'The inspector very kindly allowed me to accompany him to the Three Anchors. The garage was up a side street. The big doors were closed, but by going up a little alley at the side we found a small door that led into it, and that door was open. A very brief examination of the tyres sufficed for the inspector. 'We have got him, by Jove!' he exclaimed. 'Here is the mark as large as life on the rear left wheel. Now, Mr. Kelvin, I don't think you will be clever enough to wriggle out of this.''

Raymond West came to a halt.

'Well?' said Joyce. 'So far I don't see anything to make a problem about - unless they never found the gold.'

'They never found the gold certainly,' said Raymond, 'and they never got Kelvin either. I expect he was too clever for them, but I don't quite see how he worked it. He was duly arrested - on the evidence of the tyre mark. But an extraordinary hitch arose. Just opposite the big doors of the garage was a cottage rented for the summer by a lady artist.'

'Oh, these lady artists!' said Joyce, laughing.

'As you say, 'Oh these lady artists!' This particular one had been ill for some weeks, and, in consequence, had two hospital nurses attending her. The nurse who was on night duty had pulled her arm-chair up to the window, where the blind was up. She declared that the motor lorry could not have left the garage opposite without her seeing it, and she swore that in actual fact it never left the garage that night.'

Sir Henry suddenly gave vent to a great roar of laughter and slapped his knee. 'Got you this time, Raymond,' he said.

'Miss Marple you are wonderful. Your friend Newman, my boy, has another name - several other names in fact. At the present moment he is not in Cornwall but in Devonshire - Dartmoor, to be exact - a convict in Princetown prison. We didn't catch him over the stolen bullion business, but over the rifling of the strong-room of one of the London banks.