WAS IT A WOMAN?
Had Miss Raven and I suddenly been caught up out of that little coast
village and transported to the far East on a magic carpet, to be set
down in the twinkling of an eye on some Oriental threshold, we could
scarcely have been more surprised than we were at the sight of that
bland, smiling countenance. For the moment I was at a loss to think
who and what the man could be; he was in the dress of his own country,
a neat, close-fitting, high-buttoned blue jacket; there was a little
cap on his head, and a pigtail dependent from behind it--I was not
sufficiently acquainted with Chinese costumes to gather any idea of
his rank or position from these things--for aught I knew to the
contrary, he might be a mandarin who, for some extraordinary reason,
had found his way to this out-of-the-world spot. And my answer to his
courteous invitation doubtless sounded confused and awkward.
"Oh, thank you," I said, "pray don't let us put you to any trouble. If
we may just stand under your porch a moment--"
He stood a little aside, waving us politely into the hall behind him.
"Dr. Lorrimore would be very angry with me if I allowed a lady and
gentleman to stand in his door and did not invite them into his
house," he said, in the same even, mellifluous tones. "Please to
enter."
"Oh, is this Dr. Lorrimore's?" I said. "Thank you--we'll come in. Is
Dr. Lorrimore at home?"
"Presently," he answered. "He is in the village."
He closed the door as we entered, passed us with a bow, preceded us
along the hall, and threw open the door of a room which looked out on
a trim garden at the rear of the house. Still smiling and bland he
invited us to be seated, and then, with another bow, left the room,
apparently walking on velvet. Miss Raven and I glanced at each other.
"So Dr. Lorrimore has a Chinese man servant?" she said.
"How--picturesque!"
"Um!" I muttered.
She gave me a questioning, half-amused glance, and dropped her voice.
"Don't you like--Easterns?" she whispered.
"I like 'em in the East," I replied. "In Northumberland they
don't--shall we say they don't fit in with the landscape."
"I think he fits in--here," she retorted, looking round. "This is a
bit Oriental."
She was right in that. The room into which we had been ushered was
certainly suggestive of what one had heard of India. There were fine
Indian rugs on the floor; ivories and brasses in the cabinets; the
curtains were of fabric that could only have come out of some Eastern
bazaar; there was a faint, curious scent of sandal-wood and of dried
rose-leaves. And on the mantelpiece, where, in English households, a
marble clock generally stands, reposed a peculiarly ugly Hindu god,
cross-legged, hideous of form, whose baleful eyes seemed to follow all
our movements.
"Yes," I admitted, reflectively. "I think he fits in--here. Dr.
Lorrimore said he had been in India for some years, didn't he? He
appears to have brought some of it home with him."
"I suppose this is his drawing-room," said Miss Raven. "Now, if only
it looked out on palm-trees, and--and all other things that one
associates with India."
"Just so," said I. "What it does look out on, however, is a typical
English garden on which, at present, about a ton of rain is
descending. And we are nearly three miles from Ravensdene Court!"
"Oh, but it won't keep on like that, for long," she said. "And I suppose,
if it does, that we can get some sort of a conveyance--perhaps, Dr.
Lorrimore has a brougham that he'd lend us."
"I don't think that's very likely," said I. "The country practitioner,
I think, is more dependent on a bicycle than on a brougham. But here
is Dr. Lorrimore."
I had just caught sight of him as he entered his garden by a door set
in its ivy-covered wall. He ran hastily up the path to the
house--within a minute or two, divested of his mackintosh, he opened
the door of our room.
"So glad you were near enough to turn in here for shelter!" he
exclaimed, shaking hands with us warmly. "I see that neither of you
expected rain--now, I did, and I went out prepared."
"We made for the first door we saw," said Miss Raven. "But we'd no
idea it was yours, Dr. Lorrimore. And do tell me!--the Chinese," she
continued, in a whisper. "Is he your man-servant?"
Lorrimore laughed, rubbing his hands together. That day he was not in
the solemn, raven-hued finery in which he had visited Ravensdene
Court; instead he wore a suit of grey tweed, in which, I thought, he
looked rather younger and less impressive than in black. But he was
certainly no ordinary man, and as he stood there smiling at Miss
Raven's eager face, I felt conscious that he was the sort of somewhat
mysterious, rather elusive figure in which women would naturally be
interested.
"Man-servant!" he said, with another laugh. "He's all the servant I've
got. Wing--he's too or three other monosyllabic patronymics, but Wing
suffices--is an invaluable person. He's a model cook, valet,
launderer, general factotum--there's nothing that he can't or won't
do, from making the most perfect curries--I must have Mr. Raven to try
them against the achievements of his man!--to taking care about the
halfpennies, when he goes his round of the tradesmen. Oh, he's a
treasure--I assure you, Miss Raven, you could go the round of this
house, at any moment, without finding a thing out of place or a speck
of dust in any corner. A model!"
"You brought him from India, I suppose?" said I.
"I brought him from India, yes," he answered. "He'd been with me for
some time before I left. So, of course, we're thoroughly used to each
other."
"And does he really like living--here?" asked Miss Raven. "In such
absolutely different surroundings?"
"Oh, well, I think he's a pretty good old hand at making the best of the
moment," laughed Lorrimore. "He's a philosopher. Deep--inscrutable--in
short, he's Chinese. He has his own notions of happiness. At present he's
supremely happy in getting you some tea--you mightn't think it, but that
saffron-faced Eastern can make an English plum-cake that would put the
swellest London pastry-cook to shame! You must try it!"
The Chinaman presently summoned us to tea, which he had laid out in
another room--obviously Lorrimore's dining-room. There was nothing
Oriental in that; rather, it was eminently Victorian, an affair of
heavy furniture, steel engravings, and an array, on the sideboard, of
what, I suppose, was old family plate. Wing ushered us and his master
in with due ceremony and left us; when the door had closed on him,
Lorrimore gave us an arch glance.
"You see how readily and skilfully that chap adapts himself to the
needs of the moment," he said. "Now, you mightn't think it, but this
is the very first time I have ever been honoured with visitors to
afternoon tea. Observe how Wing immediately falls in with English
taste and custom! Without a word from me, out comes the silver
tea-pot, the best china, the finest linen! He produces his choicest
plum-cake; the bread-and-butter is cut with wafer-like thinness; and
the tea--ah, well, no Englishwoman, Miss Raven, can make tea as a
Chinese man-servant can!"
"It's quite plain that you've got a treasure in your house, Dr.
Lorrimore," said Miss Raven. "But then, the Chinese are very clever,
aren't they?"
"Very remarkable people, indeed," assented our host. "Shrewd,
observant, penetrative. I have often wondered if this man of mine
would find any great difficulty in seeing through a brick wall!"
"He would be a useful person, perhaps, in solving the present
mystery," said I. "The police seem to have got no further."
"Ah, the Quick business?" remarked Lorrimore. "Um!--well, as regards
that, it seems to me that whatever light is thrown on it will have to
be thrown from the other angle--from Devonport. From all that I heard
and gathered, it's very evident that what is really wanted is a strict
examination into the immediate happenings at Noah Quick's inn, and
also into the antecedents of Noah and Salter. But is there anything
fresh?"
I told him, briefly, all that had happened that afternoon--of the
information given by James Beeman and of the disappearance of the
tobacco-box.
"That's odd!" he remarked. "Let's see--it was the old gentleman I saw
at Ravensdene Court who had some fancy about that box, wasn't it?--Mr.
Cazalette. What was his idea, now?"
"Mr. Cazalette," I replied, "saw, or fancied he saw, certain marks or
scratches within the lid of the box which he took to have some
meaning: they were, he believed, made with design--with some purpose.
He thought that by photographing them, and then enlarging his
photograph, he would bring out those marks more clearly, and possibly
find out what they were really meant for."
"Yes?" said Lorrimore. "Well--what has he discovered?"
"Up to now nobody knows," said Miss Raven. "Mr. Cazalette won't tell
us anything."
"That looks as if he had discovered something," observed Lorrimore.
"But--old gentlemen are a little queer, and a little vain. Perhaps
he's suddenly going to let loose a tremendous theory and wants to
perfect it before he speaks. Oh, well!" he added, almost
indifferently, "I've known a good many murder mysteries in my
time--out in India--and I always found that the really good way of
getting at the bottom of them was to go right back!--as far back as
possible. If I were the police in charge of these cases, I should put
one question down before me and do nothing until I'd exhausted every
effort to solve it."
"And that would be--what?" I asked.
"This," said he. "What were the antecedents of Noah and Salter Quick?"
"You think they had a past?" suggested Miss Raven.
"Everybody has a past," answered Lorrimore. "It may be this; it may be
that. But nearly all the problems of the present have their origin and
solution in the past. Find out what and where those two middle-aged
men had been, in their time!--and then there'll be a chance to work
forward."
The rain cleared off soon after we had finished tea, and presently
Miss Raven and I took our leave. Lorrimore informed us that Mr. Raven
had asked him to dinner on the following evening; he would accordingly
see us again very soon.
"It will be quite an event for me!" he said, gaily, as he opened his
garden gate. "I live like an anchorite in this place. A little--a
very little practice--the folk are scandalously healthy!--and a great
deal of scientific investigation--that's my lot."
"But you have a treasure of a servant," observed Miss Raven. "Please
tell him that his plum-cake was perfection."
The Chinaman was just then standing at the open door, in waiting on
his master. Miss Raven threw him a laughing nod to which he responded
with a deep bow--we left them with that curious picture in our minds:
Lorrimore, essentially English in spite of his long residence in the
East; the Chinaman, bland, suave, smiling.
"A curious pair and a strange combination!" I remarked as we walked
away. "That house, at any rate, has a plenitude of brain-power in it.
What amazes me is that a clever chap like Master Wing should be
content to bury his talents in a foreign place, out of the world--to
make curries and plum-cake!"
"Perhaps he has a faithful devotion to his master," said Miss Raven.
"Anyway, it's very romantic, and picturesque, and that sort of thing,
to find a real live Chinaman in an English village--I wonder if the
poor man gets teased about his queer clothes and his pigtail?"
"Didn't Lorrimore say he was a philosopher?" said I. "Therefore he'll
be indifferent to criticism. I dare say he doesn't go about much."
That the Chinaman was not quite a recluse, however, I discovered a day
or two later, when, going along the headlands for a solitary stroll
after a stiff day's work in the library, I turned into the Mariner's
Joy for a glass of Claigue's undeniably good ale. Wing was just coming
out of the house as I entered it. He was as neat, as bland, and as
smiling as when I saw him before; he was still in his blue jacket, his
little cap. But he was now armed with a very large umbrella, and on
one arm he carried a basket, filled with small parcels; evidently he
had been on a shopping expedition. He greeted me with a deep obeisance
and respectful smile and went on his way--I entered the inn and found
its landlord alone in his bar-parlour.
"You get some queer customers in here, Mr. Claigue," I observed as he
attended to my modest wants. "Yet it's not often, I should think, that
a real live Chinaman walks in on you."
"He's been in two or three times, that one," replied Claigue.
"Chinaman he is, no doubt, sir, but it strikes me he must know as much
of this country as he knows of his own, for he speaks our tongue like
a native--a bit soft and mincing-like, but never at a loss for a word.
Dr. Lorrimore's servant, I understand."
"He has been in Dr. Lorrimore's service for some years," I answered.
"No doubt he's had abundant opportunities of picking up the language.
Still--it's an odd sight to see a Chinaman, pigtail and all, in these
parts, isn't it?"
"Well, I've had all sorts in here, time and again," replied Claigue
reflectively. "Sailor men, mostly. But," he added, with a meaning
look, "of all the lot, that poor chap as got knifed the other week was
the most mysterious! What do you make of it, sir?"
"I don't know what to make of it," said I. "I don't think anybody
knows what to make of it. The police don't, anyhow!"
"The police!" he exclaimed, with a note of derision. "Yah! they're
worse than a parcel of old women! Have they ever tried? Just a bit of
surface inquiry--and the thing slips past. Of course, the man was a
stranger. Nobody cares; that's about it. My notion is that the police
don't care the value of that match whether the thing's ever cleared up
or not. Nine days' wonder, you know, Mr. Middlebrook. Still--there's a
deal of talk about."
"I suppose you hear a good deal in this parlour of yours?" I
suggested.
"Nights--yes," he said. "A murder's always a good subject of
conversation. At first, those who come in here of an evening--regular
set there, in from the village at the back of the cliffs--they could
talk of naught else, starting first this and that theory. It's died
down a good deal, to be sure--there's been naught new to start it
afresh, on another tack--but there is some talk, even now."
"And what's the general opinion?" I inquired. "I suppose there is
one?"
"Aye, well, I couldn't say that there's a general opinion," he
answered. "There's a many opinions. And some queer notions, too!"
"Such as what?" I asked.
"Well," said he, with a laugh, as if he thought the suggestion
ridiculous, "there's one that comes nearer being what you might call
general than any of the others. There's a party of the older men that
come here who're dead certain that Quick was murdered by a woman!"
"A woman!" I exclaimed. "Whatever makes them think that?"
"Those footmarks," answered Claigue. "You'll remember, Mr.
Middlebrook, that there were two sets of prints in the sand
thereabouts. One was certainly Quick's--they fitted his boots. The
other was very light--delicate, you might call 'em--made, without
doubt, by some light-footed person. Well, some of the folk hereabouts
went along to Kernwick Cove the day of the murder, and looked at those
prints. They say the lighter ones were made by a woman."
I let my recollections go back to the morning on which I had found
Quick lying dead on the patch of yellow sand.
"Of course," I said, reflectively, "those marks are gone, now."
"Gone? Aye!" exclaimed Claigue. "Long since. There's been a good many
tides washed over that spot since this, Mr. Middlebrook. But they
haven't washed out the fact that a man's life was let out there! And
whether it was man or woman that stuck that knife into the poor
fellow's shoulders, it'll come out, some day."
"I'm not so sure of that," said I. "There's a goodly percentage of
unsolved mysteries of that kind."
"Well, I believe in the old saying," he declared. "Murder will out!
What I don't like is the notion that the murderer may be walking about
this quarter, free, unsuspected. Why, I may ha' served him with a
glass of beer! What's to prevent it? Murderers don't carry a label on
their foreheads!"
"What do you think the police ought to do--or ought to have done?" I
asked.
"I think they should ha' started working backward," he replied, with
decision. "I read all I could lay hands on in the newspapers, and I
came to the conclusion that there was a secret behind those two men.
Come! two brothers murdered on the same night--hundreds of miles
apart! That's no common crime, Mr Middlebrook. Who were these two
men--Noah and Salter Quick? What was their past history? That's what
the police ought to ha' busied themselves with. If they lost or
couldn't pick up the scent here, they should ha' tried far back. Go
backward they should--if they want to go forward."
That was the second time I had heard that advice, and I returned to
Ravensdene Court reflecting on it. Certainly it was sensible. Who,
after all, were Noah and Salter Quick--what was their life-story. I
was wondering how that could be brought to light, when, having dressed
for dinner, and I was going downstairs, Mr. Cazalette's door opened
and he quietly drew me inside his room.
"Middlebrook!" he whispered--though he had carefully shut the
door--"you're a sensible lad, and I'll acquaint you with a matter.
This very morning, as I was taking my bit of a dip, my pocket-book was
stolen out of the jacket that I'd left on the shore. Stolen,
Middlebrook!"
"Was there anything of great value in it?" I asked.
"Aye, there was!" answered Mr. Cazalette. "There was that in it which,
in my opinion, might be some sort of a clue to the real truth about
yon man's murder!"