Ravensdene Court Part 25

"Just so!" he agreed. "It is. So take my advice. Instead of having the wire sent from the nearest office, do this--my friend, as a matter of fact, is going on by rail to Berwick. Let him send a wire from there: it will only mean that Mr. Raven will get it an hour or so later. Say that you and Miss Raven find you cannot get home tonight, and that she is quite safe--word it in any rea.s.suring way you like."

I gave him a keen glance.

"The thing is," said I. "Can we get home tomorrow?"

"Well--possibly tomorrow night--late," he answered. "I will do my best. I may be--I hope to be--through with my business tomorrow afternoon. Then--"

At that moment the other man appeared on deck, emerging from somewhere. He had changed his clothes--he now presented himself in a smart tweed suit, Homburg hat, polished shoes, gloves, walking cane.

Baxter signed to him to wait, turning to me.

"That's the wisest thing to do," he remarked. "Draft your wire."

I wrote out a message which I hoped would allay Mr. Raven's anxieties and handed it to him. He read it over, nodded as if in approbation, and went across to the other man. For a moment or two they stood talking in low tones; then the other man went over the side, dropped into the boat which lay there, and pulled himself off sh.o.r.ewards.

Baxter came back to me.

"He'll send that from Berwick railway station as soon as he gets there, at six-thirty," he said. "It should be delivered at Ravensdene Court by eight. So there's no need to worry further, you can tell Miss Raven. And when all's said and done, Mr. Middlebrook, it wasn't my fault that you and she broke in upon very private doings up there in the old churchyard--nor, I suppose, yours either. Make the best of it!--it's only a temporary detention."

I was watching him closely as he talked, and suddenly I made up my mind to speak out. It might be foolish, even dangerous, to do it, but I had an intuitive feeling that it would be neither.

"I believe," I said, brusquely enough, "that I am speaking to Mr.

Netherfield Baxter?"

He returned me a sharp glance which was half-smiling. Certainly there was no astonishment in it.

"Aye!" he answered. "I thought, somehow, that you might be thinking that! Well, and suppose I admit it, Mr. Middlebrook? What then? And what do you--a Londoner, I think you told me--know of Netherfield Baxter?"

"You wish to know?" I asked. "Shall I be plain?"

"As a pike-staff, if you like," he replied. "I prefer it."

"Well," said I, "a good many things--recently discovered by accident.

That you formerly lived at Blyth, and had some a.s.sociation with a certain temporary bank-manager there, about whose death--and the disappearance of some valuable portable property--there was a good deal of concern manifested about the time that you left Blyth. That you were never heard of again until recently, when a Blyth man recognized you in Hull, where you bought a yawl--this yawl, I believe--and said you were going to Norway in her. And that--but am I to be still more explicit?"

"Why not?" said he with a laugh. "Forewarned is forearmed. You're giving me valuable information."

"Very well, Mr. Baxter," I continued, determined to show him my cards.

"There's a certain detective, one Scarterfield, a sharp man, who is very anxious to make your acquaintance. For if you want the plain truth, he believes you, or some of your accomplices, or you and they together, to have had a hand in the murders of Noah and Salter Quick.

And he's on your track."

I was watching him still more closely as I spoke the last sentence or two. He remained as calm and cool as ever, and I was somewhat taken aback by the collected fashion in which he not only replied to my glance, but answered my words.

"Scarterfield--of whose doings I've heard a bit--has got hold of the wrong end of the stick there, Mr. Middlebrook," he said quietly. "I had no hand in murdering either Noah Quick or his brother Salter. Nor had my friend--the man who's just gone off with your telegram. I don't know who murdered those men. But I know that there have always been men who were ready to murder them if they got the chance, and I wasn't the least surprised to hear that they had been murdered. The wonder is that they escaped murder as long as they did! But beyond the fact that they were murdered, I know nothing--nor does anybody on board this craft. You and Miss Raven are amongst--well, you can call us pirates if you like, buccaneers, adventurers, anything!--but we're not murderers. We know nothing whatever about the murders of Noah and Salter Quick--except what we've read in the papers."

I believed him. And I made haste to say so--out of a sheer relief to know that Miss Raven was not amongst men whose hands were stained with blood.

"Thank you," he said, as coolly as ever. "I'm obliged to you. I've been anxious enough to know who did murder those two men. As I say, I felt no surprise when I heard of the murders."

"You knew them--the Quicks?" I suggested.

"Did I?" he answered with a cynical laugh. "Didn't I? They were a couple of rank bad 'uns! I have never professed sanct.i.ty, Mr.

Middlebrook, but Noah and Salter Quick were of a brand that's far beyond me--they were bad men. I'll tell you more of 'em, later--here's Miss Raven."

"I may as well tell you," I murmured hastily, "that Miss Raven knows as much as I do about all that I've just told you."

"That so?" he said. "Um! And she looks a sensible sort of la.s.s, too--well, I'll tell you both what I know--as I say, later. But now--some tea!"

While he went forward to give his orders, I contrived to inform Miss Raven of the gist of our recent conversation, and to a.s.sert my own private belief in Baxter's innocence. I saw that she was already prejudiced in his favour.

"I'm glad to know that," she said. "But in that case--the mystery's all the deeper. What is it, I wonder, that he can tell."

"Wait till he speaks," said I. "We shall learn something."

Baxter came back, presently followed by the little Chinaman whom I had seen before, who deftly set up a small table on deck, drew chairs round it, and a few minutes later spread out all the necessaries of a dainty afternoon tea. And in the centre of them was a plum cake. I saw Miss Raven glance at it; I glanced at her; I knew of what she was thinking. Her thoughts had flown to the plum cake at Lorrimore's, made by Wing, his Chinese servant.

But whatever we thought, we said nothing. The situation was romantic, and not without some attraction, even in those curious circ.u.mstances.

Here we were, prisoners, first-cla.s.s prisoners, if you will, but still prisoners, and there was our gaoler; he and ourselves sat round a tea-table, munching toast, nibbling cakes and dainties, sipping fragrant tea, as if we had been in any lady's drawing-room. I think it speaks well for all of us that we realized the situation and made the most of it by affecting to ignore the actual reality. We chatted, as well-behaved people should under similar conditions, about anything but the prime fact of our imprisonment; Baxter, indeed, might have been our very polite and attentive host and we his willing guests. As for Miss Raven, she accepted the whole thing with hearty good humour and poured out the tea as if she had been familiar with our new quarters for many a long day; moreover, she adopted a friendly att.i.tude towards our captors which did much towards smoothing any present difficulties.

"You seem to be very well accommodated in the matter of servants, Mr.

Baxter," she observed. "That little Chinaman, as you said, is as good as a French maid, and you certainly have a good cook--excellent pastry-cook, anyway."

Baxter glanced lazily in the direction of the galley.

"Another Chinaman," he answered. He looked significantly at me. "Mr.

Middlebrook," he continued, "is aware that I bought this yawl from a ship-broker in Hull, for a special purpose--"

"Not aware of the special purpose," I interrupted, with a purposely sly glance at him.

"The special purpose is a run across the Atlantic, if you want to know," he answered carelessly. "Of course, when I'd got her, I wanted a small crew. Now, I've had great experience of Chinamen--best servants on earth, in my opinion--so I sailed her down to the Thames, went up to London Docks, and took in some Chinese chaps that I got in Limehouse. Two men and one cook--man cook, of course. He's good--I can't promise you a real and proper dinner tonight, but I can promise a very satisfactory subst.i.tute which we call supper."

"And you're going across the Atlantic with a crew of three?" I asked.

"As a matter of fact," he answered candidly, "there are six of us. The three Chinese; myself; my friend who was with me this afternoon, and who will join us again tomorrow, and another friend who will return with him, and who, like the crew, is a Chinaman. But he's a Chinaman of rank and position."

"In other words, the Chinese gentleman who was with you and your French friend in Hull?" I suggested.

"Just so--since we're to be frank," he answered. "The same." Then, with a laugh, he glanced at Miss Raven. "Mr. Middlebrook," he said, "considers me the most candid desperado he ever met!"

"Your candour is certainly interesting," replied Miss Raven.

"Especially if you really are a desperado. Perhaps--you'll give us more of it?"

"I'll tell you a bit--later on," he said. "That Quick business, I mean."

Suddenly, setting down his tea-cup, he got up and moved away towards the galley, into which he presently disappeared. Miss Raven turned sharply on me.

"Did you eat a slice of that plum-cake?" she whispered. "You did?"

"I know what you're thinking," I answered. "It reminds you of the cake that Lorrimore's man, Wing, makes."