"Look you here, Scarterfield," said I. "Supposing a gang of men--men of no conscience, desperate, adventurous men--gets together, as men were together on that ship, the doings and fate of which seem to be pretty mysterious. They're all out for what they can get. One of them is in possession of a valuable secret, and he imparts it to the others, or to some of them--a chosen lot. There have been known such cases--where a secret is shared by say five or six men--in which murder after murder occurs until the secret is only held by one or two. A half-share in a thing is worth more than one-sixth, Scarterfield--and a secret of one is far more valuable than a secret shared with three. Do you understand now?" "I see!" he answered slowly. "You mean that Salter and Noah may have got rid of Netherfield Baxter and that somebody has got rid of them?" "Precisely!" said I. "You put it very clearly." "Well," he said, "if that's so, there are--as has been plain all along--two men concerned in putting the Quicks out of the way. For Noah was finished off on the same night that saw Salter finished--and there was four hundred miles distance between the scenes of their respective murders. The man who killed Noah was not the man who killed Salter, to be sure." "Of course!" I agreed. "We've always known there were two. There may be more--a gang of them, and remarkably clever fellows. But I'm getting sure that the desire to recover some hidden treasure, valuables, something of that sort, was at the bottom of it, and now I'm all the surer because of what we've found out about this monastic spoil. But there are things that puzzle me." "Such as what?" he asked. "Well, that eagerness of Salter Quick's to find a churchyard with the name Netherfield on the stones," I replied. "And his coming to that part of the Northumbrian coast expecting to find it. Because, so far as the experts know, there is no such name on any stone, nor in any parish register, in all that district. Who, then, told him of the name? You see, if my theory is correct, and Baxter told him and Noah, he'd tell them the exact locality." "Ah, but would he?" said Scarterfield. "He mightn't. He might only give them a general notion. Still--Netherfield it was that Salter asked for." "That's certain," said I. "And--I'm puzzled why. But I'm puzzled still more about another thing. If the men who murdered Noah and Salter Quick were in possession of the secret as well, why did they rip their clothes to pieces, searching for--something? Why, later, did somebody steal that tobacco-box from under the very noses of the police?" Scarterfield shook his head: the shake meant a great deal. "That fairly settles me!" he remarked. "Why, the murderer must have been actually present at the inquest." But at that I shook my head.