Ravensdene Court Part 13

"Mr. Cazalette!" said I, "what were the results of your labours? I don't suppose that the print which was in your pocket-book was the only one you possess?"

"You're right there," he replied. "It wasn't. If the thief thought he was securing something unique, he was mistaken. But--I didn't want him, or anybody, to get hold of even one print, for as sure as we're living men, Middlebrook, what was on the inside of that lid was--a key to something!"

"You forget that the tobacco-box itself has been stolen from the police's keeping," I reminded him.

"And I don't forget anything of the sort," he retorted. "And the fact you've mentioned makes me all the more a.s.sured, my man, that what I say is correct! There's him, or there's them--in all likelihood it's the plural--that's uncommonly anxious, feverishly anxious, to get hold of that key that I suspicion. What were Salter Quick's pockets turned out for? What were the man's clothes slashed and hacked for? Why did whoever slew Noah Quick at Saltash treat the man in similar fas.h.i.+on?

It wasn't money the two men were murdered for!--no, it was for information, a secret! Or, as I put it before, the key to something."

"And you believe, really and truly, that this key is in the marks or scratches or whatever they are on the lid of the tobacco-box?" I asked.

"Aye, I do!" he exclaimed. "And what's more, Middlebrook, I believe I'm a doited old fool! If I'd contrived to get a good, careful, penetrating look at that box, without saying anything to the police, I should ha' shown some common-sense. But like the blithering old idiot that I am, I spoke my thoughts aloud before a company, and I made a present of an idea to these miscreants. Until I said what I did, the murderous gang that knifed yon two men hadn't a notion that Salter Quick carried a key in his tobacco-box! Now--they know."

"You don't mean to suggest that any of the murderers were present when you asked permission to photograph the box!" I exclaimed.

"Impossible!"

"There's very few impossibilities in this world, Middlebrook," he answered. "I'm not saying that any of the gang were present in Raven's outhouse yonder, where they carried the poor fellow's body, but there were a dozen or more men heard what I said to the police-inspector, like the old fool I was, and saw me taking my photograph. And men talk--no matter of what degree they are."

"Mr. Cazalette," said I, "I'd just like to see your results."

He got off his bed at that, and going over to a chest of drawers, unlocked one, and took out a writing-case, from which he presently extracted a sheet of cardboard, whereon he had mounted a photograph, beneath which, on the cardboard, were some lines of explanatory writing in its fine, angular style of caligraphy. This he placed in my hand without a word, watching me silently as I looked at it.

I could make nothing of the thing. It looked to me like a series--a very small one--of meaningless scratches, evidently made with the point of a knife, or even by a strong pin on the surface of the metal.

Certainly, the marks were there, and, equally certainly, they looked to have been made with some intent--but what did they mean?

"What d'ye make of it, lad?" he inquired after awhile. "Anything?"

"Nothing, Mr. Cazalette!" I replied. "Nothing whatever."

"Aye, well, and to be candid, neither do I," he confessed. "And yet, I'm certain there's something in it. Take another look--and consider it carefully."

I looked again--this is what there was to look at: mere lines, and at the foot of the photograph, Mr. Cazalette's explanatory notes and suggestions: I sat studying this for a few moments. "I make nothing of it. It seems to be a plan. But of what?"

"It is a plan, Middlebrook," he answered. "A plan of some place. But there I'm done! What place? Somebody that's in the secret, to a certain point, might know--but who else could? I've speculated a deal on the meaning and significance of those lines and marks, but without success. Yet--they're the key to something."

"Probably to some place that Salter Quick knew of," I suggested.

"Aye, and that somebody else wants to know of!" he exclaimed. "But what place, and where?"

"He was asking after a churchyard," said I, suddenly remembering Quick's questions to me and his evident eagerness to acquire knowledge. "This may be a rude drawing of a corner of it."

"Aye, and he wanted the graves of the Netherfields," remarked Mr.

Cazalette, dryly. "And I've made myself a.s.sured of the fact that there isn't a Netherfield buried anywhere about this region! No, it's my belief that this is a key to some spot in foreign parts, and that there's those who are anxious to get hold of it that they'll not stop--and haven't stopped--at murder. And now--they've got it!"

"They've got--or somebody's got--your pocket-book," I answered. "But really, you know, Mr. Cazalette, this, and the handkerchief, mayn't have been the thief's object. You see, it must be pretty well known that you go down there to bathe every morning, and are in the habit of leaving your clothes about--and, well there may be those who're not particularly honest even in these Arcadian solitudes."

"No--I'm not with you, Middlebrook!" he said. "Somewhere around us there's what I say--crafty and b.l.o.o.d.y murderers! But ye'll keep all this to yourself for awhile, and----"

Just then the dinner-bell rang, and he put the photographic print away, and we went downstairs together. That was the evening on which Dr. Lorrimore was to dine with us--we found him in the hall, talking to Mr. Raven and his niece. Joining them, we found that their subject of conversation was the same that had just engaged Mr. Cazalette and myself--the tobacco-box. It turned out that the police-inspector had been round to Lorrimore's house, inquiring if Lorrimore, who, with the police-surgeon, had occupied a seat at the table whereon the Quick relics were laid out at the inquest, had noticed that now missing and consequently all-important object.

"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!"