race-course; won a good deal once, I heard, on the big race at Newcastle—what they call the Pitman's Darby. But it went—all of it went!—and by the beginning of the year 1904—bear the date in mind, Mr. Middlebrook—Netherfield Baxter was just about on his last legs—he was, in fact, living from hand to mouth. He was then—I've been particular about collecting facts and statistics—just twenty-nine years of age, so, one way or another, he'd made his little fortune last him eight years; he still had good clothes—a very taking, good-looking fellow he was, they say—and he'd a decent lodging. But in spring 1904 he was living on the proceeds of chance betting, and was sometimes very low down, and in May of that year he disappeared, in startlingly sudden fashion, without saying a word to anybody, and since then nobody has ever seen a vestige or ever heard a word of him."
Scarterfield paused, looking at me as if to ask what I thought of it. I thought a good deal of it.
"A very interesting bit of life-drama, Scarterfield," said I. "And there have been far stranger things than it would be if this Netherfield Baxter of Blyth turned out to be the William Netherfield of the Elizabeth Robinson. You haven't hit on anything in the shape of a bridge, a connecting link between the two?"
"Not yet, anyway," he answered. "And I don't think it's at all likely that I shall, here, for, as I said just now, nobody in this place has ever heard of Netherfield Baxter since he walked out of his lodging one evening and clean vanished. To be sure, there's been nobody at all anxious to hear of him.
