"Did the police know that Betty was away on her own all day?" he asked.
She really thought about that. "That I can't remember," she said. "They asked me how she passed her time and I said that mostly she went to pictures or bus-riding, and they said did I go with her and I said-well, I'll have to admit I told a white lie about it and said that I did now and then. I didn't want them to think that Betty went to places alone. Though of course there was no harm in it."
What a mind!
"Did she have letters while she was here?" he asked as he was taking his leave.
"Just from home. Oh, yes, I would know. I always took the letters in. In any case they wouldn't have written to her, would they?"
"Who?"
"Those women who kidnapped her."
It was with a feeling of escape that Robert drove in to Larborough. He wondered if Mr. Tilsit had always been away "ten days at a time" from his home, or if he had got the travelling job as an alternative to flight or suicide.
In Larborough, Blair sought out the main garage of the Larborough And District Motor Services. He knocked at the door of the small office that guarded one side of the entrance, and went in. A man in a bus inspector's uniform was going through papers on the desk. He glanced up at Robert and without asking his business continued his own affairs.
Robert said that he wanted to see someone who would know about the Milford bus service.