Ravensdene Court Part 11

"Yes," I admitted, reflectively. "I think he fits in--here. Dr.

Lorrimore said he had been in India for some years, didn't he? He appears to have brought some of it home with him."

"I suppose this is his drawing-room," said Miss Raven. "Now, if only it looked out on palm-trees, and--and all other things that one a.s.sociates with India."

"Just so," said I. "What it does look out on, however, is a typical English garden on which, at present, about a ton of rain is descending. And we are nearly three miles from Ravensdene Court!"

"Oh, but it won't keep on like that, for long," she said. "And I suppose, if it does, that we can get some sort of a conveyance--perhaps, Dr.

Lorrimore has a brougham that he'd lend us."

"I don't think that's very likely," said I. "The country pract.i.tioner, I think, is more dependent on a bicycle than on a brougham. But here is Dr. Lorrimore."

I had just caught sight of him as he entered his garden by a door set in its ivy-covered wall. He ran hastily up the path to the house--within a minute or two, divested of his mackintosh, he opened the door of our room.

"So glad you were near enough to turn in here for shelter!" he exclaimed, shaking hands with us warmly. "I see that neither of you expected rain--now, I did, and I went out prepared."

"We made for the first door we saw," said Miss Raven. "But we'd no idea it was yours, Dr. Lorrimore. And do tell me!--the Chinese," she continued, in a whisper. "Is he your man-servant?"

Lorrimore laughed, rubbing his hands together. That day he was not in the solemn, raven-hued finery in which he had visited Ravensdene Court; instead he wore a suit of grey tweed, in which, I thought, he looked rather younger and less impressive than in black. But he was certainly no ordinary man, and as he stood there smiling at Miss Raven's eager face, I felt conscious that he was the sort of somewhat mysterious, rather elusive figure in which women would naturally be interested.

"Man-servant!" he said, with another laugh. "He's all the servant I've got. Wing--he's too or three other monosyllabic patronymics, but Wing suffices--is an invaluable person. He's a model cook, valet, launderer, general factotum--there's nothing that he can't or won't do, from making the most perfect curries--I must have Mr. Raven to try them against the achievements of his man!--to taking care about the halfpennies, when he goes his round of the tradesmen. Oh, he's a treasure--I a.s.sure you, Miss Raven, you could go the round of this house, at any moment, without finding a thing out of place or a speck of dust in any corner. A model!"

"You brought him from India, I suppose?" said I.

"I brought him from India, yes," he answered. "He'd been with me for some time before I left. So, of course, we're thoroughly used to each other."

"And does he really like living--here?" asked Miss Raven. "In such absolutely different surroundings?"

"Oh, well, I think he's a pretty good old hand at making the best of the moment," laughed Lorrimore. "He's a philosopher. Deep--inscrutable--in short, he's Chinese. He has his own notions of happiness. At present he's supremely happy in getting you some tea--you mightn't think it, but that saffron-faced Eastern can make an English plum-cake that would put the swellest London pastry-cook to shame! You must try it!"

The Chinaman presently summoned us to tea, which he had laid out in another room--obviously Lorrimore's dining-room. There was nothing Oriental in that; rather, it was eminently Victorian, an affair of heavy furniture, steel engravings, and an array, on the sideboard, of what, I suppose, was old family plate. Wing ushered us and his master in with due ceremony and left us; when the door had closed on him, Lorrimore gave us an arch glance.

"You see how readily and skilfully that chap adapts himself to the needs of the moment," he said. "Now, you mightn't think it, but this is the very first time I have ever been honoured with visitors to afternoon tea. Observe how Wing immediately falls in with English taste and custom! Without a word from me, out comes the silver tea-pot, the best china, the finest linen! He produces his choicest plum-cake; the bread-and-b.u.t.ter is cut with wafer-like thinness; and the tea--ah, well, no Englishwoman, Miss Raven, can make tea as a Chinese man-servant can!"

"It's quite plain that you've got a treasure in your house, Dr.

Lorrimore," said Miss Raven. "But then, the Chinese are very clever, aren't they?"

"Very remarkable people, indeed," a.s.sented our host. "Shrewd, observant, penetrative. I have often wondered if this man of mine would find any great difficulty in seeing through a brick wall!"

"He would be a useful person, perhaps, in solving the present mystery," said I. "The police seem to have got no further."

"Ah, the Quick business?" remarked Lorrimore. "Um!--well, as regards that, it seems to me that whatever light is thrown on it will have to be thrown from the other angle--from Devonport. From all that I heard and gathered, it's very evident that what is really wanted is a strict examination into the immediate happenings at Noah Quick's inn, and also into the antecedents of Noah and Salter. But is there anything fresh?"

I told him, briefly, all that had happened that afternoon--of the information given by James Beeman and of the disappearance of the tobacco-box.

"That's odd!" he remarked. "Let's see--it was the old gentleman I saw at Ravensdene Court who had some fancy about that box, wasn't it?--Mr.

Cazalette. What was his idea, now?"

"Mr. Cazalette," I replied, "saw, or fancied he saw, certain marks or scratches within the lid of the box which he took to have some meaning: they were, he believed, made with design--with some purpose.

He thought that by photographing them, and then enlarging his photograph, he would bring out those marks more clearly, and possibly find out what they were really meant for."

"Yes?" said Lorrimore. "Well--what has he discovered?"

"Up to now n.o.body knows," said Miss Raven. "Mr. Cazalette won't tell us anything."

"That looks as if he had discovered something," observed Lorrimore.

"But--old gentlemen are a little queer, and a little vain. Perhaps he's suddenly going to let loose a tremendous theory and wants to perfect it before he speaks. Oh, well!" he added, almost indifferently, "I've known a good many murder mysteries in my time--out in India--and I always found that the really good way of getting at the bottom of them was to go right back!--as far back as possible. If I were the police in charge of these cases, I should put one question down before me and do nothing until I'd exhausted every effort to solve it."

"And that would be--what?" I asked.

"This," said he. "What were the antecedents of Noah and Salter Quick?"

"You think they had a past?" suggested Miss Raven.

"Everybody has a past," answered Lorrimore. "It may be this; it may be that. But nearly all the problems of the present have their origin and solution in the past. Find out what and where those two middle-aged men had been, in their time!--and then there'll be a chance to work forward."

The rain cleared off soon after we had finished tea, and presently Miss Raven and I took our leave. Lorrimore informed us that Mr. Raven had asked him to dinner on the following evening; he would accordingly see us again very soon.

"It will be quite an event for me!" he said, gaily, as he opened his garden gate. "I live like an anchorite in this place. A little--a very little practice--the folk are scandalously healthy!--and a great deal of scientific investigation--that's my lot."

"But you have a treasure of a servant," observed Miss Raven. "Please tell him that his plum-cake was perfection."

The Chinaman was just then standing at the open door, in waiting on his master. Miss Raven threw him a laughing nod to which he responded with a deep bow--we left them with that curious picture in our minds: Lorrimore, essentially English in spite of his long residence in the East; the Chinaman, bland, suave, smiling.

"A curious pair and a strange combination!" I remarked as we walked away. "That house, at any rate, has a plenitude of brain-power in it.

What amazes me is that a clever chap like Master Wing should be content to bury his talents in a foreign place, out of the world--to make curries and plum-cake!"

"Perhaps he has a faithful devotion to his master," said Miss Raven.

"Anyway, it's very romantic, and picturesque, and that sort of thing, to find a real live Chinaman in an English village--I wonder if the poor man gets teased about his queer clothes and his pigtail?"

"Didn't Lorrimore say he was a philosopher?" said I. "Therefore he'll be indifferent to criticism. I dare say he doesn't go about much."

That the Chinaman was not quite a recluse, however, I discovered a day or two later, when, going along the headlands for a solitary stroll after a stiff day's work in the library, I turned into the Mariner's Joy for a gla.s.s of Claigue's undeniably good ale. Wing was just coming out of the house as I entered it. He was as neat, as bland, and as smiling as when I saw him before; he was still in his blue jacket, his little cap. But he was now armed with a very large umbrella, and on one arm he carried a basket, filled with small parcels; evidently he had been on a shopping expedition. He greeted me with a deep obeisance and respectful smile and went on his way--I entered the inn and found its landlord alone in his bar-parlour.

"You get some queer customers in here, Mr. Claigue," I observed as he attended to my modest wants. "Yet it's not often, I should think, that a real live Chinaman walks in on you."

"He's been in two or three times, that one," replied Claigue.

"Chinaman he is, no doubt, sir, but it strikes me he must know as much of this country as he knows of his own, for he speaks our tongue like a native--a bit soft and mincing-like, but never at a loss for a word.

Dr. Lorrimore's servant, I understand."

"He has been in Dr. Lorrimore's service for some years," I answered.

"No doubt he's had abundant opportunities of picking up the language.

Still--it's an odd sight to see a Chinaman, pigtail and all, in these parts, isn't it?"

"Well, I've had all sorts in here, time and again," replied Claigue reflectively. "Sailor men, mostly. But," he added, with a meaning look, "of all the lot, that poor chap as got knifed the other week was the most mysterious! What do you make of it, sir?"

"I don't know what to make of it," said I. "I don't think anybody knows what to make of it. The police don't, anyhow!"

"The police!" he exclaimed, with a note of derision. "Yah! they're worse than a parcel of old women! Have they ever tried? Just a bit of surface inquiry--and the thing slips past. Of course, the man was a stranger. n.o.body cares; that's about it. My notion is that the police don't care the value of that match whether the thing's ever cleared up or not. Nine days' wonder, you know, Mr. Middlebrook. Still--there's a deal of talk about."