact, that’s pretty obvious, or she’d have asked him to the house instead of slipping out to meet him.”
“I suppose Miss Allen can’t suggest anybody?” put in Cynthia.
“Useless. I’ve asked her. She did her best—and sent a lot of messages to you, by the way, Cynthia—but she says she knows very little of her sister’s friends. I gather they weren’t a very reputable lot.”
“Somebody else may have seen the car,” suggested Cynthia.
“There’s always a bare chance,” agreed Fayre. “If our luck holds we may come across some one. You mustn’t forget that the tramp’s not out of the reckoning yet. He admits to being in the immediate neighbourhood of the farm at the time the crime was committed and we’ve no proof that he wasn’t actually present.”
“What he said fitted in very well with the carter’s story, though.”
“It did, but that doesn’t alter the fact that he might have been actually at the farm when he saw the car the first time. We’ve only his word for it that he was at the corner of the lane. Personally, I don’t think he’s got brains enough to invent such an ingenious defence or enough pluck to commit a murder; but one never knows. A timid man sometimes kills in a moment of panic, from sheer fright at being discovered. We can’t afford to rule him out yet. Mrs. Draycott may have gone to the farm on her own account and been surprised there by the tramp; and he, in his turn, may have been surprised by the arrival of the man in the car and have killed her to stop her mouth.”
“But there were two people in the car, going, and only one coming back.”
“Remember, that’s according to the tramp himself. He’s the only person who saw the car the first time.”
“Then we get back to the original problem,” said Sybil Kean. “Why did Mrs. Draycott go to the farm at all?”