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admission from his mind.
Ricardo had the impression of a man tying up an important document
which for the moment he has done with, and putting it away ticketed in
some pigeon-hole in his desk. "Let us see the garage!"
    They followed the road between the bushes until a turn showed them the
garage with its doors open.
    "The doors were found unlocked?"
    "Just as you see them."
    Hanaud nodded. He spoke again to Servettaz. "What did you do with the
key on Tuesday?"
    "I gave it to Helene Vauquier, monsieur, after I had locked up the
garage. And she hung it on a nail in the kitchen."
    "I see," said Hanaud. "So any one could easily, have found it last
night?"
    "Yes, monsieur—if one knew where to look for it."
    At the back of the garage a row of petrol-tins stood against the brick
wall.
    "Was any petrol taken?" asked Hanaud.
    "Yes, monsieur; there was very little petrol in the car when I went
away. More was taken, but it was taken from the middle tins—these."
And he touched the tins.
    "I see," said Hanaud, and he raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. The
Commissaire moved with impatience.
    "From the middle or from the end—what does it matter?" he exclaimed.
"The petrol was taken."
    Hanaud, however, did not dismiss the point so lightly.
    "But it is very possible that it does matter," he said gently. "For
example, if Servettaz had had no reason to examine his tins it might
have been some while before he found out that the petrol had been
taken."
    "Indeed, yes," said Servettaz. "I might even have forgotten that I had
not used it myself."
    "Quite so," said Hanaud, and he turned to Besnard.
    "I think that may be important. I do not know," he said.
    "But since the car is gone," cried Besnard, "how could the chauffeur
not look immediately at his tins?"
    The question had occurred to Ricardo, and he wondered in what way
Hanaud meant to answer it. Hanaud, however, did not mean to answer it.
He took little notice of it at all. He put it aside with a superb
indifference to the opinion which his companions might form of him.
    "Ah, yes," he said, carelessly. "Since the car is gone, as you say,
that is so." And he turned again to Servettaz.
    "It was a powerful car?" he asked.
    "Sixty horse-power," said Servettaz.
    Hanaud turned to the Commissaire.
    "You have the number and description, I suppose? It will be as well to
advertise for it. It may have been seen; it must be somewhere."
    The Commissaire replied that the description had already been printed,
and Hanaud, with a nod of approval, examined the ground. In front of
the garage there was a small stone courtyard, but on its surface there
was no trace of a footstep.
    "Yet the gravel was wet," he said, shaking his head. "The man who
fetched that car fetched it carefully."
    He turned and walked back with his eyes upon the ground. Then he ran to
the grass border between the gravel and the bushes.
    "Look!" he said to Wethermill; "a foot has pressed the blades of grass
down here, but very lightly—yes, and there again. Some one ran along
the border here on his toes. Yes, he was very careful."
    They turned again into the main drive, and, following it for a few
yards, came suddenly upon a space in front of the villa. It was a small
toy pleasure-house, looking on to a green lawn gay with flower-beds. It
was built of yellow stone, and was almost square in shape. A couple of
ornate pillars flanked the door, and a gable roof, topped by a gilt
vane, surmounted it. To Ricardo it seemed impossible that so sordid and
sinister a tragedy had taken place within its walls during the last
twelve hours. It glistened so gaudily in the blaze of sunlight. Here
and there the green outer shutters were closed; here and there the
windows stood open to let in the air and light. Upon each side of the
door there was a window lighting the hall, which was large; beyond
those windows again, on each side, there were glass doors opening to
the ground and protected by the ordinary green latticed shutters of
wood, which now stood