Ravensdene Court

"Preposterous!" said he, with a sniff of contempt. "What the chests contained was, of course, superfluous family plate. As for these documents, that fellow Baxter, in spite of his loose manner of living, was, I remember, a bit inclined to scholarship, and went in for old books and things – a strange mixture altogether. He probably picked up these parchments in some book-seller's shop in Durham or Newcastle. I don't believe they've anything to do with Lord Forestburne's stolen property, and I advise you both not to waste time in running after mare's nests."

Scarterfield and I got ourselves out of this starchy person's presence and confided to each other our private opinions of him and his intelligence. For to us the theory which we had set up was unassailable: we tried to reduce it to strict and formal precision as we ate our lunch in a quiet corner of the hotel coffee-room, previous to parting.

"More than one of us, Scarterfield, who have taken part in this discussion, have said that if we are going to get at the truth of things we shall have to go back," I observed. "Well, what you have found out here takes us back some way. Let us suppose – we can't do anything without a certain amount of supposition – let us, I say, for the sake of argument, suppose that the man Netherfield of Blyth, who was with Noah and Salter Quick on the ship Elizabeth Robinson, bound from Hong-Kong to Chemulpo is the same person as Netherfield Baxter, who certainly lived in this town a few years ago. Very well – now then, what do we know of Baxter? We know this – that a dishonest bank-manager stole certain valuables from the bank, died suddenly just afterwards, and that Baxter disappeared just as suddenly. The supposition is that Baxter was concerned in that theft. We'll suppose more – that Baxter knew where the stolen goods were; had, in fact, helped to secrete them. Well, the next we hear of him is – supposing him to be Netherfield – on this ship, which, according to the reports you got at Lloyds, was lost with all hands in the Yellow Sea. But – a big but! – we know now that whatever happened to the rest of those on board her, three men at any rate saved their lives – Noah Quick, Salter Quick and the Chinese cook, whose exact name we've forgotten, but one of whose patronymics was Chuh. Chuh turns up at Lloyds, in London, and asks a question about the ship. Noah Quick materialises at Devonport, and runs a public-house. Salter joins him there. And presently Salter is up on the Northumbrian coast, professing great anxiety to find a churchyard, or churchyards wherein are graves with the name Netherfield on them – he makes the excuse that that is the family name of his mother's people. Now we know what happened to Salter Quick, and we also know what happened to Noah Quick. But now I'm wondering if something else had happened before that?"

"Aye, Mr. Middlebrook?" said Scarterfield. "And what, now?"

"I'm wondering," I answered, leaning nearer to him across the little table at which we sat, "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 afterwards murdered them? Do you understand?"

"I'm afraid I don't," he said. "No – I don't quite see things."

"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 half-share in a thing is worth more than one-sixth, Scarterfield – and a secret of one is far more valuable than a secret shared with three. Do you understand now?"

"I see!" he answered slowly. "You mean that Salter and Noah may have got rid of Netherfield Baxter and that somebody has got rid of them?"

"Precisely!" said I. "You put it very clearly."

"Well," he said, "if that's so, there are – as has been plain all along – two men concerned in putting the Quicks out of the way. For Noah was finished off on the same night that saw Salter finished – and there was four hundred miles distance between the scenes of their respective murders. The man who killed Noah was not the man who killed Salter, to be sure."

"Of course!" I agreed. "We've always known there were two. There may be more – a gang of them, and remarkably clever fellows. But I'm getting sure that the desire to recover some hidden treasure, valuables, something of that sort, was at the bottom of it, and now I'm all the surer because of what we've found out about this monastic spoil. 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, nor 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. "He mightn't. He might only give them a general notion. 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 under the very noses of the police?"

Scarterfield shook his head: the shake meant a great deal.

"That fairly settles me!" he remarked. "Why, the murderer must have been actually present at the inquest."

But at that I shook my head.

"Oh, dear me, no!" said I. "Not at all! But – some agent of his was certainly there. My own impression is that Mr. Cazalette's eagerness about that box gave the whole show away. Shall I tell you how I figure things out? Well, I think there were men – we don't know who! – that either knew, with absolute certainty, or were pretty sure that Noah Quick, and Salter Quick were in possession of a secret and that one or the other – and perhaps both – carried it on him, in the shape of papers. Each was killed for that secret. The murderers found nothing, in either case. But Mr. Cazalette's remarks, made before a lot of men, drew attention to the tobacco-box, and the murderer determined to get it. And – what was easier than to abstract it, at the inquest, where it was exhibited in company with several other things of Salter's?"

"I can't say if it was easy or not, Mr. Middlebrook," observed Scarterfield. "Were you there – present?"

"I was there," said I. "So were most people of the neighbourhood – as many as could get into the room, anyway. A biggish room – there'd be a couple of hundred people in it. And many of them were strangers. When the proceedings were over, men were crowding about the table on which Quick's things had been laid out, for exhibition to the coroner and the jury – what easier than for someone to pick up that box? The place was so crowded that such an action would pass unnoticed."

"Very evident it did!" observed Scarterfield.

"But I've heard of such things being taken out of sheer curiosity – morbid desire to get hold of something that had to do with a murder. However, if this particular thing was abstracted by the murderer, or by somebody acting on his behalf it looks as if he, or they, were on the spot. And then – that affair of Mr. Cazalette's pocket-book!"

"Well, Scarterfield," said I. "There's another way of regarding both these thefts. Supposing tobacco-box and pocket-book were stolen, not as means of revealing a secret, but so that no one else – Cazalette or anybody – should get at it! Eh?"

"There's something in that," he admitted thoughtfully. "You mean that the murderers had already got rid of the Quicks so that there should be two less in the secret, and these things stolen lest outsiders should get any inkling of it?"

"Precisely!" I answered. "Closeness and secrecy – that's been at the back of everything so far. I tell you – you're dealing with unusually crafty brains!"

"I wish I could get the faintest idea of whose brains they were!" he sighed. "A direct clue, now – "

Before he could say any more one of the hotel servants came into the coffee-room and made for our table.

"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, in an aside to me. "Come along, Mr. Middlebrook – you never know what you mayn't hear."

We went out into the hall. There, twisting his cap in his hands, stood a big, brown-bearded man.

CHAPTER XIV

SOLOMON FISH

It needed but one glance at Scarterfield's visitor to assure me that he was a person who had used the sea. There was the suggestion of salt water and strong winds all over him, from his grizzled hair and beard to his big, brawny hands and square set build; he looked the sort of man who all his life had been looking out across wide stretches of ocean and battling with the forces of Nature in her roughest moods. Just then there was questioning in his keen blue eyes – he was obviously wondering, with all the native suspicion of a simple soul, what Scarterfield might be after.

"You're asking for me?" said the detective.

The man glanced from one to the other of us; then jerked a big thumb in the direction of some region beyond the open door behind his burly figure.

"Mrs. Ormthwaite," he said, bending a little towards Scarterfield. "She said as how there was a gentleman stopping in this here house as was making inquiries, d'ye see, about Netherfield Baxter, as used to live hereabouts. So I come along."

Scarterfield contrived to jog my elbow. Without a word, he turned towards the door of the smoking room, motioning his visitor to follow. We all went into the corner wherein, on the previous afternoon, Scarterfield had told me of his investigations and discoveries at Blyth. Evidently I was now to hear more. But Scarterfield asked for no further information until he had provided our companion with refreshment in the shape of a glass of rum and a cigar, and his first question was of a personal sort.

"What's your name, then?" he inquired.

"Fish," replied the visitor, promptly. "Solomon. As everybody is aware."

"Blyth man, no doubt," suggested Scarterfield.

"Born and bred, master," said Fish. "And lived here always – 'cepting when I been away, which, to be sure, has been considerable. But whether north or south, east or west, always make for the old spot when on dry land. That is to say – when in this here country."

"Then you'd know Netherfield Baxter?" asked Scarterfield.

Fish waved his cigar.

"As a baby – as a boy – as a young man," he declared. "Cut many a toy boat for him at one stage, taught him to fish at another, went sailing with him in a bit of a yawl that he had when he was growed up. Know him? Did I know my own mother!"

"Just so," said Scarterfield, understandingly. "To be sure! You know Baxter quite well, of course." He paused a moment, and then leant 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. There was incredulity, uncertainty, a sense of vagueness in it; 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 own ears? Can he now, solemn?"

"I've always trusted mine, Fish," answered Scarterfield.

"Same here, master, till awhile 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 weeks ago!"

He brought down his big hand on the table with a hearty smack as he spoke the last word or two; the sound of it was followed by a dead silence, in which Scarterfield and I exchanged quick glances. Fish picked up his tumbler, took a gulp at its contents, and set it down with emphasis.

"Gospel truth!" he exclaimed.

"That you did see him?" asked Scarterfield.

"Gospel truth, master, that if my eyes and ears is to be trusted I see him and I hear him!" declared Fish. "Only," he continued, after a pause, during which he stared fixedly, first at me, then at Scarterfield. "Only – he said as how he wasn't he! D'ye understand? Denied his-self!"

"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, then I've no more eyes than this here cigar, and no more ears than that glass! Fact!"

"But you've never had reason to doubt either before, I suppose," said Scarterfield. "And you're not inclined to doubt them now. Now then, let's get to business. You really believe, Fish, that you met Netherfield Baxter about three weeks ago? That's about it, isn't it? Never mind what the man said – you took him to be Baxter. Now, where was this?"

"Hull!" replied Fish. "Three weeks ago come Friday."

"Under what circumstances?" asked Scarterfield. "Tell us about it."

"Ain't such a long story, neither," remarked Fish. "And seeing as how, according to Widow Ormthwaite, you're making some inquiries about Baxter, I don't mind telling, 'cause I been mighty puzzled ever since I see this chap. Well, you see, I landed at Hull from my last voyage – been out East'ard and back with a trading vessel what belongs to Hull owners. And before coming home here to Blyth, knocked about a day or two in that port with an old messmate o' mine that I chanced to meet there. Now then one morning – as I say, three weeks ago it is, come this Friday – me and my mate, which his name is Jim Shanks, of Hartlepool, and can corrob'rate, as they call it, what I says – we turns into a certain old-fashioned place there is there in Hull, in a bit of an alley off High Street – you'll know Hull, no doubt, you gentlemen?"

"Never been there," replied Scarterfield.

"I have," said I. "I know it well – especially the High Street."

"Then you'll know, guv'nor, that all round about that High Street there's still a lot o' queer old places as ancient as what it is," continued Fish. "Me and my mate, Shanks, knew one, what we'd oft used in times past – the Goose and Crane, as snug a spot as you'll find in any shipping-town in this here country. Maybe you'll know it?"

"I've seen it from outside, Fish," I answered. "A fine old front – half timber."

"That's it, guv'nor – and as pleasant inside as it's remarkable outside," he said. "Well, my mate and me we goes in there for a morning glass, and into a room where you'll find some interesting folk about that time o' day. There's a sign on the door o' that room, gentlemen, what reads 'For Master Mariners Only,' but it's an old piece of work, and you don't want to take no heed of it – me and Shanks we ain't master mariners, though we may look it in our shore rig-out, and we've used that room whenever we've been in Hull. Well, now we gets our glasses, and our cigars, and we sits down in a quiet corner to enjoy ourselves and observe what company drops in. Some queer old birds there is comes in to that place, I do assure you, gentlemen, and some strange tales o' seafaring life you can hear. Howsomever, there wasn't nothing partic'lar struck me that morning until it was getting on to dinner-time, and me an Shanks was thinking o' laying a course for our lodgings, where we'd ordered a special bit o' dinner to celebrate our happy meeting, like, when in comes the man I'm a talking about. And if he wasn't Netherfield Baxter, what I'd known ever since he was the heighth o' six-pennorth o' copper, then, says I, a man's eyes and a man's ears isn't to be trusted!"

"Fish!" said Scarterfield, who was listening intently. "It'll be best if you give us a description of this man. Tell us, as near as you can, what he's like – I mean, of course the man you saw at the Goose and Crane."

Our visitor seemed to pull his mental faculties together. He took another pull at his glass and several at his cigar.

"Well," he said, "t'aint much in my line, that, me not being a scholar, but I can give a general idea, d'ye see, master. A tallish, good-looking chap, as the women 'ud call handsome, sort of rakish fellow, you understand. Dressed very smart. Blue serge suit – good stuff, new. Straw hat – black band. Brown boots – polished and shining. Quite the swell – as Netherfield always was, even when he'd got through his money. The gentleman! Lord bless your souls, I knew him, for all that I hadn't seen him for several years, and that he'd grown a beard!"

"A beard, eh – " interrupted Scarterfield.

"Beard and moustache," assented Fish.

"What colour?" asked Scarterfield.

"What you might call a golden-brown," replied Fish. "Cut – the beard was – to a point. Suited him."

Scarterfield drew out his pocket-book and produced a slightly-faded photograph – that of a certain good-looking, rather nattish young man, taken in company with a fox-terrier. He handed it to Fish.

"Is that Baxter?" he asked.

"Aye! – as he was, years ago," said Fish. "I know that well enough – used to be one o' them in the phottygrapher's window down the street, outside here. But now, d'ye see, he's grown a beard. Otherwise – the same!"

"Well?" said Scarterfield, "What happened? This man came in. 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, d'ye see, for, of course, he was brought up that way – high eddicated, you understand?"

"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 cheek-bone. Just an inch or so showing, d'ye understand? 'That's been knife's work!' thinks I to myself. 'You've had your cheek laid open with a knife, my lad, somewhere and somehow!' Struck me, then, he'd grown a beard to hide it."

"Very likely," assented Scarterfield. "Well, and what happened? You spoke to this man?"

"I waited and watched," continued Fish. "I'm one as has been trained to use his eyes. 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!"

"Didn't know you, I suppose?" suggested Scarterfield.

"I tell 'ee what happened," answered Fish.

"'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 offence.' '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 feel sure of it?" suggested Scarterfield.

"Aye, certain, master!" declared Fish. "I've had time to think it over, and to reckon it all up, and now I'm sure it was him – only he wasn't going to let out that it was. Now, if I'd only chanced on him when he was by himself, what?"

"You'd have got just the same answer," said the detective laconically. "He didn't want to be known. You saw no more of him in Hull, of course – "

"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.

"Well," replied Fish, "me and Jim Shanks, we went home to dinner – couple o' roast chickens, and a nice bit o' sirloin to follow. And after that we had a nice comfortable sleep for the rest of the afternoon, and then, after a wash-up and a drop o' tea, we went out to look round the town a bit for an evening's diversion, d'ye see. Not to any partic'lar place, but just strolling round, like, as sailor-men will, being ashore and stretching their legs. And it so came about that lateish in the evening we turned into the smoking-room of the Cross Keys, in the Market Place – maybe this here friend o' yours, seeing as he's been in Hull, knows that!"

"I know it, Fish," said I.

"Then you'll know that you goes in at an archway, turns in at your right, and there you are," he said. "Well, Shanks and me, we goes in, casual like, not expecting anything that you wouldn't expect. But we'd no sooner sat us down in that smoking-room and taken an observation that I sees the very man that I'd seen at the Goose and Crane, him that I'd taken for Baxter. There he was, in a corner of the room, and the other smart-dressed man with him, their glasses in front of 'em, and their cigars in their mouths. And with 'em there was something else that I certainly didn't go for to expect to see in that place."

"What?" 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, isn't it, Fish?"

"That's it, guv'nor," assented Fish. "A yellow-skinned, slit-eyed, thin-fingered Chinee, with a face like a image and a voice like silk – which," he added, scowling more than ever, "is pison that I can't abide, nohow, having seen more than enough of."

I looked at Scarterfield. He had been attentive enough all through the course of our visitor's story, but I saw that his attention had redoubled since the last few words.