"It would be better than spending another night here," said the professor. "Send a boat round for me, and inform the police. I am afraid the captain and his mate have got too long a start; but don't leave Lingham until we have had another talk. While I am alone I may read the riddle." The ducking I did not mind, and the swim was no more than a few vigorous strokes, but I had forgotten the mud. As I struggled through it, squelching, knee-deep, Quarles called to me: "They must have landed him at high-water yesterday, Wigan, and then crossed over and taken the direction from him. I thought he was feeling about with the flag when we first saw him on the green. No doubt he made some sign to the others across the creek to lie low when he saw us coming. They marked the place in daylight and went at night to dig." I sank at least ten inches deeper into the mud while he was speaking. He got no answer out of me. I felt like hating my best friend just then. After changing my clothes at the hotel, where I accounted for my condition by a story, original but not true, I told Zena shortly what had happened, then sent a boat for the professor. I then told the Lingham police, who wired to the police at Colchester, and I also telegraphed to Scotland Yard and to Portland Prison. I did not see Quarles again until the afternoon. "Have you solved the riddle?" I asked. "I think so. We'll go to that ninth hole at once. The police are continuing the excavations begun by our friends. I've had a talk to the professional at the golf club. They move the position of the holes on a green from time to time, you know, Wigan; and with the professional's help I think we shall be able to find out where it was a year last February. He is a methodical fellow. That will give us a different direction on the north bank of the creek. It was a natural oversight on the convict's part. Were I not a golfer I might not have thought of the solution." We found the treasure a long way from where the other digging had been done. It consisted of jewels which, in the early part of the previous year, had been stolen from Fenton Hall, some two miles inland. The theft, which had taken place when the house was full of week-end visitors, had been quickly discovered, and the thief, finding it impossible to get clear away with his spoil, had buried it on the desolate bank of the creek, marking the spot by a mental line drawn through the chained pile and the flag on the golf course. He must have known the neighborhood, and knew this was the ninth hole, or link as he called it, or as the warder had written it down. For Quarles was right, a warder was missing from Portland, and was found dead in that aft cabin.