"So I steers for this here; only, I don't know no fish, d'ye see, as I could put the question to what I wants to ask."

"Put it to me," said I, drawing out my card-case. "There's my card, and you can ask anybody within half a square mile if they don't know me for a trustworthy man. What is it you've got?" I went on, never dreaming that he'd got anything at all of any great value. "I'll give you an idea of its worth in two minutes."

But he glanced round at the door and shook his head.

"Not here, mister!" he said. "I wouldn't let the light o' day shine on what I got in a public place like this, not nohow. But," he added, "I see you've a office and all that. I ain't undisposed to go there with you, if you like--you seem a honest man."

"Come on then," I said. "My office is just round the corner, and though I've clerks in it, we'll be private enough there."

"Right you are, mister," he answered, and he drank off his rum and we went out and round to my office.

I took him into my private room--I had a young lady clerk in there (she'd remember this man well enough) and he looked at her and then at me.

"Send the girl away," he muttered. "There's a matter of undressing--d'ye see?--in getting at what I want to show you."

I sent her out of the room, and sat down at my desk. He took off his overcoat, his coat, and his waistcoat, shoved his hand into some secret receptacle that seemed to be hidden in the band of his trousers, somewhere behind the small of his back, and after some acrobatic contortions and twistings, lugged out a sort of canvas parcel, the folds of which he unwrapped leisurely. And suddenly, coming close to me, he laid the canvas down on my blotting-pad and I found myself staring at some dozen or so of the most magnificent pearls I ever set eyes on and a couple of rubies which I knew to be priceless. I was never more astonished in my life, but he was as cool as a cuc.u.mber.

"What d'ye think o' that lot, mister?" he asked. "I reckon you don't see a little lot o' that quality every day."

"No, my friend," said I, "nor every year, either, nor every ten years.

Where on earth did you get them--"

"Away East," said he, "and I've had 'em some time, not being particular about selling 'em, but I've settled down in England now, and I think I will sell 'em and buy house-property with the money.

What do you fix their vally at, now, mister--thereabouts, anyway?"

"Good heavens, man!" I said. "They're worth a great deal of money--a great deal."

"I'm very well aware o' that, mister," he answered. "Very well aware indeed--n.o.body better. I seen a deal o' things in my time, and I ain't no fool."

"You really want to sell them?" I asked.

"If I get the full price," said he. "And that, of course, would be a big 'un."

"The thing to do," I said, "would be to find somebody who wants to complete a particularly fine set of pearls--some very rich woman who'd stick at nothing. The same remark applies to the rubies."

"Maybe you could come across some customer?" he suggested.

"No doubt, in a little time," I answered.

"Well," he said, "I'm going up North--I've a bit o' business that way, and I reckon I'll be back here in London in a week or so--I'll call in then, mister, and if you've found anybody that's likely to deal, I'll show 'em the goods with pleasure."

"You'd better leave them with me, and let me show them to some possible buyers," I said. But he was already folding up his canvas wrapping again.

"Guv'nor," he answered, "I can see as how you're a honest man, and I treats you as such, and so will, but I couldn't have them things out o' my possession for one minute until I sells 'em. I've a brother, mister," he added, "as owns a half-share in 'em--d'ye see?--and I holds myself responsible to him. But now that you've seen 'em guv'nor, find a buyer or buyers--I'll shove my bows round that door o' yours again this day week." And with that he restored his treasures to their hiding-place, a.s.sumed his garments once more, and remarking that he had a train to catch, hastened off, again a.s.suring me that he would call in a week, on his return from the North.

It was not until he had been gone several minutes that I remembered that I had forgotten to ask his name. I certainly expected him to be back at the end of the week--but he didn't come, and just then I had to go away. Now I take him to have been the man, Salter Quick, who was murdered on the Northumberland coast--no doubt for the sake of those jewels. As for their value, I estimated it, from my cursory examination of them, to have been certainly not less than eighty thousand pounds.

I folded up the statement and restored it to Scarterfield.

"What do you think of that?" he asked.

"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 refreshingly 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