"And--this money?" I asked. "Is it much?" "That was one of the first things I went for," answered Scarterfield. "Naturally, when a man comes to the end which Noah Quick met with, inquiries are made of his solicitors and his bankers. Noah had both in our parts. The solicitors knew nothing about him except that he had employed them now and then in trifling matters, and that of late he had made a will in which, in brief fashion, he left everything of which he died possessed to his brother Salter, whose address he gave as being the same as his own; about the same time they had made a will for Salter, in which he bequeathed everything he had to Noah. But as to the antecedents of Noah and Salter--nothing! Then I approached the bankers. There I got more information. When Noah Quick first went to Devonport he deposited a considerable sum of money with one of the leading banks at Plymouth, and at the time of his death he had several thousand pounds lying there to his credit: his bankers also had charge of valuable securities of his. On Salter Quick's coming to the Admiral Parker, Noah introduced him to this bank: Salter deposited there a sum of about two thousand pounds, and of that he had only withdrawn about a hundred. So he, too, at the time of his death, had a large balance; also, he left with the bankers, for safe keeping, some valuable scrip and securities, chiefly of Indian railways. Altogether, those bankers hold a lot of money that belongs to the two brothers, and there are certain indications that they made their money--previous to coming to Devonport--in the far East. But the bankers know no more of their antecedents than the solicitors do. In both instances--banking matters and legal matters--the two men seem to have confined their words to strict business, and no more; the only man I have come across who can give me the faintest idea of anything respecting their past is a regular frequenter of the Admiral Parker who says that he once gathered from Salter Quick that he and Noah were natives of Rotherhithe, or somewhere in that part, and that they were orphans and the last of their lot." "Of course, you have been to Rotherhithe--making inquiries?" suggested Mr. Raven. "I have, sir," replied Scarterfield. "And I searched various parish registers there, and found nothing that helped me. If the two brothers did live at Rotherhithe, they must have been taken there as children and born elsewhere--they weren't born in Rotherhithe parish. Nor could I come across anybody at all who knew anything of them in seafaring circles thereabouts. I came to the conclusion that whoever those two men were, and whatever they had been, most of their lives had been spent away from this country." "Probably in the far East, as you previously suggested," muttered Mr. Cazalette.