Chapter Nineteen.
The Blue Motor-Car.
Gibbs was the first to speak. He examined the burst critically, glanced at the fast disappearing car, and, turning to me, asked:—
“Shall we still try, sir? If you’ll help me we’ll be on the road again in twenty minutes.”
“Yes,” I cried, “let’s try,” and throwing off my coat, I began in earnest to take out the spare tyre while he got out the jack and tools.
While I unscrewed the bolts, he jacked up the car, and in ten minutes the burst tyre was off, and we were adjusting the new one. A new inner tube I found under the front seat, and we soon adjusted it, Gibbs pumping it up while I put away the tools and strapped on the broken tyre.
I glanced at the clock on the car, and saw that we had been just eighteen minutes, then up we got, and, without much preliminary, moved away again tearing at breakneck speed through Ottery St. Mary and a dreary little place called Honiton Clyst, then over a bad road among small and dingy houses from Heavitree into Exeter. At the Gordon memorial-lamp we took the right-hand road, found the tram-line and passed up Paris Street into High Street, and on to the cathedral, where we pulled up before the “Clarence,” hoping to obtain some news of the blue “Mercédès.”
It, however, had not been seen. At Pople’s, at the “Globe” and the “Half Moon” we inquired, but without success. The car had not been seen in any of the main streets of the city, therefore we could only conclude that it had passed round the outskirts and taken either the Crediton or the Teignmouth road. From south of the city a dozen different ways lead off the Okehampton road, therefore it seemed certain that our unfortunate accident had negatived all our attempts to overtake Mr Murray and his party.
Again we were thwarted, until Gibbs suddenly recollected that in Paris Street we had passed a cycle works where petrol was sold, and we turned the car and made eager inquiry there.