Crewe reasoned that if Holymead had gone out to see Sir Horace Fewbanks at Riversbrook and had desired to keep his visit a secret he would not have taken a cab at Hyde Park Corner to Hampstead, but would have travelled by underground railway or omnibus.  In all probability the Tube had been used because of its speed being more in harmony with the feelings of a man impatient to get done with a subject so important that Sir Horace had been recalled from Scotland to deal with it.  He would leave the Tube at Hampstead and take a taxi-cab.  He would not be likely to go straight to Riversbrook in the taxi-cab, if he were anxious that his movements should not be traced subsequently.  He would dismiss the taxi-cab at one of the hotels bordering on Hampstead Heath, for they were the resort of hundreds of visitors on summer nights, and his actions would thus easily escape notice.  From the hotel he would walk across to Riversbrook.  But the return journey would be made in a somewhat different way.  If Holymead left Riversbrook in a state of excitement he would walk a long way without being conscious of the exertion.  He would want to be alone with his own thoughts.  Gradually he would cool down, and becoming conscious of his surroundings would make his way home.  Again he would use the Tube, for it would be more difficult for his movements to be traced if he mixed with a crowd of travellers than if he took a cab to his home.  It was impossible to say what station he got in at, for that would depend on how far he walked before he cooled down, but he would be sure to get out at Hyde Park Corner because that was the station nearest to his house.  Allowing for a temperamental reaction during a train journey of about twenty minutes, he would feel depressed and weary and would probably take a taxi-cab outside Hyde Park station to his home.  That was a thing he would often be in the habit of doing when returning late at night from the theatre or elsewhere, and therefore could be easily explained by him if the police happened to make inquiries as to his movements.

As Crewe anticipated, he had no difficulty in finding the driver of the taxi-cab in which Holymead had driven home on the night of Wednesday last.  The K.C. frequently used cabs, and he was well-known to all the drivers on the rank.  Crewe got into the cab he had used and ordered the man to drive him to his office, and there invited him upstairs.  He adopted this course because he knew that the driver, who gave his name as Taylor, would be more likely to talk freely in an office where he could not be overheard than he would do on the cab-rank with his fellow-drivers crowding him, or in an hotel parlour where other people were present.

“Tell me exactly what happened when you drove Mr. Holymead home on Wednesday night,” said Crewe.  “Did you notice anything strange about him, or was his manner much the same as on other occasions that he used your cab?”

“Well, I don’t see whether I should tell you whether he was or whether he wasn’t,” replied the taxi-cab driver, who was as surly as most of his class.  “What’s it to do with you, anyway?  He’s a regular customer of mine on the rank, and he’s not one of your tuppenny tipsters, either.  He’s a gentleman.  And if he got to know that I had been telling tales about him it would not do me any good.”