"So one would imagine, but Clarke still doubts."
"Why?"
Winter told of the taxicab driver, and the significant journey taken by his fare. Furneaux shook his head.
"Strange, if true," he said; "why should Osborne kill the woman he meant to marry?"
"She may have jilted him."
"No, oh, no. It was—it must have been—the aim of her life to secure a rich husband. She was beautiful, but cold—she had the eye that weighs and measures. Have you ever seen the Monna Lisa in the Louvre?"
Winter did not answer, conscious of a subtle suspicion that Furneaux really knew far more of the inner history of this tragedy than had appeared hitherto. Clarke, in his own peculiar way, was absurdly secretive, but that Furneaux should want to remain silent was certainly baffling.
"By the way," said Winter with seeming irrelevance, "if you were in Brighton and Kenterstone yesterday afternoon and evening, you had not much time to spare in London?"
"No."
"Then the station-sergeant at Finchley Road was mistaken in thinking that he saw you in that locality about six o'clock—'jumping on to a 'bus' was his precise description of your movements."