Having thus got rid of her for some little time, Pointer stopped and picked up a couple of fair-sized crumbs. “They're quite fresh. Someone's had a meal here recently.” He motioned Carter to stand with his back against the door, and opened a couple of cupboards. He glanced keenly at the bottom plates of a little pile. “Still greasy. Been wiped with a newspaper.” He felt inside all the cups. “Two are quite wet.” He paused over some teaspoons before he hunted on, as though for something more definite still. Finally he pounced on a crumpled little newspaper thrust into an empty cardboard box on the back of the lowest shelf. He opened this out on the table. A few scraps of bread and ham were inside. “Two people have had a meal of sorts within the hour.” He shut the cupboards, whisked off the lace centre and emptied the waste-paper basket on the polished surface. More crumbs, bits of litter, and a faded flower tumbled out. Pointer pounced on this last. “A clove carnation. Was Miss West wearing any? There are none about.” “Not when I saw her.” “Marie!” called Pointer, and the maid came running up. “Was mademoiselle wearing carnations when she came to tea?” Marie shook her head with a smile. “Ah, monsieur met her, then, later? I did give her a bunch when she was leaving. Mademoiselle loves them so.” Marie was quite certain that Christine had only been in the _loggia_ and the boudoir during her afternoon call. Watts, who had joined the little group, shook his head. No one was in the house. Pointer walked swiftly downstairs and out on to the drive. “How much petrol has been taken, Pierre?” asked the Chief Inspector. “As I said, we must catch up with mademoiselle, in her own interests, to-night. It is a question of a paper she must sign. These gentlemen have come as witnesses.” Pierre rushed off to the garage. “No tin has been touched, and there was very little in the car.” Pointer stood motionless. Carter started to speak, but a glance from the police-officer's eyes stopped him. Every mental nerve of Pointer's was strung taut to the call he was making on it. Where had Christine gone or been taken? He wasted no time on speculating on the why. He looked at the tyre-tracks from the garage to the house, which showed fairly clearly in the dust. “Those wheels wouldn't do for any hill climbing. Who generally drove the car?” he asked in French. “Generally M. Clark. Sometimes, though rarely, M. le Majeur. Neither would try to climb with those tyres.” “And very little petrol . . . humph!” Pointer picked up the 'phone mouthpiece and called a number, adding a code word swiftly.