J. S. Fletcher

“ 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 humour and poured out the tea as if she had been familiar with our new quarters for many a long day ”

“ 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.
"The thing is," said I. "Can we get home tomorrow?"
"Well—possibly tomorrow night—late," he answered. "I will do my best. I may be—I hope to be—through with my business tomorrow 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 portable 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." ”

“ 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 they together, to have had a hand in the murders of Noah and Salter Quick. ”

“ Now, I've had great experience of Chinamen—best servants on earth, in my opinion—so I sailed her down to the Thames, went up to London Docks, and took in some Chinese chaps that I got in Limehouse. Two men and one cook—man cook, of course. ”