Can You Think Like A Time Traveler?

The Shield Of Time, PART TWO, 209 B.C.

 Everard - temporarily - forgets to think like a time traveler! (Then he is saved by a moment of realization.) The situation is complicated but I will try to summarize and clarify.

Hipponicus' dinner guests included:

Meander the Illyrian/Manse Everard;

Zoilus, well-connected minister of the treasury and, it turns out, patron of the courtesan, Theonis.

Zoilus becomes suspicious when Meander inquires about Theonis and her kin who, to Everard's ear, answer the description of Exaltationist time criminals.

The following day, Meander visits Chandrakumar/Benegal Dass at the vihara. Four city guards enter the vihara and try to arrest Meander as a Syrian spy but he escapes.

Meander/Everard deduces that:

Theonis (definitely an Exaltationist, indeed the female Varagan) would have asked Zoilus to inform her of anyone inquiring about her people;

when informed of Meander, she talked Zoilus into sending guards to arrest him;

Zoilus, not in the army and needing to act discretely, would have required several hours to contact an officer whom he could trust and control;

when the Exaltationists learn that the arrestee has escaped, they will get Zoilus to send the guards to Hipponicus' house both to appropriate Meander's possessions and to apprehend him if he returns there;

it is unlikely that a second group has gone directly to the house because it would be difficult for Zoilus to get the service of even more guards without alerting the suspicions of an honest officer who might ask awkward questions;

therefore, Everard must hurry to the house, arrive ahead of the guards, feed Hipponicus a yarn, gather his equipment and get out fast.

What is wrong with Everard's reasoning?