I began to lose patience with him. "I'm not suggesting that the Sturtons'
man from the Royal Oak has been murdered," I said.

He weighed that remark as if it might cover a snare, before he scored a
triumph of allusiveness by replying, "Fellow called Carter. He's got a
blue nose."

Despite my exasperation I tried once more on a note of forced geniality,
"What sort of man is this chauffeur of the Jervaises? Do you know him at
all?"

"Wears brown leather gaiters," Hughes answered after another solemn
deliberation.

I could have kicked him with all the pleasure in life. His awful
guardedness made me feel as if I were an inquisitive little journalist
trying to ferret out some unsavoury scandal. And he had been the first
person to point the general suspicion a few minutes earlier, by his
inquiry about the motor. I decided to turn the tables on him, if I could
manage it.

"I asked because you seemed to suggest just now that he had gone off with
the Jervaises' motor," I remarked.

Hughes stroked his long thin nose with his thumb and forefinger. It seemed
to take him about a minute from bridge to nostril. Then he inhaled a long
draught of smoke from his cigarette, closed one eye as if it hurt him, and
threw back his head to blow out the smoke again with a slow gasp of
relief.