French returned on foot to the Yard, thinking over the affair as he walked. It certainly had a sinister look. These men were very much in earnest. They had not hesitated to resort to murder in the case of Cheyne—it was through, to them, an absolutely unforeseen accident that he escaped—and French felt he would not give much for Joan Merrill’s chances.
When he reached his office he found that a piece of news had just come in. A constable who had been on point duty at the intersection of South and Mitchem Streets, near Waterloo Station, had noticed about on the day of the disappearance of the gang, a yellow motorcar pass close beside him and turn into Hackworth’s garage, a small establishment in the latter street. Though he had not observed the vehicle with more than the ordinary attention such a man will give to the passing traffic, his recollection both of the car and driver led him to the belief that they were those referred to in the Yard circular. The constable was waiting to see French, and made his report with diffidence, saying that though he thought he was right, he might easily be mistaken.
“Quite right to let me know anyhow, Wilson,” French said heartily. “If you’ve seen Blessington’s car it may give us a valuable clue, and if you’re mistaken, there’s no harm done. We’ve nothing to lose by following it up.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s past my dinner hour, but I’ll take a taxi and go round to this garage on my way home. You’d better come along.”
Ten minutes later the two men reached Hackworth’s establishment, and pushing open the door of the tiny office, asked if the manager was about.
“I’m John Hackworth. Yes, sir?” said a stout man in shabby gray tweeds. “Want a car?”
“I want a word with you, Mr. Hackworth,” said French pleasantly. “Just a small matter of private business.”
Hackworth nodded, and indicated a farther door.
“In here,” he invited, and when French and the constable had taken the two chairs the room contained, he briskly repeated: “Yes, sir?”
At this hint not to waste valuable time, French promptly introduced himself and propounded his question. Mr. Hackworth looked impressed.
“You don’t tell me that gent was a wrong ’un?” he said anxiously, then another idea seeming to strike him, he continued: “Of course it don’t matter to me in a way, for I’ve got the car. I’ll tell you about it.”
French produced his photograph of Blessington.
“Tell me first if that’s the man,” he suggested.
Mr. Hackworth pushed the card up to the electric bulb. “It’s him,” he declared. “It’s him and no mistake. He walked in here yesterday—no, the day before—about and asked to see the boss. ‘I’ve got a car,’ he said when I went forward, ‘and there’s something wrong with the engine. Sometimes it goes all right and sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe,’ he said, ‘you’ll start it up and it’ll run a mile or two well enough, then it begins to miss, and the speed drops perhaps to eight or ten miles. I don’t know what’s wrong.’
“ ‘What about your petrol feed?’ I said. ‘Sounds like your carburetor, or maybe your strainer or one of your pipes choked.’
“ ‘I thought it might be that,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t find anything wrong. However, I want you to look over it, that is, if you can lend me a car while you’re doing it.’
“Well, sir, I needn’t go into all the details, and to make a long story short, I agreed to overhaul the car and to lend him an old Napier while I was at it. He went away, and same day about two or before it he came back with his car, a yellow Armstrong Siddeley. It seemed to be all right then, but he said that that was just the trouble—it might be all right now and it would be all wrong within a minute’s time. So I gave him the Napier—it was a done machine, worth very little, but would go all right, you understand. He asked me how long I would take, and I said I’d have it for him next day, that was yesterday. He had three or four suitcases with him and he transferred these across. Then he got into the Napier and drove away, and that was the last I saw of him.”
“And what was wrong with his own car?”
“There, sir, you have me beat. Nothing! Or nothing anyhow that I could find.”
“Was the Napier a four-seater?”
“Five. Three behind and two in front.”
“A coach body?”
“No, but with a good canvas cover, and he put it up, too, before starting.”
“Raining?”
“Neither raining nor like rain: nor no wind neither.”
“How long was he here altogether?”
“Not more than five or six minutes. He left just as soon as he could change the cars.”
French, having put a few more questions, got the proprietor to
