box of cigars on the other—this sort of thing he evidently regarded as a proper relaxation from his severe mental labours. I had no objection to it myself after four hours slow travelling—yet I confess I felt keenly impatient until he had mixed our drinks, lighted his cigar and settled down at my elbow.
"Now," he said confidentially, "I'll set it all out in order—what I've done and found out since I came here two days ago. There's no need, Mr. Middlebrook, to go into detail about how I set to work to get information: we've our own ways and methods of getting hold of stuff when we strike a strange town. But you know what I came here for. There's been talk, all through this case, of the name Netherfield—from the questions that Salter Quick put to you when you met him on the cliffs, and from what was said at the Mariner's Joy. Very good—now I fell across that name, too, in my investigations in London, as being the name of a man who was on the Elizabeth Robinson, of uncertain memory, lost or disappeared in the year 1907, with the two Quicks. He was set down, that Netherfield, as being of Blyth, Northumberland. Clearly, then, Blyth was a place to get in touch with—and here in Blyth we are!"
"A clear bit of preface, Scarterfield," said I approvingly. "Go ahead! I'm bearing in mind that you've been here forty-eight hours."
"I've made good use of my time!" he chuckled, with a knowing grin. "Although I say it myself, Mr. Middlebrook, I'm a bit of a hustler. Well, self-praise, they say, is no recommendation, though to be sure I'm no believer in that old proverb, for, after all, who knows a man better than himself? So we'll
