CHAPTER VI
SECRET THEFT
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. I wired to the police authorities there, telling them of Salter Quick's death and asking them to communicate at once with Noah. Their answer is—this!"
"It'll be at Devonport that the secret lies," observed Mr. Cazalette suddenly. "Aye—that's where you'll be seeking for news!"
"We've got none here—about our affair," remarked the inspector. "I set all my available staff to work as soon as I got back to headquarters this forenoon, and up to the time I set off to show you this, Mr. Raven, we'd learned nothing. It's a queer thing, but we haven't come across anybody who saw this man after he left you, Mr. Middlebrook, yesterday afternoon. You say he turned inland, towards Denwick, when he left you after coming out of Claigue's place—well, my men have inquired in every village and at every farmstead and wayside cottage within an area of ten or twelve miles, and we haven't heard a word of him. Where did he go? Whom did he come across?"
"I should say that's obvious," said I. "He came across the man of whom he heard at the Mariner's Joy—the man who, like himself, was asking for information about an old churchyard in which people called Netherfield are buried."
"We've heard all about that from the man who told him—Jim Gelthwaite, the drover," replied the inspector. "He's told us of his meeting with such a man, a night or two ago. But we can't get any information on that point, either. Nobody else seems to have seen that man, any more than they've seen Salter Quick!"