"What a horrible plot," said Zena, with a shudder.
"Horrible and clever," said Quarles.
"I wonder if you are right, dear."
"I have no doubt, but Wigan will be able to tell us presently."
He was right, I think, practically in every particular. 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.
CHAPTER XIII
THE AFFAIR OF THE JEWELED CHALICE
The yellow taxi must still have been a topic of conversation with the public when Quarles and I became involved in two cases which tried us both considerably, and in which we ran great risk.
The reading of detective tales imagined by comfortable authors who show colossal ignorance regarding my profession, has often amused, me. Pistols usually begin the string of impossibilities and a convenient pair of handcuffs is at the end. These are the tales of fiction, not of real life as a rule, yet in the two cases I speak of the reality was certainly as strange as fiction and very nearly as dangerous.
There had been a series of hotel robberies in London, so cleverly conceived and carried out that Scotland Yard was altogether at fault. I had had nothing to do with this investigation, being engaged on other cases, but one Friday morning my chief told me I must lend my colleagues a hand. Within an hour of our interview I was making myself conversant with what had been done, and on Friday afternoon and during the whole of Saturday I was busy with the affair.