Part 11 (2/2)
”Up to now n.o.body 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 gla.s.s 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. n.o.body 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.”
<script>