Part 33 (2/2)

”Salter Quick, without a doubt,” I answered. ”It corroborates Baxter's story of the rubies. He didn't mention any pearls. And I think now, Scarterfield, that Salter Quick's murder lies at the door of--one of those Chinamen who in their turn are lying dead before us!”

”Well, and that's what I think,” said he. ”Though however a Chinaman could be about this coast without the local police learning something of it at the time they were inquiring into the murder beats me.

However, there it is!--I feel sure of it. And I was going to tell you--I got wind of this yawl down Limehouse way--I found out that she'd been in the Thames, and that her owner had enlisted a small crew of Chinamen and gone away with them, and I found out further that she'd been seen off the Norfolk coast, going north, so then I pitched a hot and strong story to the authorities about piracy and all manner of things, and they sent this destroyer in search of Baxter, and me on her. If we'd only been twelve hours sooner!”

Lorrimore and the lieutenant came up to us.

”My men have the fire completely beaten,” said the lieutenant glancing at Scarterfield. ”If you want to look round----”

We began a thorough examination of the yawl, in the endeavour to reconstruct the affair of the early morning. For there were all the elements of a strange mystery in that and curiosity about the whole thing was as strong in me as in Scarterfield. We knew now many things that we had not known twenty-four hours before--one was that the many affairs, dark and nefarious, of Netherfield Baxter, had nothing to do with the murders of Noah and Salter Quick; another that those murders without doubt arose from the brothers' possession of the pearls and rubies which Salter had shown to the Hatton Garden diamond merchant.

All things considered it seemed to me that the explanation of the mystery rested in some such theory as this--the Chinaman, Lo Chuh Fen, doubtless knew as well as Baxter and his French friend that the Quicks were in possession of the rubies stolen from the heathen temple in Southern China; no doubt he had become acquainted with that fact when the marooned party from the _Elizabeth Robinson_ were on the intimate terms of men united by a common fate on the lonely island.

Drifting eventually to England, Chuh had probably discovered the whereabouts of the two brothers, had somehow found that the rubies were still in their possession, might possibly have been in personal touch with Salter or with Noah, had taken others of his compatriots, discovered in the Chinese quarters of the East End into his confidence, and engineered a secret conspiracy for securing the valuables. He himself had probably tracked Salter to the lonely bit of sh.o.r.e near Ravensdene Court; a.s.sociates of his had no doubt fallen upon Noah at Saltash. But how had all this led up to the attack of the Chinese on Baxter and the Frenchman?--and who was the man who, leaving every other member of the yawl's company dead or dying and who had exchanged those last shots with Netherfield Baxter, had escaped to the sh.o.r.e and was now, no doubt, endeavouring to make a final bid for liberty?

Reckoning up everything we saw, it seemed to me, from my knowledge of the preceding incidents, that the drug which the Chinese gentleman, as Baxter had been pleased to style him, had not had the effects that he desired and antic.i.p.ated, and that one or other of the two men to whom it had been administered had been aroused from sleep before any attack could be made on both. I figured things in this way--Baxter, or the Frenchman, or both, had awakened and missed the Chinaman. One or both had turned out to seek him; had discovered that Miss Raven and I were missing; had scented danger to themselves, found the Chinese up to some game, and opened fire on them. Evidently the first fighting--as I had gathered from the revolver shots--had been sharp and decisive; I formed the conclusion that when it was over there were only two men left alive, of whom one was Baxter and the other the man whom we had seen escaping in the boat. Baxter, I believed, had put up some sort of barricade and watched his enemy from it; that he himself was already seriously wounded I gathered from two facts--one that his body had several superficial wounds on arms and shoulders, and that in the cabin behind the hastily-constructed barricade, sheets had been torn into strips for bandages which we found on these wounds, where, as far as he could, he had roughly twisted them. Then, according to my thinking, he had eventually seen the other survivor, who was probably in like case with himself as regards superficial wounds, endeavouring to make off, and emerging from his shelter had fired on him from the side of the yawl, only to be killed himself by return fire. There was no mistaking the effect of that last shot--chance shot or well-directed aim it had done for Netherfield Baxter, and he had crumpled up and died where he dropped.

A significant exclamation from Scarterfield called me to his side--he, aided by one of the blue-jackets, was examining the body of Lo Chuh Fen.

”Look here!” he murmured as I went up to him. ”This chap has been searched! After he was dead, I mean. There's a body-belt that he wore--it's been violently torn from him, his clothing ripped to get at it, and the belt itself hacked to pieces in the endeavour to find--something! Whose work has that been!”

”The work of the man who got away in the boat,” said I. ”Of course!

He's been after those rubies and pearls, Scarterfield.”

”We must be after him,” he said. ”You say you think he was wounded in getting away?”

”He was certainly wounded,” I affirmed. ”I saw him fall headlong in the boat after the first shot; he recovered himself, fired the shot which no doubt finished Baxter, and must have been wounded again, for the two men again fired simultaneously, and the man in the boat swayed at that second shot. But once more he pulled himself together and rowed away.”

”Well, if he's wounded, he can't get far without attracting notice,”

declared Scarterfield. ”We'll organize a search for him presently. But first let's have a look into the quarters that these Chinamen occupied.”

The smoke of the fire--which seemed to have broken out in the forecastle and had been confined to it by the efforts of the sailors from the destroyer--had now almost cleared away, and we went forward to the galley. The fire had not spread to that, and after the scenes of blood and violence astern and in the cabin the place looked refres.h.i.+ngly spick and span; there was, indeed, an unusual air of neatness and cleanliness about it. The various pots and pans shone gaily in the sun's glittering lights; every utensil was in its place; evidently the galley's controlling spirit had been a meticulously careful person who hated disorder as heartily as dirt. And on a shelf near the stove was laid out what I took to be the things which the vanished cook, whoever he might be, had destined for breakfast--a tempting one of kidneys and bacon, soles, eggs, a curry. I gathered from this, and pointed my conclusion out to Scarterfield, that the presiding genius of the galley had had no idea of the mutiny into which he had been plunged soon after midnight.

”Aye!” said Scarterfield. ”Just so--I see your point. And--you think that man of Lorrimore's, Wing, was aboard, and if so, he's the man who's escaped?”

”I've strong suspicions,” said I. ”Yet, they were based on a plum-cake.”

”Well, and I've known of worse clues,” he rejoined. ”But--I wonder?

Now, if only we knew----”

Just then Lorrimore came along, poking his head into the galley. He suddenly uttered a sharp exclamation and reached an arm to a black silk cap which hung from a peg on the boarding above the stove.

”That's Wing's!” he said, in emphatic tones. ”I saw him make that cap himself!”

CHAPTER XXV

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