Just then the dinner-bell rang, and he put the photographic print away, and we went downstairs together. That was the evening on which Dr. Lorrimore was to dine with us--we found him in the hall, talking to Mr. Raven and his niece. Joining them, we found that their subject of conversation was the same that had just engaged Mr. Cazalette and myself--the tobacco-box. It turned out that the police-inspector had been round to Lorrimore's house, inquiring if Lorrimore, who, with the police-surgeon, had occupied a seat at the table whereon the Quick relics were laid out at the inquest, had noticed that now missing and consequently all-important object. "Of course I saw it!" remarked Lorrimore, narrating this. "I told him I not only saw it, but handled it--so, too, did several other people--Mr. Cazalette there had drawn attention to the thing when we were examining the dead man, and there was some curiosity about it." (Here Mr. Cazalette, standing close by me, nudged my elbow, to remind me of what he had just said upstairs.) "And I told the inspector something else, or, rather, put him in mind of something he'd evidently forgotten," continued Lorrimore. "That inquest, or, to be precise, the adjourned inquest, was attended by a good many strangers, who had evidently been attracted by mere curiosity. There were a lot of people there who certainly did not belong to this neighbourhood. And when the proceedings were over, they came crowding round that table, morbidly inquisitive about the dead man's belongings. What easier, as I said to the inspector, than for some one of them--perhaps a curio-hunter--to quietly pick up that box and make off with it? There are people who'd give a good deal to lay hold of a souvenir of that sort." Mr. Raven muttered something about no accounting for tastes, and we went in to dinner, and began to talk of less gruesome things. Lorrimore was a brilliant and accomplished conversationalist, and the time passed pleasantly until, as we men were lingering a little over our wine, and Miss Raven was softly playing the piano in the adjoining drawing-room, the butler came in and whispered to his master. Raven turned an astonished face to the rest of us. "There's the police-inspector here now," he said, "and with him a detective--from Devonport. They are anxious to see me--and you, Middlebrook. The detective has something to tell." CHAPTER X THE YELLOW SEA