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 v