I now mean to follow up for all it's worth."

Here the detective, suddenly assuming a more business-like air than he
had previously shown, paused, to produce from his breast-pocket a
small bundle of papers, which he laid before him on the table. I
suppose we all gazed at them as if they suggested deep and dark
mystery--but for the time being Scarterfield let them lie idle where
he had placed them.

"I'll have to tell the story in a sort of sequence," he continued.
"This is what I have pieced together from the information I collected
at Lloyds. In October, 1907, now nearly five years ago, a certain
steam ship, the _Elizabeth Robinson_, left Hong-Kong, in Southern
China, for Chemulpo, one of the principal ports in Korea. She was
spoken in the Yellow Sea several days later. After that she was never
heard of again, and according to the information available at Lloyds
she probably went down in a typhoon in the Yellow Sea and was totally
lost, with all hands on board. No great matter, perhaps!--from all
that I could gather she was nothing but a tramp steamer that did, so
to speak, odd jobs anywhere between India and China; she had gone to
Hong-Kong from Singapore: her owners were small folk in Singapore, and
I imagine that she had seen a good deal of active service. All the
same, she's of considerable interest to me, for I have managed to
secure a list of the names of the men who were on her when she left
Hong-Kong for Chemulpo--and amongst those names are those of the two
men we're concerned about: Noah and Salter Quick."

Scarterfield slipped off the india-rubber band which confined his
papers, and selecting one, slowly unfolded it. Mr. Raven spoke.

"I understood that this ship, the _Elizabeth Robinson_, was lost with
all hands?" he said.

"So she is set down at Lloyds," replied Scarterfield. "Never heard of
again--after being spoken in the Yellow Sea about three days from
Chemulpo."

"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