has gone, cleared out, vanished, before the result is known. He may have had an idea—we can only guess at it—that suspicion would fall on him. Anyway, he leaves the town, and is never seen in or near it again. If this theory is a true one, things seem pretty clear up to this point."
"Of course," said I, "it is theory! All supposition, you know."
"Right!" assented Lorrimore. "But let us theorise a bit further—I am, you see, merely following out the train of thought which seems to have been set up in you and in Scarterfield. Baxter disappears. Nobody knows where he's gone. There is a veil drawn over a certain period—pretty thickly. But we, who have had occasion to try to pierce it, have seen, so we think, through certain tears and rifts in it. We know that a certain number of years ago there was a trading ship in the Yellow Sea, the Elizabeth Robinson, concerning the fate of which there is more mystery than is quite in accordance with either safety or respectability. She was bound from Hong-Kong to Chemulpo, and she never reached Chemulpo. But we also know that on her, when she left Hong-Kong there were two men, presumably brothers, whose names were Noah Quick and Salter Quick, set down, mind you, not as members of the crew, but as passengers. Also there was a Chinese cook, of the name of Lo Chuh Fen. And there was another man, who called himself Netherfield, and who hailed from Blyth, in Northumberland."
He looked round the table, evidently bent on securing our attention to their particular point. We were all, of course, fully acquainted with the details he was
