honest bank-manager. The
bank-manager, left in charge of this old-fashioned bank at Blyth,
where any supervision of his doings was no doubt pretty slack, and
where he was, of course, fully trusted, examines the nature of the
various matters committed to his care, and finds out the contents of
those Forestburne chests. He then enters into a conspiracy with Baxter
for purloining them and some other valuables--those jewels you
mentioned, Middlebrook. It would not be a difficult thing to get them
away from the bank premises without anyone knowing. Then the two
conspirators secrete them in a safe and unlikely place, easily
accessible, I take it, from the sea. Probably, they meant to remove
them for good and all, just before the dishonest bank-manager's
temporary residence in the town came to an end. But his fatal accident
occurs. Then Master Baxter is placed in a nice fix! He knows that his
fellow-criminal's sudden death will necessarily lead to some
examination, more or less thorough, of the effects at the bank. That
examination, to be sure, was made. But Baxter has gone, cleared out,
vanished, before the result is known. He may have had an idea--we can
only guess at it--that suspicion would fall on him. Anyway, he leaves
the town, and is never seen in or near it again. If this theory is a
true one, things seem pretty clear up to this point."

"Of course," said I, "it is theory! All supposition, you know."

"Right!" assented Lorrimore. "But let us theorise a bit further--I am,
you see, merely following out the train of thought which seems to have
been set up in you and in Scarterfield. Baxter disappears. Nobody
knows where he's gone. There is a veil drawn over a certain
period--pretty thickly. But we, who have had occasion to try to pierce
it, have seen, so we think, through certain tears and rifts in it. We
know that a certain number of years ago there was a trading ship in
the Yellow Sea, the _Elizabeth Robinson_, concerning the fate of which
there is more mystery than is quite in accordance with either safety
or respectability. She was bound from Hong-Kong to Chemulpo, and she
never reached Chemulpo. But we also know that on her, when she left
Hong-Kong there were two men, presumably brothers, whose names were
Noah Quick and Salter Quick, set down, mind you, not as members of the
crew, but as passengers. Also there was a Chinese cook, of the name of
Lo Chuh Fen. And there was another man, who called himself
Netherfield