Загадочные события во Франчесе / The Franchise Affair

Grant read out the girl’s untechnical description of it as recorded in her statement. It fitted, but it would fit equally well at least a thousand cars on the roads of Britain today, Blair thought. It was hardly evidence at all. “�One of the wheels was painted a different shade from the others and didn’t look as if it belonged. The different wheel was the one in front on my side as it was standing at the pavement,’” Grant finished.

In silence the four people looked at the darker grey of the near front wheel.

There seemed nothing to say.

“Thank you very much, Miss Sharpe,” Grant said at length, shutting his notebook and putting it away. “You have been very courteous and helpful and I am grateful to you. I shall be able to get you on the telephone any time in the next few days, I suppose, if I want to talk to you further?”

“Oh, yes, Inspector. We have no intention of going anywhere.”

If Grant was aware of her too-ready comprehension he did not show it.

He handed over the girl to the matron and they left without a backward glance. Then he and Hallam took their leave, Hallam still with an air of apologising for trespass.

Marion had gone out into the hall with them, leaving Blair in the drawing-room, and when she came back she was carrying a tray with sherry and glasses.

“I don’t ask you to stay for dinner,” she said, putting down the tray and beginning to pour the wine, “partly because our �dinner’ is usually a very scratch supper and not at all what you are used to.

(Did you know that your aunt’s meals are famous in Milford? Even I had heard about them.) And partly because – well, because, as my mother said, Broadmoor is a little out of your line, I expect.”

“About that,” Robert said. “You do realise, don’t you, that the girl has an enormous advantage over you. In the matter of evidence, I mean. She is free to describe almost any object she likes as being part of your household.

If it happens to be there, that is strong evidence for her. If it happens not to be there, that is not evidence for you; the inference is merely that you have got rid of it. If the suitcases, for instance, had not been there, she could say that you had got rid of them because they had been in the attic and could be described.”

“But she did describe them, without ever having seen them.”

“She described two suitcases, you mean.