Jacob Baxter—Henry Drax

Jacob Baxter and Henry Drax are employer and hired killer, bound by a scheme that turns into a plan to eliminate them both. Baxter recruits Drax to kill Patrick Sumner, then arranges for Stevens to kill Drax; the design reveals how thoroughly their alliance depends on profit and coercion, and how little control Baxter has over the violence he tries to manage.

Recruitment and the Terms of the Alliance

Jacob Baxter explains that when Henry Drax returned to town a month earlier, he decided to bring him into his plans despite recognizing him as dangerous. Baxter’s later account to Patrick Sumner presents that decision as a fatal error: he believed Drax could be used, then came to see him as a threat that could not be reasoned with or safely directed. The relationship begins, by Baxter’s own description, not in trust but in a calculated willingness to employ a man whose capacity for violence might serve a business purpose.

Baxter’s offer fixes the alliance in commercial terms. When Henry Drax asks for a larger share, Baxter reminds him that they agreed on five hundred guineas, a sum Baxter says exceeds what he had offered Cavendish. The exchange makes clear that Drax regards the danger of the work as grounds to renegotiate, while Baxter treats the prior bargain as binding. Their disagreement is not about whether violence will be used, but about who will profit from it.

Sumner Becomes a Threat to Both Men

The immediate crisis begins when Baxter believes Sumner knows too much and may go to a magistrate. Baxter distinguishes between what Sumner already knows and what he could infer, making the danger of exposure—not simply a confirmed disclosure—the motive for urgent action. He has arranged for Sumner to stay at the Pilgrim’s Arms and plans to have him brought away from the inn that night, before he can seek official help in the morning.

Baxter insists that the stakes reach beyond his own safety. He argues that if Sumner speaks, their money will disappear, Henry Drax will be hanged, and Baxter himself will be imprisoned. Henry Drax counters that Sumner cannot know about the sinking. Their exchange exposes a difference in their assessments: Drax minimizes the risk by focusing on the secret he thinks Sumner lacks, while Baxter fears what Sumner can piece together and the consequences of letting him act. The relationship is held together, for the moment, by a shared financial interest and a common vulnerability to discovery.

The Double-Murder Design

Baxter assigns Henry Drax the first killing because he trusts Drax’s experience and composure more than Stevens’s. He plans to have Stevens lead Sumner from the Pilgrim’s Arms under the pretext of urgent news about the Volunteer, taking him by way of Trippett, past the foundry, and into the old timber yard. Henry Drax will be waiting there to shoot Sumner. Baxter then orders Stevens to shoot Henry Drax, so that the two deaths will appear to be a mutual killing.

Baxter’s instructions extend to the staging of the scene. Stevens is to place the revolver in Sumner’s hand, remove the men’s possessions, and leave. Baxter specifies that Drax should be shot in the chest rather than the back, and that the gun should be put in his right hand rather than his left. He imagines that the police will find two dead strangers, each apparently killed by the other, with no witness or sign connecting the scene to Baxter. In his account, the apparent symmetry of two murderers and two victims will make the crime seem to resolve itself, while freeing him from Henry Drax’s threats and demands.

Henry Drax does not simply accept Baxter’s attempt to direct him. He asks for a larger share after Baxter praises his willingness to act, turning the discussion back to payment. Baxter refuses to change the agreed five hundred guineas. The exchange shows both the practical basis of their alliance and its instability: Baxter needs Drax to carry out the dangerous first step, but Drax knows that his usefulness gives him leverage.

The Partnership Turns Against Itself

When Baxter later explains himself to Sumner, he recasts his plan as an effort to rid himself of a dangerous employee before Drax destroys him and his business. He describes Henry Drax as ungovernable and says force seemed necessary because Drax could not be persuaded or led. Yet Baxter’s proposed solution depends on using precisely that violence: he intends to make Sumner bait, have Drax attack him, and then have Stevens kill Drax. His claim to act from business sense cannot conceal the self-preservation and profit at the center of the design.

Baxter also admits that Sumner’s letter from Lerwick made him understand that he had bound himself to a monster. He presents the letter as the point at which his doubts hardened into a decision to set a trap, though he acknowledges that the plan was reckless and ill-considered. When Sumner tells him that Stevens is dead, Baxter does not directly confirm the circumstances. Instead, he continues explaining why he had used Sumner as bait, leaving the conversation at the point where his elaborate attempt to control the men around him meets the consequences Sumner brings to him.

The relationship’s defining reversal is that Baxter hires Henry Drax as an instrument of violence, then treats the same violence as a threat to be removed through another killing. His scheme depends on separating the men into controllable roles, but every role carries its own danger: Drax can demand more, Stevens can become a liability, and Sumner can expose what Baxter hoped to conceal. The alliance therefore gives way to an attempted betrayal, revealing not a stable partnership but a contest over money, silence, and survival.