"Well, if he's wounded, he can't get far without attracting notice," declared Scarterfield. "We'll organize a search for him presently. But first let's have a look into the quarters that these Chinamen occupied." The smoke of the fire--which seemed to have broken out in the forecastle and had been confined to it by the efforts of the sailors from the destroyer--had now almost cleared away, and we went forward to the galley. The fire had not spread to that, and after the scenes of blood and violence astern and in the cabin the place looked refreshingly spick and span; there was, indeed, an unusual air of neatness and cleanliness about it. The various pots and pans shone gaily in the sun's glittering lights; every utensil was in its place; evidently the galley's controlling spirit had been a meticulously careful person who hated disorder as heartily as dirt. And on a shelf near the stove was laid out what I took to be the things which the vanished cook, whoever he might be, had destined for breakfast--a tempting one of kidneys and bacon, soles, eggs, a curry. I gathered from this, and pointed my conclusion out to Scarterfield, that the presiding genius of the galley had had no idea of the mutiny into which he had been plunged soon after midnight. "Aye!" said Scarterfield. "Just so--I see your point. And--you think that man of Lorrimore's, Wing, was aboard, and if so, he's the man who's escaped?" "I've strong suspicions," said I. "Yet, they were based on a plum-cake." "Well, and I've known of worse clues," he rejoined. "But--I wonder? Now, if only we knew----" Just then Lorrimore came along, poking his head into the galley. He suddenly uttered a sharp exclamation and reached an arm to a black silk cap which hung from a peg on the boarding above the stove. "That's Wing's!" he said, in emphatic tones. "I saw him make that cap himself!" CHAPTER XXV CLEAR DECKS The bit of head-gear which Lorrimore had taken down assumed a new interest; Scarterfield and I gazed at it as if it might speak to us. Nevertheless the detective when he presently spoke showed some incredulity. "That's the sort of cap that any Chinaman wears," he remarked. "It may have belonged to any of them." "No!" answered Lorrimore, with emphatic assurance. "That's my man's. I saw him making it--he's as deft with his fingers, at that sort of thing, as he is at cooking. And since this cap is his, and as he's not amongst the lot there on deck, he's the man that you, Middlebrook, saw escaping in the boat. And since he is that man, I know where he'd be making." "Where, then?" demanded Scarterfield. "To my house!" answered Lorrimore. Scarterfield showed more doubt. "I don't think that's likely, doctor," he said. "Presumably, he's got those jewels on him, and I should say he'd get away from this with the notion of trusting to his own craft to get unobserved on a train and lose himself in Newcastle. A Chinaman with valuables on him worth eighty thousand pounds? Come!"