He went straight from her room to the garage where he had housed his bicycle. One of the chauffeurs had cleaned and overhauled it and had it waiting in readiness. Now that his first stiffness was past Fayre was beginning to enjoy this despised method of getting about the country and he pedalled down the drive and out onto the highroad quite unperturbed by the grin on Bill Staveley’s face as he rode past him on the chestnut mare he had put at Fayre’s disposal at the beginning of his visit. Fayre, who had promised himself some hunting next winter, looked after him with only a passing feeling of regret. His mind was busily engaged with other things. He kept a sharp lookout on the fields on either side of the road, but he had gone some distance before he found one that apparently interested him sufficiently to make him dismount and stand for a minute or two looking into it. Lord Staveley had been having the gates on the estate repainted and this one had evidently only been finished that day; nevertheless Fayre leaned heavily against it, with the result that, during his absorbed contemplation of three cows and a diminutive donkey, he managed to adorn his coat with a long smear of bright green paint. He took the misfortune with commendable fortitude and, picking up his bicycle, rode quickly off in the direction of Gregg’s house. Arrived there he went straight round to the garage at the back of the house. He found the doctor’s man polishing the brass of a small two-seater. “I don’t know whether the doctor’s in,” he said genially. “If he is, I’ll go round in a minute and have a few words with him, but I’ve just discovered this beastly stuff on my coat and I wondered if you could let me have a drop of petrol to clean it off with. I must have got it leaning over a gate near here.” The man touched the paint with his finger. “You’ll find the doctor in, sir, and this will come off easily enough while it’s fresh,” he said. “Lucky it’s still wet.” He went into the garage and came out with a tin of petrol. “If you’d got such a thing as a clean rag,” suggested Fayre. “If you’ll wait a minute, sir, I’ll get one from the kitchen.” He disappeared round the corner of the house and, as he did so, Fayre darted into the garage. It needed only a glance to see that there was room for but one car and that a small one. Fayre cast a quick look round the tiny garage and then made for a file of bills hanging from a hook against the wall. With one eye alert for the returning chauffeur he ran through them swiftly. Knowing the ways of small cars when left to the care of odd-jobmen he hoped that Gregg might on occasion be driven to hire a car from the local garage and there was a faint chance that the garage bill might be on this file. Fortunately for him it was not only there but near the top of the pile and he found it almost immediately. It took him but a second to find the entry he needed. “_March 23rd. To hire . . . . . . . . . . . . £0. 10_”