Part 13 (2/2)

”Of course I saw it!” remarked Lorrimore, narrating this. ”I told him I not only saw it, but handled it--so, too, did several other people--Mr. Cazalette there had drawn attention to the thing when we were examining the dead man, and there was some curiosity about it.”

(Here Mr. Cazalette, standing close by me, nudged my elbow, to remind me of what he had just said upstairs.) ”And I told the inspector something else, or, rather, put him in mind of something he'd evidently forgotten,” continued Lorrimore. ”That inquest, or, to be precise, the adjourned inquest, was attended by a good many strangers, who had evidently been attracted by mere curiosity. There were a lot of people there who certainly did not belong to this neighbourhood.

And when the proceedings were over, they came crowding round that table, morbidly inquisitive about the dead man's belongings. What easier, as I said to the inspector, than for some one of them--perhaps a curio-hunter--to quietly pick up that box and make off with it?

There are people who'd give a good deal to lay hold of a souvenir of that sort.”

Mr. Raven muttered something about no accounting for tastes, and we went in to dinner, and began to talk of less gruesome things.

Lorrimore was a brilliant and accomplished conversationalist, and the time pa.s.sed pleasantly until, as we men were lingering a little over our wine, and Miss Raven was softly playing the piano in the adjoining drawing-room, the butler came in and whispered to his master. Raven turned an astonished face to the rest of us.

”There's the police-inspector here now,” he said, ”and with him a detective--from Devonport. They are anxious to see me--and you, Middlebrook. The detective has something to tell.”

CHAPTER X

THE YELLOW SEA

I am not sure which, or how many, of us sitting at that table had ever come into personal contact with a detective--I myself had never met one in my life!--but I am sure that Mr. Raven's announcement that there was a real live one close at hand immediately excited much curiosity. Miss Raven, in the adjoining room, the door of which was open, caught her uncle's last words, and came in, expectantly--I think she, like most of us, wondered what sort of being we were about to see. And possibly there was a shade of disappointment on her face when the police-inspector walked in followed, not by the secret, subtle, sleuth-hound-like person she had perhaps expected, but by a little, rotund, rather merry-faced man who looked more like a prosperous cheesemonger or successful draper than an emissary of justice: he was just the sort of person you would naturally expect to see with an ap.r.o.n round his comfortable waist-line or a pencil stuck in his ear and who was given to rubbing his fat, white hands--he rubbed them now and smiled, wholesale, as his companion led him forward.

”Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Raven,” said the inspector with an apologetic bow, ”but we are anxious to have a little talk with you and Mr. Middlebrook. This is Mr. Scarterfield--from the police at Devonport. Mr. Scarterfield has been in charge of the investigations about the affair--Noah Quick, you know--down there, and he has come here to make some further inquiries.”

Mr. Raven murmured some commonplace about being glad to see his visitors, and, with his usual hospitality, offered them refreshment.

We made room for them at the table at which we were sitting, and some of us, I think, were impatient to hear what Mr. Scarterfield had to tell. But the detective was evidently one of those men who readily adapt themselves to whatever company they are thrown into, and he betrayed no eagerness to get to business until he had lighted one of Mr. Raven's cigars and pledged Mr. Raven in a whisky and soda. Then, equipped and at his ease, he turned a friendly, all-embracing smile on the rest of us.

”Which,” he asked, looking from one to the other, ”which of these gentlemen is Mr. Middlebrook?”

The general turning of several pairs of eyes in my direction gave him the information he wanted--we exchanged nods.

”It was you who found Salter Quick?” he suggested. ”And who met him, the previous day, on the cliffs hereabouts, and went with him into the Mariner's Joy?”

”Quite correct,” said I. ”All that!”

”I have read up everything that appeared in print in connection with the Salter Quick affair,” he remarked. ”It has, of course, a bearing on the Noah Quick business. Whatever is of interest in the one is of interest in the other.”

”You think the two affairs one really--eh?” inquired Mr. Raven.

”One!” declared Scarterfield. ”The object of the man who murdered Noah was the same object as that of the man who murdered Salter. The two murderers are, without doubt, members of a gang. But what gang, and what object--ah! that's just what I don't know yet!”

What we were all curious about, of course, was--what did he know that we did not already know? And I think he saw in what direction our thoughts were turning, for he presently leaned forward on the table and looked around the expectant faces as if to command our attention.

”I had better tell you how far my investigations have gone,” he said quietly. ”Then we shall know precisely where we are, and from what point we can, perhaps, make a new departure, now that I have come here. I was put in charge of this case--at least of the Saltash murder--from the first. There's no need for me to go into the details of that now, because I take it that you have all read them, or quite sufficient of them. Now, when the news about Salter Quick came through, it seemed to me that the first thing to do was to find out a very pertinent thing--who were the brothers Quick? What were their antecedents? What was in their past, the immediate or distant past, likely to lead up to these crimes? A pretty stiff proposition, as you may readily guess! For, you must remember, each was a man of mystery.

No one in our quarter knew anything more of Noah Quick than that he had come to Devonport some little time previous, taken over the license of the Admiral Parker, conducted his house very well, and had the reputation of being a quiet, close, reserved sort of man who was making money. As to Salter, n.o.body knew anything except that he had been visiting Noah for some time. Family ties, the two men evidently have none!--not a soul has come forward to claim relations.h.i.+p.

And--there has been wide publicity.”

”Do you think Quick was the real name?” asked Mr. Cazalette, who from the first had been listening with rapt attention. ”Mayn't it have been an a.s.sumed name?”

”Well, sir,” replied Scarterfield, ”I thought of that. But you must remember that full descriptions of the two brothers appeared in the press, and that portraits of both were printed alongside. n.o.body came forward, recognizing them. And there has been a powerful, a most powerful, inducement for their relations to appear, never mind whether they were Quick, or Brown, or Smith, or Robinson,--the most powerful inducement we could think of!”

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