The Mystery of Ravensdene Court/Part 1

by J. S. Fletcher

 

You Will Recall Having Started a Story Now and Then Which Kept You Reading All Night Long. This Is That Kind of Story. It Has No Furbelows, but It Grips. You Won't Want to Put It Down.
In Three Parts

ACCORDING to an entry in my book of engagements, I left London for Ravensdene Court on March 8, 1912. Until about a fortnight earlier I had never heard of the place, but there was nothing remarkable in my ignorance of it, seeing that it stands on a remote part of the Northumbrian coast and at least three hundred miles from my usual haunts. But then, toward the end of February, I received the following letter, which I may as well print in full. It serves as a fitting and an signatory introduction to a series of adventures so extraordinary, mysterious and fraught with danger that I am still wondering how I, until then a man of peaceful and even dull life, ever came safely through them.

Ravensdene Court, near Alnwick,
Northumberland,
February 24, 1912.

Dear Sir:

I am told by my friend Mr. Gervase Witherby, of Monks Welborough, with whom I understand you are well acquainted, that you are one of our leading experts in matters relating to old books, documents and the like, and the very man to inspect, value and generally criticize the contents of an ancient library. Accordingly, I should be very glad to secure your valuable services. I have recently entered into possession of this place, a very old manor-house on the Northumbrian coast, wherein the senior branch of my family has been settled for some four hundred years. There are here many thousands of volumes, the majority of considerable age; there are also large collections of pamphlets, manuscripts and broadsheets. My immediate predecessor, my uncle, John Christopher Raven, was a great collector; but, from what I have seen of his collection up to now, I cannot say that he was a great exponent of the art of order or a devotee of system, for an entire wing on this house is neither more nor less than a museum, into which books, papers, antiques and similar things appear to have been dumped without regard to classification or arrangement. I am not a bookman or an antiquary; my life until recently has been spent in far different fashion, as a financial commissioner in India. I am, however, sincerely anxious that these new possessions of mine should be properly cared for, and I should like an expert to examine everything that is here, and to advise me as to proper arrangement and provision for the future. I should accordingly be greatly obliged to you if you could make it convenient to come here as my guest, give me the benefit of your expert knowledge, and charge me whatever fee seems good to you. I cannot promise you anything very lively in the way of amusement in your hours of relaxation, for this is a lonely place, and my family consists of nothing but myself and my niece, a girl of nineteen, just released from the schoolroom; but you may find some more congenial society in another guest of mine, Septimus Cazalette, the eminent authority on numismatics, who is here for the purpose of examining the vast collection of coins and medals formed by the kinsman I have just referred to. I can also promise you the advantages of a particularly bracing climate, and assure you of a warm welcome and every possible provision for your comfort. In the hope that you will be able to come to me at an early date,

I am, dear sir, yours truly,
Francis Raven.

As I have said already, I left London on the eighth of March, journeying to Newcastle by the afternoon express from King's Cross. I spent that night at Newcastle, and went forward next morning to Alnmouth, which, according to a map with which I had provided myself, was the near est station to Ravensdene Court. And soon after arriving at Alnmouth the first chapter of my adventures opened and came about by sheer luck. It was a particularly fine, bright, sharply bracing morning, and as I was under no particular obligation to present myself at Ravensdene Court at any fixed time, I determined to walk thither by way of the coast. The distance, according to my map, was about nine or ten miles.

Accordingly, sending on my luggage by a conveyance, with a message to Mr. Raven that I should arrive during the afternoon, I made through the village of Lesbury toward the sea, and before long came in sight of it—a glorious stretch of blue, smooth that day as an island lake and shining like polished steel in the sun. By noon the sun had grown warm, even summer-like—warm enough, at any rate, to warrant me in sitting down on a ledge of the cliffs while I smoked a pipe of tobacco and stared lazily at the mighty stretch of water across which, once upon a time, the vikings had swarmed from Norway. I must have become absorbed in my meditations—certainly it was with a start of surprise that I suddenly realized that somebody was near me, and looked up to see, standing close by and eying me furtively, a man.

The sound of his voice startled me as he quietly wished me a good morning; also, it brought me out of a reverie and sharpened my wits, and as I replied to him, I took him in from head to foot. A thick set, middle-aged man, tidily dressed in a blue-serge suit of nautical cut, the sort of thing that they sell, ready-made, in seaports and naval stations. His clothes went with his dark skin and grizzled hair and beard, and with the gold rings which he wore in his ears.

“You know these parts?” I suggested.

“No,” he said, with a decisive shake of his head. “I don't, master, and that's a fact. I'm from the south, I am—never been up this way before, and, queerly enough, for I've seen most of the world in my time. But I've a sort of connection with this bit of country—mother's side came from here abouts. And me having nothing particular to do, I came down here to take a cast round, like.”

“Then you're stopping in the neighborhood?” I asked.

“Stopped last night in a little place in land,” he answered. “Name of Lesbury—a riverside spot. But that ain't what I want—what I want is a churchyard, or it might be two, or it might be three, where there's gravestones what bears a name. Only, I don't know where that churchyard—or, again, there may be more than one—is, d'ye see?”

“I have a good map, if it's any use to you,” I said.

He took the map with a word of thanks, and, after spreading it out, traced places with the end of his thick forefinger.

“Hereabouts we are, at this present, master,” he said, “and here and there is, to be sure, villages—mostly inland. And'll have graveyards to 'em—folks must be laid away somewhere. And in one of them graveyards there'll be a name, and if I see that name I'll know where I am, and I can ask further, aiming at to find out if any of that name is still flourishing hereabouts. But till I get that name. I'm clear off my course, so to speak.”

“What is the name?” I asked him.

“Name of Netherfield,” he answered slowly. “Netherfield. Mother's people—long since. So I've been told. And seen it—in old books what I have, far away in Devonport. That's the name, right enough; only, I don't know where to look for it.”

His name, he said, was Salter Quick—of Devonport when on land.

WE WALKED forward, northing our course along the headlands. And rounding a sharp corner we suddenly came in sight of a little settlement that lay halfway down the cliff. There was a bit of a cottage or two, two or three boats drawn up on a strip of yellow sand, a crumbling smithy, and above these things, on a shelf of rock, a low-roofed, long-fronted inn, by the gable of which rose a mast, wherefrom floated a battered flag.

“Do you feel disposed to a glass of ale?” I asked.

“Rum,” he replied laconically. “Rum is my drink, master. Used to that—I ain't to ale. Cold stuff! Give me some thing that warms a man.”

“It's poor ale that won't warm a man's belly,” I said, with a laugh. “But every man to his taste. Come on, then.”

He followed in silence down the path to the lonely inn; once, looking back, I saw that he was turning a sharp eye round and about the new stretch of country that had just opened before us. From the inn and its surroundings a winding track, a merely rough cartway, wound off and upward into the land; in the distance I saw the tower of a church. Salter Quick saw it, too, and nodded significantly in its direction.

“That'll be where I'll make next,” he observed. “But first—meat and drink. I ate my breakfast before seven this morning, and this walking-about on dry land makes a man hungry.”

“Drink you'll get here, no doubt,” said I. “But as to meat—doubtful.”

His reply to that was to point to the sign above the inn door. He read its announcement aloud, slowly.

“'The Mariner's Joy. By Hildebrand Claigue. Good Entertainment for Man and Beast,'” he pronounced. “'Entertainment'—that means eating—meat for men, hay for cattle. Not that there's much sign of either in these parts, I think, master.”

WE WALKED into the Mariner's Joy turning into a low-ceilinged, darkish room, neat and clean enough, wherein there was a table, chairs, the model of a ship in a glass case on the mantelpiece, and a small bar, furnished with bottles and glasses, behind which stood a tall, middle-aged man, clean-shaven, spectacled, reading a news paper. He bade us good-morning, with no sign of surprise at the presence of strangers.

The landlord satisfied our demands and then vanished through a door at the back of his bar. And when he had expressed his wishes for my good health, Salter Quick tasted the rum, smacked his lips over it, and looked about him with evident approval.

“Sort of port that a vessel might put into with security and comfort for a day or two, this, master,” he observed. “I reckon I'll put myself up here while I'm looking round—this will do me very well. I can see they ain't short of good grub and sound liquor here. And doubtless there'll be them coming in here night-time as'll know the neighborhood and be able to give a man points as to his bearings.”

When the landlord had returned with a well-filled tray, Quick repeated to him the story of his quest for graveyards.

“Churchyards is what I'm looking for,” he went on. “Graves in 'em, you understand. And on them graves a name. Name of Netherfield. Now, I ask you, friendly, ha' you ever seen that name in your churchyard?”

“Well, I haven't,” answered the landlord. “But our churchyard—Lord bless you, there's scores o' them flat stones in it that's covered with long grass—there might be that name on some of 'em for aught I know; I've never looked 'em over, I'm sure. But——”

Just then there came into the parlor a man who, from his rough dress, appeared to be a cattle-drover or a shepherd. Claigue turned to him with a glance that seemed to indicate him as an authority.

“Here's one as lives by that churchyard,” he observed. “Jim, ha' you ever noticed the name of Netherfield on any o' them old gravestones up yonder? This gentleman's asking after it, and I know you know that churchyard grass time and again.”

“Never seen it,” answered the newcomer. “But—strange thing!—there was a man come up to me the other night, this side o' Lesbury, and asked that very question—not o' these parts, he wasn't. But——”

He stopped at that. Salter Quick dropped his knife and fork with a clatter, and held up his right hand.

“What's that?” he snapped out. “What says you? Say it again—no; I'll say it for you—to make sure that my ears ain't deceiving me. You met a man—hereabouts—asked you if you knew where there was graves with a certain name on 'em? And that name was Netherfield? Did you say that? I asks you, serious.”

The drover, or shepherd, or whatever he was, looked from Quick to me and then to Claigue.

“You've got it all right, mister,” he answered. “That's just what I did say. A stranger chap, he was—never seen him in these parts before.”

Quick took up his glass and drank. There was no doubt about his being upset, for his big hand trembled.

“When was this here?” he demanded.

“Two nights ago,” replied the man readily. “I was coming home, late, from Alnwick, and met with this here chap a bit this side o' Lesbury. We walked a piece of the road together, talking. And he asked me what I've told you. Did I know these parts? Was I a native hereabouts? Did I know any churchyards with the name Netherfield on gravestones? And I said I didn't, and when we came to them crossroads where it goes to Denwick one direction and Boulmer the other, he left me, and I ain't seen aught of him since.”

Quick pushed his empty glass across the table, with a sign to Claigue to refill it; at the same time he pointed silently to his informant, signifying that he was to be served at his expense.

“What like was this here man?” he demanded. “Draw him out—plain.”

“I couldn't tell you, mister,” replied the other. “It was well after dark, and I never saw his face. But, for the build of him, a strong-set man, like yourself, and just about your height. And, now I come to think of it, spoke in your way—not as we do in these quarters. A stranger—like yourself. Seafaring man, I took him for.”

“You seem very anxious to find these Netherfield gravestones,” the landlord remarked, with good-humored inquisitiveness. “And so, apparently, does another man. Now, I've been in these parts a good many years, and I've never heard of 'em—never even heard the name.”

Quick seemed indifferent to these remarks. Plunging a hand in his trousers pocket, he produced a fistful of gold coins.

“What's to pay?” he demanded. “Take it out o' that—all we've had, and do you help yourself to a glass and a cigar.” He flung a sovereign on the table and rose to his feet. “I must be stepping along,” he continued, looking at me. “If so be as there's another man seeking for——”

But at that he checked himself, remaining silent until Claigue counted out and handed over his change; silently, too, he pocketed it and turned to the door. Claigue stopped him with an arresting word.

“I say!” he said. “No business of mine, to be sure, but—don't you show that money of yours over readily hereabouts—in places like this, I mean. There's folk up and down these roads that 'ud track you for miles on the chance of—eh, Jim?”

“Aye—and farther,” assented Jim. “Keep it close, master.”

Quick listened quietly—just as quietly he slipped a hand to his hip-pocket, brought it back to the front and showed a revolver.

“That and me, together—eh?” he said significantly. “Bad lookout for anybody that came between us and the light.”

We had left the inn when Quick suddenly raised his eyes and gave me a franker look than I had so far had from him.

“Master,” he said, in a low voice, and with a side glance at the open door of the inn, “I'll tell you a bit more than I've said before—you're a gentleman, I can see, and such keeps counsel. I've an object—and a particular object—in finding them graves. And now I find another man after what I'm after! Another man!”

“Have you any idea who he may be?” I asked.

He hesitated, and then suddenly shook his head.

“I haven't,” he answered. “No; I haven't, and that's a fact. For a minute or two, in there, I thought that maybe I did know, or, at any rate, had a notion, but it's a fact I haven't. All the same. I'm going Denwick way, to see if I can come across whoever it is, or get news of him. Is that your road, master?”

“No,” I replied. “I'm going some way farther along the headlands. Well, I hope you'll be successful in your search for the family gravestones.”

He nodded very seriously.

“I'm not going out o' this country till I've found 'em,” he asserted determinedly. “It's what I've come three hundred miles for. Good-day, master.”

He turned off by the track that led over the top of the headlands. And presently I, too, went on my way, and, rounding another corner of the cliff, left the lonely inn behind me.

BUT as I went along, following the line of the headlands, I wondered a good deal about Salter Quick and the conversation at the Mariner's Joy. What was it that this hard-bitten, travel-worn man, one who had seen, evidently, much of wind and wave, was really after? I gave no credence to his story of the family relationship—it was not at all likely that a man would travel all the way from Devonshire to Northumberland to find the graves of his mother's ancestors. There was something beyond that—but what? It was very certain that Quick wanted to come across the tombs of the dead and gone Netherfields, however, for whatever purpose—certain, too, that there was another man who had the same wish. That complicated matters, and it deepened the mystery. And what would happen if, as seemed likely, they met? It was impossible to find an answer to these questions; but the mystery was there, all the same.

The afternoon was drawing to its close when, rounding a bluff that had been in view before me for some time, I came in sight of what I felt sure to be Ravensdene Court, a gray-walled, stone-roofed Tudor mansion that stood at the head of a narrow valley or ravine.

A path that led inland from the edge of the cliffs took me after a few minutes' walking to a rustic gate which was set in the boundary-wall of a small park; within the wall rose a belt of trees, mostly oak and beech, their trunks obscured by a thick undergrowth. Passing through this, I came out on the park itself at a point where, on a well-kept green, a girl, whom I immediately took to be the niece recently released from the schoolroom, of whom Mr. Raven had spoken in his letter, was studying the lie of a golf-ball. Recently released from the schoolroom though she might be, she showed neither embarrassment nor shyness on meeting a stranger. Her hand went out to me with ready frankness.

“Mr. Middlebrook?” she said inquiringly. “Yes, of course—I might have known you'd come along the cliffs. Your luggage came this morning, and we got your message. But you must be tired after all those miles. I'll take you up to the house and give you some tea.”

“I'm not at all tired, thank you,” I answered. “I came along very leisurely, enjoying the walk.”

I had already seen Mr. Francis Raven advancing to meet us; a tall, somewhat stooping man with all the marks of the Anglo-Indian about him—a kindly face burned brown by equatorial suns, old-fashioned, grizzled mustache and whiskers.

“Welcome to Ravensdene Court, Mr. Middlebrook!” he exclaimed, in quick, almost deprecating fashion. “A very dull and out-of-the-way place to which to bring one used to London; but we'll do our best. You've had a convoy across the park, I see,” he added, with a glance at his niece. “That's right!”

“As charming a one as her surroundings are delightful, Mr. Raven,” I said, assuming an intentionally old-fashioned manner. “If I am treated with the same consideration I have already received, I shall be loath to bring my task to an end.”

“Mr. Middlebrook is a bit of a tease, Uncle Francis,” said my guide. “I've found that out already. He's not the paper-and-parchment person you expected.”

“Oh, dear me, I didn't expect anything of the sort!” protested Mr. Raven. He looked from his niece to me, and laughed, shaking his head. “These modern young ladies—ah!” he exclaimed. “But come—I'll show Mr. Middlebrook his rooms.”

I did not waste much time over my toilet, nor, apparently, did Miss Marcia Raven, for I found her, in a smart gown, in the hall when I went down at half-past six. And she and I had taken a look at its multifarious objects before Mr. Raven appeared on the scene, followed by Mr. Cazalette.

MISS RAVEN had already described Mr. Cazalette to me, by inference, as a queer, snuffy, bald-pated old man, but this summary synopsis of his exterior features failed to do justice to a remarkable original. There was something supremely odd about him. I thought, at first, that my impression of oddity might be derived from his clothes—he wore a strangely cut dress coat of blue cloth, with gold buttons, a buff waistcoat and a frilled shirt—but I soon came to the conclusion that he would be queer and uncommon in any garments. About Mr. Cazalette there was an atmosphere—and it was decidedly one of mystery. First and last, he looked uncanny.

Mr. Raven introduced us with a sort of old-world formality, and, in order to keep up to it, I saluted Mr. Cazalette with great respect and expressed myself as feeling highly honored by meeting one so famous as my fellow guest. Somewhat to my surprise, Mr. Cazalette's tightly locked lips relaxed into what was plainly a humorous smile, and he favored me with a knowing look that was almost a wink.

“Aye, well,” he said, “you're just about as well known in your own line, Middlebrook, as I am in mine, and between the pair of us I've no doubt we'll be able to reduce chaos into order.”

He put his snuff-box and a gaudy handkerchief out of sight, and looked at his host and hostess with another knowing glance.

During dinner I discovered other facts about Mr. Cazalette. He was eighty years old. He was uncannily active. He had an almost implike desire to live—and to dance, when he ought to have been wrapped in blankets and saying his last prayers. And a few minutes later, when we were seated round our host's table, I discovered another fact—Mr. Cazalette was one of those men to whom dinner is the event of the day, and who regard conversation—on their own part, at any rate—as a wicked disturbance of sacred rites. Nevertheless, that he kept his ears wide open to what was being said around him I soon discovered. I was telling Mr. Raven and his niece of my adventure of the afternoon, and suddenly I observed that Mr. Cazalette was peering at me under the shaded lamps, his black, burning eyes full of a strange, absorbed interest. I paused involuntarily.

“Go on I” said he. “Continue with your tale.” '

I went on with my story, continuing it until the parting with Salter Quick.

“Aye, well,” he said, “and that's an interesting story, Middlebrook, and it tempts me to break my rule and talk a bit. It was some churchyard this fellow was seeking?”

“A churchyard—in this neighborhood,” I replied. “Or churchyards.”

“Where there were graves with the name Netherfield on their stones or slabs or monuments?” he continued. “Aye—just so. And those men he foregathered with at the inn—they'd never heard of anything at that point, nor elsewhere?”

“Neither there nor elsewhere,”! assented.

“Then, if there is such a place,” said he, “it'll be one of those disused burial-grounds of which there are examples here in the north, and not a few.”

“You know of some?” suggested Mr. Raven.

“I've seen such places,” answered Mr. Cazalette. “Betwixt here—the seacoast—and the Cheviots westward, there's a good many spots that Goldsmith might have drawn upon for his deserted village. The folks go—the bit of a church falls into ruins—its graveyard gets choked with weeds—the stones are covered with moss and lichen—the monuments fall and are obscured by the grass—underneath the grass and the weed many an old family name lies hidden. And what'll that man be wanting to find any name at all for, I'd like to know!”

“The queer thing to me,” observed Mr. Raven, “is that two men should be wanting to find it at the same time.”

“That looks as if there were some very good reason why it should be found, doesn't it?” remarked his niece. “Anyway, it all sounds very queer—you've brought mystery with you, Mr. Middlebrook.”

When dinner was over, I excused myself from sitting with the two elder men over their wine and joined Miss Raven by the big fireplace in the hall.

“What do you think of that strange old man?” she asked in a low voice as I sat down. “He's so queer. Do you know that he actually goes out early—very early—in the morning and swims in the open sea?”

“Any weather?” I suggested.

“No matter what the weather is,” she replied. “He's been here three weeks now, and he has never missed that morning swim.”

“A decided character!” I said musingly. “And, somehow, he seems to fit in with his present surroundings. From what I have seen of it, Mr. Raven was quite right in telling me that this house was a museum.”

I SLEPT soundly that night—a strange bed and unfamiliar surroundings affect me not at all. Just as suddenly as I had dropped asleep, I woke. My watch lay on the dressing-table close by; glancing at it, I saw that the time was twenty-five minutes to seven. I had been told that the family breakfasted at nine, so I had nearly two and a half hours of leisure. Of course I would go out and enjoy the freshness of the morning. I turned to the window to get a view of the scenery in front of the house. And there, emerging from a wicket gate that opened out of an adjacent plantation, I caught sight of Mr. Cazalette.

It was evident that this robust octogenarian had been taking that morning swim of which Miss Raven had told me the previous evening. He was muffled up in an old pea-jacket; various towels were festooned about his shoulders; his bald head shone in the rising sun. I watched him curiously as he came along the borders of a thick yew hedge at the side of the gardens. Suddenly, at a particular point, he stopped, and drawing something out of his towels, thrust it, at the full length of his arm, into the closely interwoven mass of twig and foliage at his side. Then he moved forward toward the house; a bushy clump of rhododendron hid him from my sight. Two or three minutes later I heard a door close somewhere near my room; Mr. Cazalette had evidently reentered his own apartment.

I was bathed, shaved and dressed by a quarter past seven, and, finding my way out of the house, went across the garden toward the wicket gate through which I had seen Mr. Cazalette emerge—as he had come from the sea that way, it was, I concluded, the nearest way to it. My path led by the yew hedge which I have just mentioned, and I suddenly saw the place where Mr. Cazalette had stood when he thrust his arm into it; thereabouts the ground was soft, mossy, damp; the marks of his shoes were plain. Out of mere curiosity, I stood where he had stood, and slightly parting the thick, clinging twigs, peeped into the obscurity behind. And there, thrust right in among the yew, I saw something white—a crumpled, crushed-up lump of linen, perhaps a man's full-sized pocket-handkerchief, whereon I could make out, even in that obscurity (and nothing in the way of hedges can be thicker or darker than one of old carefully trimmed yew), brown stains and red stains, as if from contact with soil or clay in one case, with blood in the other.

I went onward, considerably mystified. But most people, chancing upon anything mysterious, try to explain it to their own satisfaction. I came to the conclusion that Mr. Cazalette, during his morning swim—no doubt in very shallow waters—had cut hand or foot against some sharp pebble or bit of rock, and had used his handkerchief as a bandage until the bleeding stopped. Yet—why thrust it away into the yew hedge, close to the house? Why carry it from the shore at all, if he meant to get rid of it? And why not have consigned it to his dirty-linen basket and have had it washed?

“Decidedly an odd character,” I mused. “A man of mystery!”

Then I dismissed him from my thoughts, my mind becoming engrossed by the charm of my surroundings. I made my way down to the creek, passed through the belt of pine and fir over which I had seen the sunrise, and came out on a little rock-bound cove, desolate and wild. Here one was shut out from everything but the sea in front; Ravensdene Court was no longer visible. One seemed to be completely alone with sky and strand.

But the place was tenanted. I had not taken twenty paces along the foot of the overhanging cliff before I pulled myself sharply to a halt. There, on the sand before me, his face turned to the sky, his arms helplessly stretched, lay Salter Quick. I knew he was dead in my first horrified glance. And, for the second time that morning, I saw blood—red, vivid, staining the shining particles on the yellow, sun-lighted beach.

This was murder—black murder. And my thoughts flew to what Claigue, the landlord, had said, warningly, the previous afternoon, about the foolishness of showing so much gold. Had Salter Quick disregarded that warning, flashed his money about in some other public house, been followed to this out-of-the-way spot and run through the heart for the sake of his fistful of sovereigns? It looked like it. But then that thought fled, and another took its place—the recollection of the blood-stained linen, rag, bandage, or handkerchief, which that queer man, Mr. Cazalette, had pushed into hiding in the yew hedge. Had that—had Cazalette himself—anything to do with this crime?

THE instinctive desire to get an answer to this question made me suddenly stoop down and lay my fingers on the dead man's open palm. I was conscious as I did so of the extraordinary, appealing helplessness of his hands—instead of being clenched in a death agony, as I should have expected, they were stretched wide; they looked nerveless, limp, effortless. But when my fingers came to the nearest one—the right hand—I found that it was stiff, rigid, stone-cold. I knew then that Salter Quick had been dead for several hours, had probably been lying there, murdered, all through the darkness of the night.

There was no sign of any struggle. At that point the sands were unusually firm, and, for the most part, all round and about the body, they remained unbroken. Yet there were footprints, very faint indeed, yet traceable, and I saw at once that they did not extend beyond this spot. There were two distinct marks there; one of boots with nails in the heels—these were certainly made by the dead man—the other indicated a smaller, very slight-soled boot, perhaps a slipper. A yard or so behind the body these marks were mingled.

Carefully, slowly, I traced these footsteps. They were plainly traceable, faint though they were, to the edge of the low cliff, there a gentle slope of some twelve or fifteen feet in height; I traced them up its incline. But from the very edge of the cliff the land was covered by a thick, wirelike turf; you could have run a heavy gun over it without leaving any impression. Yet it was clear that two men had come across it to that point, had then descended the cliff to the sand, walked a few yards along the beach, and then—one had murdered the other.

Standing there, staring around me, I was suddenly startled by the report of a gun close at hand. And then, from a coppice, some thirty yards away, a man emerged, whom I took, from his general appearance, to be Tarver, Mr. Raven's gamekeeper. Unconscious of my presence, he walked forward in my direction, picked up a bird which his shot had brought down, and was thrusting it into a bag that hung at his hip, when I called to him. He looked round sharply, caught sight of me, and came slowly in my direction.

“Are you Mr. Raven's gamekeeper?” I asked, as he got within speaking-distance. “Just so—I am staying with Mr. Raven. And I've just made a terrible discovery. There is a man lying behind the cliff there—dead.”

“Dead, sir?” he exclaimed. “What—washed up by the tide, likely.”

“No,” I said. “He's been murdered. Stabbed to death!”

He let out a short, sibilant breath, looking at me with rapidly dilating eyes.

I told him of meeting Quick at the Mariner's Joy, of the landlord warning him against showing so much money.

“And now,” I said, “before we do more, I'd like to know if he's been murdered for the sake of robbery. You're doubtless quicker of hand than I am—just slip your hand into that right-hand pocket of his trousers and see if you feel money there.”

He took my meaning on the instant, and bending down, did what I suggested. A smothered exclamation came from him.

“Money?” he said. “His pocket's full o' money!”

“Bring it out,” I commanded.

He withdrew his hand, opened it; the palm was full of gold.

“Then it wasn't robbery!” I exclaimed.

I LEFT him standing by the dead man and went hurriedly away to Ravensdene Court. Glancing at my watch as I passed through the belt of pine, I saw that it was already getting on to nine o'clock and breakfast-time. Just then, fifty yards in front of me, I saw Mr. Cazalette vanishing round the corner of the long yew hedge, at the end nearest to the house. So—he had evidently been back to the place where he had hidden the stained linen, whatever it was. Coming up to that place a moment later, and making sure that I was not observed, I looked in among the twigs and foliage. The thing was gone!

Then I caught sight of Mr. Cazalette again. He was on the terrace, in front of the house, with Mr. Raven—they were strolling up and down, before the open window of the morning-room, chatting. And I was thankful that Miss Raven was not with them, and that I saw no sign of her near presence.

I determined to tell my gruesome news straight out—Mr. Raven, I felt sure, was not the man to be startled by tidings of sudden death, and I wanted, of set purpose, to see how his companion would take the announcement. So, as I walked up the steps of the terrace, I loudly called my host's name. He turned, saw from my expression that something of moment had happened, and hurried toward me, Cazalette trotting in his rear.

“I don't want to alarm Miss Raven,” I said in a low voice, which I purposely kept as matter of fact as possible. “Something has happened. You know the man I was telling you of last night—Salter Quick? I found his dead body, half an hour ago, on your beach. He has been murdered—stabbed to the heart. Your gamekeeper, Tarver, is with him. Had you not better send for the police?”

I carefully watched both men as I broke the news. Its effect upon them was different in each case. Mr. Raven started a little, exclaimed a little; he was more wonder-struck than horrified. But Mr. Cazalette's masklike countenance remained immobile; only, a gleam of sudden, almost pleased interest showed itself in his eyes.

“Aye!” he exclaimed. “So you found your man dead and murdered. Middlebrook? Well now, that's the very end that I was thinking the fellow would come to. Not that I fancied it would be so soon, nor so close at hand. On one's own doorstep, so to speak. Interesting! Very interesting!”

I was too much taken aback by his callousness to make any observation on these sentiments; instead, I looked at Mr. Raven.

“Get the police out as quickly as possible,” I said, “and bid them bring a doctor.”

“They'll bring their own police surgeon,” he remarked, “but we have a medical man closer at hand. I'll ring him up, too. Yet—what can they do?”

“Nothing—for him,” I replied. “But they may be able to tell us at what hour the thing took place. And that's important.”

When we left the telephone we went to the morning-room to get a mouthful of food before going down to the beach. Miss Raven was there; so was Cazalette. I saw at once that he had told her the news. She was sitting behind her tea and coffee things, staring at him; he, on his part, a cup of tea in one hand, a dry biscuit in the other, was marching up and down the room, sipping and munching, and holding forth, in didactic fashion, on crime and detection. Miss Raven gave me a glance as I slipped into a place at her side.

“I didn't want you to know until—later,” I said. “Mr. Cazalette oughtn't to have told you.”

She arched her eyebrows in the direction of the odd, still orating figure.

“Oh!” she murmured. “He's no reverence for anything—life or death. I believe he's positively enjoying this; he's been talking like that ever since he came in and told me of it.”

Mr. Raven and I made a very hurried breakfast and prepared to join Tarver. The news of the murder had spread through the household; we found two or three of the men servants ready to accompany us. And Mr. Cazalette was ready, too, and, I thought, more eager than any of the rest.

WE ALL trooped down to the beach, where Tarver was keeping his unpleasant vigil. He had been taking a look around the immediate scene of the murder, he said, during my absence, thinking that he might find something in the way of a clue. But he had found nothing—there were no signs of any struggle anywhere near. It seemed clear that two men had crossed the land, descended the low cliffs, and that one had fallen on the other as soon as the sands were reached—the footmarks indicated as much. I pointed them out to the police, who examined them carefully and agreed with me that one set was undoubtedly made by the boots of the dead man while the other was caused by the pressure of some light-footed, lightly shod person. And there being nothing else to be seen or done at that place, Salter Quick was lifted on to an improvised stretcher which the servants had brought down from the Court and carried by the way we had come to an outhouse in the gardens, where the police surgeon proceeded to make a more careful examination of his body. He was presently joined in this by the medical man of whom Mr. Raven had spoken—a Doctor Lorrimore, who came hurrying up in his motor-car and at once took a hand in his fellow practitioner's investigations. But there was little to investigate—just as I had thought from the first. Quick had been murdered by a knife-thrust from behind—dealt with evident knowledge of the right place to strike, said the two doctors, for his heart had been transfixed, and death must have been instantaneous.

Mr. Raven shrank away from these gruesome details, but Mr. Cazalette showed the keenest interest in them.

“And what sort of a weapon was it, d'ye suppose that the assassin used?” he asked. “That'll be an important thing to know.”

“It might have been a seaman's knife,” said the police surgeon. “One of those with a long, sharp blade.”

“Or,” said Doctor Lorrimore, “a stiletto—such as foreigners carry.”

“Aye,” remarked Mr. Cazalette; “or with an operating knife—such as you medicos use. Any one of those fearsome things would serve, no doubt. But we'll be doing more good, Middlebrook, just to know what the police are finding in the man's packets.”

Nothing seemed to excite Cazalette's interest very deeply until he began to finger the tobacco-box. “Middlebrook,” he whispered, “d'ye see the inside of the lid of this box? There's been something scratched into it with the point of a nail, or a knife. There's marks and there's figures! Now, I'd like to know what all that signifies."

The police inspector had got all Quick's belongings in a little heap. They were considerable. Over thirty pounds in gold and silver. Twenty pounds in notes in an old pocketbook. Hrs watch—certainly a valuable one. A pipe, a silver match-box, a tobacco-box of some metal, quaintly chased and ornamented. Various other small matters—but, with one exception, no papers or letters. The one exception was a slightly torn, dirty envelope addressed in an ill- formed handwriting to Mr. Salter Quick, care of Mr. Noah Quick, The Admiral Parker, Haulaway Street, Devonport. There was no letter inside it, nor was there another scrap of writing anywhere about the dead man's pockets.

The police allowed Mr. Cazalette to inspect these things according to his fancy. It was very clear to me by that time that the old gentleman had some taste for detective work, and I watched him with curiosity while he carefully examined Quick's money, his watch (of which he took particular notice, even going so far as to jot down its number and the name of its maker on his shirt-cuff) and the rest of his belongings. But nothing seemed to excite his interest very deeply until he began to finger the tobacco-box; then, indeed, his eyes suddenly coruscated, and he turned to me almost excitedly.

“Middlebrook,” he whispered, edging me away from the others, “do you look here, my lad! D'ye see the inside of the lid of this box? There's been something—a design, a plan, something of that sort, anyway—scratched into it with the point of a nail, or a knife. Look at the lines—and, see, there's marks and there's figures! Now, I'd like to know what all that signifies. What are you going to do with all these things?” he asked, turning suddenly on the inspector. “Take them away?”

“They'll all be carefully sealed up and locked up till the inquest, sir,” replied the inspector. “No doubt the dead man's relatives will claim them.”

Mr. Cazalette laid down the tobacco-box, left the place, and hurried away in the direction of the house. Within a few minutes he came hurrying back, carrying a camera. He went up to the inspector.

“Ye'll just indulge an old man's fancy?” he said placatingly. “There's some queer markings inside the lid of that bit of a box that the poor man kept his tobacco in. I'd like to take a photograph of them. Man, you don't know that an examination of them mightn't be useful!”

THE police inspector, a somewhat silent, stolid sort of man, looked down from his superior height on Mr. Cazaktte's eager face with a half-bored, half-tolerant expression; he had already seen a good deal of the old gentleman's fussiness.

“What is it about the box?” he demanded.

“Certain marks on it—inside the lid—that I'd like to photograph,” answered Mr. Cazalette. “They're small and faint, but if I get a good negative of them, I can enlarge it. And I say again, you don't know what one mightn't find out—any little detail is of value in a case of this sort.”

The inspector picked up the metal tobacco-box from where it lay amid Quick's belongings and looked inside the lid. It was very plain that he saw nothing there but some—to him—meaningless scratches, and he put the thing into Mr. Cazalette's hands with an air of indifference.

“I see no objection,” he said. “Let's have it back when you've done with it. We shall have to exhibit these personal properties before the coroner.”

Mr. Cazalette carried his camera and the tobacco-box to the shed by which the dead man's body lay and began to be busy. A gardener's potting-table stood against the wall; on this, baked by a black cloth which he had brought from the house, he set up the box and prepared to photograph it. It was evident that he attached great importance to what he was doing.

“I shall take two or three negatives of this, Middlebrook,” he observed consequentially. “I'm an expert in photography, and I've got an enlarging apparatus in my room. Before the day's out, I shall show you something.”

Personally, I had seen no more in the inner lid of the tobacco-box than the inspector seemed to have seen—a few lines and scratches, probably caused by thumb or finger-nail—and I left Mr. Cazalette to his self-imposed labors and rejoined the doctors and the police, who were discussing the next thing to be done. That Quick had been murdered there was no doubt; there would have to be an inquest, of course, and for that purpose his body would have to be removed to the nearest inn, a house on the crossroads just beyond Ravensdene Court; search would have to be set up at once for suspicious characters, and Noah Quick, of Devonport, would have to be communicated with.

All this the police took in hand, and I saw that Mr. Raven was heartily relieved when he heard that the dead man would be removed from his premises and that the in quest would not be held there. Ever since I had first broken the news to him, he had been upset and nervous; I could see that he was one of those men who dislike fuss and publicity. He looked at me with a sort of commiseration when the police questioned me closely about my knowledge of Salter Quick's movements on the previous day, and especially about his visit to the Mariner's Joy.

“Yet,” said I, finishing my account of that episode, “it is very evident that the man was not murdered for the sake of robbery.”

The inspector shook his head.

“I'm not so sure,” he remarked. “There's one thing that's certain—the man's clothes had been searched. Look here!”

He turned to Quick's garments, which had been removed, preparatory to laying out the body in decent array for interment, and picked up the waistcoat. Within the right side, made in the lining, there was a pocket, secured by a stout button. That pocket had been turned inside out; so, too, had a pocket in the left hip of the trousers, corresponding to that on the right in which Quick had carried the revolver that he had shown to us at the inn. The waistcoat was a thick, quilted affair—its lining, here and there, had been ripped open by a knife. And the lining of the man's hat had been torn out, too, and thrust roughly into place again. Clearly, whoever killed him had searched for something.

“It wasn't money they were after,” observed the inspector, “but there was an object. He'd that on him that his murderer was anxious to get. And the fact that the murderer left all this gold untouched is the worst feature of the affair—from our point of view.”

“Why, now?” inquired Mr. Raven.

“Because, sir, it shows that the murderer, whoever he was, had plenty of money on him,” replied the inspector grimly. “And as he had, he'd have little difficulty in getting away. Probably he got an early-morning train north or south, and is hundreds of miles off by this time. But we must do our best—and we'll get to work now.”

LEAVING everything to the police—obviously with relief and thankfulness—Mr. Raven retired from the scene, inviting the two medical men and the inspector into the house with him, to take, as he phrased it, a little needful refreshment; he sent out a servant to minister to the constables in the same fashion. Leaving him and his guests in the morning-room and refusing Mr. Cazalette's invitation to join him in his photo graphic enterprise, I turned into the big hall and there found Miss Raven. Mr. Raven soon joined us. With him was the doctor, Lorrimore, whom he had mentioned to me as living near Ravensdene Court. He introduced him to his niece, with, I thought, some signs of pleasure; then to me, remarking that we had already seen each other in different surroundings—now we could foregather in pleasanter ones.

“Doctor Lorrimore,” he continued, glancing from me to Miss Raven and then to the doctor, with a smile that was evidently designed to put us all on a friendly footing. “Doctor Lorrimore and I have been having quite a good talk. It turns out that he has spent a long time in India. So we have a lot in common.”

“How very nice for you. Uncle Francis!” said Miss Raven. “I know you've been bored to death with having no one you could talk to about curries and brandy pawnees and things—now Doctor Lorrimore will come and chat with you. Were you long in India, Doctor Lorrimore?”

“Twelve years,” answered the doctor. “I came home just a year ago.”

“To bury yourself in these wilds!” remarked Miss Raven. “Doesn't it seem quite out of the world here—after that?”

Doctor Lorrimer glanced at Mr. Raven and showed a set of white teeth in a meaning smile. He was a tall, good-looking man, dark of eye and hair, mustached and bearded, apparently under forty years of age—yet at each temple there was the faintest trace of silvery gray.

“On the contrary,” he said, in a quiet, almost bantering tone, “this seems—quite gay. I was in a part of India where one had to travel long distances to see a white patient—and one doesn't count the rest. And—I bought this practise, knowing it to be one that would not make great demands on my time, so that I could devote myself a good deal to certain scientific pursuits in which I am deeply interested. No—I don't feel out of the world. Miss Raven, I assure you.”

Then, excusing himself from Mr. Raven's pressing invitation to stay to lunch, he took himself off.

MR. CAZALETTE made no appearance at lunch, and I did not see him again until late that afternoon, when, as the rest of us were gathered about the tea-table in the hall before a cheery fire, he suddenly appeared, a smile of grim satisfaction on his queer old face. He took his usual cup of tea and dry biscuit and sat down in silence. But by that time I was getting inquisitive.

“Well, Mr. Cazalette,” I said, “have you brought your photographic investigations to any successful conclusion?”

He gave us a knowing glance.

“Aye!” he said. “Young folks are full of curiosity. But I'm not going to say what I've discovered, nor how far my investigations have gone.”

Mr. Raven tried another tack, fishing for information.

“You really think those marks were made of a purpose, Cazalette?” he suggested.

“I'll no say anything at present,” answered Mr. Cazalette. “The experiment is in course of process. But I'll say this, as a student of this sort of thing—yon murder was far from by ordinary.”

Miss Raven shuddered a little.

“I hope the man who did it is not hanging about,” she said.

Mr. Cazalette shook his head with a knowing gesture.

“Ye need have no fear of that, lassie,” he remarked. “The man that did it had put a good many miles between himself and his victim long before Middlebrook, there, made his remarkable discovery.”

“Now, how do you know that, Mr. Cazalette?” I asked. “Isn't that guesswork?”

“No,” said he. “It's deduction—and common sense. Mine's a nature that's full of both those highly admirable qualities, Middlebrook.”

He went away then, as silently as he had come. And when, a few minutes later, I, too, went off to some preliminary work that I had begun in the library, I began to think over the first events of the morning, and to wonder if I ought not to ask Mr. Cazalette for some explanation of the incident of the yew hedge. He had certainly secreted a piece of blood-stained, mud-discolored linen in that hedge for an hour or so. Why?

But on reflection I determined to hold my tongue and bide my time. For anything I knew, Mr. Cazalette might have cut one of his feet on the sharp stones of the beach, used his handkerchief to stanch the wound, thrown it away into the hedge, and then, with a touch of native parsimony, have returned to recover the discarded article. Again, he might be in possession of some clue, to which his tobacco-box investigations were ancillary—altogether, it was best to leave him alone. He was clearly deeply interested in the murder of Salter Quick, and I had gathered from his behavior and remarks that this sort of thing—investigation of crime—had a curious fascination for him. Let him, then, go his way; something, perhaps, might come of it.

As the twilight approached, making my work in the library impossible, and having no wish to go on with it by artificial light, I went out for a walk. Dusk had fallen when I returned, and the house was lighted when I came back. Entering by the big hall, I saw Mr. Raven, Mr. Cazalette and the police inspector standing in close conversation by the hearth. Mr. Raven beckoned me to approach.

“Here's some most extraordinary news from Devonport—where Quick came from,” he said. “The inspector wired to the police there this morning, telling them to communicate with his brother, whose name, you know, was found on him. He's had a wire from them this afternoon—read it!”

He turned to the inspector, who placed a telegram in my hand. It ran thus:

Noah Quick was found murdered at lonely spot on riverside near Saltash at an early hour this morning. So far, no clue whatever to murderer.

I handed the telegram back to the police inspector with a glance that took in the faces of all three men. It was evident that they were thinking the same thought that had flashed into my own mind. The inspector put it into words.

“This,” he said, in a low voice, tapping the bit of flimsy paper with his finger, “this throws a light on the affair of this morning. No ordinary crime, that, gentlemen! When two brothers are murdered on the same night, at places hundreds of miles apart, it signifies something out of the common. Somebody has had an interest in getting rid of both men.”

“Wasn't this Noah Quick mentioned in some paper you found on Salter Quick?” I asked.

“An envelope,” replied the inspector. “We have it, of course. Landlord—so I took it to mean—of the Admiral Parker, Haulaway Street, Devonport.”

“It'll be at Devonport that the secret lies,” observed Mr. Cazalette suddenly. “Aye—that's where you'll be seeking for news!”

THE coroner held his inquiry the next morning. I remember, however, that nothing was done beyond a merely formal opening of the proceedings, and that a telegram was received from the police at Devonport in which it was stated that they were unable to find out if the two brothers had any near relations—no one there knew of any. Altogether, I think nothing was revealed that day beyond what we knew already, and so far as I remember matters, no light was thrown on either murder for some time. But I was so much interested in the mystery surrounding them that I carefully collected all the newspaper accounts concerning the murder at Saltash and that at Ravensdene Court and pasted the clippings into a book, and from these I can now give something like a detailed account of all that was known of Salter and Noah Quick previous to the tragedies of that spring.

Somewhere about the end of the year 1910, Noah Quick, hailing, evidently, from nowhere in particular, but equally evidently being in possession of plenty of cash, became licensee of a small tavern called the Admiral Parker, in a back street of Devonport. It was a fully licensed house,and much frequented by seamen. Noah Quick was a thick-set, sturdy, middle-aged man, reserved, taciturn, very strict in his attention to business—a steady, sober man, keen on money matters. He was a bachelor, keeping an elderly woman as housekeeper, a couple of stout women servants, a barmaid and a pot-man. His house was particularly well conducted; it was mentioned at the in quest on him that the police had never once had any complaint in reference to it, and that Noah, who had to deal with a rather rough class of customers, was peculiarly adept in keeping order—one witness, in deed, said that, having had opportunities of watching him, he had formed the opinion that Noah, before going into the public-house business, had held some position of authority and was accustomed to obedience. Everything seemed to be going very well with him and the Admiral Parker when, in February, 1912, his brother, Salter Quick, made his appearance in Devonport.

Nobody knew anything about Salter Quick except that he was believed to have come to Devonport from Wapping or Rotherhithe or somewhere about those Thames-side quarters. He was very like his brother in appearance and in character, except that he was more sociable and more talkative. He took up his residence at the Admiral Parker, and he and Noah evidently got on together very well. They were even affectionate in manner toward each other. They were often seen in Devonport and in Plymouth in company, but those who knew them best at this time noted that they never paid visits to, or received visits from, any one coming within the category of friends or relations. And one man, giving evidence at the inquest on Noah Quick, said that he had some recollection that Salter, in a moment of confidence, had once told him that he and Noah were orphans, and hadn't a blood-relation in the world.

According to all that was brought out, matters went quite smoothly and pleasantly at the Admiral Parker until the fifth of March, 1912—three days, it will be observed, before I myself left London for Ravensdene Court. On that date, Salter Quick, who had a banking account at a Plymouth bank (to which he had been introduced by Noah, who also banked there), cashed a check for sixty pounds. That was in the morning. In the early afternoon, he went away, remarking to the barmaid at his brother's inn that he was first going to London and then North. Noah accompanied him to the railway station. As far as any one knew, Salter was not burdened by any luggage, even by a hand-bag.

After he had gone, things went on just as usual at the Admiral Parker. Neither the housekeeper nor the barmaid nor the pot-man could remember that the place was visited by any suspicious characters, nor that its landlord showed any signs of having any trouble or any extraordinary business matters. Everything was as it should be when, on the evening of the ninth of March (the very day on which I met Salter Quick on the Northumbrian coast), Noah told his housekeeper and barmaid that he had to go over to Saltash, to see a man on business, and should be back about closing-time. He went away about seven o'clock, but he was not back at closing-time. The pot-man sat up for him until midnight; he was not back then. And none of his people at the Admiral Parker heard any more of him until just after breakfast next morning, when the police came and told them that their employer's body had been found at a lonely spot on the bank of the river a little above Saltash.

Like Salter, he had been stabbed, and in similar fashion. And as in Salter's case, robbery of money and valuables had not been the murderer's object. But here again was a point of similarity in the two crimes—Noah Quick's pockets had been turned out; the lining of his waistcoat had been slashed and slit; his thick reefer jacket had been torn off and subjected to a similar search—its lining was cut to pieces, and it and his overcoat were found flung carelessly over the body. Close by lay his hard-felt hat—the lining had been torn out.

There was not the slightest clue in either case. But from all that had transpired it seemed to me that there were certain things to be deduced, and I find that I tabulated them at the time, writing them down at the end of the newspaper clippings, as follows:

1. Salter and Noah Quick were in possession of some secret.

2. They were murdered by men who wished to get possession of it for themselves.

3. The actual murderers were probably two members of a gang.

4. Gang—if a gang—and murderers were at large, and if they had secured possession of the secret, would be sure to make use of it.

OUT of this arose the question: What was the secret? Something, I had no doubt whatever, that related to money. But what, and how? I exercised my speculative faculties a good deal at the time over this matter, and I could not avoid wondering about Mr. Cazalette and the yew-hedge affair. He never mentioned it; I was afraid and nervous about telling him what I had seen. Nor for some time did he mention his tobacco-box labors—indeed, I don't remember that he mentioned them directly at all. But about the time that the inquests on the two murdered men came to an end, I observed that Mr. Cazalette, most of whose time was devoted to his numismatic work, was spending his leisure in turning over whatever books he could come across at Ravensdene Court which related to local history and topography; he was also studying old maps, charts and the like. Also, he got from London the latest ordnance map. Yet he said nothing until one day, coming across me in the library alone, he suddenly plumped me with a question.

“Middlebrook,” said he, “the name which that poor man mentioned to you as you talked with him on the cliff was—Netherfield?”

“Netherfield,” said I. “That was it.”

He helped himself to a pinch of snuff, as if to assist his thoughts.

“Well,” said he presently, “and it's a queer thing that at the time of the inquest nobody ever thought of inquiring if there is such a churchyard and such graves.”

“Why didn't you suggest it?” I asked.

“I'd rather find it out for myself,” said he, with a knowing look. “And if you want to know, I've been trying to do so. But I've looked through every local history there is—and I think the late John Christopher Raven collected every scrap of printed stuff relating to this comer of the country that's ever left a press—and I can't find any reference to such a name.”

“Parish registers?” I suggested.

“Aye; I thought of that” he said. “Some of 'em have been printed, and I've consulted those that have without result. And, Middlebrook, I'm more than ever convinced that yon dead man knew what he was talking about, and that there's dead and gone Netherfields lying somewhere in this quarter, and that the secret of his murder is, somehow, to be found in their ancient tombs. Aye!”

He took another big pinch of snuff, and looked at me as if to find out whether or no I agreed with him. Then I let out a question.

“Mr. Cazalette, have you found out anything from your photographic work on that tobacco-box lid?” I asked. “You thought you might.”

Much to my astonishment, he turned and shuffled away.

“I'm no through with that matter yet,” he answered. “It's—progressing.”

I TOLD Miss Raven of this little conversation. We often discussed the mystery of the murders.

“I wish I had seen the tobacco-box,” she remarked. “Interesting, anyway.”

“That's easy enough,” said I. “The police have it—and all the rest of Quick's belongings. If we walked over to the police station, the inspector would willingly show it to you.”

“Let us go, then,” she said. “This afternoon?”

I had a mind myself to have another look at that tobacco-box; Mr. Cazalette's hints about it and his mysterious secrecy regarding his photographic experiments made me inquisitive. So after lunch that day. Miss Raven and I walked across country to the police station, where we were shown into the presence of the inspector.

“We have come with an object,” said I, giving him an informing glance. “Miss Raven, like most ladies, is not devoid of curiosity. She wishes to see that metal tobacco-box which was found on Salter Quick.”

The inspector laughed.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “The thing that the old gentleman—what's his name? Mr. Cazalette?—was so keen al)Out photographing. Why, I don't know—I saw nothing but two or three surface-scratches inside the lid. Has he discovered anything?”

“That,” I answered, “is only known to Mr. Cazalette himself. He preserves a strict silence on that point. He is very mysterious about the matter. It is his secrecy and his mystery that make Miss Raven inquisitive.”

“Well,” remarked the inspector indulgently, “it's a curiosity that can very easily be satisfied. I've got all Quick's belongings here—just as they were put together after being exhibited before the coroner.” He unlocked a cupboard and pointed to two bundles—one, a large one, was done up in linen; the other, a small one, in a wrapping of canvas. “That,” he continued, pointing to the linen-covered package, “contains his clothing; this, his effects—his money, watch and chain and so on. It's sealed, as you see. but we can put fresh seals on after breaking these.”

“Very kind of you to take so much trouble,” said Miss Raven.

The inspector assured her that it was no trouble, and broke the seals of the small, carefully wrapped package. There, neatly done up, were the dead man's effects, even down to his pipe and pouch. His money was there—notes, gold, silver, copper; there was a stump of lead-pencil and a bit of string; every single thing found upon him had been kept. But the tobacco-box was not there.

The inspector turned to Miss Raven and me with a queer expression.

“That box must have been abstracted at the inquest,” he said. “Now then—by whom? And why?”

“The second of your questions might be easily answered,” I said. “The thing has been appropriated because somebody believes, as Mr. Cazalette evidently does or did, that there may be a clue in those scratches or marks on the inside of the lid. But as to who it was that believed this and managed to secrete the box—that's a far different matter. You're sure that it was on the table at the inquest?”

“I'm sure of that,” he replied, with conviction, “for I distinctly remember laying out the various objects myself. When the inquest was over, I told the man you've just seen to put them all together and to seal the package when he brought it back here. No; that tobacco-box was picked up, stolen, off that table.”

“Then there's more in the matter than lies on the surface,” said I.

“Evidently,” said he. He looked dubiously from Miss Raven to myself. “I suppose the old gentleman—Mr. Cazalette—is to be—trusted? I mean—you don't think that he's found out anything with his photography, and is keeping it dark?”

“Miss Raven and myself,” I replied, “know nothing whatever of Mr. Cazalette except that he is a famous authority on coins and medals, a very remarkable person for his age, and Mr. Raven's guest. As to his keeping the result of his investigations dark, 1 should say that no one could do that sort of thing better.”

We then fell into a general discussion of the case.

“And yet,” suddenly broke in Miss Raven, “it was not Salter Quick alone who was seeking the graves of the Netherfields. There was another man.”

The inspector gave her an appreciative look.

“The most mysterious feature of the whole case!” he exclaimed. “You're right,” Miss Raven. There was another man—asking for the same information. If only I could clap a hand on him——”

“You think you'd be clapping a hand on Salter Quick's murderer?” I said sharply.

“I'm not at all sure of that, Mr. Middlebrook,” he answered quietly. “Not at all sure. But I think I could get some information out of him that I should be very glad to secure.”

MISS RAVEN and I rose to leave; the inspector accompanied us to the station door. And as we were thanking him for his polite attentions, a man came along the street and paused close by us, looking inquiringly at the building from which we had just emerged and at our companion's smart semimilitary uniform. Finally, as we were about to turn away, he touched his cap.

“Begging your pardon,” he said; “is this here the police office?”

“You are right, my friend,” answered the inspector. “What are you wanting?”

The man looked up the steps at his in formant with a glance in which there was a decided sense of humor. Something in the situation seemed to amuse him.

“You'll not know me,” he replied. “My name's Beeman—James Beeman. I come fro' near York. I'm t' chap 'at were mentioned by one o' t' witnesses at t' inquest on that strange man 'at were murdered hereabouts—I should ha' called to see you about t' matter before now—only, I've nobbut just come back into this part o' t' country; I been away up i' t' Cheviot Hills there.”

“Oh!” said the inspector. “And—what mention was made of you?”

James Beeman showed a fine set of teeth in a grin that seemed to stretch completely across his homely face.

“I'm t' chap 'at were spoken of as asking about t' graves o' t' Netherfield family,” he answered. “You know—on t' roadside one night, off a fellow 'at I chanced to meet wi' outside Lesbury. That's who I am.”

The inspector turned to Miss Raven and myself with a look which meant more than he could express in words.

“Talk about coincidence,” he whispered. “This is the very man we'd just mentioned. Come back to my office and hear what he's got to tell. Follow me,” he continued, beckoning the caller. “I'm much obliged to you for coming. Now,” he continued, when all four of us were within his room, “what do you know about the graves of the Netherfields?”

Beeman laughed, shaking his round head. Now that his old hat was removed, the fiery hue of his poll was almost alarming in its crudeness of hue.

“Nowt!” he said. “Nowt at all! I'll tell you all about it—that's what I've comed here for, hearing as you were wondering who I was and what had come o' me. I come up here—yes; it were on t' sixth o' March—to see about some sheep stock for our maister, Mr. Dimbleby, and I put up for t' first night at a temp'rance inn at Aln wick yonder. But, of course, temp'rances is all right for sleeping and braikfasting, but nowt for owt else; so when I'd tea'd there I went down t' street for a comfortable public, where I could smoke my pipe and have a glass or two. And while I were there, a man come in 'at, from his description i' t' papers, 'ud be this here fellow that were murdered. I didn't talk none to him, but after a bit I heard him talking to t' landlord. And, after a deal o' talk about fishing hereabouts, I heard him asking t' landlord, as seemed to be a gre't fisherman and knew all t' countryside, if he knew any places, churchyards, where there were Netherfields buried. He talked so much about 'em 'at t' name got right fixed on my mind. T' next day I had business outside Alnwick, at one or two farms, and that night I made farther north, to put up at Embleton. Now then, as I were walking that way, after dark, I chanced in wi' a man near Lesbury, and walked wi' him a piece, and I asked him, finding he were a native, if he knew owt o' t' Netherfield graves. And that 'ud be t' man 'at tell'd you 'at he'd met such a person. All right—I'm t' person.”

“Then you merely asked the question out of curiosity?” suggested the inspector.

“Aye—just 'cause I'd heard t' strange man inquire,” assented Beeman. “I just wondered if it were some family o' what they call consequence.”

When this candid and direct person had gone, the inspector looked at Miss Raven and me with glances that indicated a good deal.

“That settles one point and seems to establish another,” he remarked significantly. “Salter Quick was not murdered by somebody who had come into these parts on the same errand as himself. He was murdered by somebody who was—here already.”

Miss Raven and I took our leave for the second time and started walking leisurely back to Ravensdene Court. All that afternoon the weather had been threatening to break—there was thunder about. And now, with startling suddenness, a flash of lightning was followed by a sharp crack, and that on the instant by a heavy downpour of rain. I glanced at Miss Raven's light dress—early spring though it was, the weather had been warm for more than a week, and she had come out in things that would be soaked through in a moment. But just then we were close to an old red-brick house, which stood but a yard or two back from the road, and was divided from it by nothing but a strip of garden. It had a deep doorway, and without ceremony I pushed open the little gate in front and drew Miss Raven within its shelter. We had not stood there many seconds, our back to the door (which I never heard opened), when a soft, mellifluous voice sounded close to my startled ear.

“Will you not step inside and shelter from the storm?”

Twisting round sharply, I found myself staring at the slitlike eyes and old parchment-hued face of a smiling Chinaman.

HAD Miss Raven and I suddenly been caught up out of that little coast village and transported to the Far East on a magic carpet, to be set down in the twinkling of an eye on some Oriental threshold, we could hardly have been more surprised than we were at the sight of that bland, smiling countenance. For the moment I was at a loss to think who and what the man could be; he was in the dress of his own country—a neat, closely fitting, high-buttoned blue jacket; there was a little cap on his head. I was not sufficiently acquainted with Chinese costume to gather any idea of his rank or position from these things—for aught I knew to the contrary, he might be a mandarin who for some extraordinary reason had found his way to this out-of-the-world spot. And my answer to his courteous invitation doubtless sounded confused and awkward.

“Oh, thank you,” I said. “Pray don't let us put you to any trouble. If we may just stand under your porch a moment——”

He stood a little aside, waving us politely into the hall behind him.

“Doctor Lorrimore would be very angry with me if I allowed a lady and gentleman to stand in his door and did not invite them into his house,” he said. Please to enter.”

“Oh, is this Doctor Lorrimore's?” I said. “Thank you—we'll come in. Is Doctor Lorrimore at home?”

“Presently,” he answered. “He is in the village.”

He closed the door as we entered, passed us with a bow, preceded us along the hall and threw open the door of a room which looked out on a trim garden at the rear of the house. Still smiling and bland, he invited us to be seated, and then with another bow left the room.

Doctor Lorrimore returned within a few minutes.

“So glad you were near enough to turn in here for shelter!” he exclaimed, shaking hands with us warmly. “I see that neither of you expected rain—now, I did, and I went out prepared.”

“We made for the first door we saw,” said Miss Raven. “But we'd no idea it was yours, Doctor Lorrimore. And do tell me! The Chinese,” she continued, in a whisper, “is he your man servant?”

“Man servant!” he said, with a laugh. “He's all the servant I've got. Wing—he's two or three other monosyllabic patronymics, but Wing suffices—is an invaluable person. He's a model cook, valet, launderer, general factotum—there's nothing that he can't and won't do, from making the most perfect curries—I must have Mr. Raven to try them against the achievements of his man—to taking care about the halfpennies when he goes his round of the tradesmen. Oh, he's a treasure—I assure you.”

“You brought him from India, I suppose?” said I.

“I brought him from India, yes,” he answered. “He'd been with me for some time before I left.”

“And does he really like living—here?” asked Miss Raven. “In such absolutely different surroundings?”

“Oh, well, I think he's a pretty good old hand at making the best of the moment,” laughed Lorrimore. “He's a philosopher. Deep—inscrutable—in short, he's Chinese. He has his own notions of happiness. At present he's supremely happy in getting you some tea—you mightn't think it, but that saffron-faced Oriental can make an English plum cake that would put the swellest London pastry-cook to shame! You must try it!”

THE Chinaman presently summoned us to tea, which he had laid out in another room—obviously Lorrimore's dining-room. There was nothing Oriental in that; rather, it was eminently Victorian, an affair of heavy furniture, steel engravings, and an array, on the sideboard, of what, I suppose, was old family plate. Wing ushered us and his master in with due ceremony and left us; when the door had closed on him, Lorrimore gave us an arch glance.

“You see how readily and skilfully that chap adapts himself to the needs of the moment,” he said. “Now, you mightn't think it, but this is the very first time I have ever been honored with visitors to afternoon tea. Observe how Wing immediately falls in with English taste and custom. Without a word from me, out comes the silver tea-pot, the best china, the finest linen. He produces his choicest plum cake; the bread and butter is cut with waferlike thinness; and the tea—ah, well, no Englishwoman, Miss Raven, can make tea as a Chinese man servant can.”

“It's quite plain that you've got a treasure in your house. Doctor Lorrimore,” said Miss Raven. “But, then, the Chinese are very clever, aren't they?”

“Very remarkable people indeed,” assented our host. “Shrewd, observant, penetrative. I have often wondered if this man of mine would find any great difficulty in seeing through a brick wall.”

“He would be a useful person, perhaps, in solving the present mystery,” said I. “The police seem to have got no further.”

“Ah, the Quick business!” remarked Lorrimore. “Um—well. I've known a good many murder mysteries in my time—out in India—and I always found that the really good way of getting at the bottom of them was to go right back—as far back as possible. If I were the police in charge of these cases, I should put one question down before me, and do nothing until I'd exhausted every effort to solve it.”

“And that would be—what?” I asked.

“This,” said he. “What were the antecedents of Noah and Salter Quick?”

“You think they had a past?” suggested Miss Raven.

“Everybody has a past,” answered Lorrimore. “It may be this; it may be that. But nearly all the problems of the present have their origin and solution in the past. Find out what and where those two middle-aged men had been, in their time—and then there'll be a chance to work forward.”

The rain cleared off soon after we had finished tea, and presently Miss Raven and I took our leave. Lorrimore informed us that Mr. Raven had asked him to dinner on the following evening; he would accordingly see us very soon.

The Chinaman was just then standing at the open door, in waiting on his master. Miss Raven threw him a laughing nod to which he responded with a deep bow. We left them with that curious picture in our minds—Lorrimore, essentially English in spite of his long residence in the East; the Chinaman, bland, suave, smiling.

“A curious pair and a strange combination!” I remarked, as we walked away. “That house, at any rate, has a plentitude of brain-power in it. What amazes me is that a clever chap like Master Wing should be content to bury his talents in a foreign place, out of the world—to make curries and plum cake!”

New situations arise, new characters turn up to deepen the mystery of this very ingenious plot. See the next instalment, in February Everybody's—out January 14th.