Kitabı oku: «Ravensdene Court», sayfa 11
CHAPTER XVI
THE PATHLESS WOOD
Being very late in the evening when I arrived at Alnwick, I remained there for that night, and it was not until noon of the next day that I once more reached Ravensdene Court. Lorrimore was there, he had come over to lunch, and for the moment I hoped that he had brought some news from his Chinese servant. But he had heard nothing of Wing since his departure: it would scarcely be Wing's method, he said, to communicate with him by letter; when he had anything to tell, he would either return or act, of his own initiative, upon his acquired information: the way of the Chinaman, he remarked with a knowing look at Mr. Raven, was dark, subtle, and not easily understandable to Western minds.
"And yourself, Middlebrook?" asked Mr. Raven. "What did the detective want, and what have you found out?"
I told them the whole story as we sat at lunch. They were all deeply absorbed, but no one so much as Mr. Cazalette, who, true to his principle of doing no more than crumbling a dry biscuit and sipping a glass or two of sherry at that hour, gave my tale of the doings at Blyth and Hull his undivided attention. And when he had heard me out, he slipped away in silence, evidently very thoughtful, and disappeared into the library.
"So there it all is," I said in conclusion, "and if anybody can make head or tail of it and get a definite and dependable theory, I am sure that Scarterfield, from a professional standpoint, will be glad to hear whatever can be said."
"It seems to me that Scarterfield is on the high road to a very respectable theory already," remarked Lorrimore. "So are you! The thing – to me – appears to be fairly plain. It starts out with the association of Baxter and the dishonest bank-manager. The bank-manager, left in charge of this old-fashioned bank at Blyth, where any supervision of his doings was no doubt pretty slack, and where he was, of course, fully trusted, examines the nature of the various matters committed to his care, and finds out the contents of those Forestburne chests. He then enters into a conspiracy with Baxter for purloining them and some other valuables – those jewels you mentioned, Middlebrook. It would not be a difficult thing to get them away from the bank premises without anyone knowing. Then the two conspirators secrete them in a safe and unlikely place, easily accessible, I take it, from the sea. Probably, they meant to remove them for good and all, just before the dishonest bank-manager's temporary residence in the town came to an end. But his fatal accident occurs. Then Master Baxter is placed in a nice fix! He knows that his fellow-criminal's sudden death will necessarily lead to some examination, more or less thorough, of the effects at the bank. That examination, to be sure, was made. But Baxter has gone, cleared out, vanished, before the result is known. He may have had an idea – we can only guess at it – that suspicion would fall on him. Anyway, he leaves the town, and is never seen in or near it again. If this theory is a true one, things seem pretty clear up to this point."
"Of course," said I, "it is theory! All supposition, you know."
"Right!" assented Lorrimore. "But let us theorise a bit further – I am, you see, merely following out the train of thought which seems to have been set up in you and in Scarterfield. Baxter disappears. Nobody knows where he's gone. There is a veil drawn over a certain period – pretty thickly. But we, who have had occasion to try to pierce it, have seen, so we think, through certain tears and rifts in it. We know that a certain number of years ago there was a trading ship in the Yellow Sea, the Elizabeth Robinson, concerning the fate of which there is more mystery than is quite in accordance with either safety or respectability. She was bound from Hong-Kong to Chemulpo, and she never reached Chemulpo. But we also know that on her, when she left Hong-Kong there were two men, presumably brothers, whose names were Noah Quick and Salter Quick, set down, mind you, not as members of the crew, but as passengers. Also there was a Chinese cook, of the name of Lo Chuh Fen. And there was another man, who called himself Netherfield, and who hailed from Blyth, in Northumberland."
He looked round the table, evidently bent on securing our attention to their particular point. We were all, of course, fully acquainted with the details he was unfolding, but he was summing things up in quite judicial fashion, and there was a certain amount of intellectual satisfaction in listening to a succinct résumé. One of us, at any rate, was following him with rapt attention – Miss Raven. I fancied I saw why – Baxter, or Netherfield, had already presented himself to her as a personage of a dark and romantic, if deeply-wicked and even blood-stained sort.
"Now," continued Lorrimore, becoming more judicial than ever, "according to the official accounts, as shown at Lloyds, the Elizabeth Robinson never reached Chemulpo, and she is – officially – believed to have been lost, with all hands, during a typhoon, in the Yellow Sea. All hands! But we know that, whatever happened to the Elizabeth Robinson, and to the rest of the crew, certain men who were on board her when she left Hong-Kong, for Chemulpo, did escape whatever catastrophe occurred. The Elizabeth Robinson may be at the bottom of the Yellow Sea, and most of her folk with her. But in course of time Noah Quick turns up at Devonport in England, in possession, evidently, of plenty of money. He takes a licensed house, runs it on highly respectable lines, and comports himself as a decent member of society; also he prospers, and has a very good balance at his bankers. So there is one man who certainly did not go down with the Elizabeth Robinson. And now – to keep matters in chronological order – we hear of another. A Chinaman, undoubtedly Lo Chuh Fen, turns up at Lloyds and endeavours to find out if this Elizabeth Robinson ever did reach Chemulpo. There is a strange point here – Lo Chuh Fen certainly sailed out of Hong-Kong with the Elizabeth Robinson, bound for Chemulpo, yet, some years later, he is inquiring in London, if the Elizabeth Robinson ever reached her destination. Why? Did the Elizabeth Robinson touch at any port after leaving Hong-Kong? Did Lo Chuh Fen leave her at any such port? We don't know – and for the moment it is not material; what is material is that a second member of the company on board the Elizabeth Robinson did not go down with her in the Yellow Sea if, as is said, she did go. So there are two survivors – Noah Quick and Lo Chuh Fen. And now a third is added in the person of another Quick – Salter, who turns up at Devonport as the guest of Noah, and who, like his brother, is evidently in possession of a plenitude of this world's goods. He has money in the bank, is a gentleman of leisure, and, like Noah, a person of reserved speech."
Lorrimore was now fairly into his stride, and becoming absorbed in his summing-up. He pushed aside his glass and other table impediments, and leaning forward spoke more earnestly, emphasising his words with equally emphatic gestures.
"A person of reserved speech!" he continued. "But – on one occasion, at any rate, so eager to get hold of information, that he casts his habitual reserve aside. On a certain day in March of this year, Salter Quick, with a handsome amount of ready money in his pocket, leaves Devonport, saying that he is going away for a few days. We next hear of him at an hotel in Alnwick, where he is asking for information about certain churchyards on this Northumbrian coast wherein he will find the graves of people of the name of Netherfield – the name of a man, be it remembered, who was with him and his brother Noah Quick, on board the Elizabeth Robinson. Next morning he meets with Mr. Middlebrook on the headlands between Alnmouth and Ravensdene Court and taking him for an inhabitant of these parts, he puts the same question to him. He accompanies Mr. Middlebrook to an inn on the cliffs; he asks the same question there – and there, evidently to his great discomfiture, he hears that another man, whose identity did not then appear, but who, we now know, was only a casual traveller who was merely repeating Salter Quick's own questions of the previous evening which he had overheard at Alnwick, had been asking similar questions. Why had Salter Quick travelled all the way from Devonport to Northumberland to find the graves of some people named Netherfield? We don't know – but we do know that on the very night of the day on which he had asked his questions of Mr. Middlebrook and of Claigue, the landlord, Salter Quick was murdered. And on that same night, at Devonport, four hundred miles away, his brother, Noah Quick, met a similar fate."
Mr. Cazalette came back into the room. He was carrying a couple of fat quarto books under one arm, and a large folio under the other, and he looked as if he had many important things to communicate. But Miss Raven smilingly motioned him to be seated and silent, and Lorrimore, with a glance at him which a judge might have bestowed on some belated counsel who came tip-toeing into his court, went on.
"Now," he said, "there were certain similarities in these two murders which lead to the supposition that, far apart as they were, they were the work of a gang, working with common purpose. There was no robbery from the person in either instance, though each victim had money and valuables on him to a considerable amount. But each man had been searched. Pockets had been turned out – clothing ripped up. In the case of Salter Quick, we are familiar with the details of the tobacco-box, on the inner lid of which there was a roughly-scratched plan of some place, and of the handkerchief bearing a monogram which Mr. Cazalette discovered near the scene of the murder. These are details – of great importance – the true significance of which does not yet appear. But the real, prime detail is the curious, mysterious connection between the name Netherfield, which Salter Quick was so anxious to find on gravestones in some Northumbrian churchyard or other, and the man of that name who was with him on the Elizabeth Robinson. And we are at once faced with the question – was the man, Netherfield Baxter, who left Blyth some years ago, the man Netherfield, described as of Blyth, whose name was on the Elizabeth Robinson's list?"
Mr. Raven treated us to one of his characteristic sniffs. He had a way, when he was stating what he considered to be a dead certainty, or when he was assenting to one, of throwing up his head and sniffing, with a somewhat cynical smile as accompaniment. He sniffed now, and Lorrimore went on – to a peroration.
"There can be no doubt about it!" he said with emphasis. "A Blyth man, a seafarer, named Solomon Fish, chances to be in Hull and, in a tavern there which is evidently the resort of seafaring folk, sees a man whom he instantly recognizes as Netherfield Baxter, whom he had known as child, boy and young man. He accosts him – the man denies it. We need pay no attention whatever to that denial: we may be quite sure from the testimony of Fish that the man is Baxter. Now then, what is Baxter doing? He is evidently in possession of ample funds – he and his companions buy a small vessel, a twenty-ton yawl, in which, they said, they want to cross the North Sea to the Norwegian fiords. And who are his companions? One is a Chinaman. Probably Lo Chuh Fen. The other is a Frenchman, who, says Mr. Jallanby, the Hull ship-broker, was addressed as Vicomte. He, probably, is an adventurer, and a criminous one, like Baxter, and – he is also probably the owner of the handkerchief which Mr. Cazalette found, stained with Salter Quick's blood!"
Lorrimore paused a moment, looking round to see how this impressed us. The last suggestion was new to me, but I saw its reasonableness and nodded. Lorrimore nodded back, and continued.
"Now a last word," he said. "I, personally, haven't a doubt that these three, one or other of 'em, murdered the Quicks, and that they're now going to take up that swag which Baxter and the dishonest bank-manager safely planted somewhere. But – I don't believe it's buried or secreted in any out-of-the-way place on the coast. I know where I should look for it, and where Scarterfield ought to search for it."
"Where, then?" I exclaimed.
"Well," he answered, "the thing is – to consider what those fellows were likely to do with the old monastic plate and the jewels and so on when they'd got them. They probably knew that the ancient chalices, reliquaries, and that sort of thing would fetch big prices, sold privately to collectors – especially to American collectors, who, as everybody knows, are not at all squeamish or particular about the antecedents of property so long as they secure it. I should say that Baxter, acting for his partner in crime, stored these things, and has waited for a favourable opportunity to resume possession of them. I incline to the opinion that he stored them at Hartlepool, or at Newcastle, or at South-Shields – at any place whence they could easily be transferred by ship. He may, indeed, have stored them at Liverpool, for easy transit across the Atlantic. I don't believe in the theory that they're planted in some hole-and-corner of the coast."
"In that case, what becomes of Salter Quick's search for the graves of the Netherfields?" I suggested.
"Can't say," replied Lorrimore, with a shrug of his shoulders. "But Salter Quick may have got hold of the wrong tale, or half a tale, or mixed things up. Anyway, that's my opinion – that this stolen property is not cached anywhere, but is somewhere within four respectable walls, and if I were Scarterfield, I should communicate with stores and repositories asking for information about goods left with them some time ago and not yet reclaimed."
"Good idea!" agreed Mr. Raven. "Much more likely than the buried treasure notion."
"To which, however, I incline," I said stubbornly. "When Salter Quick sought for the graves of the Netherfields, he had a purpose."
Mr. Cazalette came nearer the table with his big volumes. It was very evident that he had made some discovery and was anxious to tell us of it.
"Before you go any further into that matter," said he, laying down his burdens, "there are one or two things I should like to draw your attention to in connection with what Middlebrook told us before I left the room just a while since. Now about that monastic plate, Middlebrook, of which you've seen the inventories – you may not be aware of it, but there's a reference to that matter in Dryman's 'History of the Religious Foundations of Northumberland' which I will now read to you. Hear you this, now:
"Abbey of Forestburne.– It is well known that the altar vessels, plate, and jewels of this house were considerable in number and in value, but were never handed over to the custodians of the King's Treasury House in London. They were duly inventoried by the receivers in these parts, and there are letters extant recording their dispatch to London. But they never reached their destination, and it is commonly believed that like a great deal more of the monastic property of the Northern districts these valuables were appropriated by high-placed persons of the neighbourhood who employed their underlings, marked and disguised, to waylay and despoil the messengers entrusted to carry them Southward. N. B. – These foregoing remarks apply to the plate and jewels which appertained to the adjacent Priory of Mellerton, which were also of great value."
"So," continued Mr. Cazalette, "there's no doubt, in my mind, anyway, that the plate of which Middlebrook saw the inventories is just what they describe it to be, and that it came, in course of time, into the hands of the Lord Forestburne who deposited it in yon bank. And now," he went on, opening the biggest of his volumes, "here's the file of a local paper which your respected predecessor, Mr. Raven, had the good sense to keep, and I've turned up the account of the inquest that was held at Blyth on yon dishonest bank-manager. And there's a bit of evidence here that nobody seems to have drawn Scarterfield's attention to. 'The deceased gentleman,' it reads, 'was very fond of the sea, and frequently made excursions along our beautiful coast in a small yacht which he hired from Messrs. Capsticks, the well-known boat-builders of the town. It will be remembered that he had a particular liking for night-sailing, and would often sail his yacht out of harbour late of an evening in order, as he said, to enjoy the wonderful effects of moonlight on sea and coast.' That, you'll bear in mind," concluded Mr. Cazalette, with a more than usually sardonic grin, "was penned by some fatuous reporter before they knew that the deceased gentleman had robbed the bank. And no doubt it was on those night excursions that he, and this man Baxter that we've heard of, carried away the stolen valuables, and safely hid them in some quiet spot on this coast – and there you'll see, they'll be found all in good time. And as sure as my name is what it is, Dr. Lorrimore, it was that spot that Salter Quick was after – only he wasn't exactly certain where it was, and had somehow got mixed about the graves of the Netherfields. Man alive! yon plate of the old monks is buried under some Netherfield headstone at this minute!"
"Don't believe it, sir!" said Lorrimore. "It's much more likely to be stored in some handy seaport where it can be easily called for without attracting attention. And if Middlebrook'll give me Scarterfield's address that's what I'm going to suggest to him."
I suppose Lorrimore wrote to the detective. But during the next few days I heard nothing from Scarterfield; indeed nobody heard anything new from anywhere. I believe that Scarterfield from Blyth, gave some hints to the coastguard people about keeping a look-out for the Blanchflower, but I am not sure of it. However, two of us at Ravensdene Court took a mutual liking for walks along the loneliest stretches of the coast – myself and Miss Raven. Before my journey to Blyth and Hull, she and I had already taken to going for afternoon excursions together; now we lengthened them, going out after lunch and remaining away until we had only just time to return home by the dinner-hour. I think we had some vague idea that we might possibly discover something – perhaps find some trace, we knew not of what. Then we were led, unexpectedly, as such things always do happen, to the threshold of our great and perilous adventure. Going further afield than usual one day, and, about five o'clock of a spring afternoon, straying into a solitary ravine that opened up before us on the moors that stretched to the very edge of the coast, we came upon an ancient wood of dwarf oak, so venerable and time-worn in appearance that it looked like a survival of the Druid age. There was not an opening to be seen in its thick undergrowth, nor any sign of path or track through it, but it was with a mutual consent and understanding that we made our way into its intense silence.
CHAPTER XVII
HUMFREY DE KNAYTHVILLE
In order to arrive at a proper understanding of the peculiar circumstances and position in which Miss Raven and myself very shortly found ourselves placed, it is necessary to give some information as to the geographical situation of the wood into which we plunged, more I think, out of a mingled feeling of curiosity and mystery than of anything else. We had then walked several miles from Ravensdene Court in a northerly direction, but instead of keeping to the direct line of the cliffs and headlands we had followed an inland track along the moors, which, however, was never at any point of its tortuous way more than a mile from the coast. The last mile or two of this had been through absolute solitudes – save for a lonely farmstead, or shepherd's cottage, seen far off on the rising ground, further inland, we had not seen a sign of human habitation. Nor that afternoon did we see any sail on the broad stretch of sea at our right, nor even the smoke-trail of any passing steamer on the horizon. Yet the place we now approached seemed even more solitary. We came to a sort of ravine, a deep fissure in the line of the land, on the south side of which lay the wood of ancient oak of which I have spoken. Beyond it, on the northern side, the further edge of this ravine rose steeply, masses of scarred limestone jutting out of its escarpments; it seemed to me that at the foot of the wood and in the deepest part of this natural declension, there would be a burn, a stream, that ran downwards from the moor to the sea. I think we had some idea of getting down to this, following its course to its outlet on the beach, and returning homeward by way of the sands.
The wood into which we made our way was well-nigh impregnable; it seemed to me that for age upon age its undergrowth had run riot, untrimmed, unchecked, until at last it had become a matted growth of interwoven, strangely twisted boughs and tendrils. It was only by turning in first one, then another direction through it that we made any progress in the downward direction we desired; sometimes it was a matter of forcing one's way between the thickly twisted obstacles. We exchanged laughing remarks about our having found the forest primeval; before long each was plentifully adorned with scratches and tears. All around us the silence was intense; there was no singing of birds nor humming of insects in that wood. But more than once we came across bones – the whitened skeletons of animals that had sought these shades and died there or had been dragged into them and torn to pieces by their fellow beasts. Altogether there was an atmosphere of eeriness and gloom in that wood, and I began – more for my companion's sake than my own – to long for a glimpse of some outlet, a sight of the sunlit sea beyond, and for the murmur of the burn which I felt sure, ran rippling coast-wards beneath the fringes of this almost impassable thicket.
And then at the end of quite half-an-hour's struggling, borne, I must say, by Miss Raven, with the truly sporting spirit which was a part of her general character, a sudden exclamation from her, as she pushed her way through a clump of wilding a little in advance of me, caused me to look ahead.
"There's some building just in front of us!" she said. "See – grey stones – a ruin!"
I looked in the direction she indicated, and through the interstices of the thickly-leaved branches, just then prodigal of their first spring foliage, saw, as she said, a grey wall, venerable and time-stained, rising in front. I could see the topmost stones, a sort of broken parapet, ivy clustering about it, and beneath the green of the ivy, a fragment of some ornamentation and the cavernous gloom of a window place from which glass and tracery had long since gone.
"That's something to make for, anyway," I said. "Some old tower or other. Yet I don't remember anything of the sort, marked on the maps."
We pushed forward, and came out on a little clearing. Immediately in front of us stood the masonry of which we had caught glimpses; a low, squat, square tower, some forty feet in height, ruinous as to the most part, but having the side facing us nearly perfect and still boasting a fine old doorway which I set down as of Norman architecture. North of this lay a mass of fallen masonry, a long line of grass-grown, weed-encumbered stone, which was evidently the ruin of a wall; here and there in the clearing were similar smaller masses. Rank weed, bramblebush, beds of nettles, encumbered the whole place; it was a scene of ruin and desolation. But a mere glance was sufficient to show me that we had come by accident on a once sacred spot.
"Why this," said I, as we paused at the edge of the wood, "this is the ruin of some ancient church, or perhaps of a religious house! Look at the niche there above the arch of the door – there's been an image in that – and at the general run of the stone lying about. Certainly this is an old church! Why have we never heard of it?"
"Utterly forgotten, I should think," said Miss Raven. "It must be a long time since there were people about here to come to it."
"Probably a village down on the coast – now swept away," I remarked. "But we must look this place out in the local books. Meanwhile let's explore it."
We began to look about the clearing. The tower was almost gone as to three sides of it; the fourth was fairly intact. A line of fallen masonry lay to the north and was continued a little on the east, where it rose into a higher, ivy-covered mass. Within this again was another, less obvious line, similar in plan, and also covered with unchecked growth: within that the uneven surface of the ground was thickly encumbered with rank weeds, beds of thistle, beds of nettle, and a plenitude of bramble and gorse; in one place towards the eastern mass of overgrown wall, a great clump of gorse had grown to such a height and thickness as to form an impenetrable screen. And, peering and prying about, suddenly we came, between this screen and the foot of the tower on signs of great slabs of stone, over the edges of which the coarse grass had grown, and whose surfaces were thickly encumbered with moss and lichen.
"Gravestones!" said Miss Raven. "But – I suppose they're quite worn and illegible."
I got down on my knees at one of the slabs less encumbered than the others and began to tear away the grass and weed. There was a rich, thick carpet of moss on it, and a fringe of grey, clinging lichen, but by the aid of a stout pocket-knife I forced it away, and laid bare a considerable surface of the upper half of the stone. And now that the moss, which had formed a sort of protecting cover, was removed, we saw lettering, worn and smoothed at its edges in common with the rest of the slab, but still to be made out with a little patience.
There may be – probably is – a certain density in me, a slowness of intuition and perception, but it is the fact that at this time and for some minutes later, I had not the faintest suspicion that we had accidentally lighted upon something connected with the mystery of Salter Quick. All I thought of, I think, just then was that we had come across some old relic of antiquity – the church of some coast hamlet or village which had long been left to the ruinous work of time, and my only immediate interest was in endeavouring to decipher the half-worn-out inscription on the stone by which I was kneeling. While my companion stood by me, watching with eager attention, I scraped out the earth and moss and lichen from the lettering – fortunately, it had been deeply incised in the stone – a hard and durable sort – and much of it remained legible, once the rubbish had been cleared from it. Presently I made out at any rate several words and figures:
Hic jacet dominus …
Humfrey de Knaythville …
quond' vicari huius …
ecclie qui obéit …
anno dei mccccxix …
Beneath these lines were two or three others, presumably words of scripture, which had evidently become worn away before the moss spread its protecting carpet over the others. But we had learnt something.
"There we are!" said I, regarding the result of my labours with proud satisfaction. "There it runs – 'Here lies the lord, or master, Humphrey de Knaythville, sometime vicar of this church, who died in the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and nineteen' – nearly six hundred years ago! A good find!"
"Splendid!" exclaimed Miss Raven, already excited to enthusiasm by these antiquarian discoveries. "I wonder if there are inscriptions on the other tombs?"
"No doubt," I assented, "and perhaps some, or things of interest, on this fallen masonry. This place is well worth careful examination, and I'm wondering how it is that I haven't come across any reference to it in the local books. But to be sure, I haven't read them very fully or carefully – Mr. Cazalette may know of it. We shall have something to tell him."
We began to look round again. I wandered into the base of the tower; Miss Raven began to explore the weed-choked ground towards the east end. Suddenly I heard a sharp, startled exclamation from her. Turning, I saw her standing by the great clump of overgrown gorse of which I have already spoken. She glanced at me; then at something behind the gorse.
"What is it?" I asked.
Unconsciously, she lowered her voice, at the same time glancing, half-nervously, at the thick undergrowth of the wood.
"Come here!" she said. "Come!"
I went across the weed-grown surface to her side. She pointed behind the gorse-bush.
"Look there!" she whispered.
I knew as soon as I looked that we were not alone in that wild, solitary-seeming spot; that there were human ears listening, and human eyes watching; that we were probably in danger. There behind the yellow-starred clump of green was what at first sight appeared to be a newly-opened grave, but was in reality a freshly-dug excavation; a heap of soil and stone, just flung out, lay by it; on this some hand had flung down a mattock; near it rested a pick. And suddenly, as by a heaven-sent inspiration, I saw things. We had stumbled on the graveyard which Salter Quick had wished to find; de Knaythville and Netherfield were identical terms which had got mixed up in his uneducated mind; here the missing treasure was buried, and we had walked into this utterly deserted spot to interrupt – what, and who?
Before I could say a word, I heard Miss Raven catch her breath; then another sharp exclamation came from her lips – stifled, but clear.
"Oh, I say!" she cried. "Who – who are these – these men?"
Her hand moved instinctively towards my arm as she spoke, and as I drew it within my grasp I felt that she was trembling a little. And in that same instant, turning quickly in the direction she indicated, I became aware of the presence of two men who had quietly stepped out from the shelter of the high undergrowth on the landward side of the clearing and stood silently watching us. They were attired in something of the fashion of seamen, in rough trousers and jerseys, but I saw at first glance that they were not common men. Indeed, I saw more, and realized with a sickening feeling of apprehension that our wandering into that place had brought us face to face with danger. One of the two, a tallish, slender-built, good-looking man, not at all unpleasant to look on if it had not been for a certain sinister and cold expression of eye and mouth, I recognized as a stranger whom I had noticed at the coroner's inquest on Salter Quick and had then taken for some gentleman of the neighbourhood. The other, I felt sure, was Netherfield Baxter. There was the golden-brown beard of which Fish had told me and Scarterfield; there, too, was the half-hidden scar on the left cheek. I had no doubt whatever that Miss Raven and myself were in the hands of the two men who had bought the Blanchflower from Jallanby, the ship-broker of Hull.
