Ravensdene Court
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"What d'ye think o' that lot, mister?" he asked. "I reckon you don't see a little lot o' that quality every day."
"No, my friend," said I, "nor every year, either, nor every ten years. Where on earth did you get them – "
"Away East," said he, "and I've had 'em some time, not being particular about selling 'em, but I've settled down in England now, and I think I will sell 'em and buy house-property with the money. What do you fix their vally at, now, mister – thereabouts, anyway?"
"Good heavens, man!" I said. "They're worth a great deal of money – a great deal."
"I'm very well aware o' that, mister," he answered. "Very well aware indeed – nobody better. I seen a deal o' things in my time, and I ain't no fool."
"You really want to sell them?" I asked.
"If I get the full price," said he. "And that, of course, would be a big 'un."
"The thing to do," I said, "would be to find somebody who wants to complete a particularly fine set of pearls – some very rich woman who'd stick at nothing. The same remark applies to the rubies."
"Maybe you could come across some customer?" he suggested.
"No doubt, in a little time," I answered.
"Well," he said, "I'm going up North – I've a bit o' business that way, and I reckon I'll be back here in London in a week or so – I'll call in then, mister, and if you've found anybody that's likely to deal, I'll show 'em the goods with pleasure."
"You'd better leave them with me, and let me show them to some possible buyers," I said. But he was already folding up his canvas wrapping again.
"Guv'nor," he answered, "I can see as how you're a honest man, and I treats you as such, and so will, but I couldn't have them things out o' my possession for one minute until I sells 'em. I've a brother, mister," he added, "as owns a half-share in 'em – d'ye see? – and I holds myself responsible to him. But now that you've seen 'em guv'nor, find a buyer or buyers – I'll shove my bows round that door o' yours again this day week." And with that he restored his treasures to their hiding-place, assumed his garments once more, and remarking that he had a train to catch, hastened off, again assuring me that he would call in a week, on his return from the North.
It was not until he had been gone several minutes that I remembered that I had forgotten to ask his name. I certainly expected him to be back at the end of the week – but he didn't come, and just then I had to go away. Now I take him to have been the man, Salter Quick, who was murdered on the Northumberland coast – no doubt for the sake of those jewels. As for their value, I estimated it, from my cursory examination of them, to have been certainly not less than eighty thousand pounds.
I folded up the statement and restored it to Scarterfield.
"What do you think of that?" he asked.
"Salter Quick, without a doubt," I answered. "It corroborates Baxter's story of the rubies. He didn't mention any pearls. And I think now, Scarterfield, that Salter Quick's murder lies at the door of – one of those Chinamen who in their turn are lying dead before us!"
"Well, and that's what I think," said he. "Though however a Chinaman could be about this coast without the local police learning something of it at the time they were inquiring into the murder beats me. However, there it is! – I feel sure of it. And I was going to tell you – I got wind of this yawl down Limehouse way – I found out that she'd been in the Thames, and that her owner had enlisted a small crew of Chinamen and gone away with them, and I found out further that she'd been seen off the Norfolk coast, going north, so then I pitched a hot and strong story to the authorities about piracy and all manner of things, and they sent this destroyer in search of Baxter, and me on her. If we'd only been twelve hours sooner!"
Lorrimore and the lieutenant came up to us.
"My men have the fire completely beaten," said the lieutenant glancing at Scarterfield. "If you want to look round – "
We began a thorough examination of the yawl, in the endeavour to reconstruct the affair of the early morning. For there were all the elements of a strange mystery in that and curiosity about the whole thing was as strong in me as in Scarterfield. We knew now many things that we had not known twenty-four hours before – one was that the many affairs, dark and nefarious, of Netherfield Baxter, had nothing to do with the murders of Noah and Salter Quick; another that those murders without doubt arose from the brothers' possession of the pearls and rubies which Salter had shown to the Hatton Garden diamond merchant. All things considered it seemed to me that the explanation of the mystery rested in some such theory as this – the Chinaman, Lo Chuh Fen, doubtless knew as well as Baxter and his French friend that the Quicks were in possession of the rubies stolen from the heathen temple in Southern China; no doubt he had become acquainted with that fact when the marooned party from the Elizabeth Robinson were on the intimate terms of men united by a common fate on the lonely island. Drifting eventually to England, Chuh had probably discovered the whereabouts of the two brothers, had somehow found that the rubies were still in their possession, might possibly have been in personal touch with Salter or with Noah, had taken others of his compatriots, discovered in the Chinese quarters of the East End into his confidence, and engineered a secret conspiracy for securing the valuables. He himself had probably tracked Salter to the lonely bit of shore near Ravensdene Court; associates of his had no doubt fallen upon Noah at Saltash. But how had all this led up to the attack of the Chinese on Baxter and the Frenchman? – and who was the man who, leaving every other member of the yawl's company dead or dying and who had exchanged those last shots with Netherfield Baxter, had escaped to the shore and was now, no doubt, endeavouring to make a final bid for liberty?
Reckoning up everything we saw, it seemed to me, from my knowledge of the preceding incidents, that the drug which the Chinese gentleman, as Baxter had been pleased to style him, had not had the effects that he desired and anticipated, and that one or other of the two men to whom it had been administered had been aroused from sleep before any attack could be made on both. I figured things in this way – Baxter, or the Frenchman, or both, had awakened and missed the Chinaman. One or both had turned out to seek him; had discovered that Miss Raven and I were missing; had scented danger to themselves, found the Chinese up to some game, and opened fire on them. Evidently the first fighting – as I had gathered from the revolver shots – had been sharp and decisive; I formed the conclusion that when it was over there were only two men left alive, of whom one was Baxter and the other the man whom we had seen escaping in the boat. Baxter, I believed, had put up some sort of barricade and watched his enemy from it; that he himself was already seriously wounded I gathered from two facts – one that his body had several superficial wounds on arms and shoulders, and that in the cabin behind the hastily-constructed barricade, sheets had been torn into strips for bandages which we found on these wounds, where, as far as he could, he had roughly twisted them. Then, according to my thinking, he had eventually seen the other survivor, who was probably in like case with himself as regards superficial wounds, endeavouring to make off, and emerging from his shelter had fired on him from the side of the yawl, only to be killed himself by return fire. There was no mistaking the effect of that last shot – chance shot or well-directed aim it had done for Netherfield Baxter, and he had crumpled up and died where he dropped.
A significant exclamation from Scarterfield called me to his side – he, aided by one of the blue-jackets, was examining the body of Lo Chuh Fen.
"Look here!" he murmured as I went up to him. "This chap has been searched! After he was dead, I mean. There's a body-belt that he wore – it's been violently torn from him, his clothing ripped to get at it, and the belt itself hacked to pieces in the endeavour to find – something! Whose work has that been!"
"The work of the man who got away in the boat," said I. "Of course! He's been after those rubies and pearls, Scarterfield."
"We must be after him," he said. "You say you think he was wounded in getting away?"
"He was certainly wounded," I affirmed. "I saw him fall headlong in the boat after the first shot; he recovered himself, fired the shot which no doubt finished Baxter, and must have been wounded again, for the two men again fired simultaneously, and the man in the boat swayed at that second shot. But once more he pulled himself together and rowed away."
"Well, if he's wounded, he can't get far without attracting notice," declared Scarterfield. "We'll organize a search for him presently. But first let's have a look into the quarters that these Chinamen occupied."
The smoke of the fire – which seemed to have broken out in the forecastle and had been confined to it by the efforts of the sailors from the destroyer – had now almost cleared away, and we went forward to the galley. The fire had not spread to that, and after the scenes of blood and violence astern and in the cabin the place looked refreshingly spick and span; there was, indeed, an unusual air of neatness and cleanliness about it. The various pots and pans shone gaily in the sun's glittering lights; every utensil was in its place; evidently the galley's controlling spirit had been a meticulously careful person who hated disorder as heartily as dirt. And on a shelf near the stove was laid out what I took to be the things which the vanished cook, whoever he might be, had destined for breakfast – a tempting one of kidneys and bacon, soles, eggs, a curry. I gathered from this, and pointed my conclusion out to Scarterfield, that the presiding genius of the galley had had no idea of the mutiny into which he had been plunged soon after midnight.
"Aye!" said Scarterfield. "Just so – I see your point. And – you think that man of Lorrimore's, Wing, was aboard, and if so, he's the man who's escaped?"
"I've strong suspicions," said I. "Yet, they were based on a plum-cake."
"Well, and I've known of worse clues," he rejoined. "But – I wonder? Now, if only we knew – "
Just then Lorrimore came along, poking his head into the galley. He suddenly uttered a sharp exclamation and reached an arm to a black silk cap which hung from a peg on the boarding above the stove.
"That's Wing's!" he said, in emphatic tones. "I saw him make that cap himself!"
CHAPTER XXV
CLEAR DECKS
The bit of head-gear which Lorrimore had taken down assumed a new interest; Scarterfield and I gazed at it as if it might speak to us. Nevertheless the detective when he presently spoke showed some incredulity.
"That's the sort of cap that any Chinaman wears," he remarked. "It may have belonged to any of them."
"No!" answered Lorrimore, with emphatic assurance. "That's my man's. I saw him making it – he's as deft with his fingers, at that sort of thing, as he is at cooking. And since this cap is his, and as he's not amongst the lot there on deck, he's the man that you, Middlebrook, saw escaping in the boat. And since he is that man, I know where he'd be making."
"Where, then?" demanded Scarterfield.
"To my house!" answered Lorrimore.
Scarterfield showed more doubt.
"I don't think that's likely, doctor," he said. "Presumably, he's got those jewels on him, and I should say he'd get away from this with the notion of trusting to his own craft to get unobserved on a train and lose himself in Newcastle. A Chinaman with valuables on him worth eighty thousand pounds? Come!"
"You don't know that he's any valuables of any sort on him," retorted Lorrimore. "That's all supposition. I say that if my man Wing was on this vessel – as I'm sure he was – he was on it for purposes of his own. He might be with this felonious lot, but he wouldn't be of them. I know him! – and I'm off to get on his track. Lay you anything you like – a thousand to one! – that I find Wing at my house!"
"I'm not taking you, Lorrimore," said I. "I don't mind laying the same."
Scarterfield looked curiously at the two of us. Apparently, his belief in Chinese virtue was not great.
"Well," he said. "I'm on his track, anyhow, and I propose to get away to the beach. There's nothing more we can do here. These naval people have got this job in charge, now. Let's leave them to it. Yet," he added, as we left the galley, and with a significant glance at me, "there is one thing Middlebrook! – wouldn't you like to have a look inside those two chests that we've heard so much about? – you and I."
"I certainly should!" I answered.
"Then we will," he said. "I, too, have some curiosity that way. And if Master Wing has repaired to the doctor's house he's all right, and if he hasn't, he can't get very far away, being a Chinaman, in his native garments, and wounded."
The chests which had come aboard the yawl with Miss Raven and myself the previous afternoon – it seemed as if ages had gone by since then! – still stood where they had been placed at the time; close to the gangway leading to the main cabin. Lorrimore, Scarterfield, the young naval officer and I gathered round while a couple of handy blue-jackets forced them open – no easy business, for whether the dishonest bank-manager and Netherfield Baxter had ever opened them or not, they were screwed up again in a fashion which showed business-like resolves that they should not easily be opened again. But at last the lids were off – to reveal inner shells of lead. And within these, gleaming dully in the fresh sunlight lay the monastic treasures of which Scarterfield and I had read in the hotel at Blyth.
"Queer!" said the detective, as he stood staring meditatively at patens and chalices, reliquaries and pyxes. "All these, I reckon, are sacred things, consecrated and all that, and yet ever since that Reformation time, they've been mixed up with robbery, and now at last with wholesale murder! Odd, isn't it? However, there they are! – and here," he added, pulling the parchment schedules out of his pocket which he had discovered at Baxter's old lodgings in Blyth, and handing them to the lieutenant, "here is the list of what there ought to be; you'll take all this in charge, of course – I don't know if it comes within the law of treasure trove or not, but as the original owners are dust and ashes four hundred years ago, I should say it does – anyway, the Crown solicitors'll soon settle that point."
We went off from the yawl, the three of us, in the boat which had brought Lorrimore and me aboard her. The group on shore saw us making for the point whereat the escaping figure had landed in the early morning, and followed us thither along the beach. They came up to us as we stepped ashore, and while Lorrimore began giving Mr. Raven an account of what we had found on the yawl I drew his niece aside.
"You had better know the worst in a word," I said. "We were more than fortunate in getting away from the yawl as we did. Don't be upset – there isn't a man alive on that thing!"
"Baxter?" she exclaimed.
"I said – not one!" I answered. "Wholesale! Don't think about it – as for me, I wish I'd never seen it. But now it's a question of a living man – Wing."
"Then it was as I thought?" she asked. "Wing was there?"
"Lorrimore is sure of it – he found a cap of Wing's in the galley," said I. "And as Wing isn't amongst the dead, he's the man who escaped."
Scarterfield came up, the local policeman with him who had joined Mr. Raven's search-party as it came across country.
"Whereabouts did this man land, Middlebrook?" he asked. "You saw him, you and Miss Raven, didn't you?"
"We saw him round these rocks," I replied. "But then they hid him from us – we couldn't see exactly. Somewhere on the other side of them, anyway."
We spread ourselves out along the shore, crossing the spit of sand, now encroached on considerably by the tide, and began to search amongst the black rocks that jutted out of it thereabouts. Presently we came across the boat, slightly rocking in the lapping water alongside a ledge – I took a hasty glance into it and drew Miss Raven away. For on the thwarts, and on the seat in the stern, and on one of the oars, thrown carelessly aside, there was blood.
A sharp cry from one of the men who had gone a little ahead brought us all hurrying to his side. He had found, amongst the rocks, a sort of pool at the sides of which there was dry, sand-strewn rock; there were marks there as if a man had knelt in the sand, and there was more blood, and there were strips of clothing – linen, silk, as if the man had torn up some of his garments as temporary bandages.
"He's been here," said Lorrimore in a low voice. "Probably washed his wounds here – salt is a styptic. Flesh wounds, most likely, but," he added, sinking his voice still lower, "judging from what we've seen of the blood he's lost, he must have been weakening by the time he got here. Still, he's a man of vast strength and physique, and – he'd push on. Look for marks of his footsteps."
We eventually picked up a recently made track in the sand and followed it until it came to a point at the end of the overhanging woods, where they merged into open moorland running steeply downwards to the beach. There, in the short, wiry grass of the close-knitted turf, the marks vanished.
"Just as I said," muttered Lorrimore, whom with Miss Raven and myself, was striding on a little in advance of the rest. "He's made for my place – as I knew he would. I knew enough of this country to know that there's a road at the head of these moors that runs parallel with the railway on one side and the coast on the other towards Ravensdene – he'd be making for that. He'd take up the side of this wood, as the nearest way to strike the road."
That he was right in this we were not long in finding out. Twice, as our party climbed the steep side of the moorland we came across evidences of the fugitive. At two points we found places whereat a man had recently sat down on the bank beneath the trees, to rest. And at one of them we found more – a blood-soaked bandage.
"No man can go far, losing blood in that way," whispered Lorrimore to me as we went onward. "He can't be far off."
And suddenly we came across our quarry. Coming out on the top of the moorland, and rounding the corner of the woods, we hit the road of which Lorrimore had spoken – a long, white, hedgeless, wall-less ribbon of track that ran north and south through treeless country. There, a few yards away from us, stood an isolated cottage, some gamekeeper's or watcher's place, with a bit of unfenced garden before it. In that garden was a strange group, gathered about something that at first we did not see – Mr. Cazalette, obviously very busy, the police-inspector (a horse and trap, tethered to a post close by, showed how they had come) a woman, evidently the mistress of the cottage, a child, open-mouthed wide-eyed with astonishment at these strange happenings, a dog that moved uneasily around the two-legged folk, whimpering his concern. The bystanders moved as we hurried up, and then we caught glimpses of towels and water and hastily-improvised bandages and smelt brandy, and saw, in the midst of all this Wing, propped up against a bank of earth, his eyes closed, and over his yellow face a queer grey-white pallor. His left arm and shoulder were bare, save for the bandages which Cazalette was applying – there were discarded ones on the turf which were soaked with blood.
Lorrimore darted forward with a hasty exclamation, and had Cazalette's job out of the old gentleman's hands and into his own before the rest of us could speak. He motioned the whole of us away except Cazalette and the woman, and the police-inspector turned to Mr. Raven and his niece, and to myself and Scarterfield.
"I think we were just about in time," he said, laconically. "I don't know what it all means, but I reckon the man was about done for. Bleeding to death, I should say."
"You found him?" I asked.
"No," he answered. "Not at first anyway. The woman there says she was out here in her garden, feeding her fowls, when she saw him stagger round the corner of the wood there, and make for her. He fell across the bank where he's lying in a dead faint, and she ran for water. Just then we came along in the trap, saw what was happening and jumped out. Fortunately, when we set off, Mr. Cazalette insisted on bringing a big flask of neat brandy, and some food – he said you never knew what you mightn't want – and we gave him a stiff dose, and pulled him round sufficiently to be able to tell us where he was wounded. And he's got a skinful! – a bullet through the thick part of his left arm, another at the point of the same shoulder, and a third just underneath it. Mr. Cazalette says they're all flesh wounds – but I don't know: I know the man's fainted twice since we got to him. And look here! – just before he fainted the last time, he managed to fumble amongst his clothing with his right hand and he pulled something out and shoved it into my hand with a word or two. 'Give it Lorrimore,' he said, in a very weak voice. 'Tell him I found it all out – was going to trap all of them – but they were too quick for me last night – all dead now.' Then he fainted again. And – look at this!"
He drew out a piece of canvas, twisted up anyhow, and opening it before our wondering eyes, revealed a heap of magnificent pearls and a couple of wonderful rubies that shone in the sunlight like fire.
"That's what he gave me," said the inspector. "What is it? what's it mean?"
"That's what Salter Quick was murdered for," said I. "And it means that Lorrimore's man ran down the murderer."
And without waiting for any comment from him, and leaving Scarterfield to explain matters, I went across the little garden to see how the honest Chinaman was faring.
It was a strange, yet a plain story that Wing told his master and a select few of us a day or two later, when Lorrimore had patched him up. To anybody of a hum-drum life – such as mine had always been until these events – it was, indeed, a stirring story. The queer thing, however – at any rate, queer to me – was that the narrator, as calm and suave as ever in his telling of it – did not seem to regard it as anything strange at all – he might have been explaining to us some new way of making a good cake.
At our request and suggestion, he had journeyed to London and plunged into those quarters of the East End wherein his fellow-countrymen are to be found. His knowledge of the district of which Limehouse Causeway forms a centre soon brought him in touch with Lo Chuh Fen, who, as he quickly discovered, had remained in London during the last two or three years, assisting in the management of a Chinese eating-house. Close by, in a lodging kept by a compatriot, Wing put himself up and cultivated Chuh's acquaintance. Ere many days had passed another Chinaman came on the scene – this was the man whom Baxter had described as a Chinese gentleman. He represented himself to Wing and Chuh as a countryman of theirs who had been engaged in highly successful trading operations in Europe, and was now, in company with two friends, an Englishman and a Frenchman, carrying out another which involved a trip in a small, but well-appointed yacht, across the Atlantic: he wanted these countrymen of his own to make up a crew. An introduction to Baxter and the Frenchman followed, and Wing and Chuh were taken into confidence as regards the treasure hidden on the Northumberland coast. A share of the proceeds was promised them: they secured a third, trustworthy Chinaman in the person of one Ah Wong, an associate of Chuh's, and the yawl, duly equipped, left the Thames and went northward. By this time, Wing had wormed himself completely into Chuh's confidence, and without even discovering whether Chuh was or was not the actual murderer of Salter Quick (he believed him to be and believed Wong to be the murderer of Noah, at Saltash) he had found out that Chuh was in possession of the pearls and rubies which – though Wing had no knowledge of that – Salter had exhibited to Baubenheimer. And as the yawl neared the scene of the next operations, Wing made his own plans. He had found out that its owners, after recovering the monastic treasures, were going to call at Leith, where they were to be met by the private yacht of some American, whose name Wing never heard. Accordingly, he made up his mind to escape from the yawl as soon as it got into Leith, to go straight to the police, and there give information as to the doings of the men he was with. But here his plans were frustrated. He was taken aback by the capture of Miss Raven and myself by Baxter and the Frenchman, and though he contrived to keep out of our way, he was greatly concerned lest we should see him and conclude that he had joined the gang and was privy to its past and present doings. But that very night a much more serious development materialized. The Chinese gentleman, arriving from London, and being met by the Frenchman at Berwick, had a scheme of his own, which, after he had attempted the drugging of his two principal associates, he unfolded to his fellow-countrymen. This was to get rid of Baxter and the Frenchman and seize the yawl and its contents for themselves, sailing with it to some port in North Russia. Wing had no option but to profess agreement – his only proviso was that Miss Raven and myself should be cleared out of the yawl. This proposition was readily assented to, and Chuh was charged with the job of sending us ashore. But almost immediately afterwards, everything went wrong with the conspirator's plans. The drug which had been administered to Baxter and the Frenchman failed to act; Baxter, waking suddenly to find the Chinamen advancing on the cabin with only too evident murderous intent, opened fire on them, and the situation rapidly resolved itself into a free fight, in the course of which Wing barricaded himself into the galley. Before long he saw that of all the men on board, only himself and Baxter remained alive – he saw, too, that Baxter was already wounded. Baxter, evidently afraid of Wing, also barricaded himself into the cabin; for some hours the two secretly awaited each other's onslaught. At last, Wing determined to make a bid for liberty, and cautiously worming his way to the cabin he looked in and as he thought, saw Baxter lying either dead or dying. He then hastily stripped Chuh of the belt in which he knew him to carry the precious stones, and taking to the boat which lay at the side of the yawl, pushed off, only to find Baxter after him with a revolver. In the exchange of shots which followed Wing was hit twice, but a lucky reply of his laid Baxter dead. At that he got away, weak and fainting, managed to make the shore, to bind up as much of his wounded body as he could get at, and set out as well as he was able for his master's house. The rest we knew.