Ravensdene Court
"And what did you do with it, Mr. Cazalette?" I inquired with seeming innocence.
"I'm telling you," he replied. "I had no knowledge, you're aware, of what lay behind me on the sands: I just thought it a queer thing that a man of quality's handkerchief should be there. And I slipped it among my towels, to bring along wi' me to the house here. 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 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 pocket-book 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 inside 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 has?" 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 within 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 pocket-book, 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 labours 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 pocket-book 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, Middlebrook, what was on the inside of that lid was – a key to something!"
"You forget that the tobacco-box itself has been stolen from the police's keeping," I reminded him.
"And I don't forget anything of the sort," he retorted. "And the fact you've mentioned makes me all the more assured, my man, that what I say is correct! There's him, or there's them – in all likelihood it's the plural – that's uncommonly anxious, feverishly anxious, to get hold of that key that I suspicion. What were Salter Quick's pockets turned out for? What were the man's clothes slashed and hacked for? Why did whoever slew Noah Quick at Saltash treat the man in similar fashion? It wasn't money the two men were murdered for! – no, it was for information, a secret! Or, as I put it before, the key to something."
"And you believe, really and truly, that this key is in the marks or scratches or whatever they are on the lid of the tobacco-box?" I asked.
"Aye, I do!" he exclaimed. "And what's more, Middlebrook, I believe I'm a doited old fool! If I'd contrived to get a good, careful, penetrating look at that box, without saying anything to the police, I should ha' shown some common-sense. But like the blithering old idiot that I am, I spoke my thoughts aloud before a company, and I made a present of an idea to these miscreants. Until I said what I did, the murderous gang that knifed yon two men hadn't a notion that Salter Quick carried a key in his tobacco-box! Now – they know."
"You don't mean to suggest that any of the murderers were present when you asked permission to photograph the box!" I exclaimed. "Impossible!"
"There's very few impossibilities in this world, Middlebrook," he answered. "I'm not saying that any of the gang were present in Raven's outhouse yonder, where they carried the poor fellow's body, but there were a dozen or more men heard what I said to the police-inspector, like the old fool I was, and saw me taking my photograph. And men talk – no matter of what degree they are."
"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 its fine, angular style of caligraphy. This he placed in my hand without a word, watching me silently as I looked at it.
I could make nothing of the thing. It looked to me like a series – a very small one – of meaningless scratches, evidently made with the point of a knife, or even by a strong pin on the surface of the metal. Certainly, the marks were there, and, equally certainly, they looked to have been made with some intent – but what did they mean?
"What d'ye make of it, lad?" he inquired after awhile. "Anything?"
"Nothing, Mr. Cazalette!" I replied. "Nothing whatever."
"Aye, well, and to be candid, neither do I," he confessed. "And yet, I'm certain there's something in it. Take another look – and consider it carefully."
I looked again – this is what there was to look at: mere lines, and at the foot of the photograph, Mr. Cazalette's explanatory notes and suggestions: I sat studying this for a few moments. "I make nothing of it. It seems to be a plan. But of what?"
"It is a plan, Middlebrook," he answered. "A plan of some place. But there I'm done! What place? Somebody that's in the secret, to a certain point, might know – but who else could? I've speculated a deal on the meaning and significance of those lines and marks, but without success. Yet – they're the key to something."
"Probably to some place that Salter Quick knew of," I suggested.
"Aye, and that somebody else wants to know of!" he exclaimed. "But what place, and where?"
"He was asking after a churchyard," said I, suddenly remembering Quick's questions to me and his evident eagerness to acquire knowledge. "This may be a rude drawing of a corner of it."
"Aye, and he wanted the graves of the Netherfields," remarked Mr. Cazalette, dryly. "And I've made myself assured of the fact that there isn't a Netherfield buried anywhere about this region! No, it's my belief that this is a key to some spot in foreign parts, and that there's those who are anxious to get hold of it that they'll not stop – and haven't stopped – at murder. And now – they've got it!"
"They've got – or somebody's got – your pocket-book," I answered. "But really, you know, Mr. Cazalette, this, and the handkerchief, mayn't have been the thief's object. You see, it must be pretty well known that you go down there to bathe every morning, and are in the habit of leaving your clothes about – and, well there may be those who're not particularly honest even in these Arcadian solitudes."
"No – I'm not with you, Middlebrook!" he said. "Somewhere around us there's what I say – crafty and bloody murderers! But ye'll keep all this to yourself for awhile, and – "
Just then the dinner-bell rang, and he put the photographic print away, and we went downstairs together. That was the evening on which Dr. 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.
"Of course I saw it!" remarked Lorrimore, narrating this. "I told him I not only saw it, but handled it – so, too, did several other people – Mr. Cazalette there had drawn attention to the thing when we were examining the dead man, and there was some curiosity about it." (Here Mr. Cazalette, standing close by me, nudged my elbow, to remind me of what he had just said upstairs.) "And I told the inspector something else, or, rather, put him in mind of something he'd evidently forgotten," continued Lorrimore. "That inquest, or, to be precise, the adjourned inquest, was attended by a good many strangers, who had evidently been attracted by mere curiosity. There were a lot of people there who certainly did not belong to this neighbourhood. And when the proceedings were over, they came crowding round that table, morbidly inquisitive about the dead man's belongings. What easier, as I said to the inspector, than for some one of them – perhaps a curio-hunter – to quietly pick up that box and make off with it? There are people who'd give a good deal to lay hold of a souvenir of that sort."
Mr. Raven muttered something about no accounting for tastes, and we went in to dinner, and began to talk of less gruesome things. 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."
CHAPTER X
THE YELLOW SEA
I am not sure which, or how many, of us sitting at that table had ever come into personal contact with a detective – I myself had never met one in my life! – but I am sure that Mr. Raven's announcement that there was a real live one close at hand immediately excited much curiosity. Miss Raven, in the adjoining room, the door of which was open, caught her uncle's last words, and came in, expectantly – I think she, like most of us, wondered what sort of being we were about to see. And possibly there was a shade of disappointment on her face when the police-inspector walked in followed, not by the secret, subtle, sleuth-hound-like person she had perhaps expected, but by a little, rotund, rather merry-faced man who looked more like a prosperous cheesemonger or successful draper than an emissary of justice: he was just the sort of person you would naturally expect to see with an apron round his comfortable waist-line or a pencil stuck in his ear and who was given to rubbing his fat, white hands – he rubbed them now and smiled, wholesale, as his companion led him forward.
"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. Mr. Scarterfield has been in charge of the investigations about the affair – Noah Quick, you know – down there, and he has come here to make some further inquiries."
Mr. Raven murmured some commonplace about being glad to see his visitors, and, with his usual hospitality, offered them refreshment. 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 the detective was evidently one of those men who readily adapt themselves to whatever company they are thrown into, and 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, equipped and at his ease, he turned a friendly, all-embracing smile on the rest of us.
"Which," he asked, looking from one to the other, "which of these gentlemen is Mr. Middlebrook?"
The general turning of several pairs of eyes in my direction gave him the information he wanted – we exchanged nods.
"It was you who found Salter Quick?" he suggested. "And who met him, the previous day, on the cliffs hereabouts, and went with him into the Mariner's Joy?"
"Quite correct," said I. "All that!"
"I have read up everything that appeared in print in connection with the Salter Quick affair," he remarked. "It has, of course, a bearing on the Noah Quick business. Whatever is of interest in the one is of interest in the other."
"You think the two affairs one really – eh?" inquired Mr. Raven.
"One!" declared Scarterfield. "The object of the man who murdered Noah was the same object as that of the man who murdered Salter. The two murderers are, without doubt, members of a gang. But what gang, and what object – ah! that's just what I don't know yet!"
What we were all curious about, of course, was – what did he know that we did not already know? And I think he saw in what direction our thoughts were turning, for he presently leaned forward on the table and looked around the expectant faces as if to command our attention.
"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. There's no need for me to go into the details of that now, because I take it that you have all read them, or quite sufficient of them. 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, the immediate or distant past, likely to lead up to these crimes? A pretty stiff proposition, as you may readily guess! For, you must remember, each was a man of mystery. No one in our quarter knew anything more of Noah Quick than that he had come to Devonport some little time previous, taken over the license of the Admiral Parker, conducted his house very well, and had the reputation of being a quiet, close, reserved sort of man who was making money. As to Salter, nobody knew anything except that he had been visiting Noah for some time. Family ties, the two men evidently have none! – not a soul has come forward to claim relationship. And – there has been wide publicity."
"Do you think Quick was the real name?" asked Mr. Cazalette, who from the first had been listening with rapt attention. "Mayn't it have been an assumed name?"
"Well, sir," replied Scarterfield, "I thought of that. But you must remember that full descriptions of the two brothers appeared in the press, and that portraits of both were printed alongside. Nobody came forward, recognizing them. And there has been a powerful, a most powerful, inducement for their relations to appear, never mind whether they were Quick, or Brown, or Smith, or Robinson, – the most powerful inducement we could think of!"
"Aye!" said Mr. Cazalette. "And that was – "
"Money!" answered the detective. "Money! If these men left any relations – sisters, brothers, nephews, nieces – it's in the interest of these relations to come into the light, for there's money awaiting them. That's well known – I had it noised abroad in the papers, and let it be freely talked of in town. But, as I say, nobody's come along. I firmly believe, now, that these two hadn't a blood relation in the world – a queer thing, but it seems to be so."
"And – this money?" I asked. "Is it much?"
"That was one of the first things I went for," answered Scarterfield. "Naturally, when a man comes to the end which Noah Quick met with, inquiries are made of his solicitors and his bankers. Noah had both in our parts. The solicitors knew nothing about him except that he had employed them now and then in trifling matters, and that of late he had made a will in which, in brief fashion, he left everything of which he died possessed to his brother Salter, whose address he gave as being the same as his own; about the same time they had made a will for Salter, in which he bequeathed everything he had to Noah. But as to the antecedents of Noah and Salter – nothing! Then I approached the bankers. There I got more information. 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 safe keeping, some valuable scrip and securities, chiefly of Indian railways. Altogether, those bankers hold a lot of money that belongs to the two brothers, and there are certain indications that they made their money – previous to coming to Devonport – in the far East. But the bankers know no more of their antecedents than the solicitors do. In both instances – banking matters and legal matters – the two men seem to have confined their words to strict business, and no more; the only man I have come across who can give me the faintest idea of anything respecting their past is a regular frequenter of the Admiral Parker who says that he once gathered from Salter Quick that he and Noah were natives of Rotherhithe, or somewhere in that part, and that they were orphans and the last of their lot."
"Of course, you have been to Rotherhithe – making inquiries?" suggested Mr. Raven.
"I have, sir," replied Scarterfield. "And I searched various parish registers there, and found nothing that helped me. If the two brothers did live at Rotherhithe, they must have been taken there as children and born elsewhere – they weren't born in Rotherhithe parish. Nor could I come across anybody at all who knew anything of them in seafaring circles thereabouts. I came to the conclusion that whoever those two men were, and whatever they had been, most of their lives had been spent away from this country."
"Probably in the far East, as you previously suggested," muttered Mr. Cazalette.
"Likely!" agreed Scarterfield. "Their money would seem to have been made there, judging by, at any rate, some of their securities. Well, there's more ways than one of finding things out, and after I'd knocked round a good deal of Thames' side, and been in some queer places, I turned my attention to Lloyds. Now, connected with Lloyds, are various publications having to do with shipping matters – the 'Weekly Shipping Index,' the 'Confidential Index,' for instance; moreover, with time and patience, you can find out a great deal at Lloyds not only about ships, but about men in them. And to cut a long story short, gentlemen, last week I did at last get a clue about Noah and Salter Quick which I now mean to follow up for all it's worth."
Here the detective, suddenly assuming a more business-like 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 suppose we all gazed at them as if they suggested deep and dark mystery – but for the time being Scarterfield let them lie idle where he had placed them.
"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 Hong-Kong, 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 anywhere between India and China; she had gone to Hong-Kong 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 Hong-Kong for Chemulpo – and amongst those names are those of the two men we're concerned about: 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. "Never heard of again – after being spoken in the Yellow Sea about three days from Chemulpo."
"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 Hong-Kong. She was, I have already told you, a low-down tramp steamer, evidently picking up a precarious living between one far Eastern port and another – a small vessel. Her list 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. Passengers! – not members of the crew. Nothing in the list of the crew strikes me but the two names I spoke of, and that I'll now refer to. The first name 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 when she went out of Hong-Kong – and disappeared forever!"
"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 sailor-man from Blyth, in Northumberland, whose name is Netherfield: in March, 1912, he is on the sea-coast 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? What had the man Netherfield who was with Salter Quick in Chinese waters in 1907 got to do with Salter Quick's presence here five years later?"
