"I think she said she would go back to her old village somewhere in Essex."
"Quite a rich woman, eh?" laughed Quarles. "But I doubt the statement about her old village. She is more likely to go where she is not known."
"You will change your opinion when you have talked to her."
"I hope to know all about her before I talk to her," Quarles returned. "We are going to Wimbledon, but not to an interview yet."
Arriving there, I went to the house to make sure that Martha Wakeling was there, and then, taking care not to be seen, joined the professor in the garden, where we hid in a shrubbery to watch anyone who came from or went to the house. It was a long wait—indeed, Quarles was rather doubtful whether anything would happen that day—but in the afternoon Martha Wakeling came out and passed into the road.
"We have got to follow her and not be seen," said Quarles.
There was some difficulty in doing so, for she was evidently careful not to be followed. She went to the station, and by District Railway to Victoria, and to a house in the Buckingham Palace Road.
"We must find out whom it is she comes to visit here, Wigan," said Quarles. "We will wait a few minutes, and then you must insure that we are shown up without being announced. I do not fancy we shall meet with any resistance."
The woman who opened the door to us showed no desire for secrecy. The lady who had just come in did not live there, she explained. If I wanted to see her, would I send in my name? It was not until I told her that I was a detective that she led the way to the first floor, and we entered the room unannounced.
In an armchair sat an elderly woman, and from a chair at her side Martha Wakeling rose quickly. Quarles had entered the room first, and she did not notice me in the doorway.