chauffeur's arm.
"Come, my friend," he said, "let us hear exactly how this happened!"
"Mlle. Celie," said Servettaz, with genuine compunction in his voice, "came to the garage on Saturday morning and ordered the car for the afternoon. She stayed and talked to me for a little while, as she often did. She said that she had been told that my parents lived at Chambery, and since I was so near I ought to ask for a holiday. For it would not be kind if I did not go and see them."
"That was all?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"Very well." And the detective resumed at once his brisk voice and alert manner. He seemed to dismiss Servettaz's 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 anyone 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 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 

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