"Very likely," assented Scarterfield. "Well, and what happened? You spoke to this man?"
"I waited and watched," continued Fish. "I'm one as has been trained to use his eyes. Now, I see two or three little things about this man as I remembered about Baxter. There was a way he had of chucking up his chin—there it was! Another of playing with his watch-chain when he talked—it was there! And of slapping his leg with his walking-stick—that was there, too! 'Jim!' I says to my mate, 'if that ain't a man I used to know, I'm a Dutchman!' Which, of course, I ain't. And so, when the three of 'em sets down their glasses and turns to the door, I jumps up and makes for my man, holding out a hand to him, friendly. And then, of course, come all the surprise!"
"Didn't know you, I suppose?" suggested Scarterfield.
"I tell 'ee what happened," answered Fish.
"'Morning, Mr. Baxter!' says I. 'It's a long time since I had the pleasure o' seeing you, sir!'—and as I say, shoves my hand out, hearty. He turns and gives me a hard, keen look—not taken aback, mind you, but searching-like. 'You're mistaken, my friend,' he says, quiet, but pleasant. 'You're taking me for somebody else.' 'What!' says I, all of a heap. 'Ain't you Mr. Netherfield Baxter, what I used to know at Blyth, away up North?' 'That I'm certainly not,' says he, as cool as the North Pole. 'Then I ax your pardon, sir,' says I, 'and all I can say is that I never see two gentlemen so much alike in all my born days, and hoping no offence.' 'None at all!' says he, as pleasant as might be. 'They say everybody has a double.' And at that he gives me a polite nod, and out he goes with his pals, and I turns back to Shanks. 'Jim!' says I. 'Don't let me ever trust my eyes and ears no more, Jim!' I says. 'I'm a breaking-up, Jim!—that's what it is. Thinking I sees things when I don't.' 'Stow all that!' says Jim, what's a practical sort o' man. 'You was only mistook' says he. 'I've been in that case more than once,' he says. 'Wherever there's a man, there's another somewheres that's as like him as two peas is like each other; let's go home to dinner,' he says. So we went off to the lodgings, and at first I was sure I'd been mistaken. But later, and now—well, I ain't. That there man was Netherfield Baxter!"
"You feel sure of it?" suggested Scarterfield.
"Aye, certain, master!" declared Fish. "I've had time to think it over, and to reckon it all up, and now I'm sure it was him—only he wasn't going to let out that it was. Now, if I'd only chanced on him when he was by himself, what?"
"You'd have got just the same answer," said the detective laconically. "He didn't want to be known. You saw no more of him in Hull, of course—"
"Yes, I did," answered Fish. "I saw him again that night. And—as regards one of 'em at any rate, in queerish company."
"What was that?" asked Scarterfield.