Ravensdene Court

"I hadn't observed that," I said.

"Perhaps not," she answered. "But I know him better. He's an unusually nervous man. Do you know that since this happened he's taken to going round the house every night, examining doors and windows? – And – he's begun to carry a revolver."

The last statement made me think. Why should Mr. Raven expect – or, if not expect, be afraid of, any attack on himself? But before I could make any comment on my companion's information, my attention to the subject was diverted. All that afternoon the weather had been threatening to break – there was thunder about. And now, with startling suddenness, a flash of lightning was followed by a sharp crack, and that on the instant by a heavy downpour of rain. I glanced at Miss Raven's light dress – early spring though it was, the weather had been warm for more than a week, and she had come out in things that would be soaked through in a moment. But just then we were close to an old red-brick house, which stood but a yard or two back from the road, and was divided from it by nothing but a strip of garden. It had a deep doorway, and without ceremony, I pushed open the little gate in front, and drew Miss Raven within its shelter. We had not stood there many seconds, our back to the door (which I never heard opened), when a soft mellifluous voice sounded close to my startled ear.

"Will you not step inside and shelter from the storm?"

Twisting round sharply, I found myself staring at the slit-like eyes and old parchment-hued face of a smiling Chinaman.

CHAPTER VIII

WAS IT A WOMAN?

Had Miss Raven and I suddenly been caught up out of that little coast village and transported to the far East on a magic carpet, to be set down in the twinkling of an eye on some Oriental threshold, we could scarcely have been more surprised than we were at the sight of that bland, smiling countenance. For the moment I was at a loss to think who and what the man could be; he was in the dress of his own country, a neat, close-fitting, high-buttoned blue jacket; there was a little cap on his head, and a pigtail dependent from behind it – I was not sufficiently acquainted with Chinese costumes to gather any idea of his rank or position from these things – for aught I knew to the contrary, he might be a mandarin who, for some extraordinary reason, had found his way to this out-of-the-world spot. And my answer to his courteous invitation doubtless sounded confused and awkward.

"Oh, thank you," I said, "pray don't let us put you to any trouble. If we may just stand under your porch a moment – "

He stood a little aside, waving us politely into the hall behind him.

"Dr. Lorrimore would be very angry with me if I allowed a lady and gentleman to stand in his door and did not invite them into his house," he said, in the same even, mellifluous tones. "Please to enter."

"Oh, is this Dr. Lorrimore's?" I said. "Thank you – we'll come in. Is Dr. Lorrimore at home?"

"Presently," he answered. "He is in the village."

He closed the door as we entered, passed us with a bow, preceded us along the hall, and threw open the door of a room which looked out on a trim garden at the rear of the house. Still smiling and bland he invited us to be seated, and then, with another bow, left the room, apparently walking on velvet. Miss Raven and I glanced at each other.

"So Dr. Lorrimore has a Chinese man servant?" she said. "How – picturesque!"

"Um!" I muttered.

She gave me a questioning, half-amused glance, and dropped her voice.

"Don't you like – Easterns?" she whispered.

"I like 'em in the East," I replied. "In Northumberland they don't – shall we say they don't fit in with the landscape."

"I think he fits in – here," she retorted, looking round. "This is a bit Oriental."

She was right in that. The room into which we had been ushered was certainly suggestive of what one had heard of India. There were fine Indian rugs on the floor; ivories and brasses in the cabinets; the curtains were of fabric that could only have come out of some Eastern bazaar; there was a faint, curious scent of sandal-wood and of dried rose-leaves. And on the mantelpiece, where, in English households, a marble clock generally stands, reposed a peculiarly ugly Hindu god, cross-legged, hideous of form, whose baleful eyes seemed to follow all our movements.

"Yes," I admitted, reflectively. "I think he fits in – here. Dr. Lorrimore said he had been in India for some years, didn't he? He appears to have brought some of it home with him."

"I suppose this is his drawing-room," said Miss Raven. "Now, if only it looked out on palm-trees, and – and all other things that one associates with India."

"Just so," said I. "What it does look out on, however, is a typical English garden on which, at present, about a ton of rain is descending. And we are nearly three miles from Ravensdene Court!"

"Oh, but it won't keep on like that, for long," she said. "And I suppose, if it does, that we can get some sort of a conveyance – perhaps, Dr. Lorrimore has a brougham that he'd lend us."

"I don't think that's very likely," said I. "The country practitioner, I think, is more dependent on a bicycle than on a brougham. But here is Dr. Lorrimore."

I had just caught sight of him as he entered his garden by a door set in its ivy-covered wall. He ran hastily up the path to the house – within a minute or two, divested of his mackintosh, he opened the door of our room.

"So glad you were near enough to turn in here for shelter!" he exclaimed, shaking hands with us warmly. "I see that neither of you expected rain – now, I did, and I went out prepared."

"We made for the first door we saw," said Miss Raven. "But we'd no idea it was yours, Dr. Lorrimore. And do tell me! – the Chinese," she continued, in a whisper. "Is he your man-servant?"

Lorrimore laughed, rubbing his hands together. That day he was not in the solemn, raven-hued finery in which he had visited Ravensdene Court; instead he wore a suit of grey tweed, in which, I thought, he looked rather younger and less impressive than in black. But he was certainly no ordinary man, and as he stood there smiling at Miss Raven's eager face, I felt conscious that he was the sort of somewhat mysterious, rather elusive figure in which women would naturally be interested.

"Man-servant!" he said, with another laugh. "He's all the servant I've got. Wing – he's too or three other monosyllabic patronymics, but Wing suffices – is an invaluable person. He's a model cook, valet, launderer, general factotum – there's nothing that he can't or won't do, from making the most perfect curries – I must have Mr. 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, Miss Raven, you could go the round of this house, at any moment, without finding a thing out of place or a speck of dust in any corner. A model!"

"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. So, of course, we're thoroughly used to each other."

"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. Deep – inscrutable – in short, he's Chinese. He has his own notions of happiness. At present he's supremely happy in getting you some tea – you mightn't think it, but that saffron-faced Eastern can make an English plum-cake that would put the swellest London pastry-cook to shame! You must try it!"

The Chinaman presently summoned us to tea, which he had laid out in another room – obviously Lorrimore's dining-room. There was nothing Oriental in that; rather, it was eminently Victorian, an affair of heavy furniture, steel engravings, and an array, on the sideboard, of what, I suppose, was old family plate. Wing ushered us and his master in with due ceremony and left us; when the door had closed on him, Lorrimore gave us an arch glance.

"You see how readily and skilfully that chap adapts himself to the needs of the moment," he said. "Now, you mightn't think it, but this is the very first time I have ever been honoured with visitors to afternoon tea. Observe how Wing immediately falls in with English taste and custom! 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 wafer-like 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, Dr. Lorrimore," said Miss Raven. "But then, the Chinese are very clever, aren't they?"

"Very remarkable people, indeed," assented our host. "Shrewd, observant, penetrative. I have often wondered if this man of mine would find any great difficulty in seeing through a brick wall!"

"He would be a useful person, perhaps, in solving the present mystery," said I. "The police seem to have got no further."

"Ah, the Quick business?" remarked Lorrimore. "Um! – well, as regards that, it seems to me that whatever light is thrown on it will have to be thrown from the other angle – from Devonport. From all that I heard and gathered, it's very evident that what is really wanted is a strict examination into the immediate happenings at Noah Quick's inn, and also into the antecedents of Noah and Salter. But is there anything fresh?"

I told him, briefly, all that had happened that afternoon – of the information given by James Beeman and of the disappearance of the tobacco-box.

"That's odd!" he remarked. "Let's see – it was the old gentleman I saw at Ravensdene Court who had some fancy about that box, wasn't it? – Mr. Cazalette. What was his idea, now?"

"Mr. Cazalette," I replied, "saw, or fancied he saw, certain marks or scratches within the lid of the box which he took to have some meaning: they were, he believed, made with design – with some purpose. He thought that by photographing them, and then enlarging his photograph, he would bring out those marks more clearly, and possibly find out what they were really meant for."

"Yes?" said Lorrimore. "Well – what has he discovered?"

"Up to now nobody knows," said Miss Raven. "Mr. Cazalette won't tell us anything."

"That looks as if he had discovered something," observed Lorrimore. "But – old gentlemen are a little queer, and a little vain. Perhaps he's suddenly going to let loose a tremendous theory and wants to perfect it before he speaks. Oh, well!" he added, almost indifferently, "I've known a good many murder mysteries in my time – out in India – and I always found that the really good way of getting at the bottom of them was to go right back! – as far back as possible. If I were the police in charge of these cases, I should put one question down before me and do nothing until I'd exhausted every effort to solve it."

"And that would be – what?" I asked.

"This," said he. "What were the antecedents of Noah and Salter Quick?"

"You think they had a past?" suggested Miss Raven.

"Everybody has a past," answered Lorrimore. "It may be this; it may be that. But nearly all the problems of the present have their origin and solution in the past. Find out what and where those two middle-aged men had been, in their time! – and then there'll be a chance to work forward."

The rain cleared off soon after we had finished tea, and presently Miss Raven and I took our leave. Lorrimore informed us that Mr. Raven had asked him to dinner on the following evening; he would accordingly see us again very soon.

"It will be quite an event for me!" he said, gaily, as he opened his garden gate. "I live like an anchorite in this place. A little – a very little practice – the folk are scandalously healthy! – and a great deal of scientific investigation – that's my lot."

"But you have a treasure of a servant," observed Miss Raven. "Please tell him that his plum-cake was perfection."

The Chinaman was just then standing at the open door, in waiting on his master. 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 plenitude 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!"

"Perhaps he has a faithful devotion to his master," said Miss Raven. "Anyway, it's very romantic, and picturesque, and that sort of thing, to find a real live Chinaman in an English village – I wonder if the poor man gets teased about his queer clothes and his pigtail?"

"Didn't Lorrimore say he was a philosopher?" said I. "Therefore he'll be indifferent to criticism. I dare say he doesn't go about much."

That the Chinaman was not quite a recluse, however, I discovered a day or two later, when, going along the headlands for a solitary stroll after a stiff day's work in the library, I turned into the Mariner's Joy for a glass of Claigue's undeniably good ale. Wing was just coming out of the house as I entered it. He was as neat, as bland, and as smiling as when I saw him before; he was still in his blue jacket, his little cap. But he was now armed with a very large umbrella, and on one arm he carried a basket, filled with small parcels; evidently he had been on a shopping expedition. He greeted me with a deep obeisance and respectful smile and went on his way – I entered the inn and found its landlord alone in his bar-parlour.

"You get some queer customers in here, Mr. Claigue," I observed as he attended to my modest wants. "Yet it's not often, I should think, that a real live Chinaman walks in on you."

"He's been in two or three times, that one," replied Claigue. "Chinaman he is, no doubt, sir, but it strikes me he must know as much of this country as he knows of his own, for he speaks our tongue like a native – a bit soft and mincing-like, but never at a loss for a word. Dr. Lorrimore's servant, I understand."

"He has been in Dr. Lorrimore's service for some years," I answered. "No doubt he's had abundant opportunities of picking up the language. Still – it's an odd sight to see a Chinaman, pigtail and all, in these parts, isn't it?"

"Well, I've had all sorts in here, time and again," replied Claigue reflectively. "Sailor men, mostly. But," he added, with a meaning look, "of all the lot, that poor chap as got knifed the other week was the most mysterious! What do you make of it, sir?"

"I don't know what to make of it," said I. "I don't think anybody knows what to make of it. The police don't, anyhow!"

"The police!" he exclaimed, with a note of derision. "Yah! they're worse than a parcel of old women! Have they ever tried? Just a bit of surface inquiry – and the thing slips past. Of course, the man was a stranger. Nobody cares; that's about it. My notion is that the police don't care the value of that match whether the thing's ever cleared up or not. Nine days' wonder, you know, Mr. Middlebrook. Still – there's a deal of talk about."

"I suppose you hear a good deal in this parlour of yours?" I suggested.

"Nights – yes," he said. "A murder's always a good subject of conversation. At first, those who come in here of an evening – regular set there, in from the village at the back of the cliffs – they could talk of naught else, starting first this and that theory. It's died down a good deal, to be sure – there's been naught new to start it afresh, on another tack – but there is some talk, even now."

"And what's the general opinion?" I inquired. "I suppose there is one?"

"Aye, well, I couldn't say that there's a general opinion," he answered. "There's a many opinions. And some queer notions, too!"

"Such as what?" I asked.

"Well," said he, with a laugh, as if he thought the suggestion ridiculous, "there's one that comes nearer being what you might call general than any of the others. There's a party of the older men that come here who're dead certain that Quick was murdered by a woman!"

"A woman!" I exclaimed. "Whatever makes them think that?"

"Those footmarks," answered Claigue. "You'll remember, Mr. Middlebrook, that there were two sets of prints in the sand thereabouts. One was certainly Quick's – they fitted his boots. The other was very light – delicate, you might call 'em – made, without doubt, by some light-footed person. Well, some of the folk hereabouts went along to Kernwick Cove the day of the murder, and looked at those prints. They say the lighter ones were made by a woman."

I let my recollections go back to the morning on which I had found Quick lying dead on the patch of yellow sand.

"Of course," I said, reflectively, "those marks are gone, now."

"Gone? Aye!" exclaimed Claigue. "Long since. There's been a good many tides washed over that spot since this, Mr. Middlebrook. But they haven't washed out the fact that a man's life was let out there! And whether it was man or woman that stuck that knife into the poor fellow's shoulders, it'll come out, some day."

"I'm not so sure of that," said I. "There's a goodly percentage of unsolved mysteries of that kind."

"Well, I believe in the old saying," he declared. "Murder will out! What I don't like is the notion that the murderer may be walking about this quarter, free, unsuspected. Why, I may ha' served him with a glass of beer! What's to prevent it? Murderers don't carry a label on their foreheads!"

"What do you think the police ought to do – or ought to have done?" I asked.

"I think they should ha' started working backward," he replied, with decision. "I read all I could lay hands on in the newspapers, and I came to the conclusion that there was a secret behind those two men. Come! two brothers murdered on the same night – hundreds of miles apart! That's no common crime, Mr Middlebrook. Who were these two men – Noah and Salter Quick? What was their past history? That's what the police ought to ha' busied themselves with. If they lost or couldn't pick up the scent here, they should ha' tried far back. Go backward they should – if they want to go forward."

That was the second time I had heard that advice, and I returned to Ravensdene Court reflecting on it. Certainly it was sensible. Who, after all, were Noah and Salter Quick – what was their life-story. I was wondering how that could be brought to light, when, having dressed for dinner, and I was going downstairs, 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 pocket-book 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!"

CHAPTER IX

THE ENLARGED PHOTOGRAPH

I was dimly conscious, in a vague, uncertain fashion, that Mr. Cazalette was going to tell me secrets; that I was about to hear something which would explain his own somewhat mysterious doings on the morning of the murder; a half-excited, anticipating curiosity rose in me. I think he saw it, for he signed to me to sit down in an easy chair close by his bed; he himself, a queer, odd figure in his quaint, old-fashioned clothes, perched himself on the edge of the bed.

"Sit you down, Middlebrook," he said. "We've some time yet before dinner, and I'm wanting to talk to you – in private, you'll bear in mind. There's things I know that I'm not willing – as yet – to tell to everybody. But I'll tell them to you, Middlebrook – for you're a sensible young fellow, and we'll take a bit of counsel together. Aye – there was that in my pocket-book that might be – I'll not say positively that it was, but that it might be – a clue to the identity of the man that murdered yon Salter Quick, and I'm sorry now that I've lost it and didn't take more care of it. But man! who'd ha' thought that I'd have my pocket-book stolen from under my very nose! And that's a convincing proof that there's uncommonly sharp and clever criminals around us in these parts, Middlebrook."

"You lost your pocket-book while you were bathing, Mr. Cazalette?" I asked, wishful to know all his details.

He turned on his bed, pointing to a venerable Norfork jacket which hung on a peg in a recess by the washstand. I knew it well enough: I had often seen him in it first thing of a morning.

"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've put my pocket-book in the inside pocket, and laid the coat itself and the rest o' my scanty attire on the bank there down 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 pocket-book 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 amongst 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 by the time I was on dry land again, and wanting my garments, he'd be a quarter of a mile away!"

"And – the clue?" I asked.

He edged a little nearer to me, and dropped his voice still lower.

"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 its 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. But he was one of those old men who won't allow their cattle to be hurried, and he went on in his long-winded way.

"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 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, Middlebrook, 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. But there it was, and there I found it."