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.