"Emanuele!" she cried.
"I see you do know him," Quarles said. "You have my sympathy. It is possible that the man Parrish deserved his fate, only it happens that another has suffered in his place."
"It was my sister he wronged," said the woman.
"Was it fear that some evidence might be found against you which made you point out a man whom you knew was innocent?" said Quarles.
She nodded, still sobbing.
"The rest is for you to manage," said Quarles, turning to the inspector. "I suppose you are not likely to make any further mistakes. This would all have been cleared up days ago if Wigan had not been taken off the job."
I suppose Cockran felt a fool, as the professor intended he should.
There was little to be explained when I went to Chelsea later. Quarles's reconstruction of the crime had showed me the lines along which he had worked. The unopened letter from Rome had set him speculating with a view to proving that the dead man was not Parrish; and whilst I had only considered the change in character, he had had before him the possibility of a separate identity.
"Still, I do not understand how you came to suspect the woman," I said.
"Her recognition of you was too prompt to carry conviction under the circumstances," he answered. "The boy, who is in an office in Gray's Inn, might have met you together. I have no doubt he did; but since the woman had no business there, and if my theory were right, was concealed in Parrish's chambers at the time, she could not have seen you, except in the way I explained to her. Poor soul! I feel rather a cur for trapping her, but you were in a tight hole, Wigan, and I had to get you out."