don't
know what it all means, but I reckon the man was about done for.
Bleeding to death, I should say."

"You found him?" I asked.

"No," he answered. "Not at first anyway. The woman there says she was
out here in her garden, feeding her fowls, when she saw him stagger
round the corner of the wood there, and make for her. He fell across
the bank where he's lying in a dead faint, and she ran for water. Just
then we came along in the trap, saw what was happening and jumped out.
Fortunately, when we set off, Mr. Cazalette insisted on bringing a big
flask of neat brandy, and some food--he said you never knew what you
mightn't want--and we gave him a stiff dose, and pulled him round
sufficiently to be able to tell us where he was wounded. And he's got
a skinful!--a bullet through the thick part of his left arm, another
at the point of the same shoulder, and a third just underneath it. Mr.
Cazalette says they're all flesh wounds--but I don't know: I know the
man's fainted twice since we got to him. And look here!--just before
he fainted the last time, he managed to fumble amongst his clothing
with his right hand and he pulled something out and shoved it into my
hand with a word or two. 'Give it Lorrimore,' he said, in a very weak
voice. 'Tell him I found it all out--was going to trap all of
them--but they were too quick for me last night--all dead now.' Then
he fainted again. And--look at this!"

He drew out a piece of canvas, twisted up anyhow, and opening it
before our wondering eyes, revealed a heap of magnificent pearls and a
couple of wonderful rubies that shone in the sunlight like fire.

"That's what he gave me," said the inspector. "What is it? what's it
mean?"

"That's what Salter Quick was murdered for," said I. "And it means
that Lorrimore's man ran down the murderer."

And without waiting for any comment from him, and leaving Scarterfield
to explain matters, I went across the little garden to see how the
honest Chinaman was faring.

* * * * *

It was a strange, yet a plain story that Wing told his master and a
select few of us a day or two later, when Lorrimore had patched him
up. To anybody of a hum-drum life--such as mine had always been until
these events--it was, indeed, a stirring story. The queer thing,
however--at any rate, queer to me--was that the narrator, as calm and
suave as ever in his telling of it--did not seem to regard it as
anything strange at all--he m