"Oh, dear me, no!" said I. "Not at all! But--some agent of his was certainly there. My own impression is that Mr. Cazalette's eagerness about that box gave the whole show away. Shall I tell you how I figure things out? Well, I think there were men--we don't know who!--that either knew, with absolute certainty, or were pretty sure that Noah Quick, and Salter Quick were in possession of a secret and that one or the other--and perhaps both--carried it on him, in the shape of papers. Each was killed for that secret. The murderers found nothing, in either case. But Mr. Cazalette's remarks, made before a lot of men, drew attention to the tobacco-box, and the murderer determined to get it. And--what was easier than to abstract it, at the inquest, where it was exhibited in company with several other things of Salter's?" "I can't say if it was easy or not, Mr. Middlebrook," observed Scarterfield. "Were you there--present?" "I was there," said I. "So were most people of the neighbourhood--as many as could get into the room, anyway. A biggish room--there'd be a couple of hundred people in it. And many of them were strangers. When the proceedings were over, men were crowding about the table on which Quick's things had been laid out, for exhibition to the coroner and the jury--what easier than for someone to pick up that box? The place was so crowded that such an action would pass unnoticed." "Very evident it did!" observed Scarterfield. "But I've heard of such things being taken out of sheer curiosity--morbid desire to get hold of something that had to do with a murder. However, if this particular thing was abstracted by the murderer, or by somebody acting on his behalf it looks as if he, or they, were on the spot. And then--that affair of Mr. Cazalette's pocket-book!" "Well, Scarterfield," said I. "There's another way of regarding both these thefts. Supposing tobacco-box and pocket-book were stolen, not as means of revealing a secret, but so that no one else--Cazalette or anybody--should get at it! Eh?" "There's something in that," he admitted thoughtfully. "You mean that the murderers had already got rid of the Quicks so that there should be two less in the secret, and these things stolen lest outsiders should get any inkling of it?" "Precisely!" I answered. "Closeness and secrecy--that's been at the back of everything so far. I tell you--you're dealing with unusually crafty brains!" "I wish I could get the faintest idea of whose brains they were!" he sighed. "A direct clue, now--" Before he could say any more one of the hotel servants came into the coffee-room and made for our table. "There's a man in the hall asking for Mr. Scarterfield," he announced. "Looks like a seafaring man, sir. He says Mrs. Ormthwaite told him he'd find you here." "Woman with whom Baxter used to lodge," muttered Scarterfield, in an aside to me. "Come along, Mr. Middlebrook--you never know what you mayn't hear."