Watching Wibley when he came down to Hythe, Quarles found he had a liking for motoring on the Dymchurch Road. He saw him pull up one morning to speak to a man on the roadside. He did the same thing on the following morning, but it was a different man, and Quarles recognized young Squires.
Squires afterwards went to this empty house, and Quarles speedily had men on the Marsh watching it night and day. It looked as if the house were the gang's meeting-place. Either another coup was being prepared, or an escape was being arranged.
During a hurried visit to town the professor had seen my letter to Zena, and this had given him a clue.
"It was the name Selborne," Quarles explained. "I told you, Wigan, that Wibley's daughter—or supposed daughter—was not with him in Hampshire. Her whereabouts worried me. I could not forget that a woman had taken part in our capture during the chalice case. While I was in Hampshire I spent half a day in Gilbert White's village. His 'Natural History of Selborne' has always delighted me. Selborne. If you were going to take a false name, Wigan, and your godfathers had not called you Murray, only James, what would you do? As likely as not you would take the name of some place with which you were familiar. In itself the idea was not convincing, but it brought me to your hotel at Folkestone, and then I was certain. Do you remember the woman Squires spoke to on the night he led us into that trap?"
"It was too dark to see her face," I said.
"I mean the way she stood," said Quarles, "with her arms akimbo; so did the masked woman in the cellar, and when I saw Mrs. Selborne on the lawn she did the same. The pose is peculiar. When a woman falls into this attitude you will find she either rests her knuckles on her hips, or grasps her waist with open hands, the thumbs behind the four finger in front. This woman doesn't. She grasps her waist with the thumbs in front, a man's way rather than a woman's. Her presence there suggested, another hotel robbery; the yacht suggested a means of escape for the gang, apparently gathering at the empty house. Since Mrs. Selborne had paid you so much attention, I guessed she knew who you were, and thought you were on duty, posing as an invalid. I thought it likely your presence would prevent the robbery, but she took every precaution that you should go with her to-day, storm or shine, eh, Wigan? We have had the glasses on the yacht all day, and when the crew landed to-night we caught them. Then we went to the house, Wigan. Got them all, and I believe the whole of the six months' spoil."
"Why didn't you put me on my guard?" I asked.
"Well, Wigan, I think you would have scouted the idea. You were fascinated, you know. In any case, you could not have helped watching her for confirmation or to prove me wrong; she would have noted the change in you, grown suspicious, and might have ruined everything at the eleventh hour. Unless I am much mistaken we shall discover that the woman was the brains of the gang."
So it proved when the trial came on, and in another direction Quarles was correct.
Squires was Mason's son. The lad had cut himself loose from his old companions, and had only meant to warn his father. He knew where he was likely to find him, but meeting the man and woman unexpectedly, he was frightened into trapping us.