rubies. He didn't mention any pearls. And I think now,
Scarterfield, that Salter Quick's murder lies at the door of--one of
those Chinamen who in their turn are lying dead before us!"

"Well, and that's what I think," said he. "Though however a Chinaman
could be about this coast without the local police learning something
of it at the time they were inquiring into the murder beats me.
However, there it is!--I feel sure of it. And I was going to tell
you--I got wind of this yawl down Limehouse way--I found out that
she'd been in the Thames, and that her owner had enlisted a small crew
of Chinamen and gone away with them, and I found out further that
she'd been seen off the Norfolk coast, going north, so then I pitched
a hot and strong story to the authorities about piracy and all manner
of things, and they sent this destroyer in search of Baxter, and me on
her. If we'd only been twelve hours sooner!"

Lorrimore and the lieutenant came up to us.

"My men have the fire completely beaten," said the lieutenant glancing
at Scarterfield. "If you want to look round----"

We began a thorough examination of the yawl, in the endeavour to
reconstruct the affair of the early morning. For there were all the
elements of a strange mystery in that and curiosity about the whole
thing was as strong in me as in Scarterfield. We knew now many things
that we had not known twenty-four hours before--one was that the many
affairs, dark and nefarious, of Netherfield Baxter, had nothing to do
with the murders of Noah and Salter Quick; another that those murders
without doubt arose from the brothers' possession of the pearls and
rubies which Salter had shown to the Hatton Garden diamond merchant.
All things considered it seemed to me that the explanation of the
mystery rested in some such theory as this--the Chinaman, Lo Chuh Fen,
doubtless knew as well as Baxter and his French friend that the
Quicks were in possession of the rubies stolen from the heathen
temple in Southern China; no doubt he had become acquainted with that
fact when the marooned party from the _Elizabeth Robinson_ were on the
intimate terms of men united by a common fate on the lonely island.
Drifting eventually to England, Chuh had probably discovered the
whereabouts of the two brothers, had somehow found that the rubies
were still in their possession, might possibly have been in personal
touch with Salter or with Noah, had taken others of his compatriots,
discovered in the