“No,” said the man decisively. “You’ve drawn the beard a bit more pointed than his was, but I’m dead sure that it wasn’t the fellow. His head was a different shape. ’Twas more squarer, if you follow what I mean.”

“H’m.” Cunningham was nonplussed. This was a real problem. If the kidnapper was not Moses Moss, who could it be? It was, of course, possible that the man was mistaken. Moss might have disguised himself effectively, and the disguise might even have seemed better than it was, so that the constable had been completely deceived by it. Still, on the other hand, it was possible that the young man who had taken Violet Arnell off the bus had not been Moses Moss at all, in which case they would have to begin their theorising all over again. Anyhow, that was Shelley’s job, Cunningham reminded himself. His own immediate task was to get as much information as he could on the spot.

“What happened afterwards?” he asked.

“She got in his car and they drove off,” answered the man.

“What direction?”

“They seemed to be making north,” answered the other with a knowing smile. “Making for the Great North Road they were. Gretna Green, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you,” Cunningham snapped.

“Anything more, then?”

Cunningham pondered the matter for a while, wondering what Shelley would want to know about the case, when he came to hand in his report later.

“One thing,” he said at length. “Do you happen to know who were conductor and driver on the bus?”

“As it happens, I do,” answered the policeman. “In my place, you see, we get to know most of the regular men on the routes passing here.”

“Who were they?”

“The driver was Harry Davison, and the conductor Bill Angelus,” answered the policeman. All his replies, Cunningham noticed, were given without any hesitation. He was clearly a man who used his eyes. Even though he might occasionally be irritatingly obtuse, he had nevertheless that gift of acute observation which is of such vital importance to the first-rate policeman.

“What depot would they clock in at?” asked the man from Scotland Yard.

“Willesden, I think,” replied the other.

“Which way?” asked Cunningham.

“Straight through here,” answered his informant. “You can’t miss it. Just follow straight through along the main road. You’ll be there in a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes at the most.”

This time Cunningham did not chafe at his inactivity. The fast car was full out. Such things as speed limits were forgotten, and they skidded perilously at one or two sharp corners. But they soon got to Willesden, and were, before very long, in earnest colloquy with the manager of the bus depot.