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She was going to meet some one. I suggest it was Lester Williams who had arranged to meet her at Hyde Park Corner. Whether the idea was to join her in the taxi, or that she should leave the taxi there with orders that the driver should meet her after the theater, I cannot say. I am inclined to think it was the former, and I hazard a guess that Lady Tavener had not known Williams very long.
I am not sure what would have happened to Wood. Technically he had not actually killed Lady Tavener, but he solved the difficulty of his punishment himself. Expecting the worst, I suppose, he managed to hang himself in his cell.
He had constantly driven Lady Tavener, and was probably aware that some of her friends were not her husband's. At any rate, some remark of this kind would allay her suspicions, and then " "He murdered her?" asked Zena sharply. "Well, I fancy this is where we come to the question of suicide," said Quarles.
We shall find it is his own taxi, I think, bought outright or being purchased on the hire system. I should say he rarely hired himself out except to Sir John and Lady Tavener. He was not an ordinary driver, but a very clever schemer, and, like a clever schemer, I think one little point has given him away altogether.
One of the lamps of the taxi, and only one of them, had recently been removed from its socket. I imagine he took it to make quite sure that Lady Tavener was dead." "But he had often driven Lady Tavener. Why had he waited so long?" said Zena. "And what reason had he for the murder?" I asked.
He left immediately after dinner, did not reach home until after midnight, and has not yet attempted to account for his time. He was in an abnormal condition. We will make a mental note of that, Wigan." I nodded. "We will assume that when he left her Lady Tavener was alive," Quarles went on. "At Hyde Park Corner she was dead, and the driver Wood was entirely ignorant that anything had happened.
However, I hunted up the driver of the taxi, and went to Chelsea the following night, still somewhat out of temper. Quarles and Zena were already in the empty room waiting for me. "Well, what did the man say?" asked the professor. "The fog did not stop him anywhere until he got to Hyde Park Corner, and he is sure Lady Tavener was alone after leaving Richmond." "He stuck to that?"
Zena was leaning forward eagerly, and I waited quietly for Quarles to continue. "It follows that whoever it was must have been known to Lady Tavener," he said slowly. "Otherwise she would have called out to the driver or to people passing." "You mean that he left it at Hyde Park Corner after the murder," said Zena. "You think it was Lester Williams."
"At present we merely find a reason why Sir John and Lester Williams have said so little, the one concerning his suspicions, the other about his knowledge of Lady Tavener. Since his wife was dead, why should Sir John say anything to cast a reflection upon her. For the same reason, why should Williams implicate himself in any way.
Williams jumped at once to the conclusion that a crime had been committed, and the police took the same view. There was no difficulty as regards identification. She was Lady Tavener, wife of Sir John Tavener, M.P. The driver, Thomas Wood, had come from the other side of Twickenham and had taken up Sir John and his wife at their own front door.
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