"I do!" he exclaimed. "Well enough! I stood by. But—he said he wasn't. There was a mistake."
"I believe there was no mistake," said Scarterfield. "I believe that man is Netherfield Baxter, and—it's Netherfield Baxter I want. Now, Mr. Jallanby, what do you know of those two? In confidence!"
We had all been standing until then, but at this invitation to disclosure the ship-broker motioned us to sit down, he himself turning the stool which the clerk had just vacated.
"This is a queer business, Mr. Scarterfield," he said. "Robbery? Murder? Nasty things, nasty terms to apply to folk that one's done business with. And that, of course, was all that I did with those two men, and all I know about them. Pleasant, good-mannered, gentlemanly chaps I found 'em—why, Lord bless me, I dined with 'em one night at their hotel!"
"Which hotel?" asked Scarterfield.
"Station Hotel," replied Jallanby. "They were there for ten days or so, while they did their business with me. I never saw aught wrong about 'em either—seemed to be what they represented themselves to be. Certainly they'd plenty of money—for what they wanted here in Hull, anyway. But of course, that's neither here nor there."
"What names did you know them under?" inquired Scarterfield. "And where did they profess to come from?"
"Well, the man with the brownish beard called himself Mr. Norman Belford," answered Jallanby. "I gathered he was from London. The other man
