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Had Lady Tavener often used the taxi when she met Williams, Wood, the driver, would have recognized Williams. This does not appear to have been the case, therefore I conclude they were comparatively new friends." "Do we come back to the theory of suicide, then?" I asked. "Not yet," Quarles answered.
"Have you read the evidence given to-day carefully?" I asked. "I was there," he snapped. I had not seen him and was astonished. "Arrest Tavener," he went on, "and then you may be able to solve the problem. There may be extenuating circumstances, but they can be dealt with afterwards. Let us go into another room." He got up and brought the discussion to a close.
He had constantly driven them up to town and elsewhere, sometimes separately, sometimes together. On this occasion he had driven to a house on Richmond Green, where Sir John had got out. Lady Tavener was going on to the Piccadilly Hotel. Wood had got as far as Hyde Park Corner when a gentleman called to him.
I am taking into consideration the position of the taxi in the roadway and the angle at which the light would have to be thrown. And, since motor lights are in the front of cars, and Lady Tavener was facing the way her taxi was going, it is very improbable that the lights of another car would serve this purpose. Besides, it was a foggy night."
Yet, if murder was done, some one must have joined Lady Tavener during the journey. Wood says he was not held up by the fog, but on being pressed a little, speaks of coming nearly to a standstill in Hammersmith Broadway.
Curtis, from whom Lady Tavener was divorced, died shortly afterwards, you may remember, of a broken heart, his friends said, which means that he grieved abnormally at the breaking up of his happiness. It is natural that his friends and relations should hate the Taveners, and one of them conceived the idea of revenge. It is curious that several of the Curtises are called Baldwood Curtis.
I suggest that Sir John had begun to suspect his wife, and that his reason for leaving Richmond early was to ascertain whether she was going to the theater with the Folliotts as she had told him." "It is an ingenious theory," I admitted. "We follow Lady Tavener," said Quarles. "It is not likely she was going to spend the evening alone, or the Folliotts would never have been mentioned.
"He did, but after some consideration he said that he had almost come to a standstill in Hammersmith Broadway on account of the trams. I suggested that some one might have got into the taxi then, but while admitting the bare possibility, he did not think it likely." "Did he give you the impression that he believed Tavener guilty?" "Yes. He seemed to consider his arrest a proof of it."
Therefore Wood knows that some one entered, and we know that that some one must have walked on a road covered with brick dust and coal dust." "Who is it?" I asked. "Wood himself. He turned into the road we turned into. If Lady Tavener noticed that he had done so, she would not think anything of it. She would imagine the road was up and a detour necessary.
"Since he hurried to the door instead of waiting for the taxi to draw to the curb, I conclude he was taking advantage of the stoppage to join Lady Tavener in the taxi. Had she intended to leave the taxi there, he would have waited until it came to the pavement. But my theory demands that he should have been on the watch for the taxi, therefore he must have known it.
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