According to Nick, Wilson traveled out of the Valley of Ashes and to West Egg on foot. He disappeared from view for three hours. What do the police suppose he was doing? Why might he have been doing this?

Answer and Explanation:

This question is about the novel "The Great Gatsby", by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

According to Nick, Wilson traveled out of the Valley of Ashes and to West Egg on foot. He disappeared from view for three hours. What do the police suppose he was doing?

According to Nick, the police suppose Wilson had used those three hours to walk from garage to garage, asking garage owners about a yellow car.

Then for three hours he disappeared from view. The police, on the strength of what he said to Michaelis, that he 'had a way of finding out,' supposed that he spent that time going from garage to garage thereabouts inquiring for a yellow car. On the other hand no garage man who had seen him ever came forward-and perhaps he had an easier, surer way of finding out what he wanted to know. By half past two he was in West Egg where he asked someone the way to Gatsby's house. So by that time he knew Gatsby's name.

Why might he have been doing this?

Wilson's purpose was to find out who the owner of the car that ran over his wife was. At first, he thought it had been Tom, who was indeed driving the yellow car earlier on that tragic day. Tom, however, gave the car back to Gatsby and Daisy. It was Daisy who was driving, and who ran over Wilson's wife. Yet, since Gatsby was the owner of the car - and since Tom may have very well insinuated he was the one driving -, Wilson shot and killed Gatsby.