"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.