It was part of Style’s duty to spend a good part of his time in shadowing the four box office girls whom they had made their dupes. French’s inquiries were thus early known to the gang. Welland instantly saw through the trick of the broken window and this convinced the gang that they were in dangerous waters. The manufacture of coins was suspended while Sibley and his wife, both disguised, shadowed the girls. French’s interview with Molly in the Charing Cross Gardens thus became known to them and they saw that they were on the eve of discovery. At once a message was got through to Style to supply Welland with “good” coins for the girls. Style kept a supply in his safe for this purpose, and he passed good bundles to Welland, replacing them with the four faked lots he had brought to town. It was in this way that the coins obtained by French from Molly proved to be good, while those which he found in Style’s safe were faked.
The eventuality which the quartet found themselves up against they had long foreseen and provided against. Their idea was that if England should get too hot to hold them, they would transfer their activities to France. Welland had therefore bought the launch, storing it at Ryde. They were determined, however, not to go without their plant, and preparations for the removal of this were in hand when the whole situation was altered by Molly’s recognition of Style at the silversmiths’.
Style instantly saw that if Molly were allowed to see French again they were done for. French would get on his trail and would find the house at Guildford before the plant had been got away. He therefore decided to kidnap her, so as to gain the necessary time for this operation.
The question of whether she should not be murdered like those of her predecessors who had shown a desire to communicate with Scotland Yard was carefully considered and her life was spared as a sort of forlorn hope. If by some unlikely chance French should discover their flight before they got clear away, Molly was to be exhibited and French was to be told that if he attempted to prevent their escape she should be shot then and there in cold blood. They thought this might make him hesitate sufficiently to enable them to effect their purpose.
By the evening of the day on which Molly was kidnapped all the preparations for the flight were complete and if the gang had then bolted in all probability they would have got clear away. But an unexpected hitch at the last minute delayed them for two days and led to their undoing. Welland found that he could not start the engine of the launch, and he lost two vital days at Ryde in getting the defect put right.
The working out of a method of transshipping their plant from car to launch proved one of their most difficult problems. The need for secrecy forbade the use of a wharf and crane and they knew of no natural harbour or rock from which the machines could be embarked. They therefore chose the position on Southampton Water, one of the rare “hards” on a shore of soft and sedgy flats. At low water they ran the car down on the beach, unloaded and buoyed the machines, and when the tide rose floated the launch to the place and hoisted the machines on board. Two journeys of the car had been necessary to transport all the plant, the second being that by which Molly had been taken. On reaching the shore for the second time the balance of the machines had been unloaded and the whole of the party except Style had gone on board. Style utilized the time until the tide rose high enough to lift the machines in attempting a further safeguard. With the object of confusing the chase, should one materialize, he had run the car into Southampton, and it was when walking back after abandoning it there that French and his party met him.
Though French found out all these details without much difficulty, he was at more of a loss to prove the responsibility of the gang for Thurza Darke’s murder. But eventually he managed this also. The attendant at the Milan identified Gwen Lestrange as the young woman who had called for Thurza on the night of her disappearance, and Dr. Lappin, of Lee-on-the-Solent, swore that Style exactly met the description of the man who was attending to the engine of the grey car on the road near Hill Head. This evidence, added to the rest that French had collected, secured a verdict of guilty, and eventually all four paid for their crimes, Welland and Sibley on the scaffold and the other two with life sentences.
Before his death Welland made a full confession. In it he admitted that he and Sibley had murdered all three girls in the horrible and revolting way with which Style had threatened Molly. Following the example of Smith, the “brides in the bath” murderer, they had drowned their unfortunate victims in the bath in the house at Guildford before disposing of their bodies in the quarry hole, the river, and the sea respectively.
Of all the parties to the transaction, Molly came off the best. Not only was she not prosecuted, but on the grounds that the amount was unknown, the question of her ill-gotten gains was not raised. Most immorally, therefore, she found herself in possession of the nice little sum of nearly four hundred pounds as her share of the affair.
As for French, the consciousness of work well
