ohed the notion that the inventories which
we showed him had anything to do with the rifled Forestburne chests,
and scorned the notion that the family had ever been in possession of
goods obtained by sacrilege.

"Preposterous!" said he, with a sniff of contempt. "What the chests
contained was, of course, superfluous family plate. As for these
documents, that fellow Baxter, in spite of his loose manner of living,
was, I remember, a bit inclined to scholarship, and went in for old
books and things--a strange mixture altogether. He probably picked up
these parchments in some book-seller's shop in Durham or Newcastle. I
don't believe they've anything to do with Lord Forestburne's stolen
property, and I advise you both not to waste time in running after
mare's nests."

Scarterfield and I got ourselves out of this starchy person's presence
and confided to each other our private opinions of him and his
intelligence. For to us the theory which we had set up was
unassailable: we tried to reduce it to strict and formal precision as
we ate our lunch in a quiet corner of the hotel coffee-room, previous
to parting.

"More than one of us, Scarterfield, who have taken part in this
discussion, have said that if we are going to get at the truth of
things we shall have to go back," I observed. "Well, what you have
found out here takes us back some way. Let us suppose--we can't do
anything without a certain amount of supposition--let us, I say, for
the sake of argument, suppose that the man Netherfield of Blyth, who
was with Noah and Salter Quick on the ship _Elizabeth Robinson_, bound
from Hong-Kong to Chemulpo is the same person as Netherfield Baxter,
who certainly lived in this town a few years ago. Very well--now then,
what do we know of Baxter? We know this--that a dishonest
bank-manager stole certain valuables from the bank, died suddenly just
afterwards, and that Baxter disappeared just as suddenly. The
supposition is that Baxter was concerned in that theft. We'll suppose
more--that Baxter knew where the stolen goods were; had, in fact,
helped to secrete them. Well, the next we hear of him is--supposing
him to be Netherfield--on this ship, which, according to the reports
you got at Lloyds, was lost with all hands in the Yellow Sea. But--a
big but!--we know now that whatever happened to the rest of those on
board her, three men at any rate saved their lives--Noah Quick, Salter
Quick and the Chinese cook, whose exact name we've f