"Yet—Noah and Salter Quick were on her—and were living five years later?" suggested Mr. Raven.
"Just so, sir!" agreed Scarterfield, dryly. "Therefore, if Noah and Salter Quick were on her, and as they were alive until recently, either the Elizabeth Robinson did not go down in a typhoon, or from any other reason, or—the brothers Quick escaped. But here is a list of the men who were aboard when she sailed from Hong-Kong. She was, I have already told you, a low-down tramp steamer, evidently picking up a precarious living between one far Eastern port and another—a small vessel. Her list includes a master, or captain, and a crew of eighteen—I needn't trouble you with their names, except in two instances, which I'll refer to presently. But here are the names of Noah Quick, Salter Quick—set down as passengers. Passengers!—not members of the crew. Nothing in the list of the crew strikes me but the two names I spoke of, and that I'll now refer to. The first name will have an interest for Mr. Middlebrook. It's Netherfield."
"Netherfield!" I exclaimed. "The name——"
"That Salter Quick asked you particular questions about when he met you on the headlands, Mr. Middlebrook," answered Scarterfield, with a knowing look, "and that he was very anxious to get some news of William Netherfield, deck-hand, of Blyth, Northumberland—that's the name on the list of those who were aboard the Elizabeth Robinson when she went out of Hong-Kong—and disappeared forever!"
"Of Blyth?" remarked Mr. Cazalette. "Um!—Blyth lies some miles to the southward."
"I'm aware of it, sir," said Scarterfield, "and I propose to visit the place when I have made certain inquiries about this region. But I hope you appreciate the extraordinary coincidence, gentlemen? In October, 1907, Salter Quick is on a tramp steamer in the Yellow Sea in company, more or less intimate, with a sailor-man from Blyth, in Northumberland, whose name is Netherfield: in March, 1912, he is on the sea-coast near Alnmouth, asking anxiously if anybody knows of a churchyard or churchyards in these parts where people of the name of Netherfield are buried? Why? What had the man Netherfield who was with Salter Quick in Chinese waters in 1907 got to do with Salter Quick's presence here five years later?"
Nobody attempted to answer these questions, and presently I put one for myself.
"You spoke of two names on the list as striking you with some significance," I said. "Netherfield is one. What is the other?"
"That of a Chinaman," he replied promptly, referring to his documents. "Set down as cook—I'm told most of those coasting steamers in that part of the world carry Chinamen as cooks. Chuh Fen—that's the name. And why it's significant to me, when all the rest aren't, is this—during the course of my inquiries at Lloyds, I learnt that about three years ago a certain Chinaman, calling himself Chuh Fen, dropped in at Lloyds and was very anxious to know if the steamer Elizabeth Robinson, which sailed from Hong-Kong for Chemulpo in October, 1907, ever arrived at its destination? He was given the same information that was afforded me, and on getting it went away, silent. Now then—was this man, this Chinaman, the Chuh Fen who turned up in London, the same Chuh Fen who was on the Elizabeth Robinson? If so, how did he escape a shipwreck which evidently happened? And why—if there was no shipwreck, and something else took place of which we have no knowledge—did he want to know, after two years' lapse of time, if the ship did really get to Chemulpo?"
There was a slight pause then, suddenly broken by Dr. Lorrimore, who then spoke for the first time.