“Do you know, the face in that gleam of light looked wonderfully like that of Reginald Monkton!” he said. “I committed the number of the taxi to memory. To-morrow, we shall know where it took them.”
Next morning, the taxi-driver was found, and told his tale simply and straightforwardly.
“I picked them up in the Strand, sir, an elderly gent and a youngish lady. I was standing by the kerb, having just put down a fare. They had stepped out of another taxi a few yards below, they waited till it drove away, and then they came up and got into mine. I thought it a bit peculiar.”
“Where did you put them down?”
“At the corner of Chesterfield Street, Mayfair. I asked them if I should wait, but the lady shook her head. The gentleman seemed ailing like; he walked very slow, and leaned heavily on her arm.”
Smeaton tipped the man, who in a few moments left his room.
If it was Monkton, as he believed, why had he gone to Chesterfield Street? And having gone there, why had he alighted at the corner, instead of driving up to the house?
In a few moments he took up the telephone receiver and asked for the number of Mr Monkton’s house.