J. S. Fletcher

“ But most people, chancing upon anything mysterious, try to explain it to their own satisfaction. I came to the conclusion that Mr. Cazalette, during his morning swim—no doubt in very shallow waters—had cut hand or foot against some sharp pebble or bit of rock, and had used his handkerchief as a bandage until the bleeding stopped. Yet—why thrust it away into the yew hedge, close to the house? Why carry it from the shore at all, if he meant to get rid of it? And why not have consigned it to his dirty-linen basket and have had it washed?
“Decidedly an odd character,” I mused. “A man of mystery!” ”

“ Miss Raven threw him a laughing nod to which he responded with a deep bow. We left them with that curious picture in our minds—Lorrimore, essentially English in spite of his long residence in the East; the Chinaman, bland, suave, smiling.
“A curious pair and a strange combination!” I remarked, as we walked away. “That house, at any rate, has a plentitude of brain-power in it. What amazes me is that a clever chap like Master Wing should be content to bury his talents in a foreign place, out of the world—to make curries and plum cake!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Cazalette. “Betwixt here—the seacoast—and the Cheviots westward, there's a good many spots that Goldsmith might have drawn upon for his deserted village. The folks go—the bit of a church falls into ruins—its graveyard gets choked with weeds—the stones are covered with moss and lichen—the monuments fall and are obscured by the grass—underneath the grass and the weed many an old family name lies hidden. And what'll that man be wanting to find any name at all for, I'd like to know!”
“The queer thing to me,” observed Mr. Raven, “is that two men should be wanting to find it at the same time.” ”

“ Raven to try them against the achievements of his man—to taking care about the halfpennies when he goes his round of the tradesmen. Oh, he's a treasure—I assure you.”
“You brought him from India, I suppose?” said I.
“I brought him from India, yes,” he answered. “He'd been with me for some time before I left.”
“And does he really like living—here?” asked Miss Raven. “In such absolutely different surroundings?”
“Oh, well, I think he's a pretty good old hand at making the best of the moment,” laughed Lorrimore. “He's a philosopher. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Without a word from me, out comes the silver tea-pot, the best china, the finest linen. He produces his choicest plum cake; the bread and butter is cut with waferlike thinness; and the tea—ah, well, no Englishwoman, Miss Raven, can make tea as a Chinese man servant can.”
“It's quite plain that you've got a treasure in your house. Doctor Lorrimore,” said Miss Raven. “But, then, the Chinese are very clever, aren't they?” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ And presently I, too, went on my way, and, rounding another corner of the cliff, left the lonely inn behind me.
BUT as I went along, following the line of the headlands, I wondered a good deal about Salter Quick and the conversation at the Mariner's Joy. What was it that this hard-bitten, travel-worn man, one who had seen, evidently, much of wind and wave, was really after? I gave no credence to his story of the family relationship—it was not at all likely that a man would travel all the way from Devonshire to Northumberland to find the graves of his mother's ancestors. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ When this candid and direct person had gone, the inspector looked at Miss Raven and me with glances that indicated a good deal.
“That settles one point and seems to establish another,” he remarked significantly. “Salter Quick was not murdered by somebody who had come into these parts on the same errand as himself. He was murdered by somebody who was—here already.”
Miss Raven and I took our leave for the second time and started walking leisurely back to Ravensdene Court. All that afternoon the weather had been threatening to break—there was thunder about. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ He looked round sharply, caught sight of me, and came slowly in my direction.
“Are you Mr. Raven's gamekeeper?” I asked, as he got within speaking-distance. “Just so—I am staying with Mr. Raven. And I've just made a terrible discovery. There is a man lying behind the cliff there—dead.”
“Dead, sir?” he exclaimed. “What—washed up by the tide, likely.”
“No,” I said. “He's been murdered. Stabbed to death!”
He let out a short, sibilant breath, looking at me with rapidly dilating eyes.
I told him of meeting Quick at the Mariner's Joy, of the landlord warning him against showing so much money. ”

“ No ordinary crime, that, gentlemen! When two brothers are murdered on the same night, at places hundreds of miles apart, it signifies something out of the common. Somebody has had an interest in getting rid of both men.”
“Wasn't this Noah Quick mentioned in some paper you found on Salter Quick?” I asked.
“An envelope,” replied the inspector. “We have it, of course. Landlord—so I took it to mean—of the Admiral Parker, Haulaway Street, Devonport.”
“It'll be at Devonport that the secret lies,” observed Mr. Cazalette suddenly. “Aye—that's where you'll be seeking for news!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He gave us a knowing glance.
“Aye!” he said. “Young folks are full of curiosity. But I'm not going to say what I've discovered, nor how far my investigations have gone.”
Mr. Raven tried another tack, fishing for information.
“You really think those marks were made of a purpose, Cazalette?” he suggested.
“I'll no say anything at present,” answered Mr. Cazalette. “The experiment is in course of process. But I'll say this, as a student of this sort of thing—yon murder was far from by ordinary.”
Miss Raven shuddered a little. ”

“ 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'.” ”

“ 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! ”

“ Middlebrook!” he exclaimed, in quick, almost deprecating fashion. “A very dull and out-of-the-way place to which to bring one used to London; but we'll do our best. You've had a convoy across the park, I see,” he added, with a glance at his niece. “That's right!”
“As charming a one as her surroundings are delightful, Mr. Raven,” I said, assuming an intentionally old-fashioned manner. “If I am treated with the same consideration I have already received, I shall be loath to bring my task to an end.” ”

“ 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. ”