# The Mystery of Ravensdene Court/Part 2

from Everybody's Magazine, 1922 February, pp. 111–134.
A Feast for Those Who Hunger for Mystery, Adventure—and Who Doesn't? The Trail Leads in Many Directions and a Strange Kidnaping Takes Place
My journey to Alnwick, a remote village on the Northumbrian coast, in March, 1912, was undertaken at the request of Francis Raven, owner of Ravensdene Court, to whom I had been recommended to catalogue and appraise a collection of old books and manuscripts which he had recently inherited from an uncle. His letter stated that his household consisted only of himself and a nineteen-year-old niece, from which circumstance he could not promise anything very lively in the way of amusement, but held forth a prospect of more congenial society in the presence of Septimus Cazalette, eminent authority on numismatics, who was working on a vast collection of coins and medals also formed by his deceased kinsman.
I left the train at Alnmouth, the nearest station, and decided to take advantage of the fine, bracing morning and walk the rest of the distance, about nine or ten miles. On the way I overtook a thick-set, middle-aged man, undoubtedly a follower of the sea, who introduced himself as Salter Quick, of Devonport. His errand in a part of England so distant from his home was, he told me, to look for graveyards containing tombstones with the name of Netherfield—his mother's people.
At an inn, where I offered my interesting acquaintance some liquid refreshment, the landlord disclaimed any knowledge of the name Netherfield in the locality, but a drover who happened to be in the place imparted the curious information that only two days before a stranger, evidently a seafaring man, had made of him the very same inquiries as to gravestones with “Netherfield” on them. This seemed to disturb Quick greatly.
Leaving him at the inn, I continued on my way, and finally came to the park surrounding Ravensdene Court, in which I met a girl who addressed me by name, Middlebrook, told me my luggage had arrived, and that they had received the message I had sent announcing my intention to walk from Alnmouth. This, of course, was Marcia, the niece to whom Mr. Raven had referred in his letter, and she conducted me to my host, who welcomed me cordially.
Mr. Cazalette proved to be a queer, bald-pated, old-fashioned man, who wore odd clothes. He was eighty years old, but must have been very hardy, for Marcia told me that he bathed in the sea every day, no matter what the weather.
I was not surprised, therefore, when, looking from my window early the next morning, I observed the old gentleman returning to the house with towels draped over his shoulders, but my attention was caught when I saw him suddenly thrust something into a yew hedge. Going out immediately after for a walk before breakfast, I could not refrain from visiting the hedge to see what Cazalette had put there. It was a handkerchief stained brown and red, as if with clay and blood. My first thought was that a shell had cut his foot on the beach; but why should he have thus hidden the bit of linen he had used to stanch the wound?
Presently I had to admit another theory, for a few moments later I came across the body of Salter Quick lying, stabbed to death, on the sands in a pool of blood. Cazalette! His morning dip! The hiding of a blood-stained handkerchief! And I remembered that he had been deeply interested and asked many questions when, the night before, I had told the story of Quick and the other stranger, both in these parts on a precisely similar quest.
When I spread the news, beyond the fact that only a gleam of sudden, almost pleased, interest showed in his eyes, Cazalette was quite impassive. “Well now, that's the very end I was thinking the fellow would come to,” he remarked. I thought, of course, of asking for some explanation of the incident of the hedge, but on reflection determined to hold my tongue and bide my time.
Quick's clothes had been searched by the assassin; but in one of the pockets was found a metal tobacco-box quaintly chased and ornamented. This interested Cazalette greatly. He discovered some lines scratched on the inside of the lid with the point of a nail, or a knife. He got permission to photograph the box. and announced his intention of enlarging the print. He appeared to believe the scratches might help solve the murder.
But for the present the mystery was further deepened when news came that Salter's brother Noah, landlord of the Admiral Parker inn, had been found murdered in Saltash, near Devonport, at the same hour the former had met his end. It began to look as if the two were in possession of some secret, and had been done away with by men who were anxious to obtain it for themselves.
A few days later Miss Raven expressed a desire to see the tobacco-box on which, as a clue, Cazalette appeared to set such store. It had been taken away by the police, and we walked over to the station. When the obliging inspector went to get it, he found it gone. It had last been seen at the inquest, and must have been abstracted at those proceedings.
On the way home, a sudden thunder-storm compelled us to take refuge in the house of Doctor Lorrimore, who was dining at Ravensdene Court the following night. Lorrimore, after twelve years in India, had bought a practise in Alnwick in order to devote himself to certain scientific pursuits with as little interruption as possible. He lived alone with a most inscrutable Chinese servant, whom he had brought from the East and whom he called Wing, which was only one of two or three patronymics. He spoke of Wing as a philosopher, as having an amazing ability to meet any demand or emergency. But I could not help wondering that so clever a chap should be content to bury his talents in such an out-of-the-world spot. We had the opportunity of realizing his culinary abilities through some delicious plum cake which was offered us.
THE next day, when I was going downstairs to dinner, Mr. Cazalette's door opened and he quietly drew me inside his room.
“Middlebrook,” he whispered—though he had carefully shut the door—“you're a sensible lad, and I'll acquaint you with a matter. This very morning, as I was taking my bit of a dip, my pocketbook was stolen out of the jacket that I'd left on the shore. Stolen, Middlebrook!”
“Was there anything of great value in it?” I asked.
“Aye; there was!” answered Mr. Cazalette. “There was that in it which, in my opinion, might be some sort of a clue to the real truth about yon man's murder!”
“You lost your pocketbook while you were bathing, Mr. Cazalette?” I asked.
He turned on his bed, pointing to a venerable Norfolk jacket which hung on a peg in a recess by the wash-stand.
“It's my custom,” said he, “to array myself in that old coatie when I go for my bit dip, you see—it's thick and it's warm, and I've had it twenty years or more—good tweed it is, and homespun. And whenever I've gone out here of a morning, I put my pocketbook in the inside pocket and laid the coat itself and the rest o' my scanty attire on the bank down there at Kernwick Cove while I went in the water. And I did that very same thing this morning—and when I came to my clothes again, the pocketbook was gone!”
“You saw nobody about?” I suggested.
“Nobody,” said he. “But, Lord, man, I know how easy it was to do the thing! You'll bear in mind that on the right-hand side of that cove, the plantation comes right down to the edge of the bit of cliff—well, a man lurking among the shrubs and undergrowth 'ud have nothing to do but reach his arm to the bank, draw my coatie to his nefarious self and abstract my property.”
“And—the clue?” I asked.
He edged a little nearer to me.
“I'm telling you,” he said. “Now, you'll let your mind go back to the morning whereon you found yon man Quick lying dead and murdered on the sand. And you'll remember that before ever you were down at the place, I'd been there before you. You'll wonder how it comes about that I didn't find what you found, but, then, there's a many big rocks and boulders standing well up on that beach, and it's very evident that the corpse was obscured from my view by one or other and maybe more of 'em. Anyway, I didn't find Salter Quick—but I did find something that maybe—mind, I'm saying maybe, Middlebrook—had to do with his murder.”
“What, Mr. Cazalette?” I asked, though I knew well enough what it was. I wanted him to say, and have done with it; his circumlocution was getting wearisome.
“You'll be aware,” he continued, “that there's a deal of gorse and bramble growing right down to the very edge of the coast thereabouts, Middlebrook. Scrub—that sort o' thing. The stuff that, if it catches anything loose, anything protruding from say, the pocket of a garment, 'll lay hold and stick to it. Aye; well, on one of those bushes, gorse or bramble, I cannot rightly say which, just within the entrance to the plantation, I saw, fluttering in the morning breeze that came sharp and refreshing off the face of the water, a handkerchief. And there was two sorts o' stains on it—caused in the one case by mud—the soft mud of the adjacent beach—and in the other by blood. A smear of blood—as if somebody had wiped blood off his fingers, you'll understand. But it was not that, not the blood, made me give my particular attention to the thing, which I'd picked off with my thumb and finger. It was that I saw at once that this was no common man's property, for there was a crest woven into one corner, and a monogram of initials underneath it, and the stuff itself was of a sort that I'm unfamiliar with—it wasn't linen, though it looked like it, and it wasn't silk, for I'm well acquainted with that fabric—maybe it was a mixture of the two, but it had not been woven or made in any British factory. The thing was of foreign origin.”
“WHAT were the markings you speak of?” I asked.
“Well, I tell you there was a crest; anyhow, it was a coronet or that make of a thing,” he answered. “Woven in one corner—I mean, worked in by hand. And the letters Beneath it were a 'V' and a de—small, that last, and a 'C.' Man, that handkerchief was the property of some man of quality! And the stains being wet—the mud stains, at any rate, though the smear of blood was dry—I gathered that it had been but recently deposited, by accident, where I found it. I reckoned it up this way—d'ye see, Middlebrook?—the man who'd left it there had used it on the beach—maybe he'd cut his toe, bathing, or something o' that sort, or likely a cut finger, gathering a shell or a fossil—and had thrust it carelessly into a side pocket, for a thorn to catch hold of as he passed.”
“And what did you do with it, Mr. Cazalette?” I inquired, with seeming innocence.
“I slipped it among my towels. But I'm whiles given to absent-mindedness, and not liking that I should put the blood-stained thing down on my dressing-table there and cause the maids to wonder, I just thrust it into a hedge as I was passing along, till I could go back and examine it at my leisure. And when I'd got myself dressed, I went back and took it, and put it in a stout envelope into my pocket—and then you came along, Middlebrook, with your story of the murder, and I saw then that, before saying a word to anybody, I'd keep my own counsel and examine that thing more carefully. And, man alive, I've no doubt whatever that the man who left the handkerchief behind him was the man who knifed Salter Quick.”
“I gather, from all you've said, that the handkerchief was in the pocketbook you had stolen this morning,” I suggested.
“You're right in that,” said he. “Oh, it was! Wrapped up in a bit of oiled paper, and in an envelope, sealed down and attested in my handwriting, Middlebrook—date and particulars of my discovery of it, all in order. Aye; and there was more. Letters and papers of my own, to be sure, and a trifle money—bank-notes. But there was yet another thing that, in view of all we know, may be a serious thing to have fall into the hands of ill-doers. A print, Middlebrook, of the enlarged photograph I got of the in side of the lid of yon dead man's tobacco-box!”
He regarded me with intense seriousness as he made this announcement, and not knowing exactly what to say, I remained silent.
“Aye!” he continued. “And it's my distinct and solemn belief that it's that the thief was after. Ye see, Middlebrook, it's been spoken of—not widely noised abroad, as you might say, but still spoken of, and things spread, that I was keenly interested in those marks, scratches, whatever they were, on the inside of that lid, and got the police to let me make a photograph, and it's my impression that there's somebody about who's been keenly anxious to know what results I obtained.”
“You really think so?” said I. “Why—who could there be?”
“Aye, man, and who could there be, wi' a crest and monogram on his kerchief, that 'ud murder yon man the secret way he was?” he retorted, answering my incredulous look with one of triumph. “Tell me that, my laddie! I'm telling you, Middlebrook, that this was no common murder any more than the murder of the man's own brother down yonder at Saltash, which is a Cornish riverside place, and a good four or five hundred miles away, was a common, ordinary crime. Man, we're living in the very midst of a mystery—and that there's bloody-minded, aye, and bloody-handed men, maybe, with in our gates, but surely close by us, is as certain to me as that I'm looking at you!”
“I thought you believed that Salter Quick's murderer was miles away before ever Salter Quick was cold,” I observed.
“I did—and I've changed my mind,” he answered. “I'm not thinking it any more, and all the less since I was robbed of my venerable pocketbook, with those two exhibits o' the crime in its wame. The murderer is about! And though he mayn't have thought to get his handkerchief, he may have hoped that he'd secure some result o' my labors in the photographic line.”
“Mr. Cazalette!” said I, “what were the results of your labours? I don't suppose that the print which was in your pocketbook was the only one you possess.”
“You're right there,” he replied. “It wasn't. If the thief thought he was securing something unique, he was mistaken. But—I didn't want him, or anybody, to get hold of even one print; for, as sure as we're living men, what was on the inside of that lid was—a key to something!”
“Mr. Cazalette,” said I, “I'd just like to see your results.”
He got off his bed at that, and going over to a chest of drawers, unlocked one, and took out a writing-case, from which he presently extracted a sheet of cardboard, whereon he had mounted a photograph, beneath which, on the cardboard, were some lines of explanatory writing in his fine, angular style of calligraphy. This is what there was to look at—mere lines, and, at the foot of the photograph, Mr. Cazalette's explanatory notes and suggestions:
| AAA | Inside rim of the lid of the tobacco-box. |
| B | Outer line, slightly scratched in. |
| C | Inner line, deeply scratched in. |
| D | Three vertical short lines. |
| E | Two marks, obviously parts of figures, the remainder illegible. |
| F | Short vertical line. |
| G | A deeply incised cross. |
“I'm as wise as ever, Mr. Cazalette.” I said, after studying this for a few moments. “It seems to be a plan. But of what?”
JUST then the dinner-bell rang,and he put the photographic print away, and we went down-stairs. That was the evening on which Doctor Lorrimore was to dine with us—we found him in the hall, talking to Mr. Raven and his niece. Joining them, we found that their subject of conversation was the same that had just engaged Mr. Cazalette and myself—the tobacco-box. It turned out that the police inspector had been round to Lorrimore's house, inquiring if Lorrimore, who, with the police surgeon, had occupied a seat at the table whereon the Quick relics were laid out at the inquest, had noticed that now missing and consequently all-important object.
Lorrimore was a brilliant and accomplished conversationalist, and the time passed pleasantly until, as we men were lingering a little over our wine, and Miss Raven was softly playing the piano in the adjoining drawing-room, the butler came in and whispered to his master. Raven turned an astonished face to the rest of us.
“There's the police inspector here now,” he said, “and with him a detective—from Devonport. They are anxious to see me—and you, Middlebrook. The detective has something to tell.”
“SORRY to disturb you, Mr. Raven,” said the inspector, with an apologetic bow, “but we are anxious to have a little talk with you and Mr. Middlebrook. This is Mr. Scarterfield—from the police at Devonport.”
We made room for them at the table at which we were sitting, and some of us, I think, were impatient to hear what Mr. Scarterfield had to tell. But he betrayed no eagerness to get to business until he had lighted one of Mr. Raven's cigars and pledged Mr. Raven in a whisky and soda. Then he turned a friendly, all-embracing smile on the rest of us.
“I had better tell you how far my investigations have gone,” he said quietly. “Then we shall know precisely where we are, and from what point we can, perhaps, make a new departure, now that I have come here. I was put in charge of this case —at least of the Saltash murder—from the first. Now, when the news about Salter Quick came through, it seemed to me that the first thing to do was to find out a very pertinent thing—who were the brothers Quick? What were their antecedents? What was in their past likely to lead up to these crimes?
“When Noah Quick first went to Devonport, he deposited a considerable sum of money with one of the leading banks at Plymouth, and at the time of his death he had several thousand pounds lying there to his credit. His bankers also had charge of valuable securities of his. On Salter Quick's coming to the Admiral Parker, Noah introduced him to this bank; Salter deposited there a sum of about two thousand pounds, and of that he had only withdrawn about a hundred. So he, too, at the time of his death, had a large balance; also, he left with the bankers, for safekeeping, some valuable scrip and securities, chiefly of Indian railways. But the bankers know no more of their antecedents than the solicitors do, which is nothing.”
Here the detective, suddenly assuming a more businesslike air than he had previously shown, paused, to produce from his breast-pocket a small bundle of papers, which he laid before him on the table.
“I'll have to tell the story in a sort of sequence,” he continued. “This is what I have pieced together from the information I collected at Lloyds: In October, 1907, now nearly five years ago, a certain steam ship, the Elizabeth Robinson, left Hongkong, in southern China, for Chemulpo, one of the principal ports in Korea. She was spoken in the Yellow Sea several days later. After that she was never heard of again, and, according to the information available at Lloyds, she probably went down in a typhoon in the Yellow Sea and was totally lost, with all hands on board. No great matter, perhaps! From all that I could gather, she was nothing but a tramp steamer that did, so to speak, odd jobs any where between India and China; she had gone to Hongkong from Singapore; her owners were small folk in Singapore; and I imagine that she had seen a good deal of active service. All the same, she's of considerable interest to me, for I have managed to secure a list of the names of the men who were on her when she left Hongkong for Chemulpo—and among those names are Noah and Salter Quick.”
Scarterfield slipped off the india-rubber band which confined his papers, and, selecting one, slowly unfolded it. Mr. Raven spoke.
“I understood that this ship, the Elizabeth Robinson, was lost with all hands?” he said.
“So she is set down at Lloyds,” replied Scarterfield.
“Yet—Noah and Salter Quick were on her—and were living five years later,” suggested Mr. Raven.
“Just so, sir,” agreed Scarterfield dryly. “Therefore, if Noah and Salter Quick were on her, and as they were alive until recently, either the Elizabeth Robinson did not go down in a typhoon or from any other reason, or—the brothers Quick escaped. But here is a list of the men who were aboard when she sailed from Hongkong. It includes a master, or captain, and a crew of eighteen—I needn't trouble you with their names, except in two instances, which I'll refer to presently. But here are the names of Noah Quick, Salter Quick—set down as passengers! Nothing in the list of the crew strikes me but the two names I spoke of. The first will have an interest for Mr. Middlebrook. It's Netherfield.”
“Netherfield!” I exclaimed. “The name——”
“That Salter Quick asked you particular questions about when he met you on the headlands, Mr. Middlebrook,” answered Scarterfield, with a knowing look, “and that he was very anxious to get some news of William Netherfield, deck-hand, of Blyth, Northumberland—that's the name on the list of those who were aboard the Elizabeth Robinson.”
“Of Blyth?” remarked Mr. Cazalette. “Um. Blyth lies some miles to the southward.”
“I'm aware of it, sir,” said Scarterfield, “and I propose to visit the place when I have made certain inquiries about this region. But I hope you appreciate the extraordinary coincidence, gentlemen. In October, 1907, Salter Quick is on a tramp steamer in the Yellow Sea in company, more or less intimate, with a sailorman from Blyth, in Northumberland, whose name is Netherfield. In March, 1912, he is on the seacoast near Alnmouth, asking anxiously if anybody knows of a churchyard or churchyards in these parts where people of the name of Netherfield are buried. Why?”
Nobody attempted to answer this question, and presently I put one for myself.
“You spoke of two names on the list as striking you with some significance,” I said. “Netherfield is one. What is the other?”
“That of a Chinaman,” he replied. “Set down as cook—I'm told most of those coasting steamers in that part of the world carry Chinamen as cooks. Chuh Fen—that's the name. And why it's significant to me, when all the rest aren't, is this: During the course of my inquiries at Lloyds, I learned that about three years ago a certain Chinaman, calling himself Chuh Fen, dropped in at Lloyds and was very anxious to know if the steamer Elizabeth Robinson, which sailed from Hongkong for Chemulpo in October, 1907, ever arrived at her destination? He was given the same information that was afforded me, and, on getting it, went away, silent. Now then—was this man, this Chinaman, the Chuh Fen who turned up in London, the same Chuh Fen who was on the Elizabeth Robinson? If so, how did he escape a shipwreck which evidently happened? And why—if there was no shipwreck, and something else took place of which we have no knowledge—did he want to know, after two years' lapse of time, if the ship did really get to Chemulpo?”
THERE was a pause then, and something impelled Miss Raven, who had joined us, and myself to glance at Doctor Lorrimore. He nodded—he knew what we were thinking of. And he turned to Scarterfield.
“I happen,” he said, “to have a Chinaman in my employ at present—one Wing, a very clever man. He has been with me for some years—I brought him from India, when I came home recently. An astute chap, like——”
He paused suddenly; the detective had turned a suddenly interested glance on him.
“You live hereabouts, sir?” he asked. “I—I don't think I've caught your name?”
“Doctor Lorrimore—our neighbor,” said Mr. Raven hurriedly. “Close by.”
I think Lorrimore saw what had suddenly come into Scarterfield's mind. He laughed a little cynically.
“Don't get the idea or suspicion formed or half fledged that my man Wing had anything to do with the murder of Salter Quick,” he said. “I can vouch for him and his movements—I know where he was on the day of the murder. What I was thinking of was this: Wing is a man of infinite resource and of superior brains. He might be of use to you in tracing this Chuh Fen, if Chuh Fen is in England. When Wing and I were in London—we were there for some time after I returned from India, previous to my coming down here—Wing paid a good many visits to his fellow Chinamen in the East End, Limehouse way; he also had a holiday in Liverpool and another at Swansea and Cardiff, where, I am told, there are Chinese settlements. And I happen to know that he carries on an extensive correspondence with his compatriots. If you think he could give you any information, Mr. Scarterfield——”
“I'd like to have a talk with him, certainly,” responded the detective, with some eagerness.
Lorrimore turned to Mr. Raven.
“If your coachman could run across with the dog-cart or anything handy,” he said, “and would tell Wing that I want him, here, he'd be with me at once.”
HALF an hour passed; then the door was quietly opened, and behind the somewhat pompous figure of the butler I saw the bland, obsequious smile of the Chinaman.
It was Lorrimore who, at the detective's request, explained to Wing why we had sent for him. The Chinaman nodded a grave assent when reminded of the Salter Quick affair—evidently he knew all about it. Then Scarterfield began to ask him questions.
“Did you ever hear of a man named Chuh Fen?” the detective asked.
The Chinaman moved his head very slightly.
“I knew a man named Chuh Fen ten, eleven years ago, before I went to Bombay and entered my present service.”
“Where did you know him?”
“Two—perhaps three places,” said Wing. “Singapore, Penang, perhaps Rangoon.”
“What was he?”
“A cook—very good cook.”
“Would you be surprised to hear of his being in England three years ago?”
“Not at all. Many Chinamen come here. I myself—why not others? If Chuh Fen came here three years ago, perhaps he came as cook on some ship trading from China to Burma. Then—go back again.”
“I wonder if he did,” muttered the detective. “Still,” he continued, turning to Wing, “a lot of your people, when they come here, stop, don't they?”
“Many stop in this country,” said Wing.
“Laundry business, eating-houses, groceries, and so on?” suggested Scarterfield. “Now, I want to ask you a question. This man I'm talking of, Chuh Fen, was certainly in London three years ago. Are there places and people in London where one could get to hear of him?”
“Where I could get to hear of him—yes,” answered Wing.
“You say—where you could get to hear of him,” remarked Scarterfield. “Does that mean that you would get information which I shouldn't get?”
The very faintest ghost of a smile showed itself in the wrinkles about the Chinaman's eyes. He inclined his head a little, politely, and Lorrimore stepped into the arena.
“What Wing means is that, being a Chinaman himself, naturally he could get news of a fellow Chinaman from fellow Chinamen where you, an Englishman, wouldn't get any at all,” he said, with a laugh. “I dare say that if you, Mr. Scarterfield, went down Limehouse way seeking particulars about Chuh Fen, you'd be met with blank faces and stopped ears.”
“That's just what I'm suggesting. Doctor,” answered the detective good-humoredly. “I'll put the thing in a nutshell—my profound belief is that if we want to get at the bottom of these two murders, we've got to go back a long way, to the Elizabeth Robinson time, and that Chuh Fen is the only person I've heard of, up to now, who can throw a light on that episode. And it seems to me, to be plain about it, that Mr. Wing there could be extremely useful.”
“How?” asked Lorrimore. “He's at your service. I'm sure.”
“Well, by finding out if this Chuh Fen, when he was here, three years since, made any revelations to his Chinese brethren in Limehouse or elsewhere,” replied Scarterfield. “He may have known something about the brothers Quick and concerning that Elizabeth Robinson affair that would help immensely.”
“I know,” said Lorrimore, He turned to his servant and addressed him in some strange tongue in which Wing at once responded. For some minutes they talked together volubly; then Lorrimore looked round at Scarterfield.
“Wing says that if Chuh Fen was in London three years ago, he can engage to find out how long he was here, whence he came anti why, and where he went,” he said. “This he can do for you—he's no doubt of it.”
“There's another thing,” said Scarterfield: “If Chuh Fen is still in England—as he may be—can he find him?”
Wing's smooth countenance, on hearing this, showed some sign of animation. Instead of replying to the detective, he again addressed his master in the foreign tongue. Lorrimore nodded and turned to Scarterfield with a slightly cynical smile.
“He says that if Chuh Fen is anywhere in England,he can lay hands on him quickly,” said Lorrimore. “But he adds that Chuh Fen may have reasons of his own for desiring strict privacy.”
“I get you!” said Scarterfield, with a wink. “All right, doctor! If Mr. Wing can unearth Mr. Chuh Fen, and that mysterious gentleman can give me a tip. I'll respect his privacy. So now do we get at something? Do I understand that your man will help us by trying to find out some particulars of Chuh Fen, or laying hands on Chuh Fen himself? All expenses defrayed, you know,” he went on, turning to Wing, “and a handsome remuneration if it leads to results. And follow your own plans. I know you Chinamen are smart and deep at this sort of thing.”
“Leave it to him,” said Lorrimore. “To him and to me. If there's news to be had of this man, Chuh Fen, he'll get it.”
“Then that is something done!” exclaimed Scarterfield, rubbing his hands. “Good! I like to see even a bit of progress. But now, while I'm here, and while we're at business—and I hope this young lady doesn't find it dull business—there's an other matter: The inspector tells me there have been alarms and excursions about a certain tobacco-box which was found on Salter Quick, that Mr. Cazalette—you, sir, I think—had had various experiments in connection with it, and that the thing has been stolen. Now, I want to know all about that. Who can tell me most?”
SO, FOR the second time that day, Mr. Cazalette told the story of the tobacco- box and of his pocketbook, and produced his photograph.
The rest of us watched Scarterfield as he studied the thing over which Mr. Cazalette and I had exercised our brains in the half-hour before dinner. He seemed to get no more information from a long perusal of it than we had got, and he finally threw it away from him across the table with a muttered exclamation which confessed discomfiture. Miss Raven picked up the photograph.
“Aye!” mumbled Mr. Cazalette. “Let the lassie look at it! Maybe a woman's brains is more use than a man's.”
Miss Raven, timid, and a little shy of concentrated attention, laid the photograph again on the table.
“Don't—don't you think there may be some explanation of this in what Salter Quick said to Mr. Middlebrook when they met on the cliffs?” she asked. “He told Mr. Middlebrook that he wanted to find a churchyard where there were graves of people named Netherfield, but he didn't know exactly where it was, though it was somewhere in this locality. Now, suppose this is a rough outline of that churchyard. These outer lines may be the wall—then these little marks may show the situation of the Netherfield graves. And that cross in the corner—perhaps there is something buried, hidden there which Salter Quick wanted to find?”
The detective uttered a sharp exclamation and snatched up the photograph again.
“Good! Good!” he said. “To be sure, that may be it. What's against it?”
“This,” remarked Mr. Cazalette solemnly: “That there isn't anybody of the name of Netherfield buried between Alnmouth and Budle Bay. That's a fact.”
“Established,” added the police inspector, “by as an exhaustive inquiry as anybody could make. It is a fact, as Mr. Cazalette says.”
“Well,” observed Scarterfield, “but Salter Quick may have been wrong in his locality. You can be sure of this: Whatever secret he held was got from somebody else. He may have been twenty, thirty, even fifty miles out. But we know something—the Netherfield who was with him in the Elizabeth Robinson hailed from Blyth, in this county. I'm going to Blyth myself—to morrow; I'll find out if there are Netherfields buried about there. Personally, I believe Miss Raven's hit the nail on the head. This is a rough chart of a spot Salter Quick wanted to find—where, no doubt, something is hidden. What? Who knows? But—judging from the fact that two men have been murdered for the secret of it—something of great value.”
WE HEARD nothing of Scarterfield, the dectective, nor of Wing, pressed into his service, for some days after the consultation in Mr. Raven's dining-room. Then, as we were breakfasting one morning, the post-bag was brought in, and Mr. Raven, opening it, presently handed me a letter in an unfamiliar handwriting, the envelope of which bore the post-mark, Blyth.
North Sea Hotel,
Blyh, Northumberland. April 23, 1912.
Dear Sir:
You will remember that when we were discussing matters the other night round Mr. Raven's table, I mentioned that I intended visiting this town in order to make some inquiries about the man Netherfield who was with the brothers Quick on the Elizabeth Robinson. I have been here two days, and I have made some very curious discoveries. And I am now writing to ask you if you could so far oblige and help me in my investigations as to join me here for a day or two at once. The fact is. I want your assistance—I understand that you are an expert in deciphering documents and the like, and I have come across certain things here in connection with this case which are beyond me. I can assure you that, if you could make it convenient to spare me even a few hours of your valuable time, you would put me under great obligations to you.
Yours truly, Thomas Scarterfield.
It took me some hours to get to Blyth. But there I was at last, in the middle of the afternoon, and there, on the platform to meet me, was the detective, as rubicund and cheerful as ever.
“I came here, of course,” he began, “to see if I could learn anything of a man of this place who answered to what I had already learned about Netherfield of the Elizabeth Robinson. I went to the likely people for news, and I very soon found out some thing. Nobody knew anything of any man, old or young, named William Netherfield. But a good many people—most, if not all people—do know of a man who used to be much in evidence here some years ago—a man of the name of Netherfield Baxter.”
“Netherfield Baxter,” I repeated. “Not a name to be readily forgotten—once it is known.”
“He's not forgotten,” said Scarterfield grimly, “and he was well enough known here once upon a time, and not so long since, either. And now, who was Nether field Baxter? Well, he was the only child of an old tradesman of this town, whose wife died when Netherfield was a mere boy, and who died himself when his son was only seventeen years of age. Old Baxter was a remarkably foolish man. He left all he had to this lad—some twelve thousand pounds—in such a fashion that he came into absolute, uncontrolled possession of it on attaining his twenty-first birthday. Now then, you can imagine what happened. My young gentleman, nobody to say him nay, no father, mother, sister, brother to re strain him or give him a word in season—or a hearty kicking, which would have been more to the purpose—went the pace, pretty considerably. Horses, cards, champagne—you know! The twelve thousand began to melt like wax in a fire, and by the beginning of the year 1904—bear the date in mind, Mr. Middlebrook—Netherfield Baxter was just about on his last legs—he was, in fact, living from hand to mouth. He was then—I've been particular about collecting facts and statistics—just twenty-nine years of age; so, one way or another, he'd made his little fortune last him eight years. He still had good clothes—a very, very taking, good-looking fellow he was, they say—and he'd a decent lodging. But in spring of 1904 he was living on the proceeds of chance betting, and was sometimes very low down, and in May of that year he disappeared, in startlingly sudden fashion, without saying a word to anybody.”
Scarterfield paused, looking at me as if to ask what I thought of it. I thought a good deal of it.
“A very' interesting bit of life-drama, Scarterfield,” said I. “And there have been far stranger things than it would be if this Netherfield Baxter, of Blyth, turned out to be the William Netherfield of the Elizabeth Robinson. “You've more to tell?”
“Oh, much more!” he acquiesced. “We're about half-way through the surface-matters. Now then—you're bearing in mind that Netherfield Baxter disappeared, very suddenly, in May, 1904. Perhaps the town didn't make much to-do over his disappearance for a good reason—it was just then in the very midst of what we generally call a nine days' wonder. For some months the Old Alliance Bank here had been in charge of a temporary manager, in consequence of the regular manager's long-continued illness. This temporary manager was a chap named Lester—John Martindale Lester—who had come here from a branch of the same bank at Hexham, across country. Now, this Lester was a young man who was greatly given to going about on a motor-cycle—not so many of those things about then as we see now; he was always tearing about the country, they say, on half-holidays and Saturdays and Sundays. And one evening, careering round a sharp corner, somewhere just outside the town, in the dark, he ran full-tilt into a cart that carried no tail-light and broke his neck. They picked him up dead.”
“Well?” said I.
“You're wondering if that's anything to do with Netherfield Baxter's disappearance?” said Scarterfield. “Well, it's an odd thing, but out of all the folk that I've made inquiry of in the town, I haven't come across one yet who voluntarily suggested that it had. But I do. And you'll presently see why I think so. Now, this man, John Martindale Lester, was accidentally killed about the beginning of the first week in May, 1904. Three or four days later, Netherfield Baxter cleared out. I've been careful, in my conversations with the townsfolk—officials, mostly—not to appear to connect Lester's death with Baxter's departure. But that there was a connection, I'm dead certain. Baxter ran away, Mr. Middlebrook, because he knew that Lester's sudden death would lead to an examination of things at the Old Alliance Bank.”
“Ah!” said I. “I begin to see things.”
“So do I—through smoked glass, though, as yet,” assented Scarterfield. “But it's getting clearer. Now, things at the bank were examined—and some nice revelations came forth. To begin with, there was a cash deficiency—not a heavy one, but quite heavy enough. In addition to that, certain jewels were missing, which had been deposited with the bankers for security by a lady in this neighborhood—they were worth some thousands of pounds. And, to add to this, two chests of plate were gone which had been placed with the bank some years before by executors of the will of the late Lord Forestburne, to be kept there till the coming of age of his heir, a minor when his father died. Altogether, Mr. John Martindale Lester and his accomplices, or accomplice, had help>ed themselves very freely to things until then safe in the vaults and strong room.”
“What is thought in the town about Lester and the valuables?” I inquired. “They must have some theory.”
“Oh, of course they have!” he replied. “The theory is that Lester had accomplices in London, that he shipped these valuables off there, and that, when his accomplices heard of his sudden death, they—why, they just held their tongues. But my notion is that the only accomplice Lester had was our friend Netherfield Baxter.”
“You've some ground?” I asked.
“Yes, or I shouldn't think so,” said Scarterfield. “I'm now coming to the reason of my sending for you, Mr. Middlebrook. I told you that this fellow Baxter had a decent lodging in the town. Well, I made it my business to go there yesterday morning, and finding that the landlady was a sensible woman and likely to keep a quiet tongue, I just told her a bit of my business and asked her some questions. Then I found out that Baxter left various matters behind him which she still had—clothes, books (he was evidently a chap for reading and of superior education, which probably accounts for what I'm going to tell you, papers and the like. I got her to let me have a sight of them. And among the papers I found two, which seem to me to have been written hundreds of years ago and to be lists with names and figures in them. My impression is that Lester found them in those chests of plate, couldn't make them out, and gave them to Netherfield Baxter, as being a better educated man—Baxter, I found out, did well at school and could read and write two or three languages. Well now, I persuaded the landlady to lend me these documents for a day or two, and you shall see if you can decipher them.”
“Scarterfield,” said I, “it strikes me you've possibly hit on a discovery. Suppose this stolen stuff is safely hidden somewhere about. Suppose Netherfield Baxter knew where, and that he's the William Netherfield of the Elizabeth Robinson. Suppose that he let the Quicks into the secret.”
THEN Scarterfield drew from a big envelope and placed in my hands two folded pieces of time-yellowed parchment.
One glance at the documents showed me that he had accidentally come across a really important find; within another moment I was deeply engrossed, and he saw that I was. Presently, laying the documents on the table, I smiled at him.
“Scarterfield,” I said, “are you at all up in the history of your own country?”
“Couldn't say that I am, Mr. Middlebrook.”
“But you're up to certain notable episodes?” I suggested. “You know, for instance, that when the religious houses were suppressed—abbeys, priories, convents, hospitals—in the reign of Henry the Eighth, a great deal of their plate and jewels was confiscated to the use of the king?”
“Oh, I've heard that,” he admitted. “Nice haul the old chap got, too!”
“He didn't get all,” said I. “A great deal of the monastic plate disappeared—clean vanished. It used to be said that a lot of it was hidden away or buried by its owners, but it's much more likely that it was stolen by the covetous and greedy folk of the neighborhood—the big men, of course. Anyway, while a great deal was certainly sent by the commissioners to the king's treasury in London, a lot more—especially in out-of-the-way places and districts—just disappeared and was never heard of again. Have you the least idea of what these documents are?”
“No,” he replied; “unless they're lists of something—like inventories.”
“They are inventories!” I exclaimed. “Both. Written in crabbed calligraphy, too, but easy enough to read if you're acquainted with sixteenth-century penmanship, spelling and abbreviations. Look at the first one. It is here described as an inventory of all the jewels, plate, etc., appertaining and belonging unto the abbey of Forestburne, and it was made in the year 1536. This abbey, therefore, was one of the smaller houses that came under the two-hundred-pound limit and was accordingly suppressed in the year just mentioned. Now look at the second. It also is an inventory—of the jewels and plate of the priory of Mellerton, made in the same year, and similarly suppressed. But though both these houses were of the smaller sort, it is quite evident, from a cursory glance at these inventories, that they were pretty rich in jewels and plate. By the term 'jewels' is meant plate wherein jewels were set; as to the plate, it was, of course, the sacramental vessels and appurtenances. And, judging by these entries, the whole mass of plate must have been considerable.”
“And, in the main, it would be—what?” asked Scarterfield. “Gold? Silver?”
“Some of it gold, some silver, a good deal of it silver gilt,” I replied. “I can tell all that by reading the inventories more attentively.”
“A great quantity of plate—some of it jeweled!” he soliloquized. “Whew! And what do you make of it?”
“Putting everything together that you've told me,” I answered, with some confidence, “I make this of it: This plate, originally church property, came—we won't ask how—into the hands of the late Lord Forestburne, and may have been in possession of his family, hidden away, perhaps, for four centuries. But, at any rate, it was in his possession, and he deposited it with his bankers across the way. He may, indeed, not have known what was in it—again, he may have known. Now, I take it that the dishonest temporary manager you told me of examined those chests, decided to appropriate their valuable contents, and enlisted the services of Netherfield Baxter in his nefarious labors. I think that these inventories were found in the chests—one, prob ably, in each—and that Baxter kept them out of sheer curiosity—you say he was a fellow of some education. As for the plate, I think he and his associate hid it some where—and, if you want my honest opinion, Salter Quick was looking for it.”
SCARTERFIELD clapped his hand on the table.
“That's it!” he exclaimed. “Hanged if I don't think that myself! It's my opinion that this Netherfield Baxter, when he hooked it out of here, got into far regions and strange company, came into touch with those Quicks and told 'em the secret of this stolen plate—he was, I'm sure, the Netherfield of that ship the Quicks were on. Yes, sir; I think we may safely bet on it that Salter Quick was looking for this plate.”
“And so was somebody else,” said I. “And it was that somebody else who murdred Salter Quick.
“I'm wondering,” I continued, “if Noah and Salter, severally or conjointly, had murdered this Netherfield Baxter before they themselves were murdered. They—or somebody who was in with them, who afterward murdered them? Do you see?”
We had walked into this utterly deserted spot to interrupt—what and when? Before I could say a word, I heard Miss Raven catch her breath; then another sharp exclamation came from her lips. “Oh, I say!” she cried. “Who—who are these—these men?"
“I'm afraid I don't,” he said.
“Look you here, Scarterfield,” said I: “Supposing a gang of men—men of no conscience, desperate, adventurous men—gets together, as men were together on that ship, the doings and fate of which seem to be pretty mysterious. They're all out for what they can get. One of them is in possession of a valuable secret, and he imparts it to the others, or to some of them, a chosen lot. There have been known such cases—where a secret is shared by say five or six men—in which murder after murder occurs until the secret is only held by one or two. A secret of one is far more valuable than a secret shared with three. But there are things that puzzle me.”
“Such as what?” he asked.
“Well,, that eagerness of Salter Quick's to find a churchyard with the name Netherfield on the stones,” I replied. “And his coming to that part of the Northumbrian coast expecting to find it. Because, so far as the experts know, there is no such name on any stone or in any parish register in all that district. Who, then, told him of the name? You see, if my theory is correct, and Baxter told him and Noah, he'd tell them the exact locality.”
“Ah, but would he?” said Scarterfield. “Still, Netherfield it was that Salter asked for.”
“That's certain,” said I. “And I'm puzzled why. But I'm puzzled still more about another thing: If the men who murdered Noah and Salter Quick were in possession of the secret as well, why did they rip their clothes to pieces, searching for something? Why, later, did somebody steal that tobacco-box from the police.”
BEFORE we could say more, one of the hotel servants came into the coffee-room.
“There's a man in the hall asking for Mr. Scarterfield,” he announced. “Looks like a seafaring man, sir. He says Mrs. Ormthwaite told him he'd find you here.”
“Woman with whom Baxter used to lodge,” muttered Scarterfield.
We went out into the hall. There, twisting his a cap in his hands, stood a big, brown-bearded man.
“What's your name?” Scarterfield inquired.
“Fish,” replied the visitor promptly. “Solomon. As everybody is aware.”
“Blyth man, no doubt,” suggested Scarterfield.
“Born and bred, master,” said Fish.
“Then you'd know Netherfield Baxter?”
“As a baby—as a boy—as a young man,” he declared.
“Just so,” said Scarterfield understandingly. “To be sure! You know Baxter quite well, of course.” He paused a moment, and then leaned across the table round which the three of us were sitting. “And when did you see him last?” he asked.
Fish, to my surprise, laughed. It was a queer laugh. It suggested that he was puzzled.
“Aye; once,” said he. “That's just it, master. And I asks you—and this other gent, which I takes him to be a friend o' yours, and confidential—I asks you, can a man trust his own eyes and his ears?”
“I've always trusted mine, Fish,” answered Scarterfield.
“Same here, master, till a while ago,” replied Fish. “But now I ain't so mortal sure o' that matter as I was. 'Cause, according to my eyes and according to my ears, I see Netherfield Baxter and I hear Netherfield Baxter inside o' three week.”
He brought down his big hand on the table with a hearty smack as he spoke the last word or two.
“What you mean is that the man you took for Baxter said you were mistaken, and that he wasn't Baxter?” suggested Scarterfield. “That it?”
“You puts it very plain, master,” assented Fish. “That is what did happen. But if the man I refers to wasn't Netherfield Baxter, well—” He hesitated.
“Well?” said Scarterfield. “What happened? Was he alone?”
“No,” replied Fish. “He'd two other men with him. One was a chap about his own age, just as smart as what he was, and dressed similar. T'other was an older man, in his shirt-sleeves and without a hat—seemed to me he'd brought Baxter and his friend across from some shop or other to stand 'em a drink. Anyways, he did call for drinks—whisky and soda—and the three on 'em stood together, talking. And as soon as I heard Baxter's voice, I was dead sure about him—he'd always a highish voice, talked as gentlemen talks.”
“What were these three talking about?” asked Scarterfield.
“Far as I could make out about ship's fittings,” answered Fish. “Something o' that sort, anyway; but I didn't take much notice o' their talk. I was too much taken up watching Baxter, and growing more certain every minute—d'ye see?—that it was him. And 'cepting that a few o' years does make a bit o' difference, and that he's grown a beard, I didn't see no great alteration in him. Yet I see one thing.”
“Aye?” asked Scarterfield. “What now?”
“A scar on his left cheek,” replied Fish. “What begun underneath his beard, as covered most of it, and went up to his cheekbone. Just an inch or so showing, d'ye understand? 'That's been knife's work!' thinks I to myself. Struck me then he'd grown a beard to hide it.”
“Very likely,” assented Scarterfield. “Well, and what happened?”
“I waited and watched,” continued Fish. ”Now, I see two or three little things about this man as I remembered about Baxter. There was a way he had of chucking up his chin—there it was! Another of playing with his watch-chain when he talked—it was there. And of slapping his leg with his walking-stick—that was there, too. 'Jim,' I says to my mate, 'if that ain't a man I used to know. I'm a Dutchman!' Which, of course, I ain't. And so, when the three of 'em sets down their glasses and turns to the door, I jumps up and makes for my man, holding out a hand to him, friendly. And then, of course, come all the surprise.
“'Morning, Mr. Baxter!' says I. 'It's a long time since I had the pleasure o' seeing you, sir!'—and as I say, shoves my hand out, hearty. He turns and gives me a hard, keen look—not taken aback, mind you, but searching-like. 'You're mistaken, my friend,' he says, quiet but pleasant. 'You're taking me for somebody else.' 'What!' says I. all of a heap. 'Ain't you Mr. Netherfield Baxter, what I used to know at Blyth, away up north?' 'That I'm certainly not,' says he, as cool as the north pole. 'Then I ax your pardon, sir,' says I, 'and all I can say is that I never see two gentlemen so much alike in all my born days, and hoping no offense.' 'None at all,' says he, as pleasant as might be. 'They say everybody has a double.' And at that he gives me a polite nod, and out he goes with his pals, and I turns back to Shanks. 'Jim,' says I, 'don't let me ever trust my eyes and ears no_more, Jim!' I says. 'I'm a-breaking up, Jim—that's what it is. Thinking I sees things when I don't.' 'Stow all that!' says Jim, what's a practical sort o' man. 'You was only mistook,' says he. 'I've been in that case more than once,' he says. 'Wherever there's a man, there's another somewheres that's as like him as two peas is like each other. Let's go home to dinner,' he says. So we went off to the lodgings, and at first I was sure I'd been mistaken. But later, and now—well, I ain't. That there man was Netherfield Baxter!”
“You saw no more of him in Hull, of course?” suggested Scarterfield.
“Yes, I did,” answered Fish. “I saw him again that night. And—as regards one of 'em, at any rate—in queerish company.”
“What was that?” asked Scarterfield.
“What I seen plenty of, time and again, in various parts o' this here world, and ain't so mighty fond o' seeing,” answered Fish, with a scowl. “A chink!”
“A—what?” demanded the detective, “A—chink?”
“He means a Chinaman,” I said.
“That's it, guv'nor,” assented Fish. “But, mind you—and here's the queer part of it—he wasn't no common Chinaman. Not the sort that you'll see by the score down Limehouse way or in Liverpool or in Cardiff—not at all. Lord bless you, this here chap was smarter dressed than t'other two! Swell-made dark clothes, gold-handled umbrella, kid gloves on his blooming hands, and a silk top-hat—a reg'lar dude! But—a chink!”
WHEN Fish had gone, Scarterfield turned to me.
“There!” he said. “What d'you think of that, Mr. Middlebrook?”
“What do you think of it?” I suggested.
“I think that Netherfield Baxter is alive and active and up to something,” he answered. “And I'd give a good deal to know who that Chinaman is who was with him. I'm off to Hull. Come with me?”
Until that instant such an idea had never entered my head. But I made up my mind there and then.
“I will!” said I. “We'll see this through, Scarterfield. Get a time-table.”
GOING southward by way of Newcastle and York, we got to Hull that night, late—too late to do more than eat our suppers and go to bed at the station hotel. And we took things leisurely next morning, breakfasting late and strolling through the older part of the town before, as noon drew near, we approached the Goose and Crane, where Fish said he had seen Baxter. We had an object in selecting time and place. Fish had told us that the man whom he had seen in company with our particular quarry, the supposed Baxter, had come into the queer old inn in his shirt-sleeves and with out his hat—he was therefore probably some neighboring shop- or storekeeper, and in the habit of turning into the ancient hostelry for a drink about noon. Such a man—that man—Scarterfield hoped to encounter. Out of him, if he met him, he could hope to get some news.
We easily found the particular room of which Solomon Fish had spoken—there was the door, half open, with its legend on an upper panel in faded gilt letters: “For Master Mariners Only.” But, as we had inferred, that warning had been set up in the old days, and was no longer a strict observance; we went into the room unquestioned by guardians or occupants, and, calling for refreshments, sat ourselves down.
Very soon there, entered a shortish, stiffly built, paunchy man, with a beefy face, shrewd eyes, and a bristling iron-gray mustache—a well-dressed man, and sporting a fine gold chain and a diamond pin in his cravat. But—in his shirt-sleeves, and with out a hat.
After he had finished his refreshment, he nodded to the company and bustled out as quickly as he had entered. Scarterfield gave me a look, and we left the room in his wake, following him.
Our quarry bustled down the alley, turned the corner into the old High Street and presently crossed the narrow roadway and turned into an office, over the window of which was a sign: “Jallanby, Ship-Broker.” He had only got a foot across his threshold, however, when Scarterfield was at his elbow, pulling out his pocketbook and producing his official card.
“You'll see who I am from that,” he remarked. “This gentleman's a friend of mine—just now giving me some professional help. I take it you're Mr. Jallanby?”
“Yes; I'm Mr. Jallanby,” he answered. “Come inside, gentlemen.” He led the way into a dark, rather dismal and dusty little office, and signed to a clerk who was writing there to go out. “What is it, Mr. Scarterfield?” he asked. “Some information?”
“You've hit it, sir,” replied Scarterfield. “That's just what we do want; we came here to Hull on purpose to find you, believing you can give it. From something we heard only yesterday afternoon, Mr. Jallanby, a long way from here, we believe that one morning about three weeks ago you were in the Goose and Crane, in that very room where we saw you just now, in company with two men—smartly dressed men, in blue-serge suits and straw hats—one of them with a pointed golden-brown beard. Do you remember? I'm not sure of the identity of one of these men—it's but one I want to trace at present, though I should like to know who the other is. But—if my man is the man I believe him to be, there's a matter of robbery, and possibly of murder. So you see how serious it is. Now, I'll jog your memory a bit. Do you remember that one morning, as you and these two men were leaving the Goose and Crane, a big seafaring-looking man stepped up to the bearded man you were with and claimed acquaintance with him as being one Netherfield Baxter?”
Jallanby started.
“I do!” he exclaimed. “Well enough! I stood by. But—he said he wasn't. There was a mistake.”
“I believe there was no mistake,” said Scarterfield. “I believe that man is Netherfield Baxter. And—it's Netherfield Baxter I want. Now, Mr. Jallanby, what do you know of those two? In confidence!”
“Well, the man with the brownish beard called himself Mr. Norman Belford,” answered Jallanby. “I gathered he was from London. The other man was a Frenchman—some French lord or other, from his name, but I forget it. Mr. Belford always called him 'Vicomte'—which I took to be French for our 'viscount'.”
Scarterfield turned and looked at me. And I, too, looked at him. We were thinking of the same thing—old Cazalette's find on the bush in the scrub near the beach at Ravensdene Court. And I could not repress an exclamation.
“The handkerchief!”
Scarterfield coughed. A dry, significant cough—it meant a great deal. He turned to the ship-broker.
“Mr. Jallanby,” he continued, “what did these two want of you?”
“I can tell you that in a very few words,” answered Jallanby. “Simple enough, and straight enough on the surface. So far as I was concerned, anyhow. They came in here one morning, told me they were staying at the station hotel, and said that they wanted to buy a small craft of some sort that a small crew could run across the North Sea to the Norwegian fiords—the sort of thing you can manage with three or four, you know. They said they were both amateur yachtsmen.
“Well,it so happened that I'd just the very thing they seemed to want,” continued the ship-broker. “A vessel that had recently been handed over to me for disposal, and then lying in the Victoria Dock. Ready any day. Only just wanted tidying up and storing. As a matter of fact, she'd been in use quite recently, but she was a bit too solid for her late owner's tastes—the truth was, she'd been originally built for a Penzance fishing-lugger—splendid seagoing boats, those!”
“Do I understand that this vessel could undertake a longish voyage?” asked Scarterfield. “For instance, could they have crossed, say, the Atlantic in her?”
“Atlantic? Lord bless you, yes!” replied the ship-broker. “Or Pacific, either.”
“Did they buy her?” asked Scarterfield.
“They did—at once,” replied Jallanby. “And paid the money for her—in cash, there and then.”
“And then went off—to Norway?”
“So I understand,” assented Jallanby. “That's what they said. They were going, first of all, to Stavanger—then to Bergen—then farther north.”
“Just the two of them?”
“Why, no,” replied Jallanby. “They were joined, a day or two before they sailed, by a friend of theirs—a Chinaman. Queer combination—Englishman, Frenchman, Chinaman. But this Chinaman, he was a swell—what we should call a gentleman, you know—Mr. Belford told me, in private, that he belonged to the Chinese ambassador's suite in London.”
“Ah,” said Scarterfield, with deep significance, “it's a queer world! But two questions—first, how long since is it that these chaps sailed for Bergen; second, what is the name of this smart little vessel?”
“They sailed precisely three weeks ago next Monday,” answered the ship-broker, “and the name of the vessel is the Blanchflower.”
We left Mr. Jallanby then, promising to see him again, and went away. I waited with some curiosity for the detective to speak.
“Now, I wonder where those chaps have gone,” he muttered. “Of course they haven't gone to Norway. Of course that Chinese chap wasn't from the Chinese embassy in London. The whole thing's a bluff. By this time they'll have altered the name of that yawl, and gone—where? In search of that buried stuff, to be sure!”
“Scarterfield,” said I, feeling convinced on the matter, “if the man's Baxter, and he's after that stuff, he's gone north. The stuff is near Blyth. Dead certain!”
So that afternon, after seeing the ship-broker again, and making certain arrangements with him in case he heard anything of the Blanchflower and her crew of three queerly assorted individuals, we retraced our steps northward. But while Scarterfield turned off at Newcastle for Tynemouth and Blyth, I went forward alone, for Alnwick and Ravensdene Court.
BEING very late in the evening when I arrived at Alnwick, I remained there for that night, and it was not until noon of the next day that I once more reached Ravensdene Court. Lorrimore was there; he had come over to lunch, and for the moment I hoped that he had brought some news from his Chinese servant. But he had heard nothing of Wing since his departure. It would hardly be Wing's method, he said, to communicate with him by letter.
“And yourself, Middlebrook?” asked Mr. Raven. “What did the detective want, and what have you found out?”
I told them the whole story as we sat at lunch. They were all deeply absorbed, but no one so much as Mr. Cazalette, who gave my tale of the doings at Blyth and Hull his undivided attention. And when he had heard me out, he slipped away in silence and disappeared into the library.
Presently he came back into the room carrying a couple of fat quarto books under one arm and a large folio under the other.
“Before you go any further,” said he, laying down his burdens, “there are one or two things I should like to draw your attention to in connection with what Middlebrook told us before I left the room just a while since. Now, about that monastic plate, Middlebrook, of which you've seen the inventories—you may not be aware of it, but there's a reference to that matter in Dryman's 'History of the Religious Foundations of Northumberland' which I will now read to you. Hear you this, now:
    Abbey of Forestburne—It is well known that the altar-vessels, plate and jewels of this house were considerable in number and in value, but were never handed over to the custodians of the King's Treasury House in London. They were duly inventoried by the receivers in these parts, and there are letters extant recording their dispatch to Lon don. But they never reached their destination, and it is commonly believed that, like a great deal more of the monastic property of the Northern districts, these valuables were appropriated by high-placed persons of the neighborhood, who employed their underlings, marked and disguised, to waylay and despoil the messengers entrusted to carry them Southward. N.B.—The foregoing remarks apply to the plate and jewels which appertained to the adjacent priory of Mellerton, which were also of great value.
“So,” continued Mr. Cazalette, “there's no doubt, in my mind, anyway, that the plate of which Middlebrook saw the inventories is just what they describe it to be, and that it came, in course of time, into the hands of the Lord Forestburne who deposited it in yon bank. And now,” he went on, opening the biggest of his volumes, “here's the file of a local paper which your respected predecessor, Mr. Raven, had the good sense to keep, and I've turned up the account of the inquest that was held at Blyth on yon dishonest bank-manager. And there's a bit of evidence here that nobody seems to have drawn Scarterfield's attention to. 'The deceased gentleman,' it reads, 'was very fond of the sea, and frequently made excursions along our beautiful coast in a small yacht which he hired from Messrs. Capsticks, the well-known boat-builders of the town. It will be remembered that he had a particular liking for night sailing, and would often sail his yacht out of harbor late of an evening in order, as he said, to enjoy the wonderful effects of moonlight on sea and coast.' That, you'll bear in mind,” concluded Mr. Cazalette, with a more than usually sardonic grin, “was penned by some fatuous reporter before they knew that the deceased gentleman had robbed the bank. And no doubt it was on those night excursions that he and this man Baxter that we've heard of carried away the stolen valuables and safely hid them in some quiet spot on this coast—and there, you'll see, they'll be found all in good time. And as sure as my name is what it is, Doctor Lorrimore, it was that spot that Salter Quick was after—only, he wasn't exactly certain where it was, and had somehow got mixed about the graves of the Netherfields. Man alive, yon plate of the old monks is buried under some Netherfield headstone at this minute!”
DURING the next few days I heard nothing from Scarterfield; indeed, nobody heard anything new from anywhere. I believe that Scarterfield, from Blyth, gave some hints to the coast-guard people about keeping a lookout for the Blanchflower, but I am not sure of it. However, two of us at Ravensdene Court took a mutual liking for walks along the loneliest stretches of the coast—myself and Miss Raven. We had some vague idea that we might possibly discover something—perhaps find some trace, we knew not of what. Then we were led, unexpectedly, as such things always do happen, to the threshold of our great and perilous adventure. Going further afield than usual one day, and, about five o'clock of a spring afternoon, straying into a solitary ravine that opened up before us on the moors, we came upon an ancient wood of dwarf oak, so venerable and time-worn in appearance that it looked like a survival of the Druid age.
The wood, into which we made our way, was well-nigh impregnable; it seemed to me that for age upon age its undergrowth had run riot, untrimmed, unchecked, until at last it had become a matted growth of interwoven, strangely' twisted boughs and tendrils. It was only by turning in first one then another direction through it that we made any progress in the direction we desired.
All about us the silence was intense; there was no singing of birds or humming of insects in that wood. But more than once we came across bones—the whitened skeletons of animals that had sought these shades and died there, or had been dragged into them and torn to pieces by their fellow beasts, Altogether there was an atmosphere of eeryness and gloom in that wood, and I began—more for my companion's sake than my own—to long for a glimpse of some outlet, a sight of the sunlit sea beyond.
And then at the end of quite half an hour's struggling, borne, I must say, by Miss Raven with the truly sporting spirit which was a part of her general character, a sudden exclamation from her, as she pushed her way through a clump of wilding a little in advance of me, caused me to look ahead.
“There's some building just in front of us!” she said. “See—gray stones—a ruin!”
“That's something to make for, anyway,” I said. “Some old tower or other. Yet I don't remember anything of the sort, marked on the maps.”
We pushed forward and came out on a little clearing. Immediately in front of us stood the masonry of which we had caught glimpses—a low, squat, square tower, some forty feet in height, ruinous as to the most part, but having the side facing us nearly perfect, and still boasting a fine old door way which I set down as of Norman architecture. North of this lay a mass of fallen masonry, a long line of grass-grown, weed-encumbered stone, which was evidently the mm of a wall; here and there in the clearing were similar smaller masses. Rank weed, bramble-bush, beds of nettles encumbered the whole place; it was a scene of ruin and desolation. But a mere glance was sufficient to show me that we had come by accident on a once sacred spot.
“Why this,” said I, as we paused at the edge of the wood, “this is the ruin of some ancient church, or perhaps of a religious house. Look at the niche there above the arch of the door—there's been an image in that—and at the general run of the stone lying about. Certainly this is an old church. Why have we never heard of it?”
We began to look about the clearing. The tower was almost gone as to three sides of it; the fourth was fairly intact. A line of fallen masonry lay to the north and was continued a little on the east, where it rose into a higher, ivy-covered mass. Within this again was another, less obvious line, similar in plan, and also covered with unchecked growth; within that, the uneven surface of the ground was thickly encumbered with rank weed, beds of thistle, beds of nettle and a plenitude of bramble and gorse; in one place toward the eastern mass of overgrown wall a great clump of gorse had grown to such a height and thickness as to form an impenetrable screen. And, peering and prying about, suddenly we came, between this screen and the foot of the tower, on signs of great slabs of stone, over the edges of which the coarse grass had grown, and whose surfaces were thickly encumbered with moss and lichen.
“Gravestones!” said Miss Raven. “But—I suppose they're quite worn and illegible.”
I GOT down on my knees at one of the slabs less encumbered than the others and began to tear away the grass and weed. There was a rich, thick carpet of moss on it, and a fringe of gray, clinging lichen, but by the aid of a stout pocket-knife I forced it away and laid bare a considerable surface of the upper half of the stone. And now that the moss, which had formed a sort of protecting cover, was removed, we saw lettering, worn and smoothed at its edges in common with the rest of the slab, but still to be made out with a little patience.
There may be—probably is—a certain density in me, a slowness of intuition and perception, but it is the fact that, at this time and for some minutes later, I had not the faintest suspicion that we had accidentally lighted upon something connected with the mystery of Salter Quick. All I thought of, I think, just then was that we had come across some old relic of antiquity—the church of some coast hamlet or village which had long been left to the ruin ous work of time, and my only immediate interest was in endeavoring to decipher the half-worn-out inscription on the stone by which I was kneeling. While my companion stood by me, watching with eager attention. I scraped out the earth and moss and lichen from the lettering—fortunately it had been deeply incised in the stone, a hard and durable sort—and much of it remained legible once the rubbish had been cleared from it. Presently I made out at any rate several words and figures:
Hic jacet dominus
Humfrey de Knaythville
quond' vicari huius
ecclesiæ qui obit
anno dni mccccxix
Beneath these lines were two or three others, presumably words of Scripture, which had evidently become worn away before the moss spread its protecting carpet over the others. But we had learned something.
“There we are!” said I, regarding the result of my labors with proud satisfaction. “There it runs—'Here lies the lord, or master, Humphrey de Knaythville, sometime vicar of this church, who died in the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and nineteen'—over five hundred years ago! A good find!”
“Splendid!” exclaimed Miss Raven, already excited to enthusiasm by these antiquarian discoveries. “I wonder if there are inscriptions on the other tombs.”
“No doubt,” I assented. “And perhaps some other things of interest on this fallen masonry. This place is well worth careful examination, and I'm wondering how it is that I haven't come across any reference to it in the local books. But, to be sure, I haven't read them very fully or carefully. Mr. Cazalette may know of it. We shall have something to tell him.”
We began to look round again. I wandered into the base of the tower; Miss Raven began to explore the weed-choked ground toward the east end. Suddenly I heard a sharp, startled exclamation from her. Turning, I saw her standing by the great clump of overgrown gorse of which I have already spoken. She glanced at me, then at something behind the gorse.
“What is it?” I asked.
Unconsciously she lowered her voice, at the same time glancing half nervously at the thick undergrowth of the wood.
“Come here!” she said. “Come!”
I went across the weed-grown surface to her side. She pointed behind the gorse bush.
“Look there!” she whispered.
I KNEW, as soon as I looked, that we were not alone in that wild, solitary-seeming spot; that there were human ears listening and human eyes watching. We were probably in danger. There, behind the yellow-starred clump of green, was what at first sight appeared to be a newly opened grave, but was in reality a freshly dug excavation; a heap of soil and stone, just flung out, lay by it. On this some hand had flung down a mattock; near it rested a pick. And suddenly, as by a heaven-sent inspiration, I saw things. We had stumbled on the graveyard which Salter Quick had wished to find; de Knaythville and Netherfield were identical terms which had got mixed up in his undereducated mind; here the missing treasure was buried, and we had walked into this utterly deserted spot to interrupt—what, and who?
Before I could say a word, I heard Miss Raven catch her breath; then another sharp exclamation came from her lips—stifled, but clear.
“Oh, I say!” she cried. “Who—who are these—these men?”
Turning quickly in the direction she indicated, I became aware of the presence of two men who had quietly stepped out from the shelter of the high undergrowth on the landward side of the clearing and stood silently watching us. They were attired in something of the fashion of seamen, in rough trousers and jerseys, but I saw at first glance that they were not common men. Indeed, I saw more, and realized, with a sickening feeling of apprehension, that our wanderings into that place had brought us face to face with danger. One of the two, a tallish, slenderly built, good-looking man, not at all unpleasant to look on if it had not been for a certain sinister and cold expression of eye and mouth, I recognized as a stranger whom I had noticed at the coroner's inquest on Salter Quick and had then taken for some gentleman of the neighbor hood. The other, I felt sure, was Netherfield Baxter. There was the golden-brown beard of which Fish had told me and Scarterfield; there, too, was the half-hidden scar on the left cheek. I had no doubt whatever that Miss Raven and myself were in the hands of the two men who had bought the Blanchflower from Jallanby, the ship-broker.
The four of us stood steadily gazing at each other for what seemed to be a long and—to me—a painful minute. Then the man I whom I took to be Baxter moved a little nearer to us; his companion, hands in pockets, but watchful enough, lounged after him.
“Well, sir?” said Baxter, lifting his cap as he glanced at Miss Raven. “Don't think me too abrupt or intentionally rude if I ask you what you and this young lady are doing here.”
His voice was that of a man of education and even of refinement, and his tone polite enough; there was something of apology in it. But it was also sharp, businesslike, compelling; I saw at once that this was a man whose character was essentially matter of fact, and who would not allow himself to stick at trifles, and I judged it best to be plain in my answer.
“If you really want to know,” I replied, “we are here by sheer accident. Exploring the wood for the mere fun of the thing, we chanced upon these ruins and have been examining them—that's all.”
“You didn't come here with any set purpose?” he asked, looking from one to the other. “You weren't seeking this place?”
“Certainly not!” said I. “We hadn't the faintest notion that such a place was to be found.”
“But here it is, anyway,” he said. “And—there you are! In possession of the knowledge of it. And so—you'll excuse me—I must ask a question. Who are you? Tourists? Or—do you live hereabouts?”
The other man made a remark under his breath, in some foreign language, eying me the while. And Baxter spoke again, also watching me.
“I think you, at any rate, are a resident,” he said. “My friend has seen you before in these parts.”
“I have seen him,” I said unthinkingly. “I saw him among the people at Salter Quick's inquest.”
The faintest shadow of an understanding glance passed between the two men, and Baxter's face grew stern.
“Just so,” he remarked. “That makes it all the more necessary to repeat my question. Who are you—both?”
“My name is Middlebrook, if you must know,” I answered. “And I am not a resident of these parts—I am visiting here. As for this lady, she is Miss Raven, the niece of Mr. Francis Raven, of Ravensdene Court. And, really——”
He waved his hand as if to deprecate any remonstrance or threat on my part, and bowed as politely to my companion as if I had just given him a formal introduction to her.
“No harm shall come to you, Miss Raven,” he said, with evidently honest assurance. “None whatever.”
“Nor to Mr. Middlebrook, either, I should hope!” exclaimed Miss Raven, almost indignantly.
He smiled, showing a set of very white, strong teeth.
“That depends on Mr. Middlebrook,” he said. “If Mr. Middlebrook behaves like a good and reasonable boy— Mr. Middlebrook,” he went on, interrupting himself and turning on me with a direct look, “a plain question: Are you armed?”
“Armed!” I retorted scornfully. “Do you think I carry a revolver on an innocent country stroll?”
“We do,” he answered, with another smile. “You see, we don't know with whom we may meet. It was a million to one—perhaps more—against our meeting anybody this afternoon; yet—we've met you.”
“We are sorry to have interrupted you,” I said, not without a touch of satirical meaning. “We won't interrupt any longer if you will permit us to say good-day.”
I motioned to Miss Raven to follow me, and made to move. But Baxter laughed a little and shook his head.
“Miss Raven—Mr. Middlebrook,” he said, “I'm sorry, but we can't let you go. The fact is, you've had the bad luck to light on a certain affair of ours about which we can't take any chances. We have a yacht lying outside here—you'll have to go with us on board and remain there for a day or two. I assure you no harm shall come to either of you. And as we want to get on with our work here, will you please to come now?”
WE WENT—silently. There was nothing else to do. In a similar silence they led us through the rest of the wood, along the side of a stream to a small boat that lay hidden at the mouth of the creek. As they rowed us away in it and rounded a spit of land, we saw the yacht lying under a bluff of the cliffs. Ten minutes' stiff pulling brought us alongside—and for a moment, as I glanced up at her rail, I saw the yellow face of a Chinaman looking down on us. Then it vanished.
We stood idle, like prisoners awaiting orders, while our captors transferred from the boat to the yawl two biggish iron-hooped chests, the wood of which was stained and discolored with earth and clay. They were heavy chests, and they used tackle to get them aboard. I looked at them with a good deal of interest; then, remembering that Miss Raven was fully conversant with all that Scarterfield had discovered at Blyth, I touched her elbow.
“Those are the chests that disappeared from the bank at Blyth,” I whispered. “Now you understand?”
She gave me a comprehending look.
“Then we are in the hands of Netherfield Baxter,” she murmured. “That man—there?”
“Without a doubt,” I answered. “And the thing is—show no fear.”
“I'm not a scrap afraid,” she answered. “It's exciting! And he's rather interesting, isn't he?”
“Gentlemen of his kidney usually are, I believe,” I replied. “A11 the same, I should much prefer his room to his company.”
BAXTER just then came over to us, rubbing from his fingers the soil which had gathered on them from handling the chests. He smiled politely.
“Now, Miss Raven,” he said, with an accent of almost benevolent indulgence, “as we shall be obliged to inflict our hospitality upon you for a day or two—I hope it won't be for longer, for your sake—let me show you what we can give you in the way of quarters to yourself. We can't offer you the services of a maid, but there is a good cabin, well fitted, in which you'll be comfortable, and you can regard it as your own domain while you're with us. Come this way.”
He led us down a short gangway, across a sort of small saloon evidently us^ as common room by himself and his companion, and threw open the door of a neat though very small cabin.
“Never been used,” he said, with another smile. “Fitted up by the previous owner of this craft, and all in order, as you see. Consider it as your own, Miss Raven, while you're our guest. One of my men shall see that you've whatever you need in the way of towels, hot water and the like. If you'll step in and look round. I'll send him to you now. As he's a Chinaman, you'll find him as handy as a French maid. Give him any orders or instructions you like. And then come on deck again, if you please, and you shall have some tea.”
He beckoned me to follow him as Miss Raven walked into her quarters, and he gave me a reassuring look as we crossed the outer cabin.
“Mr. Raven,” said I, “will be in great anxiety about his niece. She is the only relative he has, I believe, and he will be extremely anxious if she does not return this evening. He is a nervous, highly strung man——”
He interrupted me with a wave of his hand.
“I've thought of all that,” he said. “Mr. Raven shall not be kept in anxiety. As a matter of fact, my friend, whom you met with me up there at the ruins, is going ashore again in a few minutes. He will go straight to the nearest telegraph office, which is a mile or two inland, and there he will send a wire to Mr. Raven—from you. Mr. Raven will get it by, say, seven o'clock. The thing is, how will you word it?”
We looked at each other. In that exchange of glances I could see that he was a man who was quick at appreciating difficulties and that he saw the peculiar niceties of the present one.
“That's a pretty stiff question,” said I.
“Just so,” he agreed. “It is. So take my advice. Instead of having the wire sent from the nearest office, do this—my friend, as a matter of fact, is going on by rail to Berwick: Let him send a wire from there; it will only mean that Mr. Raven will get it an hour or so later. Say that you and Miss Raven find you cannot get home to-night, and that she is quite safe—word it in any reassuring way you like.”
I gave him a keen glance.
“Can we get home to-morrow?”
“Well, possibly to-morrow night—late,” he answered. “I will do my best. I may be—I hope to be—through with my business to-morrow afternoon. Then——”
At that moment, the other man appeared on deck, emerging from somewhere. He had changed his clothes—he now presented himself in a smart tweed suit, Homburg hat, polished shoes, gloves, walking-cane. Baxter signed to him to wait, turning to me.
“That's the wisest thing to do,” he remarked. “Draft your wire.”
I wrote out a message which I hoped would allay Mr. Raven's anxieties and handed it to him. He read it over, nodded as if in approbation, and went across to the other man. For a moment or two they stood talking in low tones; then the other man went over the side, dropped into the boat which lay there and pulled himself off shoreward. Baxter came back to me.
SUDDENLY I made up my mind to speak out. It might be foolish, even dangerous, to do it, but I had an intuitive feeling that it would be neither.
“I believe,” I said, bruskly enough, “that I am speaking to Mr. Netherfield Baxter.”
He returned me a sharp glance which was half smiling. Certainly there was no astonishment in it.
“Aye,” he answered. “I thought, somehow, that you might be thinking that. Well, and suppose I admit it, Mr. Middlebrook? What then? And what do you—a Londoner, I think you told me—know of Netherfield Baxter?”
“You wish to know?” I asked. “Shall I be plain?”
“As a pikestaff, if you like,” he replied. “I prefer it.”
“Well,” said I, “a good many things—recently discovered by accident. That you formerly lived at Blyth, and had some association with a certain temporary bank-manager there, about whose death—and the disappearance of some valuable port able property—there was a good deal of concern manifested about the time that you left Blyth. That you were never heard of again until recently, when a Blyth man recognized you in Hull, where you bought a yawl—this yawl, I believe—and said you were going to Norway in her. And that— But am I to be still more explicit?”
“Why not?” said he, with a laugh. “Forewarned is forearmed. You're giving me valuable information.”
“Very well, Mr. Baxter,” I continued, determined to show him my cards. “There's a certain detective, one Scarterfield, a sharp man, who is very anxious to make your acquaintance. For if you want the plain truth, he believes you, or some of your accomplices, or you and them together, to have had a hand in the murders of Noah and Salter Quick. And—he's on your track.”
I was watching him still more closely as I spoke the last sentence or two. He remained as calm and cool as ever, and I was somewhat taken aback by the collected fashion in which he not only replied to my glance but answered my words.
“Scarterfield—of whose doings I've heard a bit—has got hold of the wrong end of the stick there, Mr. Middlebrook,” he said quietly. “I had no hand in murdering either Noah Quick or his brother Salter. Nor had my friend—the man who's just gone off with your telegram. I don't know who murdered those men. But I know that there have always been men who were ready to murder them if they got the chance, and I wasn't the least surprised to hear that they had been murdered. The wonder is that they escaped murder as long as they did. But beyond the fact that they were murdered, I know nothing—nor does anybody on board this craft. You and Miss Raven are among—well, you can call us pirates if you like, buccaneers, adventurers, anything! But we're not murderers. We know nothing whatever about the murders of Noah and Salter Quick—except what we've read in the papers.”
I believed him. And I made haste to say so—out of a sheer relief to know that Miss Raven was not among men whose hands were stained with blood.
“Thank you,” he said, as coolly as ever. “I'm obliged to you. I've been anxious enough to know who did murder those two men. As I say, I felt no surprise when I heard of the murders.”
“You knew them—the Quicks?” I suggested.
“Did I?” he answered, with a cynical laugh. “Didn't I? They were a couple of rank bad 'uns! I have never professed sanctity, Mr. Middlebrook, but Noah and Salter Quick were of a brand that's far beyond me—they were bad men. I'll tell you more of 'em later—Here's Miss Raven.”
“I may as well tell you,” I murmured hastily, “that Miss Raven knows as much as I do about all that I've just told you.”
“That so?” he said. “Um. And she looks a sensible sort of lass, too. Well, I'll tell you both what I know—as I say, later. But now—some tea.”
While he went forward to give his orders, I contrived to inform Miss Raven of the gist of our recent conversation, and to assert my own private belief in Baxter's innocence. I saw that she was already prejudiced in his favor.
“I'm glad to know that,” she said. “But, in that case, the mystery's all the deeper. What is it, I wonder, that he can tell.”
“Wait till he speaks,” said I. “We shall learn something.”
BAXTER came back presently, followed by the Chinaman whom I had seen be fore, who deftly set up a small table on deck, drew chairs round it, and a few minutes later spread out all the necessaries of a dainty afternoon tea. And in the center of them was a plum cake. I saw Miss Raven glance at it; I glanced at her; I knew of what she was thinking. Her thoughts had flown to the plum cake at Lorrimore's, made by Wing, his Chinese servant.
But whatever we thought, we said nothing. The situation was romantic, and not without some attraction, even in those curious circumstances. Here we were, prisoners, first-class prisoners, if you will, but still prisoners, and there was our jailer; he and ourselves sat round a tea-table, munching toast, nibbling cakes and dainties, sipping fragrant tea, as if we had been in any lady's drawing-room. I think it speaks well for all of us that we realized the situation and made the most of it by affecting to ignore the actual reality. We chatted, as well-behaved people should under similar conditions, about anything but the prime fact of our imprisonment; Baxter, indeed, might have been our very polite and attentive host and we his willing guests. As for Miss Raven, she accepted the whole thing with hearty good humor and poured out the tea as if she had been familiar with our new quarters for many a long day; moreover, she adopted a friendly attitude toward our captors, which did much toward smoothing any present difficulties.
“You seem to be very well accommodated in the matter of servants, Mr. Baxter,” she observed. “That little Chinaman, as you said, is as good as a French maid, and you certainly have a good cook—excellent pastry-cook, anyway.”
Baxter glanced lazily in the direction of the galley.
“Another Chinaman,” he answered. He looked significantly at me. “Mr. Middlebrook,” he continued, “is aware that I bought this yawl from a ship-broker in Hull for a special purpose——”
“Not aware of the special purpose,” I interrupted, with a purposely sly glance at him.
“The special purpose is a run across the Atlantic, if you want to know,” he answered carelessly. “Of course, when I'd got her, I wanted a small crew. Now, I've had great experience with Chinamen—best servants on earth, in my opinion—so I sailed her down to the Thames, went up to Lon don Docks and took on some Chinese chaps that I got in Limehouse. Two men and one cook—man cook, of course. He's good —I can't promise you a real and proper dinner to-night, but I can promise a very satisfactory substitute, which we call supper.”
“And you're going across the Atlantic with a crew of three?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact,” he answered candidly, “there are six of us. The three Chinese, myself, my friend who was with me this afternoon, and who will join us again to-morrow, and another friend who will return with him, and who, like the crew, is a Chinaman. But he's a Chinaman of rank, position.”
“In other words, the Chinese gentleman who was with you and your French friend in Hull?” I suggested.
“Just so—since we're to be frank,” he answered. “The same.” Then, with a laugh, he glanced at Miss Raven. “Mr. Middlebrook,” he said, “considers me the most candid desperado he ever met.”
“Your candor is certainly interesting,” replied Miss Raven. “Especially if you really are a desperado. Perhaps you'll give us more of it?”
“I'll tell you a bit—later on,” he said. “That Quick business, I mean.”
Suddenly setting down his teacup, he got up and moved away toward the galley, into which he presently disappeared. Miss Raven turned sharply on me.
“Did you eat a slice of that plum cake?” she whispered. “You did?”
“I know what you're thinking,” I answered. “It reminds you of the cake that Lorrimore's man, Wing, makes.”
“Reminds!” she exclaimed. “There's no reminding about it! Do you know what I think? That man. Wing, is aboard this yacht. He made that cake!”
The surprising adventures of the kidnaped pair and the clearing-up of this deep mystery are related in the concluding instalment of “Ravensdene court”—see March Everybody's, out February 15th.