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The Middle of Things

by J. S. Fletcher · English · Gutenberg #9902 · 432,693 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Middle of Things

Author: J. S. Fletcher


        
Release date: February 1, 2006 [eBook #9902]
                Most recently updated: December 27, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9902

Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIDDLE OF THINGS ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.










                          THE MIDDLE OF THINGS

                            BY J.S. FLETCHER

                                  1922




CONTENTS

CHAPTER


      I FACED WITH REALITY

     II NUMBER SEVEN IN THE SQUARE

    III WHO WAS ASHTON?

     IV THE RING AND THE KNIFE

      V LOOK FOR THAT MAN!

     VI SPECULATIONS

    VII WHAT WAS THE SECRET?

   VIII NEWS FROM ARCADIA

     IX LOOKING BACKWARD

      X THE PARISH REGISTER

     XI WHAT HAPPENED IN PARIS

    XII THE GREY MARE INN

   XIII THE JAPANESE CABINET

    XIV THE ELLINGHAM MOTTO

     XV THE PRESENT HOLDER

    XVI THE OUTHOUSE

   XVII THE CLAIMANT

  XVIII LET HIM APPEAR!

    XIX UNDER EXAMINATION

     XX SURPRISING READINESS

    XXI THE MARSEILLES MEETING

   XXII ON REMAND

  XXIII IS THIS MAN RIGHT?

   XXIV THE BROKEN LETTER

    XXV THROUGH THE TELEPHONE

   XXVI THE DISMAL STREET

  XXVII THE BACK WAY

 XXVIII THE TRUTH

   XXIX WHO IS TO TELL HER?




CHAPTER I

FACED WITH REALITY


On that particular November evening, Viner, a young gentleman of means
and leisure, who lived in a comfortable old house in Markendale Square,
Bayswater, in company with his maiden aunt Miss Bethia Penkridge, had
spent his after-dinner hours in a fashion which had become a habit. Miss
Penkridge, a model housekeeper and an essentially worthy woman, whose
whole day was given to supervising somebody or something, had an
insatiable appetite for fiction, and loved nothing so much as that her
nephew should read a novel to her after the two glasses of port which she
allowed herself every night had been thoughtfully consumed and he and she
had adjourned from the dining-room to the hearthrug in the library. Her
tastes, however, in Viner's opinion were somewhat, if not decidedly,
limited. Brought up in her youth on Miss Braddon, Wilkie Collins and Mrs.
Henry Wood, Miss Penkridge had become a confirmed slave to the
sensational. She had no taste for the psychological, and nothing but
scorn for the erotic. What she loved was a story which began with crime
and ended with a detection--a story which kept you wondering who did it,
how it was done, and when the doing was going to be laid bare to the
light of day. Nothing pleased her better than to go to bed with a brain
titivated with the mysteries of the last three chapters; nothing gave her
such infinite delight as to find, when the final pages were turned, that
all her own theories were wrong, and that the real criminal was somebody
quite other than the person she had fancied. For a novelist who was so
little master of his trade as to let you see when and how things were
going, Miss Penkridge had little but good-natured pity; for one who led
you by all sorts of devious tracks to a startling and surprising
sensation she cherished a whole-souled love; but for the creator of a
plot who could keep his secret alive and burning to his last few
sentences she felt the deepest thing that she could give to any human
being--respect. Such a master was entered permanently on her mental
library list.

At precisely ten o'clock that evening Viner read the last page of a novel
which had proved to be exactly suited to his aunt's tastes. A dead
silence fell on the room, broken only by the crackling of the logs in the
grate. Miss Penkridge dropped her knitting on her silk-gowned knees and
stared at the leaping flames; her nephew, with an odd glance at her, rose
from his easy-chair, picked up a pipe and began to fill it from a
tobacco-jar on the mantelpiece. The clock had ticked several times before
Miss Penkridge spoke.

"Well!" she said, with the accompanying sigh which denotes complete
content. "So he did it! Now, I should never have thought it! The last
person of the whole lot! Clever--very clever! Richard, you'll get all the
books that that man has written!"

Viner lighted his pipe, thrust his hands in the pockets of his trousers
and leaned back against the mantelpiece.

"My dear aunt!" he said half-teasingly, half-seriously. "You're worse
than a drug-taker. Whatever makes a highly-respectable, shrewd old lady
like you cherish such an insensate fancy for this sort of stuff?"

"Stuff?" demanded Miss Penkridge, who had resumed her knitting. "Pooh!
It's not stuff--it's life! Real life--in the form of fiction!"

Viner shook his head, pityingly. He never read fiction for his own
amusement; his tastes in reading lay elsewhere, in solid directions.
Moreover, in those directions he was a good deal of a student, and he
knew more of his own library than of the world outside it. So he shook
his head again.

"Life!" he said. "You don't mean to say that you think those things"--he
pointed a half-scornful finger to a pile of novels which had come in from
Mudie's that day--"really represent life?"

"What else?" demanded Miss Penkridge.

"Oh--I don't know," replied Viner vaguely. "Fancy, I suppose, and
imagination, and all that sort of thing--invention, you know, and so on.
But--life! Do you really think such things happen in real life, as those
we've been reading about?"

"I don't think anything about it," retorted Miss Penkridge sturdily. "I'm
sure of it. I never had a novel yet, nor heard one read to me, that was
half as strong as it might have been!"

"Queer thing, one never hears or sees of these things, then!" exclaimed
Viner. "I never have!--and I've been on this planet thirty years."

"That sort of thing hasn't come your way, Richard," remarked Miss
Penkridge sententiously. "And you don't read the popular Sunday
newspapers. I do! They're full of crime of all sorts. So's the world. And
as to mysteries--well, I've known of two or three in my time that were
much more extraordinary than any I've ever read of in novels. I should
think so!"

Viner dropped into his easy-chair and stretched his legs.

"Such as--what?" he asked.

"Well," answered Miss Penkridge, regarding her knitting with appraising
eyes, "there was a case that excited great interest when your poor mother
and I were mere girls. It was in our town--young Quainton, the banker. He
was about your age, married to a very pretty girl, and they'd a fine
baby. He was immensely rich, a strong healthy young fellow, fond of life,
popular, without a care in the world, so far as any one knew. One
morning, after breakfasting with his wife, he walked away from his house,
on the outskirts of the town--only a very small town, mind you--to go to
the bank, as usual. He never reached the bank--in fact, he was never seen
again, never heard of again. He'd only half a mile to walk, along a
fairly frequented road, but--complete, absolute, final disappearance!
And--never cleared up!"

"Odd!" agreed Viner. "Very odd, indeed. Well--any more?"

"Plenty!" said Miss Penkridge, with a click of her needles. "There was
the case of poor young Lady Marshflower--as sweet a young thing as man
could wish to see! Your mother and I saw her married--she was a
Ravenstone, and only nineteen. She married Sir Thomas Marshflower, a man
of forty. They'd only just come home from the honeymoon when
it--happened. One morning Sir Thomas rode into the market-town to preside
at the petty sessions--he hadn't been long gone when a fine,
distinguished-looking man called, and asked to see Lady Marshflower. He
was shown into the morning-room--she went to him. Five minutes later a
shot was heard. The servants rushed in--to find their young mistress shot
through the heart, dead. But the murderer? Disappeared as completely as
last year's snow! That was never solved, never!"

"Do you mean to tell me the man was never caught?" exclaimed Viner.

"I tell you that not only was the man never caught, but that although Sir
Thomas spent a fortune and nearly lost his senses in trying to find out
who he was, what he wanted and what he had to do with Lady Marshflower,
he never discovered one single fact!" affirmed Miss Penkridge. "There!"

"That's queerer than the other," observed Viner. "A veritable mystery!"

"Veritable mysteries!" said Miss Penkridge, with a sniff. "The world's
full of 'em! How many murders go undetected--how many burglaries are
never traced--how many forgeries are done and never found out? Piles of
'em--as the police could tell you. And talking about forgeries, what
about old Barrett, who was _the_ great man at Pumpney, when your mother
and I were girls there? That was a fine case of crime going on for years
and years and years, undetected--aye, and not even suspected!"

"What was it?" asked Viner, who had begun by being amused and was now
becoming interested. "Who was Barrett?"

"If you'd known Pumpney when we lived there," replied Miss Penkridge,
"you wouldn't have had to ask twice who Mr. Samuel Barrett was. He was
everybody. He was everything--except honest. But nobody knew that--until
it was too late. He was a solicitor by profession, but that was a mere
nothing--in comparison. He was chief spirit in the place. I don't know
how many times he wasn't mayor of Pumpney. He held all sorts of offices.
He was a big man at the parish church--vicar's warden, and all that. And
he was trustee for half the moneyed people in the town--everybody wanted
Samuel Barrett, for trustee or executor; he was such a solid,
respectable, square-toed man, the personification of integrity. And
he died, suddenly, and then it was found that he'd led a double life,
and had an establishment here in London, and was a gambler and a
speculator, and Heaven knows what, and all the money that had been
intrusted to him was nowhere, and he'd systematically forged, and
cooked accounts, and embezzled corporation money--and he'd no doubt
have gone on doing it for many a year longer if he hadn't had a stroke
of apoplexy. And that wasn't in a novel!" concluded Miss Penkridge
triumphantly. "Novels--Improbability--pooh! Judged by what some people
can tell of life, the novel that's improbable hasn't yet been written!"

"Well!" remarked Viner after a pause, "I dare say you're right, Aunt
Bethia. Only, you see, I haven't come across the things in life that you
read about in novels."

"You may yet," replied Miss Penkridge. "But when anybody says to me of a
novel that it's impossible and far-fetched and so on, I'm always inclined
to remind him of the old adage. For you can take it from me, Richard,
that truth is stranger than fiction, and that life's full of queer
things. Only, as you say, we don't all come across the strange things."

The silvery chime of the clock on the mantelpiece caused Miss Penkridge,
at this point, to bring her work and her words to a summary conclusion.
Hurrying her knitting into the hand-bag which she carried at her belt,
she rose, kissed her nephew and departed bedward; while Viner, after
refilling his pipe, proceeded to carry out another nightly proceeding
which had become a habit. Every night, throughout the year, he always
went for a walk before going to bed. And now, getting into an overcoat
and pulling a soft cap over his head, he let himself out of the house,
and crossing the square, turned down a side-street and marched slowly in
the direction of the Bayswater Road.

November though it was the night was fine and clear, and there was a
half-moon in the heavens; also there was rather more than a suspicion of
frost in the air, and the stars, accordingly, wore a more brilliant
appearance. To one who loved night strolling, as Viner did, this was
indeed an ideal night for the time of year; and on this occasion,
therefore, he went further than usual going along Bayswater Road as far
as Notting Hill Gate, and thence returning through the various streets
and terraces which lay between Pembridge Gardens and Markendale Square.
And while he strolled along, smoking his pipe, watching the twinkling
lights of passing vehicles and enjoying the touch of frost, he was
thinking, in a half-cynical, half-amused way, of his Aunt Bethia's taste
for the sensational fiction and of her evidently sincere conviction that
there were much stranger things in real life than could be found between
the covers of any novel.

"Those were certainly two very odd instances which she gave me," he
mused, "those of the prosperous banker and the pretty bride. In the
first, how on earth did the man contrive to get away unobserved from a
town in which, presumably, every soul knew him? Why did he go? Did he go?
Is his body lying at the bottom of some hole by some roadside? Was he
murdered in broad daylight on a public road? Did he lose his reason or
his memory, and wander away and away? I think, as my aunt sagely
remarked, that nobody is ever going to find anything about that affair!
Then my Lady Marshflower--there's a fine mystery! Who was the man? What
did she know about him? Where had they met? Had they ever met? Why did he
shoot her? How on earth did he contrive to disappear without leaving some
trace? How--"

At this point Viner's musings and questionings were suddenly and rudely
interrupted. Unconsciously he had walked back close to his own Square,
but on the opposite side to that by which he had left it, approaching it
by one of the numerous long terraces which run out of the main road in
the Westbourne Grove district--when his musings were rudely interrupted.
Between this terrace and Markendale Square was a narrow passage, little
frequented save by residents, or by such folk familiar enough with the
neighbourhood to know that it afforded a shortcut. Viner was about to
turn into this passage, a dark affair set between high walls, when a
young man darted hurriedly out of it, half collided with him, uttered a
hasty word of apology, ran across the road and disappeared round the
nearest corner. But just there stood a street-lamp, and in its glare
Viner caught sight of the hurrying young man's face. And when the
retreating footsteps had grown faint, Viner still stood staring in the
direction in which they had gone.

"That's strange!" he muttered. "I've seen that chap somewhere--I know
him. Now, who is he? And what made him in such a deuce of a hurry?"

It was very quiet at that point. There seemed to be nobody about. Behind
him, far down the long, wide terrace, he heard slow, measured
steps--that, of course, was a policeman on his beat. But beyond the
subdued murmur of the traffic in the Bayswater Road in one direction and
in Bishop's Road, Viner heard nothing but those measured steps. And after
listening to them for a minute, he turned into the passage out of which
the young man had just rushed so unceremoniously.

There was just one lamp in that passage--an old-fashioned affair, fixed
against the wall, halfway down. It threw but little light on its
surroundings. Those surroundings were ordinary enough. The passage itself
was about thirty yards in length. It was inclosed on each-side by old
brick walls, so old that the brick had grown black with age and smoke.
These walls were some fifteen feet in height; here and there they were
pierced by doors--the doors of the yards at the rear of the big houses on
either side. The doors were set flush with the walls--Viner, who often
walked through that passage at night, and who had something of a
whimsical fancy, had thought more than once that after nightfall the
doors looked as if they had never been opened, never shut. There was an
air of queer, cloistral or prisonlike security in their very look. They
were all shut now, as he paced down the passage, as lonely a place at
that hour as you could find in all London. It was queer, he reflected,
that he scarcely ever remembered meeting anybody in that passage.

And then he suddenly paused, pulling himself up with a strange
consciousness that at last he was to meet something. Beneath the feeble
light of the one lamp Viner saw a man. Not a man walking, or standing
still, or leaning against the wall, but lying full length across the
flagged pavement, motionless--so motionless that at the end of the first
moment of surprise, Viner felt sure that he was in the presence of death.
And then he stole nearer, listening, and looked down, and drawing his
match-box from his pocket added the flash of a match to the poor rays
from above. Then he saw white linen, and a bloodstain slowly spreading
over its glossy surface.




CHAPTER II

NUMBER SEVEN IN THE SQUARE


Before the sputter of the match had died out, Viner had recognized the
man who lay dead at his feet. He was a man about whom he had recently
felt some curiosity, a man who, a few weeks before, had come to live in a
house close to his own, in company with an elderly lady and a pretty
girl; Viner and Miss Penkridge had often seen all three in and about
Markendale Square, and had wondered who they were. The man looked as if
he had seen things in life--a big, burly, bearded man of apparently sixty
years of age, hard, bronzed; something about him suggested sun and wind
as they are met with in the far-off places. Usually he was seen in loose,
comfortable, semi-nautical suits of blue serge; there was a roll in his
walk that suggested the sea. But here, as he lay before Viner, he was in
evening dress, with a light overcoat thrown over it; the overcoat was
unbuttoned and the shirt-front exposed. And on it that sickening crimson
stain widened and widened as Viner watched.

Here, without doubt, was murder, and Viner's thoughts immediately turned
to two things--one the hurrying young man whose face he thought he had
remembered in some vague fashion; the other the fact that a policeman
was slowly pacing up the terrace close by. He turned and ran swiftly up
the still deserted passage. And there was the policeman, twenty yards
away, coming along with the leisureliness of one who knows that he has a
certain area to patrol. He pulled himself to an attitude of watchful
attention as Viner ran up to him; then suddenly recognizing Viner as a
well-known inhabitant of the Square, touched the rim of his helmet.

"I say!" said Viner in the hushed voice of one who imparts strange and
confidential tidings. "There's a man lying dead in the passage round
here. And without doubt murdered! There's blood all over his
shirt-front."

The policeman stood stock still for the fraction of a second. Then he
pulled out his whistle and blew loudly and insistently. Before the
shrill call had died away, he was striding towards the passage, with
Viner at his side.

"Did you find him, Mr. Viner?" he asked.

"I found him," asserted Viner. "Just now--halfway down the passage!"

"Sure he's dead, sir?"

"Dead--yes! And murdered, too! And--"

He was about to mention the hurrying young man, but they had just then
arrived at the mouth of the passage, and the policeman once more drew out
his whistle and blew more insistently than before.

"There's my sergeant and inspector not far off," he remarked. "Some of
'em'll be on the spot in a minute or two. Now then, sir."

He marched down the passage to the dead man, glanced at the lamp, and
turning on his own lantern, directed its light on the body.

"God bless me!" he muttered. "Mr. Ashton!"

"You know him?" said Viner.

"Gent that came to live at number seven in your square a while back,
Mr. Viner," answered the policeman. "Australian or New Zealander, I
fancy. He's gone right enough, sir! And--knifed! You didn't see anybody
about, sir?"

"Yes," replied Viner, "that's just it. As I turned into the passage, I
met a young fellow running out of it in a great hurry--he ran into me,
and then, shot off across the road, Westbourne Grove way. Then I came
along and found--this!"

The policeman bent lower and suddenly put a knowing finger on certain of
the dead man's pockets.

"Robbed!" he said. "No watch there, anyway, and nothing where you'd
expect to find his purse. Robbery and murder--murder for the sake of
robbery--that's what it is, Mr. Viner! Westbourne Grove way, you say this
fellow went? And five minutes' start!"

"Is it any good getting a doctor?" asked Viner.

"A thousand doctors'll do him no good," replied the policeman grimly.
"But--there's Dr. Cortelyon somewhere about here--number seven in the
terrace. One of these back doors is his. We might call him."

He turned the light of his lantern on the line of doors in the
right-hand wall, and finding the number he wanted, pulled the bell. As
its tinkle sounded somewhere up the yard behind, he thrust his whistle
into Viner's hand.

"Mr. Viner," he said, "go up to the end of the passage and blow on that
as loud as you can, three times. I'll stand by here till you come back.
If you don't hear or see any of our people coming from either direction,
blow again."

Viner heard steps coming down the yard behind the door as he walked away.
And he heard more steps, hurrying steps, as he reached the end of the
passage. He turned it to find an inspector and a sergeant approaching
from one part of the terrace, a constable from another.

"You're wanted down here," said Viner as they all converged on him.
"There's been murder! One of your men's there--he gave me this whistle to
summon further help. This way!"

The police followed him in silence down the passage. Another figure had
come on the scene. Bending over the body and closely scrutinizing it in
the light of the policeman's lantern was a man whom Viner knew well
enough by sight--a tall, handsome man, whose olive-tinted complexion,
large lustrous eyes and Vandyke beard gave him the appearance of a
foreigner. Yet though he had often seen him, Viner did not know his name;
the police-inspector, however, evidently knew it well enough.

"What is it, Dr. Cortelyon?" he asked as he pushed himself to the front.
"Is the man dead?"

Dr. Cortelyon drew himself up from his stooping position to his full
height--a striking figure in his dress jacket and immaculate linen. He
glanced round at the expectant faces.

"The man's been murdered!" he said in calm, professional accents. "He's
been stabbed clean through the heart. Dead? Yes, for several minutes."

"Who found him here?" demanded the inspector.

"I found him," answered Viner. He gave a hurried account of the whole
circumstances as he knew them, the police watching him keenly. "I should
know the man again if I saw him," he concluded. "I saw his face clearly
enough as he passed me."

The inspector bent down and hastily felt the dead man's pockets.

"Nothing at all here," he said as he straightened himself. "No watch or
chain or purse or anything. Looks like robbery as well as murder. Does
anybody know him?"

"I know who this gentlemen is, sir," answered the policeman to whom Viner
had first gone. "He's a Mr. Ashton, who came to live not so long since at
number seven in Markendale Square, close by Mr. Viner there. I've heard
that he came from the Colonies."

"Do you know him," asked the inspector, turning to Viner.

"Only by sight," answered Viner. "I've seen him often, but I didn't know
his name. I believe he has a wife and daughter--"

"No sir," interrupted the policeman. "He was a single gentleman. The
young lady at number seven is his ward, and the older lady looked after
her--sort of a companion."

The Inspector looked round. Other policemen, attracted by the whistle,
were coming into the passage at each end, and he turned to his sergeant.

"Put a man at the top and another at the bottom of this passage," he
said. "Keep everybody out. Send for the divisional surgeon. Dr.
Cortelyon, will you see him when he comes along? I want him to see the
body before its removal. Now, then, about these ladies--they'll have to
be told." He turned to Viner. "I understand you live close by them?" he
asked. "Perhaps you'll go there with me?"

Viner nodded; and the inspector, after giving a few more words of
instruction to the sergeant, motioned him to follow; together they went
down the passage into Markendale Square.

"Been resident here long, Mr. Viner?" asked the Inspector as they
emerged. "I noticed that some of my men knew you. I've only recently come
into this part myself."

"Fifteen years," answered Viner.

"Do you know anything of this dead man?"

"Nothing--not so much as your constable knows."

"Policemen pick things up. These ladies, now? It's a most unpleasant
thing to have to go and break news like this. You know nothing about
them, sir?"

"Not even as much as your man knew. I've seen them often--with him, the
dead man. There's an elderly lady and a younger one, a mere girl. I took
them for his wife and daughter. But you heard what your man said."

"Well, whatever they are, they've got to be told. I'd be obliged if you'd
come with me. And then--that fellow you saw running away! You'll have to
give us as near a description of him as you can. What number did my man
say it was--seven?"

Viner suddenly laid a hand on his companion's sleeve. A smart car, of
the sort let out on hire from the more pretentious automobile
establishments, had just come round the corner and was being pulled up at
the door of a house in whose porticoed front hung a brilliant lamp.

"That's number seven," said Viner. "And--those are the two ladies."

The Inspector stopped and watched. The door of the house opened, letting
a further flood of light on the broad step beneath the portico and on
the pavement beyond; the door of the car opened too, and a girl stepped
out, and for a second or two stood in the full glare of the lamps. She
was a slender, lissome young creature, gowned in white, and muffled to
the throat in an opera cloak out of which a fresh, girlish face, bright
in colour, sparkling of eye, crowned by a mass of hair of the tint of
dead gold, showed clearly ere she rapidly crossed to the open door.
After her came an elderly, well-preserved woman in an elaborate evening
toilette, the personification of the precise and conventional chaperon.
The door closed; the car drove away; the Inspector turned to Viner with
a shake of his head.

"Just home from the theatre!" he said. "And--to hear this! Well, it's got
to be done, Mr. Viner, anyhow."

Viner, who had often observed the girl whom they had just seen with an
interest for which he had never troubled to account, found himself
wishing that Miss Penkridge was there in his place. He did not know what
part he was to play, what he was to do or say; worse than that, he did
not know if the girl in whose presence he would certainly find himself
within a minute or two was very fond of the man whom he had just found
done to death. In that case--but here his musings were cut short by the
fact that the Inspector had touched the bell in the portico of number
seven, and that the door had opened, to reveal a smart and wondering
parlour-maid, who glanced with surprise at the inspector's uniform.

"Hush! This is Mr. Ashton's?" said the Inspector. "Yes--well, now, what
is the name of the lady--the elderly lady--I saw come in just now? Keep
quiet, there's a good girl,--the fact is, Mr. Ashton's had an accident,
and I want to see that lady."

"Mrs. Killenhall," answered the parlour-maid.

"And the young lady--her name?" asked the Inspector.

"Miss Wickham."

The Inspector walked inside the house.

"Just ask Mrs. Killenhall and Miss Wickham if they'll be good enough to
see Inspector Drillford for a few minutes," he said. Then, as the girl
closed the door and turned away up the inner hall, he whispered to Viner.
"Better see both and be done with it. It's no use keeping bad news too
long; they may as well know--both."

The parlour-maid reappeared at the door of a room along the hall; and the
two men, advancing in answer to her summons, entered what was evidently
the dining-room of the house. The two ladies had thrown off their wraps;
the younger one sat near a big, cheery fire, holding her slender fingers
to the blaze; the elder stood facing the door in evident expectancy. The
room itself was luxuriously furnished in a somewhat old-fashioned, heavy
style; everything about it betokened wealth and comfort. And that its
owner was expected home every minute was made evident to the two men by
the fact that a spirit-case was set on the centre table, with glasses and
mineral waters and cigars; Viner remembered, as his eyes encountered
these things, that a half-burned cigar lay close to the dead man's hand
in that dark passage so close by.

"Mrs. Killenhall? Miss Wickham?" began Drillford, looking sharply from
one to the other. "Sorry to break in on you like this, ladies, but the
fact is, there has been an accident to Mr. Ashton, and I'm obliged to
come and tell you about it."

Viner, who had remained a little in the background, was watching the
faces of the two to whom this initial breaking of news was made. And he
saw at once that there was going to be no scene. The girl by the fire
looked for an instant at the inspector with an expression of surprise,
but it was not the surprise of great personal concern. As for the elder
woman, after one quick glance from Drillford to Viner, whom she evidently
recognized, she showed absolute self-possession.

"A bad accident?" she asked.

Drillford again looked from the elder to the younger lady.

"You'll excuse me if I ask what relation you ladies are to Mr. Ashton?"
he said with a significant glance at Mrs. Killenhall.

"None!" replied Mrs. Killenhall. "Miss Wickham is Mr. Ashton's ward. I am
Miss Wickham's chaperon--and companion."

"Well, ma'am," said Drillford, "then I may tell you that my news
is--just about as serious as it possibly could be, you understand."

In the silence that followed, the girl turned toward the visitors, and
Viner saw her colour change a little. And it was she who first spoke.

"Don't be afraid to tell us," she said. "Is Mr. Ashton dead?"

Drillford inclined his head, and spoke as he was bidden.

"I'm sorry to say he is," he replied. "And still more to be obliged to
tell you that he came to his death by violence. The truth is--"

He paused, looking from one to the other, as if to gauge the effect of
his words. And again it was the girl who spoke.

"What is the truth?" she asked.

"Murder!" said Drillford. "Just that!"

Mrs. Killenhall, who had remained standing until then, suddenly sat
down, with a murmur of horror. But the girl was watching the
inspector steadily.

"When was this? and how, and where?" she inquired.

"A little time ago, near here," answered Drillford. "This gentleman, Mr.
Viner, a neighbour of yours, found him--dead. There's no doubt, from what
we can see, that he was murdered for the sake of robbery. And I want some
information about him, about his habits and--"

Miss Wickham got up from her chair and looked meaningly at Mrs.
Killenhall.

"The fact is," she said, turning to Drillford; "strange as it may seem,
neither Mrs. Killenhall nor myself know very much about Mr. Ashton."




CHAPTER III

WHO WAS MR. ASHTON?


For the first time since they had entered the room, Drillford turned and
glanced at Viner; his look indicated the idea which Miss Wickham's last
words had set up in his mind. Here was a mystery! The police instinct was
aroused by it.

"You don't know very much about Mr. Ashton?" he said, turning back to the
two ladies. "Yet--you're under his roof? This is his house, isn't it?"

"Just so," assented Miss Wickham. "But when I say we don't know much, I
mean what I say. Mrs. Killenhall has only known Mr. Ashton a few weeks,
and until two months ago I had not seen Mr. Ashton for twelve years.
Therefore, neither of us can know much about him."

"Would you mind telling me what you do know?" asked Drillford. "We've got
to know something--who he is, and so on."

"All that I know is this," replied Miss Wickham. "My father died in
Australia, when I was about six years old. My mother was already dead,
and my father left me in charge of Mr. Ashton. He sent me, very soon
after my father's death, to school in England, and there I remained for
twelve years. About two months ago Mr. Ashton came to England, took this
house, fetched me from school and got Mrs. Killenhall to look after me.
Here we've all been ever since--and beyond that I know scarcely
anything."

Drillford looked at the elder lady.

"I know, practically, no more than Miss Wickham has told you," said Mrs.
Killenhall. "Mr. Ashton and I got in touch with each other through his
advertisement in the _Morning Post_. We exchanged references, and I
came here."

"Ah!" said Drillford. "And--what might his references be, now?"

"To his bankers, the London and Orient, in Threadneedle Street," answered
Mrs. Killenhall promptly. "And to his solicitors, Crawle, Pawle and
Rattenbury, of Bedford Bow."

"Very satisfactory they were, no doubt, ma'am?" suggested Drillford.

Mrs. Killenhall let her eye run round the appointments of the room.

"Eminently so," she said dryly. "Mr. Ashton was a very wealthy man."

Drillford pulled out a pocketbook and entered the names which Mrs.
Killenhall had just mentioned.

"The solicitors will be able to tell something," he murmured as he put
the book back. "We'll communicate with them first thing in the
morning. But just two questions before I go. Can you tell me anything
about Mr. Ashton's usual habits? Had he any business? What did he do
with his time?"

"He was out a great deal," said Mrs. Killenhall. "He used to go down to
the City. He was often out of an evening. Once, since I came here, he
was away for a week in the country--he didn't say where. He was an active
man--always in and out. But he never said much as to where he went."

"The other question," said Drillford, "is this: Did he carry much on him
in the way of valuables or money? I mean--as a rule?"

"He wore a very fine gold watch and chain," answered Mrs. Killenhall;
"and as for money--well, he always seemed to have a lot in his purse. And
he wore two diamond rings--very fine stones."

"Just so!" murmured Drillford. "Set upon for the sake of those things, no
doubt. Well, ladies, I shall telephone to Crawle's first thing in the
morning, and they'll send somebody along at once, of course. I'm sorry
to have brought you such bad news, but--"

He turned toward the door; Miss Wickham stopped him.

"Will Mr. Ashton's body be brought here--tonight?" she asked.

"No," replied Drillford. "It will be taken to the mortuary. If you'll
leave everything to me, I'll see that you are spared as much as possible.
Of course, there'll have to be an inquest--but you'll hear all about that
tomorrow. Leave things to us and to Mr. Ashton's solicitors."

He moved towards the door, and Viner, until then a silent spectator,
looked at Miss Wickham, something impelling him to address her instead of
Mrs. Killenhall.

"I live close by you," he said. "If there is anything that I can do, or
that my aunt Miss Penkridge, who lives with me, can do? Perhaps you will
let me call in the morning."

The girl looked at him steadily and frankly.

"Thank you, Mr. Viner," she said. "It would be very kind if you would.
We've no men folk--yes, please do."

"After breakfast, then," answered Viner, and went away to join the
Inspector, who had walked into the hall.

"What do you think of this matter?" he asked, when they had got outside
the house.

"Oh, a very clear and ordinary case enough, Mr. Viner," replied
Drillford. "No mystery about it at all. Here's this Mr. Ashton been
living here some weeks--some fellow, the man, of course, whom you saw
running away, has noticed that he was a very rich man and wore expensive
jewellery, has watched him, probably knew that he used that passage as a
short cut, and has laid in wait for him and murdered him for what he'd
got on him. It wouldn't take two minutes to do the whole thing. Rings,
now! They spoke of diamond rings, in there. Well, I didn't see any
diamond rings on his hands when I looked at his body, and I particularly
noticed his hands, to see if there were signs of any struggle. No
sir--it's just a plain case of what used to be called highway robbery
and murder. But come round with me to the police-station, Mr.
Viner--they'll have taken him to the mortuary by now, and I should like
to hear what our divisional surgeon has to say, and what our people
actually found on the body."

As Viner and the Inspector walked into the police-station, Dr. Cortelyon
came out. Drillford stopped him.

"Found out anything more, Doctor?" he asked.

"Nothing beyond what I said at first," replied Cortelyon. "The man has
been stabbed through the heart, from behind, in one particularly
well-delivered blow. I should say the murderer had waited for him in that
passage, probably knowing his habits. That passage, now--you know it
really will have to be seen to! That wretched old lamp in the middle
gives no light at all. The wonder is that something of this sort hasn't
occurred before."

Drillford muttered something about local authorities and property-owners
and went forward into an office, motioning Viner to follow. The
divisional surgeon was there in conversation with the sergeant whom
Drillford had left in charge of the body. "That is something on which I'd
stake my professional reputation," he said. "I'm sure of it."

"What's that, Doctor?" asked Drillford. "Something to do with this
affair?"

"I was saying that whoever stabbed this unfortunate man had some
knowledge of anatomy," remarked the doctor. "He was killed by one swift
blow from a particularly keen-edged, thin-bladed weapon which was driven
through his back at the exact spot. You ought to make a minute search
behind the walls on either side of that passage--the probability is that
the murderer threw his weapon away."

"We'll do all that, Doctor," said Drillford. "As to your
suggestion--don't you forget that there are a good many criminals here in
London who are regular experts in the use of the knife--I've seen plenty
of instances of that myself. Now," he went on, turning to the sergeant,
"about that search? What did you find on him?"

The sergeant lifted the lid of a desk and pointed to a sheet of foolscap
paper whereon lay certain small articles at which Viner gazed with a
sense of strange fascination. A penknife, a small gold matchbox, a
gold-mounted pencil-case, some silver coins, a handkerchief, and
conspicuous among the rest, a farthing.

"That's the lot," said the sergeant, "except another handkerchief, and a
pair of gloves in the overcoat, where I've left them. Nothing else--no
watch, chain, purse or pocketbook. And no rings--but it's very plain
from his fingers that he wore two rings one on each hand, third finger
in each case."

"There you are!" said Drillford with a glance at Viner. "Murdered and
robbed--clear case! Now, Mr. Viner, give us as accurate a description as
possible of the fellow who ran out of that passage."

Viner did his best. His recollections were of a young man of about his
own age, about his own height and build, somewhat above the medium; it
was his impression, he said, that the man was dressed, if not shabbily,
at least poorly; he had an impression, too, that the clean-shaven face
which he had seen for a brief moment was thin and worn.

"Got any recollection of his exact look?" inquired the Inspector. "That's
a lot to go by."

"I'm trying to think," said Viner. "Yes--I should say he looked to be
pretty hard-up. There was a sort of desperate gleam in his eye. And--"

"Take your time," remarked Drillford. "Anything you can suggest,
you know--"

"Well," replied Viner. "I'd an idea at the moment, and I've had it since,
that I'd seen this man before. Something in his face was familiar. The
only thing I can think of is this: I potter round old bookshops and
curiosity-shops a good deal--I may have seen this young fellow on some
occasion of that sort."

"Anyway," suggested Drillford, glancing over the particulars which he had
written down, "you'd know him again if you saw him?"

"Oh, certainly!" asserted Viner. "I should know him anywhere."

"Then that's all we need trouble you with now, sir," said Drillford. "The
next business will be--tomorrow."

Viner walked slowly out of the police-station and still more slowly
homeward. When he reached the first lamp, he drew out his watch.
Half-past twelve! Just two hours ago he had been in his own comfortable
library, smiling at Miss Penkridge's ideas about the very matters into
one of which he was now plunged. He would not have been surprised if he
had suddenly awoke, to find that all this was a bad dream, induced by the
evening's conversation. But just then he came to the passage in which the
murder had been committed. A policeman was on guard at the terrace
end--and Viner, rather than hear any more of the matter, hastened past
him and made a circuitous way to Markendale Square.

He let himself into his house as quietly as possible, and contrary
to taste and custom, went into the dining-room, switched on the
electric light and helped himself to a stiff glass of brandy and soda
at the sideboard. When the mixture was duly prepared, he forgot to
drink it. He stood by the sideboard, the glass in his hand, his eyes
staring at vacancy. Nor did he move when a very light foot stole down
the stairs, and Miss Penkridge, in wraps and curl-papers, looked
round the side of the door.

"Heavens above, Richard!" she exclaimed, "What is the matter! I wondered
if you were burglars! Half-past twelve!"

Viner suddenly became aware of the glass which he was unconsciously
holding. He lifted it to his lips, wondering whatever it was that made
his mouth feel so dry. And when he had taken a big gulp, and then
spoke, his voice--to himself--sounded just as queer as his tongue had
been feeling.

"You were right!" he said suddenly. "There are queerer, stranger affairs
in life than one fancies! And I--I've been pitchforked--thrown--clean
into the middle of things! I!"

Miss Penkridge came closer to him, staring. She looked from him to the
glass, from the glass to him.

"No--I haven't been drinking," said Viner with a harsh laugh. "I'm
drinking now, and I'm going to have another, too. Listen!"

He pushed her gently into a chair, and seating himself on the edge of the
table, told her the adventure. And Miss Penkridge, who was an admirable
listener to fictitious tales of horror, proved herself no less admirable
in listening to one of plain fact, and made no comment until her nephew
had finished.

"That poor man!" she said at last. "Such a fine, strong, healthy-looking
man, too! I used to wonder about him, when I saw him in the square, I
used to think of him as somebody who'd seen things!"

Viner made a sudden grimace.

"Don't!" he said. "Ugh! I've seen things tonight that I never wished to
see! And I wish--"

"What?" demanded Miss Penkridge after a pause, during which Viner had sat
staring at the floor.

"I wish to God I'd never seen that poor devil who was running away!"
exclaimed Viner with sudden passion. "They'll catch him, and I shall have
to give evidence against him, and my evidence'll hang him, and--"

"There's a lot to do, and a lot'll happen before that comes off,
Richard," interrupted Miss Penkridge. "The man may be innocent."

"He'd have a nice job to prove it!" said Viner with a forced laugh. "No,
if the police get him--besides, he was running straight from the place!
Isn't it a queer thing?" he went on, laughing again. "I don't mind
remembering the--the dead man, but I hate the recollection of that chap
hurrying away! I wonder what it feels like when you've just murdered
another fellow, to slink off like--"

"You've no business to be wondering any such thing!" said Miss Penkridge
sharply. "Here--get yourself another brandy and soda, and let us talk
business. These two women--did they feel it much?"

"They puzzled me," replied Viner. He took his aunt's advice about the
extra glass, and obeyed her, too, when she silently pointed to a box of
cigars which lay on the sideboard. "All right," he said after a minute
or two. "I'm not going to have nerves. What was I saying? They puzzled
me? Yes, puzzled. Especially the girl; she seemed so collected about
everything. And yet, according to her own story, she's only just out of
the schoolroom. You'll go round there with me?"

"If we can be of any service to them? certainly," assented Miss
Penkridge.

"The girl said they'd no men folk," remarked Viner.

"In that case I shall certainly go," said Miss Penkridge. "Now, Richard,
smoke your cigar, and think no more about all this till tomorrow."

Viner flung himself into an easy-chair.

"All right!" he said. "Don't bother! It's been a bit of a facer, but--"

He was astonished when he woke the next morning, much later than was his
wont, to find that he had not dreamed about the events of the midnight.
And he was his usual practical and cool-headed self when, at eleven
o'clock, he stood waiting in the hall for Miss Penkridge to go round with
him to number seven. But the visit was not to be paid just then--as they
were about to leave the house, a police-officer came hurrying up and
accosted Viner. Inspector Drillford's compliments, and would Mr. Viner
come round? And then the messenger gave a knowing grin.

"We've got the man, sir!" he whispered. "That's why you're wanted."




CHAPTER IV

THE RING AND THE KNIFE


Viner was hoping that the police had got hold of the wrong man as he
reluctantly walked into Drillford's office, but one glance at the
inspector's confident face, alert and smiling, showed him that Drillford
himself had no doubts on that point.

"Well, Mr. Viner," he said with a triumphant laugh, "we haven't been so
long about it, you see! Much quicker work than I'd anticipated, too."

"Are you sure you've got the right man?" asked Viner. "I mean--have you
got the man I saw running away from the passage?"

"You shall settle that yourself," answered Drillford. "Come this way."

He led Viner down a corridor, through one or two locked doors, and
motioning him to tread softly, drew back a sliding panel in the door of a
cell and silently pointed. Viner, with a worse sickness than before,
stole up and looked through the barred opening. One glance at the man
sitting inside the cell, white-faced, staring at the drab, bare wall, was
enough; he turned to Drillford and nodded. Drillford nodded too, and led
him back to the office.

"That's the man I saw," said Viner.

"Of course!" assented Drillford. "I'd no doubt of it. Well, it's been
a far simpler thing than I'd dared to hope. I'll tell you how we got
him. This morning, about ten o'clock, this chap, who won't give his
name, went into the pawnbroker's shop in Edgware Road, and asked for a
loan on a diamond ring which he produced. Now, Pelver, who happened to
attend to him himself, is a good deal of an expert in diamonds--he's a
jeweller as well as a pawnbroker, and he saw at once that the diamond
in this ring was well worth all of a thousand pounds--a gem of the
first water! He was therefore considerably astonished when his customer
asked for a loan of ten pounds on it--still more so when the fellow
suggested that Pelver should buy it outright for twenty-five. Pelver
asked him some questions as to his property in the ring--he made some
excuses about its having been in his family for some time, and that he
would be glad to realize on it. Under pretence of examining it, Pelver
took the ring to another part of his shop and quietly sent for a
policeman. And the end was, this officer brought the man here, and
Pelver with him, and the ring. Here it is!"

He opened a safe and produced a diamond ring at which Viner stared with
feelings for which he could scarcely account.

"How do you know that's one of Mr. Ashton's rings?" he asked.

"Oh, I soon solved that!" laughed Drillford. "I hurried round to
Markendale Square with it at once. Both the ladies recognized it--Mr.
Ashton had often shown it to them, and told them its value, and there's a
private mark of his inside it. And so we arrested him, and there he is!
Clear case!"

"What did he say?" asked Viner.

"He's a curious customer," replied Drillford. "I should say that whatever
he is now, he has been a gentleman. He was extremely nervous and so on
while we were questioning him about the ring, but when it came to the
crucial point, and I charged him and warned him, he turned strangely
cool. I'll tell you what he said, in his exact words. 'I'm absolutely
innocent of that!' he said. 'But I can see that I've placed myself in a
very strange position.' And after that he would say no more--he hasn't
even asked to see a solicitor."

"What will be done next?" asked Viner.

"He'll be brought before the magistrate in an hour or two," said
Drillford. "Formal proceedings--for a remand, you know. I shall want you
there, Mr. Viner; it won't take long. I wish the fellow would tell us
who he is."

"And I wish I could remember where and when I have seen him before!"
exclaimed Viner.

"Ah, that's still your impression?" remarked Drillford. "You're still
convinced of it?"

"More than ever--since seeing him just now," affirmed Viner. "I know his
face, but that's all I can say. I suppose," he continued, looking
diffidently at the inspector, as if he half-expected to be laughed at for
the suggestion he was about to make, "I suppose you don't believe that
this unfortunate fellow may have some explanation of his possession of
Mr. Ashton's ring?"

Drillford, who had been replacing the ring in a safe, locked the
door upon it with a snap, and turned on his questioner with a look
which became more and more businesslike and official with each
succeeding word.

"Now, Mr. Viner," he said, "you look at it from our point of view. An
elderly gentleman is murdered and robbed. A certain man is seen--by you,
as it happens--running away as fast as he can from the scene of the
murder. Next morning that very man is found trying to get rid of a ring
which, without doubt, was taken from the murdered man's finger. What do
you think? Or--another question--what could we, police officials, do?"

"Nothing but what you're doing, I suppose," said Viner. "Still--there may
be a good deal that's--what shall I say?--behind all this."

"It's for him to speak," observed Drillford, nodding in the direction of
the cells. "He's got a bell within reach of his fingers; he's only got to
ring it and to ask for me or any solicitor he likes to name. But--we
shall see!"

Nothing had been seen or heard, in the way hinted at by Drillford, when,
an hour later, Viner, waiting in the neighbouring police-court, was aware
that the humdrum, sordid routine was about to be interrupted by something
unusual. The news of an arrest in connection with the Lonsdale Passage
murder had somehow leaked out, and the court was packed to the doors
--Viner himself had gradually been forced into a corner near the
witness-box in which he was to make an unwilling appearance. And from
that corner he looked with renewed interest at the man who was presently
placed in the dock, and for the hundredth time asked himself what it was
in his face that woke some chord of memory in him.

There was nothing of the criminal in the accused man's appearance.
Apparently about thirty years of age, spare of figure, clean-shaven, of a
decidedly intellectual type of countenance, he looked like an actor. His
much-worn suit of tweed was well cut and had evidently been carefully
kept, in spite of its undoubtedly threadbare condition. It, and the worn
and haggard look of the man's face, denoted poverty, if not recent actual
privation, and the thought was present in more than one mind there in
possession of certain facts: if this man had really owned the ring which
he had offered to the pawnbroker, why had he delayed so long in placing
himself in funds through its means? For if his face expressed anything,
it was hunger.

Viner, who was now witnessing police-court proceedings for the first time
in his life, felt an almost morbid curiosity in hearing the tale unfolded
against the prisoner. For some reason, best known to themselves, the
police brought forward more evidence than was usual on first proceedings
before a magistrate. Viner himself proved the finding of the body; the
divisional surgeon spoke as to the cause of death; the dead man's
solicitor testified to his identity and swore positively as to the ring;
the pawnbroker gave evidence as to the prisoner's attempt to pawn or sell
the ring that morning. Finally, the police proved that on searching the
prisoner after his arrest, a knife was found in his hip-pocket which, in
the opinion of the divisional surgeon, would have caused the wound found
in the dead man's body. From a superficial aspect, no case could have
seemed clearer.

But in Viner's reckoning of things there was mystery. Two episodes
occurred during the comparatively brief proceedings which made him
certain that all was not being brought out. The first was when he himself
went into the witness-box to prove his discovery of the body and to swear
that the prisoner was the man he had seen running away from the passage.
The accused glanced at him with evident curiosity as he came forward; on
hearing Viner's name, he looked at him in a strange manner, changed
colour and turned his head away. But when a certain question was put to
Viner, he looked round again, evidently anxious to hear the answer.

"I believe you thought, on first seeing him, that the prisoner's face was
familiar to you, Mr. Viner?"

"Yes--I certainly think that I have seen him before, somewhere."

"You can't recollect more? You don't know when or where you saw him?"

"I don't. But that I have seen him, perhaps met him, somewhere, I
am certain."

This induced the magistrate to urge the accused man--who had steadfastly
refused to give name or address--to reveal his identity. But the prisoner
only shook his head.

"I would rather not give my name at present," he answered. "I am
absolutely innocent of this charge of murder, but I quite realize that
the police are fully justified in bringing it against me. I had nothing
whatever to do with Mr. Ashton's death--nothing! Perhaps the police will
find out the truth; and meanwhile I had rather not give my name."

"You will be well advised to reconsider that," said the magistrate. "If
you are innocent, as you say, it will be far better for you to say who
you are, and to see a solicitor. As things are, you are in a very
dangerous position."

But the prisoner shook his head.

"Not yet, at any rate," he answered. "I want to hear more."

When the proceedings were over and the accused, formally remanded for a
week, had been removed to the cells previous to being taken away, Viner
went round to Drillford's office.

"Look here!" he said abruptly, finding the Inspector alone, "I dare say
you think I'm very foolish, but I don't believe that chap murdered
Ashton. I don't believe it for one second!"

Drillford who was filling up some papers, smiled.

"No?" he said. "Now, why, Mr. Viner?"

"You can call it intuition if you like," answered Viner. "But I don't!
And I shall be surprised if I'm not right. There are certain things that
I should think would strike you."

"What, for instance?" asked Drillford.

"Do you think it likely that a man who must have known that a regular hue
and cry would be raised about that murder, would be such a fool as to go
and offer one of the murdered man's rings within a mile of the spot where
the murder took place?" asked Viner.

Drillford turned and looked steadily at his questioner.

"Well, but that's precisely what he did, Mr. Viner!" he exclaimed.
"There's no doubt whatever that the ring in question was Ashton's;
there's also no doubt that this man did offer it to Pelver this morning.
Either the fellow is a fool or singularly ignorant, to do such a mad
thing! But--he did it! And I know why."

"Why, then?" demanded Viner.

"Because he was just starving," answered Drillford. "When he was brought
in here, straight from Pelver's, he hadn't a halfpenny on him, and in the
very thick of my questionings--and just think how important they
were!--he stopped me. 'May I say a word that's just now much more
important to me than all this?' he said. 'I'm starving! I haven't touched
food or drink for nearly three days. Give me something, if it's only a
crust of bread!' That's fact, Mr. Viner."

"What did you do?" inquired Viner.

"Got the poor chap some breakfast, at once," answered Drillford, "and let
him alone till he'd finished. Have you ever seen a starved dog eat?
No--well, I have, and he ate like that--he was ravenous! And when a man's
at that stage, do you think he's going to stop at anything? Not he! This
fellow, you may be sure, after killing and robbing Ashton, had but one
thought--how soon he could convert some of the property into cash, so
that he could eat. If Pelver had made him that advance, or bought the
ring, he'd have made a bee-line for the nearest coffee-shop. I tell you
he was mad for food!"

"Another thing," said Viner. "Where is the rest of Mr. Ashton's
property--his watch, chain, the other ring, his purse, and--wasn't there
a pocketbook? How is it this man wasn't found in possession of them?"

"Easy enough for him to hide all those things, Mr. Viner," said
Drillford, with an indulgent smile. "What easier? You don't know as much
of these things as I do--he could quite easily plant all those articles
safely during the night. He just stuck to the article which he could most
easily convert into money."

"Well, I don't believe he's guilty," repeated Viner. "And I want to do
something for him. You may think me quixotic, but I'd like to help him.
Is there anything to prevent you from going to him, telling him that
I'm convinced of his innocence and that I should like to get him
help--legal help?"

"There's nothing to prevent it, to be sure," answered Drillford. "But Mr.
Viner, you can't get over the fact that this fellow had Ashton's diamond
ring in his possession!"

"How do I--how do you--know how he came into possession of it?"
demanded Viner.

"And then--that knife!" exclaimed Drillford. "Look here! I've got it.
What sort of thing is that for an innocent, harmless man to carry about
him? It's an American bowie-knife!"

He opened a drawer and exhibited a weapon which, lying on a pile of
paper, looked singularly suggestive and fearsome.

"I don't care!" said Viner with a certain amount of stubbornness. "I'm
convinced that the man didn't kill Ashton. And I want to help him. I'm a
man of considerable means; and in this case--well, that's how I feel
about it."

Drillford made no answer. But presently he left the room, after pointing
Viner to a chair. Viner waited--five, ten minutes. Then the door opened
again, and Drillford came back. Behind him walked the accused man, with
a couple of policemen in attendance upon him.

"There, Mr. Viner!" said Drillford. "You can speak to him yourself!"

Viner rose from his chair. The prisoner stepped forward, regarding him
earnestly.

"Viner!" he said, in a low, concentrated tone, "don't you know me?
I'm Langton Hyde! You and I were at Rugby together. And--we meet
again, here!"




CHAPTER V

LOOK FOR THAT MAN!


At these words Viner drew back with an exclamation of astonishment, but
in the next instant he stepped forward again, holding out his hand.

"Hyde!" he said. "Then--that's what I remembered! Of course I know you!
But good heavens, man, what does all this mean? What's brought you to
this--to be here, in this place?"

The prisoner looked round at his captors, and back at Viner, and smiled
as a man smiles who is beginning to realize hopelessness to the full.

"I don't know if I'm allowed to speak," he said.

Drillford, who had been watching this episode with keen attention,
motioned to the two policemen.

"Wait outside," he said abruptly. "Now, then," he continued when he,
Viner and Hyde were alone, "this man can say anything he likes to you,
Mr. Viner, so long as you've asked to see him. This is all irregular, but
I've no wish to stop him from telling you whatever he pleases. But
remember," he went on, glancing at the prisoner, "you're saying it before
me--and in my opinion, you'd a deal better have said something when you
were in court just now."

"I didn't know what to say," replied Hyde doubtfully. "I'm pretty much
on the rocks, as you can guess; but--I have relatives! And if it's
possible, I don't want them to know about this."

Drillford looked at Viner and shook his head, as if to signify his
contempt of Hyde's attitude.

"Considering the position you're in," he said, turning again to Hyde,
"you must see that it's impossible that your relations should be kept
from knowing. You'll have to give particulars about yourself, sooner or
later. And charges of murder, like this, can't be kept out of the
newspapers."

"Tell me, Hyde!" exclaimed Viner. "Look here, now, to begin with--you
didn't kill this man?"

Hyde shook his head in a puzzled fashion--something was evidently causing
him surprise.

"I didn't know the man was killed, or dead, until they brought me here,
from that pawnbroker's this morning!" he said. Then he laughed almost
contemptuously, and with some slight show of spirit. "Do you think I'd
have been such a fool as to try to pawn or sell a ring that belonged to
a man who'd just been murdered?" he demanded. "I'm not quite such an
ass as that!"

Viner looked round at Drillford.

"There!" he said quietly. "What did I tell you? Isn't that what I said?
You're on the wrong track, Inspector!"

But Drillford, sternly official in manner, shook his head.

"How did he come by the ring, then?" he asked, pointing at his prisoner.
"Let him say!"

"Hyde!" said Viner. "Tell! I've been certain for an hour that you didn't
kill this man, and I want to help you. But--tell us the truth! What do
you know about it? How did you get that ring?"

"I shall make use of anything he tells," remarked Drillford warningly.

"He's going to tell--everything," said Viner. "Come now, Hyde, the
truth!"

Hyde suddenly dropped into a chair by which he was standing, and pressed
his hand over his face with a gesture which seemed to indicate a certain
amount of bewilderment.

"Let me sit down," he said. "I'm weak, tired, too. Until this morning I
hadn't had a mouthful of food for a long time, and I'd--well, I'd been
walking about, night as well as day. I was walking about all yesterday,
and a lot of last night. I'm pretty nearly done, if you want to know!"

"Take your time," said Drillford. "Here, wait a bit," he went on after a
sudden glance at his prisoner. "Keep quiet a minute." He turned to a
cupboard in the corner of the room and presently came back with something
in a glass. "Drink that," he said not unkindly. "Drop of weak brandy and
water," he muttered to Viner. "Do him no harm--I see how it is with
him--he's been starving."

Hyde caught the last word and laughed feebly as he handed the glass back.

"Starving!" he said. "Yes--that's it! I hope neither of you'll know what
it means! Three days without--"

"Now, Hyde!" interrupted Viner. "Never mind that--you won't starve again.
Come--tell us all about this--tell everything."

Hyde bent forward in his chair, but after a look at the two men, his
eyes sought the floor and moved from one plank to another as if he found
it difficult to find a fixed point.

"I don't know where to begin, Viner," he said at last. "You see, you've
never met me since we left school. I went in for medicine--I was at
Bart's for a time, but--well, I was no good, somehow. And then I went in
for the stage--I've had some fairly decent engagements, both here and in
the States, now and then. But you know what a precarious business that
is. And some time ago I struck a real bad patch, and I've been out of a
job for months. And lately it's gone from bad to worse--you know, or
rather I suppose you don't know, because you've never been in that
fix--pawning everything, and so on, until--well, I haven't had a penny in
my pockets for days now!"

"Your relations?" questioned Viner.

"Didn't want them to know," answered Hyde. "The fact is, I haven't been
on good terms with them for a long time, and I've got some pride
left--or I had, until yesterday. But here's the truth: I had to clear out
of my lodgings--which was nothing but an attic, three days since, and
I've been wandering about, literally hungry and homeless, since that. If
it hadn't been for that, I should never have been in this hole! And
that's due to circumstances that beat me, for I tell you again, I don't
know anything about this man's murder--at least, not about it actually."

"What do you know?" asked Viner. "Tell us plainly."

"I'm going to," responded Hyde. "I was hanging about the Park and around
Kensington Gardens most of yesterday. Then, at night, I got wandering
about this part--didn't seem to matter much where I went. You don't know,
either of you, what it means to wander round, starving. You get into a
sort of comatose state--you just go on and on. Well, last night I was
walking, in that way, in and out about these Bayswater squares. I got
into Markendale Square. As I was going along the top side of it, I
noticed a passage and turned into it--as I've said, when a man's in the
state I was in, it doesn't matter where he slouches--anywhere! I turned
into that passage, I tell you, just aimlessly, as a man came walking out.
Viner, look for that man! Find him! He's the fellow these police want! If
there's been murder--"

"Keep calm, Hyde!" said Viner. "Go on, quietly."

"This man passed me and went on into the square," continued Hyde. "I went
up the passage. It was very dark, except in the middle, where there's an
old-fashioned lamp. And then I saw another man, who was lying across the
flags. I don't know that I'd any impression about him--I was too sick and
weary. I believe I thought he was drunk, or ill or something. But you
see, at the same instant that I saw him, I saw something else which drove
him clean out of my mind. In fact, as soon as I'd seen it, I never
thought about him any more, nor looked at him again."

"What was it?" demanded Viner, certain of what the answer would be.

"A diamond ring," replied Hyde. "It was lying on the flags close by
the man. The light from the lamp fell full on it. And I snatched it up,
thrust it into my pocket and ran up the passage. I ran into somebody at
the far end--it turns out to have been you. Well, you saw me hurry
off--I got as far away as I could, lest you or somebody else should
follow. I wandered round Westbourne Grove, and then up into the Harrow
Road, and in a sort of back street there I sneaked into a shanty in a
yard, and stopped in it the rest of the night. And this morning I tried
to pawn the ring."

"Having no idea of its value," suggested Viner, with a glance at
Drillford, who was listening to everything with an immovable countenance.

"I thought it might be worth thirty or forty pounds," answered Hyde. "Of
course, I'd no idea that it was worth what's been said. You see, I'm
fairly presentable, and I thought I could tell a satisfactory story if I
was asked anything at the pawnshop. I didn't anticipate any difficulty
about pawning the ring--I don't think there'd have been any if it hadn't
been for its value. A thousand pounds! of course, I'd no idea of that!"

"And that's the whole truth?" asked Viner.

"It's the whole truth as far as I'm concerned," answered Hyde. "I
certainly picked up that ring in that passage, close by this man who was
lying there. But I didn't know he was dead; I didn't know he'd been
murdered. All I know is that I was absolutely famishing, desperate, in no
condition to think clearly about anything. I guess I should do the same
thing again, under the circumstances. I only wish--"

He paused and began muttering to himself, and the two listeners glanced
at each other. "You only wish what, Hyde?" asked Viner.

"I wish it had been a half-crown instead of that ring!" said Hyde with a
queer flashing glance at his audience. "I could have got a bed for
fourpence, and have lived for three days on the rest. And now--"

Viner made no remark; and Drillford, who was leaning against his desk,
watching his prisoner closely, tapped Hyde on the shoulder.

"Can you describe the man who came out of the passage as you entered it?"
he asked. "Be accurate, now!"

Hyde's face brightened a little, and his eyes became more intelligent.

"Yes!" he answered. "You know--or you don't know--how your mental
faculties get sharpened by hunger. I was dull enough, in one way, but
alert enough in another. I can describe the man--as much as I saw of him.
A tall man--neither broad nor slender--half-and-half. Dressed in black
from top to toe. A silk hat--patent leather boots--and muffled to the
eyes in a white silk handkerchief."

"Could you see his face?" asked Drillford. "Was he clean-shaved, or
bearded, or what?"

"I tell you he was muffled to the very eyes," answered Hyde. "One of
those big silk handkerchiefs, you know--he had it drawn up over his chin
and nose--right up."

"Then you'd have difficulty in knowing him again," observed Drillford.
"There are a few thousand men in the West End of London who'd answer the
description you've given."

"All right!" muttered Hyde doggedly. "But--I know what I saw. And if you
want to help me, Viner, find that man--because he must have come straight
away from the body!"

Drillford turned to Viner, glancing at the same time at the clock.

"Do you want to ask him any more questions?" he inquired. "No? Well,
there's just one I want to ask. What were you doing with that knife in
your possession?" he went on, turning to Hyde. "Be careful, now; you
heard what the doctor said about it, in court?"

"I've nothing to conceal," replied Hyde. "You heard me say just now that
I'd had engagements in the States. I bought that knife when I was out
West--more as a curiosity than anything--and I've carried it in my pocket
ever since."

Drillford looked again at Viner.

"He'll have to go, now," he said. "If you're going to employ legal help
for him, the solicitor will know where and when he can see him." He
paused on his way to the door and looked a little doubtfully at his
prisoner. "I'll give you a bit of advice," he said, "not as an official,
but as an individual. If you want to clear yourself, you'd better give
all the information you can."

"I'll send my own solicitor to you, Hyde, at once," said Viner. "Be
absolutely frank with him about everything."

When Viner was once more alone with Drillford, the two men looked at
each other.

"My own impression," said Viner, after a significant silence, "is that
we have just heard the plain truth! I'm going to work on it, anyway."

"In that case, Mr. Viner, there's no need for me to say anything,"
remarked Drillford. "It may be the plain truth. But as I am what I am,
all I know is the first-hand evidence against this young fellow. So he
really was a schoolmate of yours?"

"Certainly!" said Viner. "His people live, or did live, in the north. I
shall have to get into communication with them. But now--what about the
information he gave you? This man he saw?"

Drillford shook his head.

"Mr. Viner," he answered, "you don't understand police methods. We've got
very strong evidence against Hyde. We know nothing about a tall man in a
white muffler. If you want to clear Hyde, you'd better do what he
suggested--find that man! I wish you may--if he ever existed!"

"You don't believe Hyde?" asked Viner.

"I'm not required to believe anything, sir, unless I've good proof of
it," said Drillford with a significant smile. "If there is any mystery in
this murder, well--let's hope something will clear it up."

Viner went away troubled and thoughtful. He remembered Hyde well enough
now, though so many years had elapsed since their last meeting. And he
was genuinely convinced of his innocence: there had been a ring of truth
in all that he had said. Who, then, was the guilty man? And had robbery
been the real motive of the murder? Might it not have been that Ashton
had been murdered for some quite different motive, and that the murderer
had hastily removed the watch, chain, purse, and rings from the body
with the idea of diverting suspicion, and in his haste had dropped one of
the rings?

"If only one knew more about Ashton and his affairs!" mused Viner. "Even
his own people don't seem to know much."

This reminded him of his promise to call on Miss Wickham. He glanced at
his watch: it was not yet one o'clock: the proceedings before the
magistrate and the subsequent talk with Hyde had occupied comparatively
little time. So Viner walked rapidly to number seven in the square,
intent on doing something toward clearing Hyde of the charge brought
against him. The parlour-maid whom he had seen the night before admitted
him at once; it seemed to Viner that he was expected. She led him
straight to a room in which Mrs. Killenhall and Miss Wickham were in
conversation with an elderly man, who looked at Viner with considerable
curiosity when his name was mentioned, and who was presently introduced
to him as Mr. Ashton's solicitor, Mr. Pawle, of Crawle, Pawle and
Rattenbury.




CHAPTER VI

SPECULATIONS


Mr. Pawle, an alert-looking, sharp-eyed little man, whom Viner at once
recognized as having been present in the magistrate's court when Hyde was
brought up, smiled as he shook hands with the new visitor.

"You don't know me, Mr. Viner," he said. "But I knew your father very
well--he and I did a lot of business together in our time. You haven't
followed his profession, I gather?"

"I'm afraid I haven't any profession, Mr. Pawle," answered Viner. "I'm a
student--and a bit, a very little bit, of a writer."

"Aye, well, your father was a bit in that way too," remarked Mr. Pawle.
"I remember that he was a great collector of books--you have his library,
no doubt?"

"Yes, and I'm always adding to it," said Viner. "I shall be glad to show
you my additions, any time."

Mr. Pawle turned to the two ladies, waving his hand at Viner.

"Knew his father most intimately," he said, as if he were guaranteeing
the younger man's status. "Fine fellow, was Stephen Viner. Well," he
continued, dropping into a chair, and pointing Viner to another, "this is
a sad business that we've got concerned in, young man! Now, what do you
think of the proceedings we've just heard? Your opinion, Mr. Viner, is
probably better worth having than anybody's, for you saw this fellow
running away from the scene, and you found my unfortunate client lying
dead. What, frankly, _is_ your opinion?"

"I had better tell you something that's just happened," replied Viner. He
went on to repeat the statements which Hyde had just made to Drillford
and himself. "My opinion," he concluded, "is that Hyde is speaking the
plain truth--that all he really did was, as he affirms, to pick up that
ring and run away. I don't believe he murdered Mr. Ashton, and I'm going
to do my best to clear him."

He looked round from one listener to another, seeking opinion from each.
Mr. Pawle maintained a professional imperturbability; Mrs. Killenhall
looked mildly excited on hearing this new theory. But from Miss Wickham,
Viner got a flash of intelligent comprehension.

"The real thing is this," she said, "none of us know anything about Mr.
Ashton, really. He may have had enemies."

Pawle rubbed his chin; the action suggested perplexity.

"Miss Wickham is quite right," he said. "Mr. Ashton is more or less a man
of mystery. He had been here in England two months. His ward knows next
to nothing about him, except that she was left in his guardianship many a
year ago, that he sent her to England, to school, and that he recently
joined her here. Mrs. Killenhall knows no more than that he engaged her
as chaperon to his ward, and that they exchanged references. His
references were to his bankers and to me. But neither his bankers nor I
know anything of him, except that he was a very well-to-do man. I can
tell precisely what his bankers know. It is merely this: he transferred
his banking-account from an Australian bank to them on coming to London.
I saw them this morning on first getting the news. They have about two
hundred thousand pounds lying to his credit. That's absolutely all they
know about him--all!"

"The Australian bankers would know more," suggested Viner.

"Precisely!" agreed Mr. Pawle. "We can get news from them, in time. But
now, what do I know? No more than this--Mr. Ashton called on me about six
or seven weeks ago, told me that he was an Australian who had come to
settle in London, that he was pretty well off, and that he wanted to make
a will. We drafted a will on his instructions, and he duly executed it.
Here it is! Miss Wickham has just seen it. Mr. Ashton has left every
penny he had to Miss Wickham. He told me she was the only child of an old
friend of his, who had given her into his care on his death out in
Australia, some years ago, and that as he, Ashton, had no near relations,
he had always intended to leave her all he had. And so he has, without
condition, or reservation, or anything--all is yours, Miss Wickham, and
I'm your executor. But now," continued Mr. Pawle, "how far does this take
us toward solving the mystery of my client's death? So far as I can see,
next to nowhere! And I am certain of this, Mr. Viner: if we are going to
solve it, and if this old school friend of yours is being unjustly
accused, and is to be cleared, we must find out more about Ashton's
doings since he came to London. The secret lies--there!"

"I quite agree," answered Viner. "But--who knows anything?"

Mr. Pawle looked at the two ladies.

"That's a stiff question!" he said. "The bankers tell me that Ashton only
called on them two or three times; he called on me not oftener; neither
they nor I ever had much conversation with him. These two ladies should
know more about him than anybody--but they seem to know little."

Viner, who was sitting opposite to her, looked at Miss Wickham.

"You must know something about his daily life?" he said. "What did he do
with himself?"

"We told you and the police-inspector pretty nearly all we know, last
night," replied Miss Wickham. "As a rule, he used to go out of a
morning--I think, from his conversation, he used to go down to the City.
I don't think it was on business: I think, he liked to look about him.
Sometimes he came home to lunch; sometimes he didn't. Very often in the
afternoon he took us for motor-rides into the country--sometimes he took
us to the theatres. He used to go out a good deal, alone at night--we
don't know where."

"Did he ever mention any club?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"No, never!" replied Miss Wickham. "He was reticent about himself--always
very kind and thoughtful and considerate for Mrs. Killenhall and myself,
but he was a reserved man."

"Did he ever have any one to see him?" inquired the solicitor. "Any men
to dine, or anything of that sort?"

"No--not once. No one has ever even called on him," said Miss Wickham.
"We have had two or three dinner-parties, but the people who came were
friends of mine--two or three girls whom I knew at school, who are now
married and live in London."

"A lonely sort of man!" commented Mr. Pawle. "Yet--he must have known
people. Where did he go when he went into the City? Where did he go at
night? There must be somebody somewhere who can tell more about him. I
think it will be well if I ask for information through the newspapers."

"There is one matter we haven't mentioned," said Mrs. Killenhall. "Just
after we got settled down here, Mr. Ashton went away for some days--three
or four days. That, of course, may be quite insignificant."

"Do you know where he went?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"No, we don't know," answered Mrs. Killenhall. "He went away one Monday
morning, saying that now everything was in order we could spare him for a
few days. He returned on the following Thursday or Friday,--I forget
which,--but he didn't tell us where he had been."

"You don't think any of the servants would know?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"Oh, dear me, no!" replied Mrs. Killenhall. "He was the sort of man who
rarely speaks to his servants--except when he wanted something."

Mr. Pawle looked at his watch and rose.

"Well!" he said. "We shall have to find out more about my late client's
habits and whom he knew in London. There may have been a motive for this
murder of which we know nothing. Are you coming, Mr. Viner? I should like
a word with you!"

Viner, too, had risen; he looked at Miss Wickham.

"I hope my aunt called on you this morning?" he asked. "I was coming with
her, but I had to go round to the police-station."

"She did call, and she was very kind indeed, thank you," said Miss
Wickham. "I hope she'll come again."

"We shall both be glad to do anything," said Viner. "Please don't
hesitate about sending round for me if there's anything at all I can
do." He followed Mr. Pawle into the square, and turned him towards his
own house. "Come and lunch with me," he said. "We can talk over this at
our leisure."

"Thank you--I will," answered Mr. Pawle. "Very pleased. Between you and
me, Mr. Viner, this is a very queer business. I'm quite prepared to
believe the story that young fellow Hyde tells. I wish he'd told it
straight out in court. But you must see that he's in a very dangerous
position--very dangerous indeed! The police, of course, won't credit a
word of his tale--not they! They've got a strong _prima facie_ case
against him, and they'll follow it up for all they're worth. The real
thing to do, if you're to save him, is to find the real murderer. And to
do that, you'll need all your wits! If one only had some theory!"

Viner introduced Mr. Pawle to Miss Penkridge with the remark that she was
something of an authority in mysteries, and as soon as they had sat down
to lunch, told her of Langton Hyde and his statement.

"Just so!" said Miss Penkridge dryly. "That's much more likely to be
the real truth than that this lad killed Ashton. There's a great deal
more in this murder than is on the surface, and I dare say Mr. Pawle
agrees with me."

"I dare say I do," assented Mr. Pawle. "The difficulty is--how to
penetrate into the thick cloak of mystery."

"When I was round there, at Number Seven, this morning," observed Miss
Penkridge, "those two talked very freely to me about Mr. Ashton. Now,
there's one thing struck me at once--there must be men in London who knew
him. He couldn't go out and about, as he evidently did, without meeting
men. Even if it wasn't in business, he'd meet men somewhere. And if I
were you, I should invite men who knew him to come forward and tell what
they know."

"It shall be done--very good advice, ma'am," said Mr. Pawle.

"And there's another thing," said Miss Penkridge. "I should find out what
can be told about Mr. Ashton where he came from. I believe you can get
telegraphic information from Australia within a few hours. Why not go to
the expense--when there's so much at stake? Depend upon it, the real
secret of this murder lies back in the past--perhaps the far past."

"That too shall be done," agreed Mr. Pawle. "I shouldn't be surprised if
you're right."

"In my opinion," remarked Miss Penkridge, dryly, "the robbing of this
dead man was all a blind. Robbery wasn't the motive. Murder was the thing
in view! And why? It may have been revenge. It may be that Ashton had to
be got out of the way. And I shouldn't wonder a bit if that isn't at the
bottom of it, which is at the top and bottom of pretty nearly
everything!"

"And that, ma'am?" asked Mr. Pawle, who evidently admired Miss
Penkridge's shrewd observations, "that is what, now?"

"Money!" said Miss Penkridge. "Money!"

The old solicitor went away, promising to get to work on the lines
suggested by Miss Penkridge, and next day he telephoned to Viner asking
him to go down to his offices in Bedford Row. Viner hurried off, and on
arriving found Mr. Pawle with a cablegram before him.

"I sent a pretty long message to Melbourne, to Ashton's old bankers, as
soon as I left you yesterday," he said. "I gave them the news of his
murder, and asked for certain information. Here's their answer. I rang
you up as soon as I got it."

Viner read the cablegram carefully:

Deeply regret news. Ashton well known here thirty years dealer in real
estate. Respected, wealthy. Quiet man, bachelor. Have made inquiries in
quarters likely to know. Cannot trace anything about friend named
Wickham. Ashton was away from Melbourne, up country, four years, some
years ago. May have known Wickham then. Ashton left here end July, by
_Maraquibo_, for London. Was accompanied by two friends Fosdick and
Stephens. Please inform if can do more.

"What do you think of that?" asked Mr. Pawle. "Not much in it, is there?"

"There's the mention of two men who might know something of Ashton's
habits," said Viner. "If Fosdick and Stephens are still in England and
were Ashton's friends, one would naturally conclude that he'd seen them
sometimes. Yet we haven't heard of their ever going to his house."

"We can be quite certain that they never did--from what the two ladies
say," remarked Mr. Pawle. "Perhaps they don't live in London. I'll
advertise for both. But now, here's another matter. I asked these people
if they could tell me anything about Wickham, the father of this girl to
whom Ashton's left his very considerable fortune. Well, you see, they
can't. Now, it's a very curious thing, but Miss Wickham has no papers,
has, in fact, nothing whatever to prove her identity. Nor have I. Ashton
left nothing of that sort. I know no more, and she knows no more, than
what he told both of us--that her father died when she was a mere child,
her mother already being dead, that the father left her in Ashton's
guardianship, and that Ashton, after sending her here to school,
eventually came and took her to live with him. There isn't a single
document really to show who she is, who her father was, or anything about
her family."

"Is that very important?" asked Viner.

"It's decidedly odd!" said Mr. Pawle. "This affair seems to be getting
more mysterious than ever."

"What's to be done next?" inquired Viner.

"Well, the newspapers are always very good about that," answered the
solicitor. "I'm getting them to insert paragraphs asking the two men,
Fosdick and Stephens, to come forward and tell us if they've seen
anything of Ashton since he came to England; I'm also asking if anybody
can tell us where Ashton was when he went away from home on that visit
that Mrs. Killenhall spoke of. If--"

Just then a clerk came into Mr. Pawle's room, and bending down to him,
whispered a few words which evidently occasioned him great surprise.

"At once!" he said. "Bring them straight in, Parkinson. God bless me!" he
exclaimed, turning to Viner. "Here are the two men in question--Fosdick
and Stephens! Saw our name in the paper as Ashton's solicitors and want
to see me urgently."




CHAPTER VII

WHAT WAS THE SECRET?


The two men who were presently ushered in were typical Colonials--big,
hefty fellows as yet in early middle age, alert, evidently prosperous, if
their attire and appointments were anything to go by, and each was
obviously deeply interested in the occasion of his visit to Mr. Pawle.
Two pairs of quick eyes took in the old solicitor and his companion, and
the elder of the men came forward in a businesslike manner.

"Mr. Pawle, I understand?" he said. "I'm Mr. Fosdick, of Melbourne,
Victoria; this is my friend Mr. Stephens, same place."

"Take a seat, Mr. Fosdick--have this chair, Mr. Stephens," responded Mr.
Pawle. "You wish to see me--on business?"

"That's so," answered Fosdick as the two men seated themselves by the
solicitor's desk. "We saw your name in the newspapers this morning in
connection with the murder of John Ashton. Now, we knew John Ashton--he
was a Melbourne man, too--and we can tell something about him. So we came
to you instead of the police. Because, Mr. Pawle, what we can tell is
maybe more a matter for a lawyer than for a policeman. It's mysterious."

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Pawle, "I'll be frank with you. I recognized your
names as soon as my clerk announced them. Here's a cablegram which I have
just received from Melbourne--you'll see your names mentioned in it."

The two callers bent over the cablegram, and Fosdick looked up and
nodded.

"Yes, that's right," he said. "We came over with John Ashton in the
_Maraquibo_. We knew him pretty well before that--most folk in Melbourne
did. But of course, we were thrown into his company on board ship rather
more than we'd ever been before. And we very much regret to hear of
what's happened to him."

"You say there is something you can tell?" observed Mr. Pawle. "If it's
anything that will help to solve the mystery of this murder,--for there
is a mystery,--I shall be very glad to hear it."

Fosdick and Stephens glanced at each other and then at Viner, who sat a
little in Mr. Pawle's rear.

"Partner of yours?" asked Fosdick.

"Not at all! This gentleman," replied Mr. Pawle, "is Mr. Viner. It was he
who found Ashton's dead body. They were neighbours."

"Well, you found the body of a very worthy man, sir," remarked Fosdick
gravely. "And we'd like to do something toward finding the man who killed
him. For we don't think it was this young fellow who's charged with it,
nor that robbery was the motive. We think John Ashton was--removed. Put
out of the way!"

"Why, now?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"I'll tell you," replied Fosdick. "My friend Stephens, here, is a man of
few words; he credits me with more talkativeness than he'll lay claim
to. So I'm to tell the tale. There mayn't be much in it, and there may be
a lot. We think there's a big lot! But this is what it comes to: Ashton
was a close man, a reserved man. However, one night, when the three of us
were having a quiet cigar in a corner of the smoking saloon in the
_Maraquibo_, he opened out to us a bit. We'd been talking about getting
over to England--we'd all three emigrated, you'll understand, when we
were very young--and the talk ran on what we'd do. Fosdick and Stephens,
d'ye see, were only on a visit,--which is just coming to an end, Mr.
Pawle; we sail home in a day or two,--but Ashton was turning home for
good. And he said to us, in a sort of burst of confidence, that he'd have
plenty to do when he landed. He said that he was in possession--sole
possession--of a most extraordinary secret, the revelation of which would
affect one of the first families in England, and he was going to bring it
out as soon as he'd got settled down in London. Well--you may be
surprised, but--that's all."

"All you can tell?" exclaimed Mr. Pawle.

"All! But we can see plenty in it," said Fosdick. "Our notion is that
Ashton was murdered by somebody who didn't want that secret to come out.
Now, you see if events don't prove we're right."

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Pawle, "allow me to ask you a few questions."

"Many as you please, sir," assented Fosdick. "We'll answer anything."

"He didn't tell you what the secret was?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"No. He said we'd know more about it in time," replied Fosdick. "It
would possibly lead to legal proceedings, he said--in that case, it would
be one of the most celebrated cases ever known."

"And romantic," added Stephens, speaking for the first time. "Romantic!
That was the term he used."

"And romantic--quite so," assented Fosdick. "Celebrated and
romantic--those were the words. But in any case, he said, whether it got
to law matters or not, it couldn't fail to be in the papers, and we
should read all about it in due time."

"And you know no more than that?" inquired Mr. Pawle.

"Nothing!" said Fosdick with decision.

Mr. Pawle looked at Viner as if to seek some inspiration. And Viner took
up the work of examination.

"Do you know anything of Mr. Ashton's movements since he came to
London?" he asked.

"Next to nothing," replied Fosdick. "Ashton left the _Maraquibo_ at
Naples, and came overland--he wanted to put in a day or two in Rome and a
day or two in Paris. We came round by sea to Tilbury. Then Stephens and I
separated--he went to see his people in Scotland, and I went to mine in
Lancashire. We met--Stephens and I--in London here last week. And we saw
Ashton for just a few minutes, down in the City."

"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "You have seen him, then! Did anything
happen?"

"You mean relating to what he'd told _us_?" said Fosdick. "Well, no more
than I asked him sort of jokingly, how the secret was. And he said it was
just about to come out, and we must watch the papers."

"There was a remark he made," observed Stephens. "He said it would be of
just as much interest, perhaps of far more, to our Colonial papers as to
the English."

"Yes--he said that," agreed Fosdick. "He knew, you see, that we were just
about setting off home."

"He didn't ask you to his house?" inquired Mr. Pawle.

"That was mentioned, but we couldn't fix dates," replied Fosdick.
"However, we told him we were both coming over again on business, next
year, and we'd come and see him then."

Mr. Pawle spread out his hands with a gesture of helplessness.

"We're as wise as ever," he exclaimed.

"No," said Fosdick emphatically, "wiser! The man had a secret, affecting
powerful interests. Many a man's been put away for having a secret."

Mr. Pawle put his finger-tips together and looked thoughtfully at his
elder visitor.

"Well, there's a good deal in that," he said at last. "Now, while you're
here, perhaps you can tell me something else about Ashton. How long have
you known him?"

"Ever since we were lads," answered Fosdick readily. "He was a grown man,
then, though. Stephens and I are about forty--Ashton was sixty."

"You've always known of him as a townsman of Melbourne?"

"That's so. We were taken out there when we were about ten or
twelve--Ashton lived near where we settled down. He was a speculator in
property--made his money in buying and selling lots."

"Was he well known?"

"Everybody knew Ashton."

"Did you ever know of his having a friend named Wickham?" inquired Mr.
Pawle with a side-glance at Viner. "Think carefully, now!"

But Fosdick shook his head, and Stephens shook his.

"Never heard the name," said Fosdick.

"Did you ever hear Ashton mention the name!" asked Mr. Pawle.

"Never!"

"Never heard him mention it on board ship--when he was coming home?"

"No--never!"

"Well," said Mr. Pawle, "I happen to know that Ashton, some years ago,
had a very particular friend named Wickham, out in Australia."

A sudden light came into Fosdick's keen grey-blue eyes.

"Ah," he said. "I can tell how that may be. A good many years ago, when
we were just familiar enough with Melbourne to know certain people in it,
I remember that Ashton was away up country for some time--as that
cablegram says. Most likely he knew this Wickham then. Is that the
Wickham mentioned there?"

"It is," assented Mr. Pawle, "and I want to know who he was."

"Glad to set any inquiries going for you when we get back," said Fosdick.
"We sail in two days."

"Gentlemen," answered Mr. Pawle gravely, "it takes, I believe, five or
six weeks to reach Australia. By the time you get there, this unfortunate
fellow Hyde, who's charged with the murder of Ashton, on evidence that is
quite sufficient to satisfy an average British jury, will probably have
been tried, convicted and hanged. No! I'm afraid we must act at once if
we're to help him, as Mr. Viner here is very anxious to do. And there's
something you can do. The coroner's inquest is to be held tomorrow. Go
there and volunteer the evidence you've just told us! It mayn't do a
scrap of good--but it will introduce an element of doubt into the case
against Hyde, and that will benefit him."

"Tomorrow?" said Fosdick. "We'll do it. Give us the time and place. We'll
be there, Mr. Pawle. I see your point, sir--to introduce the idea that
there's more to this than the police think."

When the two callers had gone, Mr. Pawle turned to Viner.

"Now, my friend," he said, "you've already sent your own solicitor to
Hyde, haven't you? Who is he, by the by?"

"Felpham, of Chancery Lane," replied Viner.

"Excellent man! Now," said Mr. Pawle, "you go to Felpham and tell him
what these two Australians have just told us, and say that in my opinion
it will be well worth while, in his client's interest, to develop their
evidence for all it's worth. That theory of Fosdick's may have a great
deal in it. And another thing--Felpham must insist on Hyde being present
at the inquest tomorrow and giving evidence. That, I say, must be done!
Hyde must make his story public as soon as possible. He must be brought
to the inquest. He'll be warned by the coroner, of course, that he's not
bound to give any evidence at all, but he must go into the box and tell,
on oath, all that he told you and Drillford. Now be off to Felpham and
insist on all this being done."

Viner went away to Chancery Lane more puzzled than ever. What was this
secret affecting one of the first families in England, of which Ashton
had told his two Melbourne friends? How was it, if legal proceedings were
likely to arise out of it, that Ashton had not told Pawle about it? Was
it possible that he had gone to some other solicitor? If so, why didn't
he come forward? And what, too, was this mystery about Miss Wickham and
her father? Why, as Pawle had remarked, were there no papers or
documents, concerning her to be found anywhere? Had she anything to do
with the secret? It seemed to him that the confusion was becoming more
confounded. But the first thing to do was to save Hyde. And he was
relieved to see that Felpham jumped at Pawle's suggestion.

"Good!" said Felpham. "Of course, I'll have Hyde brought up at the
inquest, and he shall tell his story. And we'll save these Australian
chaps until Hyde's been in the box. I do wish Hyde himself could tell us
more about that man whom he saw leaving the passage. Of course, that man
is the actual murderer."

"You think that?" asked Viner.

"Don't doubt it for one moment--and a cool, calculating hand, too!"
declared Felpham. "A man who knew what he was doing. How long do you
suppose it would take to strike the life out of a man and to snatch a few
valuables from his clothing? Pooh! to a hand such as this evidently was,
a minute. Then, he walks calmly away. And--who is he? But--we're not
doing badly."

That, too, was Viner's impression when he walked out of the coroner's
court next day. After having endured its close and sordid atmosphere for
four long hours, he felt, more from intuition than from anything
tangible, that things had gone well for Hyde. One fact was plain--nothing
more could be brought out against Hyde, either there, when the inquest
was resumed a week later, or before the magistrate, or before a judge and
jury. Every scrap of evidence against him was produced before the
coroner: it was obvious that the police could rake up no more, unless
indeed they could prove him to have hidden Ashton's remaining valuables
somewhere which was ostensibly an impossibility. And the evidence of Hyde
himself had impressed the court. Two days' rest and refreshment, even in
a prison and on prison fare, had pulled him together, and he had given
his evidence clearly and confidently. Viner had seen that people were
impressed by it: they had been impressed, too, by the evidence
volunteered by the two Australians. And when the coroner announced that
he should adjourn the inquiry for a week, the folk who had crowded the
court went away asking each other not if Hyde was guilty, but what was
this secret of which Ashton had boasted the possession?

Drillford caught Viner up as he walked down the street and smiled
grimly at him.

"Well, you're doing your best for him, and no mistake, Mr. Viner," he
said. "He's a lucky chap to have found such a friend!"

"He's as innocent as I am," answered Viner. "Look here; if you
police want to do justice, why don't you try to track the man whom
Hyde has told of?"

"What clue have we?" exclaimed Drillford almost contemptuously. "A tall
man in black clothes, muffled to his eyes! But I'll tell you what, Mr.
Viner," he added with a grin: "as you're so confident, why don't you
find him?"

"Perhaps I shall," said Viner, quietly.

He meant what he said, and he was thinking deeply what might be done
towards accomplishing his desires, when, later in the afternoon, Mr.
Pawle rang him up on the telephone.

"Run down!" said Mr. Pawle cheerily. "There's a new development!"




CHAPTER VIII

NEWS FROM ARCADIA


When Viner, half an hour later, walked into the waiting-room at Crawle,
Pawle and Rattenbury's, he was aware of a modestly attired young woman,
evidently, from her dress and appearance, a country girl, who sat shyly
turning over the pages of an illustrated paper. And as soon as he got
into Pawle's private room, the old solicitor jerked his thumb at the door
by which Viner had entered, and smiled significantly.

"See that girl outside?" he asked. "She's the reason of my ringing you
up."

"Yes?" said Viner. "But what--why? More mystery?"

"Don't know," said Mr. Pawle. "I've kept her story till you came. She
turned up here about three-quarters of an hour ago, and said that her
grandmother, who keeps an inn at Marketstoke, in Buckinghamshire, had
seen the paragraph in the papers this morning in which I asked if anybody
could give any information about Mr. John Ashton's movements, and had
immediately sent her off to me with the message that a gentleman of that
name stayed at their house for a few days some weeks since, and that if I
would send somebody over there, she, the grandmother, could give some
particulars about him. So that solves the question we were talking of at
Markendale Square, as to where Ashton went during the absence Mrs.
Killenhall told us of."

"If this is the same Ashton," suggested Viner.

"We'll soon decide that," answered Mr. Pawle as he touched the bell on his
desk. "I purposely awaited your coming before hearing what this young
woman had to tell. Now, my dear," he continued as a clerk brought the
girl into the room, "take a chair and tell me what your message is, more
particularly. You're from Marketstoke eh? Just so--and your grandmother,
who sent you here, keeps an inn there?"

"Yes, sir, the Ellingham Arms," replied the girl as she sat down and
glanced a little nervously at her two interviewers.

"To be sure. And your grandmother's name is--what?"

"Hannah Summers, sir."

"Mrs. Hannah Summers. Grandfather living?"

"No, sir."

"Very well--Mrs. Hannah Summers, landlady at the Ellingham Arms,
Marketstoke, in Buckinghamshire. Now then--but what's your name, my
dear?"

"Lucy Summers, sir."

"Very pretty name, I'm sure! Well, and what's the message your
grandmother sent me? I want this gentleman to hear it."

"Grandmother wished me to say, sir, that we read the piece in the paper
this morning asking if anybody could give you any news about a Mr. John
Ashton, and that as we had a gentleman of that name staying with us for
three or four days some weeks since, she sent me to tell you, and to say
that if you would send somebody down to see her, she could give some
information about him."

"Very clearly put, my dear--much obliged to you," said Mr. Pawle. "Now, I
suppose you were at the Ellingham Arms when this Mr. Ashton came there?"

"Oh, yes, sir; I live there!"

"To be sure! Now, what sort of man was he--in appearance?"

"A tall, big gentleman, sir, with a beard, going a little grey. He was
wearing a blue serge suit."

Mr. Pawle nodded at Viner.

"Seems like our man," he remarked. "Now," he went on, turning again to
Lucy Summers, "you say he stayed there three or four days. What did he do
with himself while he was there?"

"He spent a good deal of time about the church, sir," answered the girl,
"and he was at Ellingham Park a good deal--"

"Whose place is that?" interrupted Mr. Pawle.

"Lord Ellingham's, sir."

"Do you mean that Mr. Ashton called on Lord Ellingham, or what?"

"No, sir, because Lord Ellingham wasn't there--he scarcely ever is
there," replied Lucy Summers. "I mean that Mr. Ashton went into the park
a good deal and looked over the house--a good many people come to see
Ellingham Park, sir."

"Well, and what else?" asked Mr. Pawle. "Did he go to see people in the
town at all?"

"I don't know, sir--but he was out most of the day. And at night he
talked a great deal with my grandmother, in her sitting-room, I think,"
added the girl with a glance which took in both listeners. "I think
that's what she wants to tell about. She would have come here herself,
but she's over seventy and doesn't like travelling."

Mr. Pawle turned to Viner.

"Now we know where we are," he said. "There's no doubt that this is our
Ashton, and that Mrs. Summers has something she can tell about him.
Viner, I suggest that you and I go down to Marketstoke this afternoon.
You've accommodations for a couple of gentlemen, I suppose, my dear?" he
added, turning to the girl. "Couple of nice bedrooms and a bit of
dinner, eh?"

"Oh, yes sir!" replied Lucy Summers. "We constantly have gentlemen
there, sir."

"Very well," said Mr. Pawle. "Now, then, you run away home to
Marketstoke, my dear, and tell your grandmother that I'm very much
obliged to her, and that I am coming down this evening, with this
gentleman, Mr. Viner, and that we shall be obliged if she'll have a nice,
plain, well-cooked dinner ready for us at half-past seven. We shall come
in my motorcar--you can put that up for the night, and my driver too?
Very well--that's settled. Now, come along, and one of my clerks shall
get you a cab to your station. Great Central, isn't it? All right--mind
you get yourself a cup of tea before going home."

"Viner," Pawle continued when he had taken the girl into the outer
office, "we can easily run down to Marketstoke in under two hours. I'll
call for you at your house at half-past five. That'll give us time to
wash away the dirt before our dinner. And then--we'll hear what this old
lady has to tell."

Viner, who was musing somewhat vaguely over these curious developments,
looked at Mr. Pawle as if in speculation about his evident optimism.

"You think we shall hear something worth hearing?" he asked.

"I should say we probably shall," replied Mr. Pawle. "Put things
together. Ashton goes away--as soon as he's got settled down in
Markendale Square--on a somewhat mysterious journey. Now we hear that he
had a secret. Perhaps something relating to that secret is mixed up with
his visit to Marketstoke. Depend upon it, an old woman of over
seventy--especially a landlady of a country-town inn, whose wits are
presumably pretty sharp--wouldn't send for me unless she'd something to
tell. Before midnight, my dear sir, we may have learnt a good deal."

Viner picked up his hat.

"I'll be ready for you at half-past five," he said. Then, halfway to the
door, he turned with a question: "By the by," he added, "you wouldn't
like me to tell the two ladies that we've found out where Ashton went
when he was away?"

"I think not until we've found out why he went away," answered the old
lawyer with a significant smile. "We may draw the covert blank, you know,
after all. When we've some definite news--"

Viner nodded, went out, into the afternoon calm of Bedford Row. As he
walked up it, staring mechanically at the old-fashioned red brick fronts,
he wondered how many curious secrets had been talked over and perhaps
unravelled in the numerous legal sanctuaries approached through those
open doorways. Were there often as strange ones as that upon which he had
so unexpectedly stumbled? And when they first came into the arena of
thought and speculation did they arouse as much perplexity and mental
exercise as was now being set up in him? Did every secret, too, possibly
endanger a man's life as his old schoolfellow's was being endangered? He
had no particular affection or friendship for Langton Hyde, of whom,
indeed, he had known very little at school, but he had an absolute
conviction that he was innocent of murder, and that conviction had
already aroused in him a passionate determination to outwit the police.
He had been quick to see through Drillford's plans. There was a case, a
strong _prima facie_ case against Hyde, and the police would work it up
for all they were worth. Failing proofs in other directions, failing the
discovery of the real murderer, how was that case going to be upset? And
was it likely that he and Pawle were going to find any really important
evidence in an obscure Buckinghamshire market-town?

He jumped into a cab at the top of Bedford Row and hastened back to
Markendale Square to pack a bag and prepare for his journey. Miss
Penkridge called to him from the drawing-room as he was running upstairs;
he turned into the room to find her in company with two ladies--dismal,
pathetic figures in very plain and obviously countrified garments, both
in tears and evident great distress, who, as Viner walked in, rose from
their chairs and gazed at him sadly and wistfully. They reminded him at
once of the type of spinster found in quiet, unpretentious cottages in
out-of-the-way villages--the neither young nor old women, who live on
circumscribed means and are painfully shy of the rude world outside. And
before either he or Miss Penkridge could speak, the elder of the two
broke into an eager exclamation.

"Oh, Mr. Viner, we are Langton's sisters! And we are so grateful to
you--and oh, do you think you can save him?"

Viner was quick to seize the situation. He said a soothing word or two,
begged his visitors to sit down again, and whispered to Miss Penkridge to
ring for tea.

"You have come to town today?" he asked.

"We left home very, very early this morning," replied the elder sister.
"We learned this dreadful news last night in the evening paper. We came
away at four o'clock this morning--we live in Durham, Mr. Viner,--and we
have been to Mr. Felpham's office this afternoon. He told us how kind you
had been in engaging his services for our unfortunate brother, and we
came to thank you. But oh, do you think there is any chance for him?"

"Every chance!" declared Viner, pretending more conviction than he felt.
"Don't let yourselves be cast down. We'll move heaven and earth to prove
that he's wrongly accused. I gather--if you don't mind my asking--that
your brother has been out of touch with you for some time?"

The two sisters exchanged mournful glances.

"We had not heard anything of Langton for some years," replied the
elder. "He is much--much younger than ourselves, and perhaps we are too
staid and old-fashioned for him. But if we had known that he was in
want! Oh, dear me, we are not at all well-to-do, Mr. Viner, but we would
have sacrificed anything. Mr. Felpham says that we shall be allowed to
visit him--he is going to arrange for us to do so. And of course we must
remain in London until this terrible business is over--we came prepared
for that."

"Prepared for that!" repeated the other sister, who seemed to be a
fainter replica of the elder. "Yes, prepared, of course, Mr. Viner."

"Now that we have found Langton, though in such painful circumstances,"
said the first speaker, "we must stand by him. We must find some quiet
lodging, and settle down to help. We cannot let all the burden fall on
you, Mr. Viner."

Viner glanced at Miss Penkridge. They were quick to understand each
other, these two, and he knew at once that Miss Penkridge saw what was
in his mind.

"You must stay with us," he said, turning to the two mournful
figures. "We have any amount of room in this house, and we shall be
only too glad--"

"Oh, but that is too--" began both ladies.

"I insist," said Viner, with a smile.

"We both insist!" echoed Miss Penkridge. "We are both given to having
our own way, too; so say no more about it. We are all in the same boat
just now, and its name is _Mystery_, and we must pull together until
we're in harbour."

"Listen!" said Viner. "I have to go away tonight, on a matter closely
connected with this affair. Let me leave you in my aunt's charge, and
tomorrow I may be able to give you some cheering news. You'll be much
more comfortable here than in any lodgings or hotel and--and I should
like to do something for Hyde; we're old schoolfellows, you know."

Then he escaped from the room and made ready for his journey; and at
half-past five came Mr. Pawle in his private car and carried him off into
the dark. And hour and a half later the car rolled smoothly into the main
street of a quiet, wholly Arcadian little town, and pulled up before an
old-fashioned many-gabled house over the door of which was set up one of
those ancient signs which, in such places, display the coat of arms of
the lord of the manor. Viner had just time to glance around him, and in a
clear, starlit evening, to see the high tower of a church, the timbered
fronts of old houses, and many a tall, venerable tree, before following
Mr. Pawle into a stone hall filled with dark oak cabinets and bright with
old brass and pewter, on the open hearth of which burnt a fine and cheery
fire of logs.

"Excellent!" muttered the old lawyer as he began to take off his
multitudinous wraps. "A real bit of the real old England! Viner, if the
dinner is as good as this promises, I shall be glad we've come, whatever
the occasion."

"Here's the landlady, I suppose," said Viner as a door opened.

A tall, silver-haired old woman, surprisingly active and vivacious in
spite of her evident age, came forward with a polite, old-fashioned bow.
She wore a silk gown and a silk apron and a smart cap, and her still
bright eyes took in the two visitors at a glance.

"Your servant, gentlemen," she said. "Your rooms are ready, and dinner
will be ready, too, when you are. This way, if you please."

"A very fine old house this, ma'am," observed Mr. Pawle as they followed
her up a curious staircase, all nooks and corners. "And you have, no
doubt, been long in it?"

"Born in it, sir," said the landlady, with a laugh. "Our family--on one
side--has been here two hundred years. This is your room, sir--this is
your friend's." She paused, and with a significant look, pointed to
another door. "That," she said, "is the room which Mr. Ashton had when he
was here."

"Ah! We are very anxious to know what you can tell us about him, ma'am,"
said Mr. Pawle.

Mrs. Summers paused, and again glanced significantly at her visitors.

"I wish I knew the meaning of what I shall tell you," she answered.




CHAPTER IX

LOOKING BACKWARD


On the principle that business should never be discussed when one is
dining, Mr. Pawle made no reference during dinner to the matter which had
brought Viner and himself to the Ellingham Arms. He devoted all his
attention and energies to the pleasures of the table; he praised the
grilled soles and roast mutton and grew enthusiastic over some old
Burgundy which Mrs. Summers strongly recommended. But when dinner was
over and he had drunk a glass or two of old port, his eyes began to turn
toward the door of the quaint little parlour in which he and Viner had
been installed, and to which the landlady had promised to come.

"I confess I'm unusually curious about what we're going to hear, Viner,"
he said, as he drew out a well-filled cigar-case. "There's an atmosphere
of mystery about our presence and our surroundings that's like an
apéritif to an already hungry man. Ashton, poor fellow, comes over to
this quiet, out-of-the-way place; why, we don't know; what he does here
we don't know, yet--but all the circumstances, up to now, seem to point
to secrecy, if not to absolute romance and adventure."

"Is it going, after all, to clear up the mystery of his death?" asked
Viner. "That's what concerns me--I'm afraid I'm a bit indifferent to the
rest of it. What particular romance, do you think, could be attached to
the mere fact that Ashton paid a three days' visit to Marketstoke?"

Mr. Pawle drew out a well-filled cigar-case.

"In my profession," he answered, "we hear a great deal more of romance
than most folk could imagine. Now, here's a man who returns to this
country from a long residence in Australia. The first thing he does,
after getting settled down in London, is to visit Marketstoke. Why
Marketstoke? Marketstoke is an obscure place--there are at least five or
six towns in this very county that are better known. Again, I say--why
Marketstoke? And why this, the very first place in England? For what
reason? Now, as a lawyer, a reason does suggest itself to me; I've been
thinking about it ever since that rosy-cheeked lass called at my office
this afternoon. What does the man who's been away from his native land
for the best part of his life do, as a rule, when at last he sets foot on
it again--eh?"

"I'm not greatly experienced," replied Viner, smiling at the old
solicitor's professional enthusiasm. "What does he do--usually?"

"Makes his way as soon as possible to his native place!" exclaimed Mr.
Pawle, with an expressive flourish of his cigar. "That, usually, is the
first thing he thinks of. You're not old enough to remember the
circumstances, my boy, but I have, of course, a very distinct
recollection of the Tichborne affair in the early seventies. Now, if you
ever read the evidence in that _cause célèbre_, you'll remember that the
claimant, Orton, on arriving in England, posing as the missing heir, Sir
Roger Tichborne, did a certain thing, the evidence of which, I can assure
you, was not lost on the jury before whom he eventually came. Instead of
going direct to Tichborne, where you'd naturally have thought all his
affection and interests rested, where did he go? To Whitechapel! Why?
Because the Ortons were Whitechapel folk! The native place called him, do
you see? The first thought he had on setting foot on English soil
was--Whitechapel!"

"Are you suggesting that Ashton was probably a native of Marketstoke?"
asked Viner.

"I mean to find out--no matter what we hear from the landlady--if that
name is to be found in the parish register here, anyway," answered Mr.
Pawle. "You can be sure of this--Ashton came to this obscure country town
for some special purpose. What was it? And--had it anything to do with,
did it lead up to, his murder? That--"

A light tap at the door heralded the approach of Mrs. Summers.

"That," repeated Mr. Pawle, as he jumped up from his chair and politely
threw the door open, "is what I mean to endeavour--endeavour, at any
rate--to discover. Come in, ma'am," he continued, gallantly motioning the
old landlady to the easiest chair in the room. "We are very eager,
indeed, to hear what you can tell us. Our cigars, now--"

"Pray, don't mention them, sir," responded Mrs. Summers. "I hope you are
quite comfortable, and that you are having everything you wish?"

"Nothing ma'am, could be more pleasant and gratifying, as far as
material comfort goes," answered Mr. Pawle with conviction. "The dinner
was excellent; your wine is sound; this old room is a veritable haven! I
wish we were visiting you under less sad conditions. And now about your
recollections of this poor gentleman, ma'am?"

The landlady laid a large book on the table, and opening it at a page
where at she had placed a marker, pointed to a signature.

"That is the writing of the Mr. John Ashton who came here," she said.
"He registered his name and address the day he came--there it is: 'John
Ashton, 7 Markendale Square, London, W.' You gentlemen will recognise
it, perhaps?"

Mr. Pawle put up his glasses, glanced once at the open book, and turned
to Viner with a confirmatory nod.

"That's Ashton's writing, without a doubt," he said. "It's a signature
not to be forgotten when you've once seen it. Well, that establishes the
fact that he undoubtedly came here on that date. Now, ma'am, what can you
tell about him?"

Mrs. Summers took the chair which Viner drew forward to the hearth and
folded her hands over her silk apron.

"Well sir," she answered, "a good deal. Mr. Ashton came here one Monday
afternoon, in a motorcar, with his luggage, and asked if I could give him
rooms and accommodation for a few days. Of course I could--he had this
room and the room I pointed out upstairs, and he stayed here until the
Thursday, when he left soon after lunch--the same car came for him. And
he hadn't been in the house an hour, gentlemen, before I wondered if he
hadn't been here before."

"Interesting--very!" said Mr. Pawle. "Now, why, ma'am did you
wonder that?"

"Well, sir," replied Mrs. Summers, "because, after he'd looked round the
house, and seen his room upstairs, he went out to the front door, and
then I followed him, to ask if he had any particular wishes about his
dinner that evening. Our front door, as you will see in the morning,
fronts the market square, and from it you can see about all there is to
see of the town. He was standing at the door, under the porch, looking
all round him, and I overheard him talking to himself as I went up
behind him.

"'Aye!' he was saying, as he looked this way and that, 'there's the old
church, and the old moot-hall, and the old market-place, and the old
gabled and thatched houses, and even the old town pump--they haven't
changed a bit, I reckon, in all these years!' Then he caught sight of me,
and he smiled. 'Not many changes in this old place, landlady, in your
time?' he said pleasantly. 'No, sir,' I answered. 'We don't change much
in even a hundred years in Marketstoke.' 'No!' he said, and shook his
head. 'No--the change is in men, in men!' And then he suddenly set
straight off across the square to the churchyard. 'You've known
Marketstoke before,' I said to myself."

"You didn't ask him that?" inquired Mr. Pawle, eagerly.

"I didn't, sir," replied Mrs. Summers. "I never asked him a question all
the time he was here. I thought that if I was correct in what I fancied,
I should hear him say something. But he never did say anything of that
sort--all the same, I felt more and more certain that he did know the
place. And during the time he was here, he went about in it in a fashion
that convinced me that my ideas were right. He was in and around the
church a great deal--the vicar and the parish clerk can tell you more
about his visits there than I can--and he was at the old moot-hall
several times, looking over certain old things they keep there, and he
visited Ellingham Park twice, and was shown over the house. And before
he'd been here two days I came to a certain conclusion about him, and
I've had it ever since, though he never said one word, or did one thing
that could positively confirm me in it."

"Yes!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "And that, ma'am, was--"

"That he was somebody who disappeared from Marketstoke thirty-five years
ago," answered the landlady, "disappeared completely, and has never been
heard of from that day to this!"

Mr. Pawle turned slowly and looked at Viner. He nodded his head several
times, then turned to Mrs. Summers and regarded her fixedly.

"And that somebody?" he asked in hushed accents. "Who was he?"

The landlady smoothed her silk apron and shook her head.

"It's a long story, sir," she answered. "I think you must have heard
something of it--though to be sure, it was not talked of much at the
time, and didn't become public until legal proceedings became necessary,
some years ago. You're aware, of course, that just outside the town here
is Ellingham Park, the seat of the Earl of Ellingham. Well, what I have
to tell you has to do with them, and I shall have to go back a good way.
Thirty-five years ago the head of the family was the seventh Earl, who
was then getting on in life. He was a very overbearing, harsh old
gentleman, not at all liked--the people here in Marketstoke, nearly all
of them his tenants, used to be perpetually at variance with him about
something or other; he was the sort of man who wanted to have his own way
about everything. And he had trouble at home, at any rate with his elder
son,--he only had two sons and no daughter,--and about the time I'm
talking of it came to a head. Nobody ever knew exactly what it was all
about, but it was well known that Lord Marketstoke--that was the elder
son's name--and his father, the Earl, were at cross purposes, if not
actually at daggers drawn, about something or other. And when Lord
Marketstoke was about twenty five or twenty-six there was a great quarrel
between them; it broke out one night, after dinner; the servants heard
angry words between them. That night, gentlemen, Lord Marketstoke left
the house and set off to London, and from that day to this he has never
been heard of or seen again--hereabouts, at any rate."

Mr. Pawle, who was listening with the deepest interest and attention,
glanced at Viner as if to entreat the same care on his part.

"I do remember something of this, now I come to think of it," he said.
"There were some legal proceedings in connection with this disappearance,
I believe, some years ago."

"Yes, sir--they were in the newspapers," asserted the old landlady. "But
of course, those of us about here knew of how things stood long before
that. Lord Marketstoke went away, as I have said. It was known that he
had money of his own, that had come to him from his mother, who had died
years before all this. But it wasn't known where he went. Some said he'd
gone to the Colonies; some said to America. And at one time there was a
rumour that he'd taken another name and joined some foreign army, and
been killed in its service. Anyway, nobody ever heard a word of him--Mr.
Marcherson, who was steward at Ellingham Park for over forty years (he
died last year, a very old man) assured me that from the day on which
Lord Marketstoke left his father's house not one word of him, not a
breath, ever reached any of those he'd left behind him. There was
absolute silence--he couldn't have disappeared more completely if they'd
laid him in the family vault in Marketstoke church."

"And evident intention to disappear!" observed Mr. Pawle. "You'll mark
that, Viner--it's important. Well, ma'am," he added, turning again to
Mrs. Summers. "And--what happened next?"

"Well sir, there was nothing much happened," continued the landlady.
"Matters went on in pretty much the usual way. The old Earl got older, of
course, and his temper got worse. Mr. Marcherson assured me that he was
never known to mention his missing son--to anybody. And in the end,
perhaps about fifteen years after Lord Marketstoke had gone away, he
died. And then there was no end of trouble and bother. The Earl had left
no will; at any rate, no will could be found, and no lawyer could be
heard of who had ever made one. And of course, nobody knew where the new
Earl was, nor even if he was alive or dead. There were advertisements
sent out all over the world--Mr. Marcherson told me that they were
translated into I don't know how many foreign languages and published in
every quarter of the globe--asking for news of him and stating that his
father was dead. That was done for some time."

"With no result?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"No result whatever, sir--I understand that the family solicitors never
had one single reply," answered Mrs. Summers. "I understand, too, that
for some time before the old Earl's death they'd been trying to trace
Lord Marketstoke from his last known movements. But that had failed too.
He had chambers in London, and he kept a manservant there; the manservant
could only say that on the night on which his young master left Ellingham
Park he returned to his chambers, went to bed--and had gone when he, the
manservant, rose in the morning. No, sir; all the efforts and
advertisements were no good whatever, and after some time--some
considerable time--the younger brother, the Honourable Charles
Cave-Gray--"

"Cave-Gray? Is that the family name?" interrupted Mr. Pawle.

"That's the family name, sir--Cave-Gray," replied Mrs. Summers. "One of
the oldest families in these parts, sir--the earldom dates from Queen
Anne. Well, the Honourable Charles Cave-Gray, and his solicitors, of
course, came to the conclusion that Lord Marketstoke was dead, and so--I
don't understand the legal niceties, gentlemen, but they went to the
courts to get something done which presumed his death and let Mr.
Charles come into the title and estates. And in the end that had been
done, and Mr. Charles became the eighth Earl of Ellingham."

"I remember it now," muttered Mr. Pawle. "Yes--curious case. But it was
proved to the court, I recollect, that everything possible had been done
to find the missing heir--and without result."

"Just so, sir, and so Mr. Charles succeeded," asserted Mrs. Summers. "He
was a very nice, pleasant man, not a bit like his father--a very good and
considerate landlord, and much respected. But he's gone now--died three
years ago; and his son, a young man of twenty-two or three, succeeded
him--that's the present Earl, gentlemen. And of him we see very little;
he scarcely ever stayed at Ellingham Park, except for a bit of shooting,
since he came to the title. And now," she concluded, with a shrewd glance
at the old lawyer, "I wonder if you see, sir, what it was that came into
my mind when this Mr. John Ashton came here a few weeks ago, especially
after I heard him say what he did, and after I saw how he was spending
his time here?"

"I've no inkling, ma'am; I've no inkling!" said Mr. Pawle. "You
wondered--"

"I wondered," murmured Mrs. Summers, bending closer to her listeners, "if
the man who called himself John Ashton wasn't in reality the long-lost
Lord Marketstoke."




CHAPTER X

THE PARISH REGISTER


Mr. Pawle, after a glance at Viner which seemed to be full of many
meanings, bent forward in his chair and laid a hand on the old
landlady's arm.

"Now, have you said as much as that to anybody before?" he asked, eking
her significantly. "Have you mentioned it to your neighbours, for
instance, or to any one in the town?"

"No, sir!" declared Mrs. Summers promptly. "Not to a soul! I'm given to
keeping my ideas to myself, especially on matters of importance. There is
no one here in Marketstoke that I would have mentioned such a thing to,
now that the late steward, Mr. Marcherson, is dead. I shouldn't have
mentioned it to you two gentlemen if it hadn't been for this dreadful news
in the papers. No, I've kept my thoughts at home."

"Wise woman!" said Mr. Pawle. "But now let me ask you a few questions.
Did you know this Lord Marketstoke before he disappeared?"

"I only saw him two or three times," replied the landlady. "It was seldom
that he came to Ellingham Park, after his majority. Of course, I saw him
a good deal when he was a mere boy. But after he was grown up, only, as I
say, a very few times."

"But you remember him?" suggested Mr. Pawle.

"Oh, very well indeed!" said Mrs. Summers. "I saw him last a day or two
before he went away for good."

"Well, now, did you think you recognized anything of him--making
allowance for the difference in age--in this man who called himself John
Ashton?" asked Mr. Pawle. "For that, of course, is important!"

"Mr. Ashton," answered Mrs. Summers, "was just such a man as Lord
Marketstoke might have been expected to become. Height, build--all the
Cave-Grays that I've known were big men--colour, were alike. Of course,
Mr. Ashton had a beard, slightly grey, but he was a grey-haired man. All
the family had crown hair; the present Lord Ellingham is crown-haired.
And Mr. Ashton had grey eyes--every Cave-Gray that I remember was
grey-eyed. I should say that Mr. Ashton was just what I should have
expected Lord Marketstoke to be at sixty."

"I suppose Ashton never said or did anything here to reveal his secret,
if he had one?" asked Mr. Pawle, after a moment's thoughtful pause.

"Oh, nothing!" replied Mrs. Summers. "He occupied himself, as I tell you,
while he was here, and finally he went away in the car in which he had
come, saying that he had greatly enjoyed his stay, and that we should see
him again sometime. No--he never said anything about himself, that is.
But he asked me several questions; I used to talk to him sometimes, of an
evening, about the present Lord Ellingham."

"What sort of questions?" inquired Mr. Pawle.

"Oh--as to what sort of young man he was, and if he was a good landlord
and so on," replied Mrs. Summers. "And I purposely told him about the
disappearance of thirty-five years ago, just to see what he would say
about it."

"Ah! And what did he say?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"Nothing--except that it was extraordinary how people could disappear in
this world," said Mrs. Summers. "Whether he was interested or not, he
didn't show it."

"Probably felt that he knew more about it than you did," chuckled the old
solicitor. "Well, ma'am, we're much obliged to you. Now take my advice
and keep to your very excellent plan of saying nothing. Tomorrow morning
we will just have a look into certain things, and see if we can discover
anything really pertinent, and you shall know what conclusion we come to.
Viner!" Pawle went on, when the old landlady had left them alone, "what
do you think of this extraordinary story? Upon my word, I think it quite
possible that the old lady's theory might be right, and that Ashton may
really have been the missing Lord Marketstoke!"

"You think it probable that a man who was heir to an English earldom and
to considerable estates could disappear like that, for so many years, and
then reappear?" asked Viner.

"I won't discuss the probability," answered Mr. Pawle, "but that it's
possible I should steadily affirm. I've known several very extraordinary
cases of disappearance. In this particular instance--granting things to
be as Mrs. Summers suggests--see how easy the whole thing is. This young
man disappears. He goes to a far-off colony under an assumed name.
Nobody knows him. It is ten thousand to one against his being recognized
by visitors from home. All the advertising in the world will fail to
reveal his identity. The only person who knows who he is is himself. And
if he refuses to speak--there you are!"

"What surprises me," remarked Viner, "is that a man who evidently lived a
new life for thirty-five years and prospered most successfully in it,
should want to return to the old one."

"Ah, but you never know!" said the old lawyer. "Family feeling, old
associations, loss of the old place--eh? As men get older, their thoughts
turn fondly to the scenes and memories of their youth, Viner. If Ashton
was really the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared, he may have come down
here with no other thought than that of just revisiting his old home for
sentimental reasons. He may not have had the slightest intention, for
instance, of setting up a claim to the title and estates."

"I don't understand much about the legal aspect of this," said Viner,
"but I've been wondering about it while you and the landlady talked.
Supposing Ashton to be the long-lost Lord Marketstoke--could he have
established a claim such as you speak of?"

"To be sure!" answered Mr. Pawle. "Had he been able to prove that he was
the real Simon pure, he would have stepped into title and estates at
once. Didn't the old lady say that the seventh Earl died intestate? Very
well--the holders since his time, that is to say, Charles, who, his
brother's death being presumed, became eighth Earl, and his son, the
present holder, would have had to account for everything since the day
of the seventh Earl's death. When the seventh Earl died, his elder son,
Lord Marketstoke, _ipso facto_, stepped into his shoes, and if he were,
or is, still alive, he's in them still. All he had to do, at any moment,
after his father's death, no matter who had come into title and estates,
was to step forward and say: 'Here I am!--now I want my rights!'"

"A queer business altogether!" commented Viner. "But whoever Ashton
was, he's dead. And the thing that concerns me is this: if he really
was Earl of Ellingham, do you think that fact's got anything to do with
his murder?"

"That's just what we want to find out," answered Mr. Pawle eagerly. "It's
quite conceivable that he may have been murdered by somebody who had a
particular interest in keeping him out of his rights. Such things have
been known. I want to go into all that. But now here's another matter. If
Ashton really was the missing Lord Marketstoke, who is this girl whom he
put forward as his ward, to whom he's left his considerable fortune, and
about whom nobody knows anything? I've already told you there isn't a
single paper or document about her that I can discover. Was he really her
guardian?"

"Has this anything to do with it?" asked Viner. "Does it come into
things?"

Mr. Pawle did not answer for a moment; he appeared to have struck a new
vein of thought and to be exploring it deeply.

"In certain events, it would come into it pretty strongly!" he muttered
at last. "I'll tell you why, later on. Now I'm for bed--and first thing
after breakfast, in the morning, Viner, we'll go to work."

Viner had little idea of what the old solicitor meant as regards going to
work; it seemed to him that for all practical purposes they were already
in a maze out of which there seemed no easy way. And he was not at all
sure of what they were doing when, breakfast being over next morning, Mr.
Pawle conducted him across the square to the old four-square churchyard,
and for half an hour walked him up one path and down another and in and
around the ancient yew-trees and gravestones.

"Do you know what I've been looking for, Viner?" asked Mr. Pawle at
last as he turned towards the church porch. "I was looking for
something, you know."

"Not the faintest notion!" answered Viner dismally. "I wondered!"

"I was looking," replied Mr. Pawle with a faint chuckle, "to see if I
could find any tombstones or monuments in this churchyard bearing the
name Ashton. There isn't one! I take it from that significant fact that
Ashton didn't come down here to visit the graves of his kindred. But now
come into the church--Mrs. Summers told me this morning that there's a
chapel here in which the Cave-Gray family have been interred for two or
three centuries. Let's have a look at it."

Viner, who had a dilettante love of ancient architecture, was immediately
lost in admiration of the fine old structure into which he and his
companion presently stepped. He stood staring at the high rood, the fine
old rood screen, the beauty of the clustered columns--had he been alone,
and on any other occasion, he would have spent the morning in wandering
around nave and aisles and transepts. But Mr. Pawle, severely practical,
at once made for the northeast chapel; and Viner, after another glance
round, was forced to follow him.

"The Ellingham Chapel!" whispered the old solicitor as they passed a fine
old stone screen which Viner mentally registered as fifteenth-century.
"No end of Cave-Grays laid here. What a profusion of monuments!"

Viner began to examine those monuments as well as the gloom of the
November morning and the dark-painted glass of the windows would permit.
And before very long he turned to his companion, who was laboriously
reading the inscription on a great box-tomb which stood against the
north wall.

"I say!" he whispered. "Here's a curious fact which, in view of what we
heard last night, may be of use to us."

"What's that?" demanded Mr. Pawle.

Viner took him by the elbow and led him over to the south wall, on which
was arranged a number of ancient tablets, grouped around a great
altar-tomb whereon were set up the painted effigies of a gentleman, his
wife, and several sons and daughters, all in ruffs, kneeling one after
the other, each growing less in size and stature, in the attitude of
prayer. He pointed to the inscription on this, and from it to several of
the smaller monuments.

"Look here!" he said. "There are Cave-Grays commemorated here from 1570
until 1820. No end of 'em--men and women. And now, see--there's a
certain Christian name--a woman's name--which occurs over and over
again. There it is--and there--and here--and here--and here again; it's
evidently been a favourite family name among the Cave-Gray women for
three hundred years at least. You see what it is? Avice!"

Mr. Pawle peered at the various places to which his companion's
finger pointed.

"Yes," he answered, "I see it--several times, as you say. Avice! Yes?"

"Miss Wickham's Christian name is Avice," said Viner.

Mr. Pawle started.

"God bless me!" he exclaimed. "So it is! I'd forgotten that. Dear me!
Now, that's very odd--too odd, perhaps, to be a coincidence. Very
interesting, indeed! Favourite family name without a doubt."

Viner silently went round the chapel, inspecting every monument its four
walls sheltered.

"It occurs just nineteen times," he announced at last. "Now, is it a
coincidence that Miss Wickham's name should be Avice? Or is it that
there's some connection between her and all these dead and gone Avices?"

"Very strange!" admitted Mr. Pawle. "Viner--we'll go next and have a look
at the parish registers. But look here! Not a word to parson or clerk
about our business! We merely wish to make search for a certain legal
purpose, eh?"

Three hours later Viner, heartily weary of turning over old registers
full of crabbed writing, was glad when Mr. Pawle closed the one on
which he was engaged, intimated that he had seen all he wanted, paid
the fees for his search, and whispered to his companion that they would
go to lunch.

"Well?" asked Viner as they walked across the square to the Ellington
Arms. "Have we done anything?"

"Probably!" answered Mr. Pawle. "For you never know how these little
matters might help. We've established two facts, anyway. One--that there
have never been any folk of the name of Ashton in this town since the
registers came into being in 1567; the other, that the name Avice was a
very favourite one indeed amongst the women of the Cave-Gray family. And
there's just another little fact which I discovered, and said nothing
about while the vicar and clerk were about--it may be nothing, and it may
be something."

"What is it?" asked Viner.

"Well," answered Mr. Pawle pausing a few yards away from the porch of the
hotel, and speaking in a confidential voice, "it's this: In turning up
the records of the Cave-Gray family, as far as they are shown in their
parish registers, I found that Stephen John Cave-Gray, sixth Earl of
Ellingham, married one Georgina Wickham. Now, is that another
coincidence? There you get the two names in combination--Avice Wickham.
That particular Countess of Ellingham would, of course, be the
grandmother of the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared. Did he think of her
maiden name, Wickham, when he wanted a new one for himself? Possibly! And
when he married, and had a daughter, did he think of the Christian name
so popular with his own womenfolk of previous generations, and call his
daughter Avice? And are Marketstoke and Wickham and Ashton all one and
the same man?"

"Upon my word, it's a strange muddle!" exclaimed Viner.

"Nothing as yet to what it will be," remarked Mr. Pawle sententiously.
"Come on--I'm famishing. Let's lunch--and then we'll go back to town."

Another surprise awaited them when they walked into Mr. Pawle's office in
Bedford Row at four o'clock that afternoon. A card lay on the old
lawyer's blotting-pad, and after glancing at it, he passed it to Viner.

"See that?" he said. "Now, who on earth is Mr. Armitstead Ashton
Armitstead, of Rouendale House, Rawtenstall? Who left this?" he went on,
as a clerk entered the room with some letters.

"A gentleman who called at three o'clock, sir," replied the clerk. "He
said he's travelled specially from Lancashire to see you about the Ashton
affair. He's going to call again, sir. In fact," concluded the clerk,
glancing into the anteroom, "I think he's here now."

"Bring him in," commanded Mr. Pawle. He made a grimace at Viner as the
clerk disappeared. "You see how things develop," he murmured. "What are
we going to hear next?"




CHAPTER XI

WHAT HAPPENED IN PARIS


The man who presently walked in, a tall, grey-bearded, evidently
prosperous person, dressed in the height of fashion, glanced keenly from
one to the other of the two men who awaited him.

"Mr. Pawle?" he inquired as he dropped into the chair which the old
lawyer silently indicated at the side of his desk. "One of your partners,
no doubt!" he added, looking again at Viner.

"No sir," replied Mr. Pawle. "This is Mr. Viner, who gave evidence in the
case you want to see me about. You can speak freely before him. What is
it you have to say, Mr. Armitstead?"

"Not, perhaps, very much, but it may be of use," answered the visitor.
"The fact is that, like most folk, I read the accounts of this Ashton
murder in the newspapers, and I gave particular attention to what was
said by the man Hyde at the inquest the other day. It was what he said in
regard to the man whom he alleges he saw leaving Lonsdale Passage that
made me come specially to town to see you. I don't know," he went on,
glancing at the card which still lay on Mr. Pawle's blotting-pad, "if you
know my name at all? I'm a pretty well-known Lancashire manufacturer, and
I was a member of Parliament for some years--for the Richdale Valley
division. I didn't put up again at the last General Election."

Mr. Pawle bowed.

"Just so, Mr. Armitstead," he answered. "And there's something you know
about this case?"

"I know this," replied Mr. Armitstead. "I met John Ashton in Paris some
weeks ago. We were at the Hotel Bristol together. In fact, we met and
introduced ourselves to each other in an odd way. We arrived at the Hotel
Bristol at the same time--he from Italy, I from London, and we registered
at the same moment. Now, I have a habit of always signing my name in
full, Armitstead Ashton Armitstead. I signed first; he followed. He
looked at me and smiled. 'You've got one of my names, anyway, sir,' he
remarked. 'And I see you hail from where I hailed from, many a long year
ago.' 'Then you're a Lancashire man?' I said. 'I left Lancashire more
years ago than I like to think of,' he answered, with a laugh. And then
we got talking, and he told me that he had emigrated to Australia when he
was young, and that he was going back to England for the first time. We
had more talk during the two or three days that we were at the Bristol
together, and we came to the conclusion that we were distantly related--a
long way back. But he told me that, as far as he was aware, he had no
close relations living, and when I suggested to him that he ought to go
down to Lancashire and look up old scenes and old friends, he replied
that he'd no intention of doing so--he must, he said, have been
completely forgotten in his native place by this time."

"Did he tell you what his native place was, Mr. Armitstead?" asked Mr.
Pawle, who had given Viner two or three expressive glances during the
visitor's story.

"Yes," replied Mr. Armitstead. "He did--Blackburn. He left it as a very
young man."

"Well," said Mr. Pawle, "there's a considerable amount of interest in
what you tell us, for Mr. Viner and myself have been making certain
inquiries during the last twenty-four hours, and we formed, or nearly
formed, a theory which your information upsets. Ashtons of Blackburn? We
must go into that. For we particularly want to know who Mr. John Ashton
was--there's a great deal depending on it. Did he tell you more?"

"About himself, no," replied the visitor, "except that he'd been
exceedingly fortunate in Australia, and had made a good deal of money and
was going to settle down here in London. He took my address and said he'd
write and ask me to dine with him as soon as he got a house to his
liking, and he did write, only last week, inviting me to call next time I
was in town. Then I saw the accounts of his murder in the papers--a very
sad thing!"

"A very mysterious thing!" remarked Mr. Pawle. "I wish we could get some
light on it!"

The visitor looked from one man to the other and lowered his voice a
little.

"It's possible I can give you a little," he said. "That, indeed, is the
real reason why I set off to see you this morning. You will remember
that Hyde, the man who is charged with the murder, said before the
Coroner that as he turned into Lonsdale Passage, he saw coming out of
it a tall man in black clothes who was swathed to the very eyes in a big
white muffler?"

"Yes!" said Mr. Pawle. "Well?"

"I saw such a man with Ashton in Paris," answered Mr. Armitstead. "Hyde's
description exactly tallies with what I myself should have said."

Mr. Pawle looked at his visitor with still more interest and attention.

"Now, that really is of importance!" he exclaimed. "If Hyde saw such a
man--as I believe he did--and you saw such a man, then that man must
exist, and the facts that you saw him with Ashton, and that Hyde saw him
in close proximity to the place where Ashton was murdered, are of the
highest consequence. But--you can tell us more, Mr. Armitstead?"

"Unfortunately, very little," replied the visitor. "What I saw was on the
night before I left Paris--after it I never saw Ashton again to speak to.
It was late at night. Do you know the Rue Royale? There is at the end of
it a well-known restaurant, close to the Place de la Concorde--I was
sitting outside this about a quarter to eleven when I saw Ashton and the
man I am speaking of pass along the pavement in the direction of the
Madeleine. What made me particularly notice the man was the fact that
although it was an unusually warm night, he was closely muffled in a big
white silk handkerchief. It was swathed about his throat, his chin, his
mouth; it reached, in fact, right up to his eyes. An odd thing, on such a
warm night--Ashton, who was in evening dress, had his light overcoat
thrown well back. He was talking very volubly as they passed me--the
other man was listening with evident attention."

"Would you know the man if you saw him again?" asked Viner.

"I should most certainly know him if I saw him dressed and muffled in the
same way," asserted Mr. Armitstead. "And I believe I could recognize him
from his eyes--which, indeed, were all that I could really see of him. He
was so muffled, I tell you, that it was impossible to see if he was a
clean-shaven man or a bearded man. But I did see his eyes, for he turned
them for an instant full on the light of the restaurant. They were
unusually dark, full and brilliant--his glance would best be described as
flashing. And I should say, from my impression at the time, and from what
I remember of his dress, that he was a foreigner--probably an Italian."

"You didn't see this man at your hotel?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"No--I never saw him except on this one occasion," replied Mr.
Armitstead. "And I did not see Ashton after that. I left Paris very early
the next morning, for Rouen, where I had some business. You think this
matter of the man in the muffler important?"

"Now that you've told us what you have, Mr. Armitstead, I think it's of
the utmost importance and consequence--to Hyde," answered Mr. Pawle. "You
must see his solicitor--he's Mr. Viner's solicitor too--and offer to give
evidence when Hyde's brought up again; it will be of the greatest help.
There's no doubt, to me, at any rate, that the man Hyde saw leaving the
scene of the murder is the man you saw with Ashton in Paris. But now, who
is he? Ashton, as we happen to know, left his ship at Naples, and
travelled to England through Italy and France. Is this man some fellow
that he picked up on the way? His general appearance, now--how did that
strike you?"

"He was certainly a man of great distinction of manner," declared Mr.
Armitstead. "He had the air and bearing of--well, of a personage. I
should say he was somebody--you know what I mean--a man of superior
position, and so on."

"Viner," exclaimed Mr. Pawle, "that man must be found! There must be
people in London who saw him that night. People can't disappear like
that. We'll set to work on that track--find him we must! Now, all the
evidence goes to show that he and Ashton were in company that
night--probably they'd been dining together, and he was accompanying
Ashton to his house. How is it that no one at all has come forward to say
that Ashton was seen with this man? It's really extraordinary!"

Mr. Armitstead shook his head.

"There's one thing you're forgetting, aren't you?" he said. "Ashton and
this man mayn't have been in each other's company many minutes when the
murder took place. Ashton may have been trapped. I don't know much
about criminal affairs, but in reading the accounts of the proceedings
before the magistrate and the coroner, an idea struck me which, so far
as I could gather from the newspapers, doesn't seem to have struck any
one else."

"What's that?" demanded Mr. Pawle. "All ideas are welcome."

"Well, this," replied Mr. Armitstead: "In one of the London newspapers
there was a plan, a rough sketchmap of the passage in which the murder
took place. I gathered from it that on each side of that passage there
are yards or gardens, at the backs of houses--the houses on one side
belong to some terrace; on the other to the square--Markendale Square--in
which Ashton lived. Now, may it not be that the murder itself was
actually committed in one of those houses, and that the body was carried
out through a yard or garden to where it was found?"

"Ashton was a big and heavy man," observed Viner. "No one man could have
carried him."

"Just so!" agreed Mr. Armitstead. "But don't you think there's a
probability that more than one man was engaged in this affair! The man in
the muffler, hurrying away, may have only been one of several."

"Aye!" said Mr. Pawle, with a deep sigh. "There's something in all that.
It may be as you say--a conspiracy. If we only knew the real object of
the crime! But it appears to be becoming increasingly difficult to find
it.... What is it?" he asked, as his clerk came into the room with a
card. "I'm engaged."

The clerk came on, however, laid the card before his employer, and
whispered a few words to him.

"A moment, then--I'll ring," said Mr. Pawle. He turned to his two
companions as the clerk retired and closed the door, and smiled as he
held up the card. "Here's another man who wants to tell me something
about the Ashton case!" he exclaimed.

"It's been quite a stroke of luck having that paragraph in the
newspapers, asking for information from anybody who could give it!"

"What's this?" asked Viner.

"Mr. Jan Van Hoeren, Diamond Merchant," read Mr. Pawle from the card,
"583 Hatton Garden--"

"Ah!" Mr. Armitstead exclaimed. "Diamonds!"

"I shouldn't wonder if you're right," remarked Mr. Pawle. "Diamonds, I
believe, are to Hatton Garden what cabbages and carrots are to Covent."
He touched his bell, and the clerk appeared. "Bring Mr. Van Hoeren this
way," he said.

There entered, hat in hand, bowing all round, a little fat, beady-eyed
man, whose beard was blue-black and glossy, whose lips were red, whose
nose was his most decided feature. His hat was new and shining, his black
overcoat of superfine cloth was ornamented with a collar of undoubted
sable; he carried a gold-mounted umbrella. But there was one thing on him
that put all the rest of his finery in the shade. In the folds of his
artistically-arranged black satin stock lay a pearl--such a pearl as few
folk ever have the privilege of seeing. It was as big as a moderately
sized hazel nut, and the three men who looked at it knew that it was
something wonderful.

"Take a chair, Mr. Van Hoeren," said Mr. Pawle genially. "You want to
tell me something about this Ashton case? Very much obliged to you, I'm
sure. These gentlemen are both interested--considerably--in that case,
and if you can give me any information that will throw any light on it--"

Mr. Van Hoeren deposited his plump figure in a convenient chair and
looked round the circle of faces.

"One thing there is I don't see in them newspapers, Mr. Pawle," he said
in strongly nasal accents. "Maybe nobody don't know nothings about it,
what? So I come to tell you what I know, see? Something!"

"Very good of you, I'm sure," replied Mr. Pawle. "What may it be?"

Mr. Van Hoeren made a significant grimace; it seemed to imply that there
was a great deal to be told.

"Some of us, my way, we know Mr. Ashton," he said. "In Hatton Garden, you
understand. Dealers in diamonds, see? Me, and Haas, and Aarons, and one
or two more. Business!"

"You've done business with Mr. Ashton?" asked the old lawyer. "Just so!"

"No--done nothing," replied Mr. Van Hoeren. "Not a shilling's worth. But
we know him. He came down there. And we don't see nothing in them papers
that we expected to see, and today two or three of us, we lunch together,
and Haas, he says: 'Them lawyer men,' he says, 'they want information.
You go and give it to 'em. So!"

"Well--what is it?" demanded Mr. Pawle.

Mr. Van Hoeren leaned forward and looked from one face to another.

"Ashton," he said, "was carrying a big diamond about--in his pocketbook!"

Mr. Armitstead let a slight exclamation escape his lips. Viner glanced at
Mr. Pawle. And Mr. Pawle fastened his eyes on his latest caller.

"Mr. Ashton was carrying a big diamond about in his pocketbook?" he said.
"Ah--have you seen it?"

"Several times I see it," replied Mr. Van Hoeren. "My trade, don't it?
Others of us--we see it too."

"He wanted to sell it?" suggested Mr. Pawle.

"There ain't so many people could afford to buy it," said Mr. Van Hoeren.

"Why!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "Was it so valuable, then?"

The diamond merchant shrugged his shoulders and waved the gold-mounted
umbrella which he was carefully nursing in his tightly-gloved hands.

"Oh, well!" he answered. "Fifty or sixty thousand pounds it was
worth--yes!"




CHAPTER XII

THE GREY MARE INN


The three men who heard this announcement were conscious that at this
point the Ashton case entered upon an entirely new phase. Armitstead's
mind was swept clean away from the episode in Paris, Viner's from the
revelations at Marketstoke, Mr. Pawle suddenly realized that here, at
last, was something material and tangible which opened out all sorts of
possibilities. And he voiced the thoughts of his two companions as he
turned in amazement on the fat little man who sat complacently nursing
his umbrella.

"What!" he exclaimed. "You mean to tell me that Ashton was walking about
London with a diamond worth fifty thousand pounds in his pocket?
Incredible!"

"Don't see nothing so very incredible about it," retorted Mr. Van Hoeren.
"I could show you men what carries diamonds worth twice that much in
their pockets about the Garden."

"That's business," said Mr. Pawle. "I've heard of such things--but you
all know each other over there, I'm told. Ashton wasn't a diamond
merchant. God bless me--he was probably murdered for that stone!"

"That's just what I come to you about, eh?" suggested Mr. Van Hoeren.
"You see 'tain't nothing if he show that diamond to me, and such as me;
we don't think nothing of that--all in our way of business. But if he
gets showing it to other people, in public places--what?"

"Just so!" asserted Mr. Pawle. "Sheer tempting of Providence! I'm amazed!
But--how did you get to know Mr. Ashton and to hear of this diamond? Did
he come to you?"

"Called on me at my office," answered Mr. Van Hoeren laconically. "Pulled
out the diamond and asked me what I thought it was worth. Well, I
introduce him to some of the other boys in the Garden, see? He show them
the diamond too. We reckon it's worth what I say--fifty to sixty
thousand. So!"

"Did he want to sell it?" demanded Mr. Pawle.

"Oh, well, yes--he wouldn't have minded," replied the diamond merchant.
"Wasn't particular about it, you know--rich man."

"Did he tell you anything about it--how he got it, and so on?" asked Mr.
Pawle. "Was there any history attached to it?"

"Oh, nothing much," answered Mr. Van Hoeren. "He told me he'd had it some
years--got it in Australia, where he come from to London. Got it cheap,
he did--lots of things like that in our business."

"And carried it in his pocket!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. He stared hard at
Mr. Van Hoeren, as if his mind was revolving some unpleasant idea. "I
suppose all the people you introduced him to are--all right?" he asked.

"Oh, they're all right!" affirmed Mr. Van Hoeren, with a laugh. "Give my
word for any of 'em, eh? But Ashton--if he pulls that diamond out to
show to anybody--out of the trade, you understand--well, then, there's
lots of fellows in this town would settle him to get hold of it--what?"

"I think you're right," said Mr. Pawle. He glanced at Viner. "This puts a
new complexion on affairs," he remarked. "We shall have to let the police
know of this. I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Van Hoeren. You won't mind
giving evidence about this if it's necessary?"

"Don't mind nothing," said Mr. Van Hoeren. "Me and the other boys, we
think you ought to know about that diamond, see?"

He went away, and Mr. Pawle turned to Viner and Armitstead.

"I shouldn't wonder if we're getting at something like a real clue," he
said. "It seems evident that Ashton was not very particular about showing
his diamond to people! If he'd show it--readily--to a lot of Hatton
Garden diamond merchants, who, after all, were strangers to him, how do
we know that he wouldn't show it to other men? The fact is, wealthy men
like that are often very careless about their possessions. Possibly a
diamond worth fifty or sixty thousand pounds wasn't of so much importance
in Ashton's eyes as it would have been in--well, in mine. And how do we
know that he didn't show the diamond to the man with the muffler, in
Paris, and that the fellow followed him here and murdered him for it?"

"Possible!" said Armitstead.

"Doesn't it strike you as strange, though," suggested Viner, "that the
first news of this diamond comes from Van Hoeren? One would have thought
that Ashton would have mentioned it--and shown it--to Miss Wickham and
Mrs. Killenhall. Yet apparently--he never did."

"Yes, that does seem odd," asserted Mr. Pawle. "But there seems to be no
end of oddity in this case. And there's one thing that must be done at
once: we must have a full and thorough search and examination of all
Ashton's effects. His house must be thoroughly searched for papers and so
on. Viner, I suppose you're going home? Do me the favour to call at Miss
Wickham's, and tell her that I propose to come there at ten o'clock
tomorrow morning, to go through Ashton's desk and his various belongings
with her--surely there must be something discoverable that will throw
more light on the matter. And in the meantime, Viner, don't say anything
to her about our journey to Marketstoke--leave that for a while."

Viner went away from Crawle, Pawle, and Rattenbury's in company
with Armitstead. Outside, the Lancashire business man gave him a
shrewd glance.

"I very much doubt if that diamond has anything whatever to do with
Ashton's murder," he said. "From what I saw of him, he seemed to me to
be a very practical man, full of business aptitude and common sense, and
I don't believe that he'd make a practice of walking about London with a
diamond of that value in his pocket. It's all very well that he should
have it in his pocket when he went down to Hatton Garden--he had a
purpose. But that he should always carry it--no, I don't credit that,
Mr. Viner."

"I can scarcely credit such a foolish thing myself," said Viner.
"But--where is the diamond?"

"Perhaps you'll find it tomorrow," suggested Armitstead. "The man would
be sure to have some place in his house where he kept his valuables. I
shall be curious to hear."

"Are you staying in town?" inquired Viner.

"I shall be at the Hotel Cecil for a fortnight at least," answered
Armitstead. "And if I can be of any use to you or Mr. Pawle, you've only
to ring me up there. You've no doubt yourself, I think, that the
unfortunate fellow Hyde is innocent?"

"None!" said Viner. "No doubt whatever! But--the police have a strong
case against him. And unless we can find the actual murderer, I'm afraid
Hyde's in a very dangerous position."

"Well," said Armitstead, "in these cases, you never know what a sudden
and unexpected turn of events may do. That man with the muffler is the
chap you want to get hold of--I'm sure of that!"

Viner went home and dined with his aunt and their two guests, Hyde's
sisters, whom he endeavoured to cheer up by saying that things were
developing as favourably as could be expected, and that he hoped to
have good news for them ere long. They were simple souls, pathetically
grateful for any scrap of sympathy and comfort, and he strove to
appear more confident about the chances of clearing this unlucky
brother than he really felt. It was his intention to go round to
Number Seven during the evening, to deliver Mr. Pawle's message to
Miss Wickham, but before he rose from his own table, a message arrived
by Miss Wickham's parlour-maid--would Mr. Viner be kind enough to
come to the house at once?

At this, Viner excused himself to his guests and hurried round to Number
Seven, to find Miss Wickham and Mrs. Killenhall, now in mourning
garments, in company with a little man whom Viner at once recognized as a
well-known tradesman of Westbourne Grove--a florist and fruiterer named
Barleyfield, who was patronized by all the well-to-do folk of the
neighbourhood. He smiled and bowed as Viner entered the room, and turned
to Miss Wickham as if suggesting that she should explain his presence.

"Oh, Mr. Viner!" said Miss Wickham, "I'm so sorry to send for you so
hurriedly, but Mr. Barleyfield came to tell us that he could give some
information about Mr. Ashton, and as Mr. Pawle isn't available, and I
don't like to send for a police-inspector, I thought that you, perhaps--"

"To be sure!" said Viner. "What is it, Mr. Barleyfield?"

Mr. Barleyfield, who had obviously attired himself in his Sunday raiment
for the purposes of his call, and had further shown respect for the
occasion by wearing a black cravat, smiled as he looked from the two
ladies to Viner.

"Well, Mr. Viner," he answered, "I'll tell you what it is--it may help a
bit in clearing up things, for I understand there's a great deal of
mystery about Mr. Ashton's death. Now, I'm told, sir, that
nobody--especially these good ladies--knows nothing about what the
deceased gentleman used to do with himself of an evening--as a rule. Just
so. Well, you know, Mr. Viner, a tradesman like myself generally knows a
good deal about the people of his neighbourhood. I knew Mr. Ashton very
well indeed--he was a good customer of mine, and sometimes he'd stop and
have a bit of chat with me. And I can tell you where he very often spent
an hour or two of an evening."

"Yes--where?" asked Viner.

"At the Grey Mare Inn, sir," answered Barleyfield promptly. "I have often
seen him there myself."

"The Grey Mare Inn!" exclaimed Viner, while Mrs. Killenhall and Miss
Wickham looked at each other wonderingly. "Where is that? It sounds like
the name of some village tavern."

"Ah, but you don't know this part of London as I do, sir!" said
Barleyfield, with a knowing smile. "If you did, you'd know the Grey Mare
well enough--it's an institution. It's a real old-fashioned place,
between Westbourne Grove and Notting Hill--one of the very last of the
old taverns, with a tea-garden behind it, and a bar-parlour of a very
comfortable sort, where various old fogies of the neighbourhood gather of
an evening and smoke churchwarden pipes and tell tales of the olden
days--I rather gathered from what I saw that it was the old atmosphere
that attracted Mr. Ashton--made him think of bygone England, you know,
Mr. Viner."

"And you say he went there regularly?" asked Viner.

"I've seen him there a great deal, sir, for I usually turn in there for
half an hour or so, myself, of an evening, when business is over and I've
had my supper," answered Barleyfield. "I should say that he went there
four or five nights a week."

"And no doubt conversed with the people he met there?" suggested Viner.

"He was a friendly, sociable man, sir," said Barleyfield. "Yes, he was
fond of a talk. But there was one man there that he seemed to
associate with--an elderly, superior gentleman whose name I don't
know, though I'm familiar enough with his appearance. Him and Mr.
Ashton I've often seen sitting in a particular corner, smoking their
cigars, and talking together. And--if it's of any importance--I saw
them talking like that, at the Grey Mare, the very evening that--that
Mr. Ashton died, Mr. Viner."

"What time was that?" asked Viner.

"About the usual time, sir--nine-thirty or so," replied Barleyfield. "I
generally look in about that time--nine-thirty to ten."

"Did you leave them talking there?" inquired Viner.

"They were there when I left, sir, at a quarter past ten," answered
Barleyfield. "Talking in their usual corner."

"And you say you don't know who this man is?"

"I don't! I know him by sight--but he's a comparatively recent comer to
the Grey Mare. I've noticed him for a year or so--not longer."

Viner glanced at the two ladies.

"I suppose you never heard Mr. Ashton mention the Grey Mare?" he asked.

"We never heard Mr. Ashton say anything about his movements," answered
Miss Wickham. "We used to wonder, sometimes, if he'd joined a club or if
he had friends that we knew nothing about."

"Well," said Viner, turning to the florist, "do you think you could take
me to the Grey Mare, Mr. Barleyfield?"

"Nothing easier, sir--open to one and all!"

"Then, if you've the time to spare, we'll go now," said Viner. He lingered
behind a moment to tell Miss Wickham of Mr. Pawle's appointment for the
morning, and then went away with Barleyfield in the Notting Hill
direction. "I suppose you've been at the Grey Mare since Mr. Ashton's
death?" he asked as they walked along.

"Once or twice, sir," replied Barleyfield.

"And you've no doubt heard the murder discussed?" suggested Viner.

"I've heard it discussed hard enough, sir, there and elsewhere," replied
the florist. "But at the Gray Mare itself, I don't think anybody knew
that this man who'd been murdered was the same as the grey-bearded
gentleman who used to drop in there sometimes. They didn't when I was
last in, anyway. Perhaps this gentleman I've mentioned to you might
know--Mr. Ashton might have told his name to him. But you know how it is
in these places, Mr. Viner--people drop in, even regularly, and
fellow-customers may have a bit of talk with them without having the
least idea who they are. Between you and me, sir, I came to the
conclusion that Mr. Ashton was a man who liked to see a bit of what we'll
call informal, old-fashioned tavern life, and he hit on this place by
accident, in one of his walks round, and took to coming where he could be
at his ease--amongst strangers."

"No doubt," agreed Viner.

He followed his guide through various squares and streets until they came
to the object of their pilgrimage--a four-square, old-fashioned house set
back a little from the road, with a swinging sign in front, and a garden
at the side. Barleyfield led him through this garden to a side-door,
whence they passed into a roomy, low-ceilinged parlour which reminded
Viner of old coaching prints--he would scarcely have believed it possible
that such a pre-Victorian room could be found in London. There were
several men in it, and he nudged his companion's elbow.

"Let us sit down in a quiet corner and have something to drink," he said.
"I just want to take a look at this place--and its frequenters."

Barleyfield led him to a nook near the chimney-corner and beckoned to
an aproned boy who hung about with a tray under his arm. But before
Viner could give an order, his companion touched his arm and motioned
towards the door.

"Here's the gentleman Mr. Ashton used to talk to!" he whispered. "The
tall man--just coming in."




CHAPTER XIII

THE JAPANESE CABINET


Remembering that Barleyfield had said that the man who now entered had
been in Ashton's company in that very room on the evening of the murder,
Viner looked at him with keen interest and speculation. He was a tall,
well-built, clean-shaven man, of professional appearance and of a large,
heavy, solemn face the evidently usual pallor of which was deepened by
his black overcoat and cravat. An eminently respectable, slow-going,
unimaginative man, in Viner's opinion, and of a type which one may see by
the dozen in the precincts of the Temple; a man who would be content to
do a day's work in a placid fashion, and who cherished no ambition to set
the Thames on fire; certainly, so Viner thought from appearances, not the
man to commit a peculiarly daring murder. Nevertheless, knowing what he
did, he watched him closely.

The newcomer, on entering, glanced at once at a quiet corner of the room,
and seeing it unoccupied, turned to the bar, where the landlord, who was
as old-fashioned as his surroundings, was glancing over the evening
paper. He asked for whisky and soda, and when he took up the glass, drank
slowly and thoughtfully. Suddenly he turned to the landlord.

"Have you seen that gentleman lately that I've sometimes talked to in
the corner there?" he asked.

The landlord glanced across the room and shook his head.

"Can't say that I have, sir," he answered. "The tallish gentleman with a
grey beard? No, he hasn't been in this last night or two."

The other man sat down his glass and drew something from his pocket.

"I promised to bring him a specimen of some cigars I bought lately," he
said, laying an envelope on the counter. "I can't stop tonight. If he
should come in, will you give him that--he'll know what it is."

"Good heavens!" muttered Viner, as he turned in surprise to Barleyfield.
"These men evidently don't know that the man they're talking about is--"

"Murdered!" whispered Barleyfield, with a grim smile. "Nothing wonderful
in that, Mr. Viner. They haven't connected Mr. Ashton with the man
they're mentioning--that's all."

"And yet Ashton's portrait has been in the papers!" exclaimed Viner. "It
amazes me!"

"Aye, just so, sir," said Barleyfield. "But--a hundred yards in London
takes you into another world, Mr. Viner. For all practical purposes,
Lonsdale Passage, though it's only a mile away, is as much separated
from this spot as New York is from London. Well--that's the man I told
you of, sir."

The man in question drank off the remaining contents of his glass, nodded
to the landlord, and walked out. And Viner was suddenly minded to do
something towards getting information.

"Look here!" he said. "I'm going to ask that landlord a question or two.
Come with me."

He went up to the bar, Barleyfield following in close attendance, and
gave the landlord a significant glance.

"Can I have a word with you, in private?" he asked.

The landlord looked his questioner over and promptly opened a flap in
the counter.

"Step inside, sir," he said, indicating a door in the rear. "Private room
there, sir."

Viner and Barleyfield walked into a little snugly furnished sitting-room;
the landlord followed and closed the door.

"Do you happen to know the name of the gentleman who was speaking to you
just now?" asked Viner, going straight to his point. "I've a very
particular reason for wishing to know it."

"No more idea than I have of yours, sir," replied the landlord with a
shrewd glance.

Viner pulled out a card and laid it on the table.

"That is my name," he said. "You and the gentleman who has just gone out
were speaking just now of another gentleman whom he used to meet
here--who used to sit with him in that far corner. Just so--you don't
know the name of that gentleman, either?"

"No more than I know the others', sir," replied the landlord, shaking
his head. "Lord bless you, folks may come in here for a year or two, and
unless they happen to be neighbours of mine, I don't know who they are.
Now, there's your friend there," he went on, indicating Barleyfield with
a smile, "I know his face as that of a customer, but I don't know who he
is! That gentleman who's just gone out, he's been in the habit of
dropping in here for a twelvemonth, maybe, but I never remember hearing
his name. As for the gentleman he referred to, why, I know him as one
that's come in here pretty regular for the last few weeks, but I don't
know his name, either."

"Have you heard of the murder in Lonsdale Passage?" asked Viner.

"Markendale Square way? Yes," answered the landlord, with awakening
interest. "Why, is it anything to do--"

Viner saw an illustrated paper lying on a side-table and caught it
up. There was a portrait of Ashton in it, and he held it up before
the landlord.

"Don't you recognize that?" he asked.

The landlord started and stared.

"Bless my life and soul!" he exclaimed. "Why, surely that's very like the
gentleman I just referred to--I should say it was the very man!"

"It is the very man!" said Viner with emphasis, "the man for whom your
customer who's just gone out left the envelope. Now, this man who was
murdered in Lonsdale Passage was here in your parlour for some time on
the evening of the night on which he was murdered, and he was then in
conversation with the man who has just gone out. Naturally, therefore, I
should like to know that man's name."

"You're not a detective?" suggested the landlord.

"Not at all!" replied Viner. "I was a neighbour of Mr. Ashton's, and I am
interested--deeply interested--in an attempt to clear up the mystery of
his death. Things keep coming out. I didn't know until this evening that
Ashton spent some time here, at your house, the night he was killed. But
when I got to know, I came along to make one or two inquiries."

"Bless me!" said the landlord, who was still staring at the portrait.
"Yes, that's the gentleman, sure enough! I've often wondered who he
was--pleasant, sociable sort, he was, poor fellow. Now I come to think of
it I remember him being in here that night--last time, of course, he was
ever in. He was talking to that gentleman who's just gone; in fact, they
left together."

"They left together, did they!" exclaimed Viner with a sharp glance at
Barleyfield. "Ah! What time was that, now?"

"As near as I can recollect, about ten-fifteen to ten-thirty," answered
the landlord. "They'd been talking together for a good hour in that
corner where they usually sat. But dear me," he went on, looking from one
to the other of his two visitors, "I'm quite sure that gentleman who's
just left doesn't know of this murder! Why, you heard him ask for the
other gentleman, and leave him some cigars that he'd promised!"

"Just so--which makes it all the stranger," said Viner. "Well, I'm much
obliged to you, landlord--and for the time being, just keep the matter
of this talk strictly to yourself. You understand?"

"As you wish, sir," assented the landlord. "I shan't say anything. You
wouldn't like me to find out this gentleman's name? Somebody'll know him.
My own idea is that he lives in this part--he began coming in here of an
evening about a year since."

"No--do nothing at present," said Viner. "The inquiries are only
beginning."

He impressed the same obligation of silence on Barleyfield as they went
away, and the florist readily understood.

"No hard work for me to hold my tongue, Mr. Viner," he said. "We
tradespeople are pretty well trained to that, sir! There's things and
secrets I could tell! But upon my word, I don't ever remember quite such
a case as this. And I expect it'll be like most cases of the sort!"

"What do you mean?" asked Viner.

"Oh, there'll be a sudden flash of light on it, sir, all of a sudden,"
replied Barleyfield. "And then--it'll be as clear as noonday."

"I don't know where it's coming from!" muttered Viner. "I don't even see
a rift in the clouds yet."

He had been at work for an hour or two with Miss Wickham and Mr. Pawle
next morning, searching for whatever might be discovered among Ashton's
effects, before he saw any reason to alter this opinion. The bunch of
keys discovered in the murdered man's pocket had been duly delivered to
Miss Wickham by the police, and she handed them over to the old solicitor
with full license to open whatever they secured. But both Mr. Pawle and
Viner saw at once that Ashton had been one of those men who have no habit
of locking up things. In all that roomy house he had but one room which
he kept to himself--a small, twelve-foot-square apartment on the ground
floor, in which, they said, he used to spend an hour or two of a
morning. It contained little in the way of ornament or comfort--a solid
writing-desk with a hard chair, an easy-chair by the fireplace, a sofa
against the wall, a map of London and a picture or two, a shelf of old
books, a collection of walking-sticks, and umbrellas: these made up all
there was to see.

And upon examination the desk yielded next to nothing. One drawer
contained a cash-box, a checkbook, a pass-book. Some sixty or seventy
pounds in notes, gold and silver lay in the cash-box; the stubs of
the checks revealed nothing but the payment of tradesmen's bills; the
pass-book showed that an enormous balance lay at the bank. In another
drawer rested a collection of tradesmen's books--Mr. Ashton, said
Mrs. Killenhall, used to pay his tradesmen every week; these books
had been handed to him on the very evening of his death for
settlement next morning.

"Evidently a most methodical man!" remarked Mr. Pawle. "Which makes it
all the more remarkable that so few papers are discoverable. You'd have
thought that in his longish life he'd have accumulated a good many
documents that he wanted to keep."

But documents there were next to none. Several of the drawers of the desk
were empty, save for stationery. One contained a bunch of letters, tied
up with blue ribbon--these, on examination, proved to be letters written
by Miss Wickham, at school in England, to her guardian in Australia. Miss
Wickham, present while Mr. Pawle and Viner searched, showed some emotion
at the sight of them.

"I used to write to him once a month," she said. "I had no idea that he
had kept the letters, though!"

The two men went silently on with their search. But there was no further
result. Ashton did not appear to have kept any letters or papers relative
to his life or doings prior to his coming to England. Private documents
of any sort he seemed to have none. And whatever business had taken him
to Marketstoke, they could find no written reference to it; nor could
they discover anything about the diamond of which Mr. Van Hoeren had
spoken. They went upstairs to his bedroom and examined the drawers,
cabinets and dressing-case--they found nothing.

"This is distinctly disappointing," remarked Mr. Pawle when he and Viner
returned to the little room. "I never knew a man who left such small
evidence behind him. It's quite evident to me that there's nothing
whatever in this house that's going to be of any use to us. I wonder if
he rented a box at any of the safe-deposit places? He must have had
documents of some sort."

"In that case, we should surely have found a key, and perhaps a receipt
for the rent of the box," suggested Viner. "I should have thought he'd
have had a safe in his own house," he added, "but we don't hear of one."

Mr. Pawle looked round the room, as if suspicious that Ashton might have
hidden papers in the stuffing of the sofa or the easy-chair.

"I wonder if there's anything in that," he said suddenly. "It looks like
a receptacle of some sort."

Viner turned and saw the old lawyer pointing to a curious Japanese
cabinet which stood in the middle of the marble mantelpiece--the only
really notable ornament in the room. Mr. Pawle laid hold of it and
uttered a surprised exclamation. "That's a tremendous weight for so small
a thing!" he said. "Feel it!"

Viner took hold of the cabinet--an affair of some eighteen inches in
height and twelve in depth--and came to the conclusion that it was
heavily weighted with lead. He lifted it down to the desk, giving it a
slight shake.

"I took it for a cigar cabinet," he remarked. "How does it open? Have you
a key that will fit it?"

But upon examination there was no keyhole, and nothing to show how the
door was opened.

"I see what this is," said Viner, after looking closely over the cabinet,
back, front and sides. "It opens by a trick--a secret. Probably you press
something somewhere and the door flies open. But--where?"

"Try," counselled Mr. Pawle. "There's something inside--I heard it when
you shook the thing."

It took Viner ten minutes to find out the secret. He would not have found
it at all but for accident. But pressing here and pulling there, he
suddenly touched what appeared to be no more than a cleverly inserted
rivet in the ebony surface; there was a sharp click, and the panelled
front flew open.

"There is something!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "Papers!"

He drew out a bundle of papers, folded in a strong sheet of
cartridge-paper and sealed back and front. The enveloping cover
was old and faded; the ribbon which had been tied round the
bundle was discoloured by age; the wax of the seals was cracked
all over the surface.

"No inscription, no writing," said Mr. Pawle. "Now, I wonder
what's in here?"

"Shall I fetch Miss Wickham?" suggested Viner. Mr. Pawle hesitated.

"No!" he said at last. "I think not. Let us first find out what this
packet contains. I'll take the responsibility."

He cut the ribbons beneath the seals, and presently revealed a number of
letters, old and yellow, in a woman's handwriting. And after a hasty
glance at one or two of the uppermost, he turned to Viner with an
exclamation that signified much.

"Viner!" he said, "here is indeed a find! These are letters written by
the Countess of Ellingham to her son, Lord Marketstoke, when he was a
schoolboy at Eton!"




CHAPTER XIV

THE ELLINGHAM MOTTO


Viner looked over Mr. Pawle's shoulder at the letters--there were numbers
of them, all neatly folded and arranged; a faint scent of dried flowers
rose from them as the old lawyer spread them out on the desk.

"Which Countess of Ellingham, and which Lord Marketstoke?" asked Viner.
"There have been--must have been--several during the last century."

"The Lord Marketstoke I mean is the one who disappeared," answered Mr.
Pawle. "We've no concern with any other. Look at these dates! We know
that if he were living, he would now be a man of sixty-one or so;
therefore, he'd be at school about forty-five years ago. Now, look here,"
he went on, rapidly turning the letters over. "Compare these dates--they
run through two or three years; they were all of forty-three to forty-six
years since. You see how they're signed--you see how they're addressed?
There's no doubt about it, Viner--this is a collection of letters written
by the seventh Countess of Ellingham to her elder son, Lord Marketstoke,
when he was at Eton."

"How came they into Ashton's possession, I wonder!" asked Viner.

"It's all of a piece!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "All of a piece with
Ashton's visit to Marketstoke--all of a piece with the facts that Avice
was a favourite name with the Cave-Gray family, and that one of the
holders of the title married a Wickham. Viner, there's no doubt
whatever--in my mind--that either Ashton was Lord Marketstoke or that he
knew the man who was!"

"You remember what Armitstead told us," remarked Viner. "That Ashton told
him, in Paris, that he, Ashton, hailed from Lancashire?"

"Then--he knew the missing man, and got these papers from him!" declared
the old lawyer. "But why? Ah!--now I have an idea! It may be that
Marketstoke, dying out there in Australia, handed these things to Ashton
and asked him to give them to some members of the Cave-Gray
family--perhaps an aunt, or a cousin, or so on--and that Ashton went down
to Marketstoke to find out what relations were still in existence. That
may be it--that would solve the problem!"

"No!" said Viner with sudden emphasis. He made sure that the door of the
little room was closed, and then went up to the old lawyer's elbow. "Is
that really all you can think of?" he asked, with a keen glance. "As for
me--why, I'm thinking of something that seems absolutely--obvious!"

"What, then?" demanded Mr. Pawle. "Tell me!"

Viner pointed towards the door.

"Haven't we heard already, that a man named Wickham handed over his
daughter Avice to Ashton's care and guardianship?" he asked. "Doesn't
that seem to be an established fact?"

"No doubt of it!" assented Mr. Pawle. "Well?"

"In my opinion," said Viner, quietly, "Wickham was the missing Lord of
Marketstoke!"

Mr. Pawle, who was still turning over the letters, examining their dates,
let them slip out of his hands and gasped.

"By George!" he exclaimed in a wondering voice. "It may be--possibly is!
Then, in that case, that girl outside there--"

"Well?" asked Viner, after a pause.

Mr. Pawle made a puzzled gesture and shook his head, as if in amazement.

"In that case, if Wickham was the missing Lord Marketstoke, and this girl
is his daughter, she's--" He broke off, and became still more puzzled.
"Upon my honour," he exclaimed, "I don't know who she is!"

"What do you mean?" asked Viner. "She's his daughter, of
course--Wickham's. Only, in that case--I mean, if he was really Lord
Marketstoke--her proper name, I suppose, is Cave-Gray."

Mr. Pawle looked his young assistant over with an amused expression.

"You haven't the old practitioner's _flair_, Viner, my boy!" he said.
"When one's got to my age, and seen a number of queer things and
happenings, one's quick to see possible cases. Look here!--if Wickham
was really Lord Marketstoke, and that girl across the hall is his
daughter, she's probably--I say probably, for I don't know if the
succession in this case goes with the female line--Countess of
Ellingham, in her own right!"

Viner looked his surprise.

"Is that really so--would it be so?" he asked.

"It may be--I'm not sure," replied Mr. Pawle. "As I say, I don't know
how the succession runs in this particular instance. There are, as you
are aware, several peeresses in their own rights--twenty-four or five, at
least. Some are very ancient peerages. I know that three--Furnivale and
Fauconberg and Conyers--go right back to the thirteenth century; three
others--Beaumont, Darcy da Knayth, and Zorch of Haryngworth--date from
the fourteenth. I'm not sure of this Ellingham peerage--but I'll find out
when I get back to my office. However, granting the premises, and if the
peerage does continue in the female line, it will be as I say--this
girl's the rightful holder of the title!"

Viner made no immediate answer and Mr. Pawle began to put up the letters
in their original wrappings.

"Regular romance, isn't it--if it is so?" he exclaimed. "Extraordinary!"

"Shall you tell her?" asked Viner.

Mr. Pawle considered the direct question while he completed his task.

"No," he said at last, "not at present. She evidently knows nothing, and
she'd better be left in complete ignorance for a while. You see, Viner,
as I've pointed out to you several times, there isn't a paper or a
document of any description extant which refers to her. Nothing in my
hands, nothing in the banker's hands, nothing here! And yet, supposing
her father, Wickham, to have been Lord Marketstoke, and to have entrusted
his secret to Ashton at the same time that he gave him the guardianship
of his daughter, he must have given Ashton papers to prove his and her
identity--must! Where are they?"

"Do you know what I think?" said Viner. "I think--if I'm to put it in
plain language--that Ashton carried those papers on him, and that he was
murdered for the possession of them!"

Mr. Pawle nodded, and put the packet of letters in his pocket.

"I shouldn't be surprised," he answered. "It's a very probable theory,
my boy. But it presupposes one thing, and makes one horribly suspicious
of another."

"Yes?" inquired Viner.

"It presupposes that Ashton let somebody into the secret," replied Mr.
Pawle, "and it makes one suspect that the person to whom he did reveal it
had such personal interest in suppressing it that he went to the length
of murdering Ashton before Ashton could tell it to any one else. How does
that strike you, Viner?"

"It's this--and not the diamond!" declared Viner doggedly. "I've a sort
of absolute intuition that I'm right."

"I think so too," assented the old lawyer, dryly. "The
fifty-thousand-pound diamond is a side-mine. Very well, now we know a
lot, you and I. And, we're going to solve matters. And we're not going to
say a word to this young lady, at present--that's settled. But I want to
ask her some questions--come along."

He led the way across the hall to the dining-room where a reminder of
Ashton's death met his and Viner's view as soon as they had crossed the
threshold. The funeral was to take place next day, and Mrs. Killenhall
and Miss Wickham were contemplating a massive wreath of flowers which had
evidently just arrived from the florist's and been deposited on the
centre-table.

"All we can do for him, you know!" murmured Mrs. Killenhall, with a
glance at the two men. "He--he had so few friends here, poor man!"

"That remark, ma'am," observed Mr. Pawle, "is apropos of a subject that I
want to ask Miss Wickham two or three questions about. Friends, now? Miss
Wickham, you always understood that Mr. Ashton and your father were very
close friends, I believe?"

"I always understood so--yes, Mr. Pawle," replied Miss Wickham.

"Did he ever tell you much about your father?"

"No, very little indeed. He never told me more than that they knew each
other very well, in Australia, that my father died out there,
comparatively young, and that he left me in his, Mr. Ashton's care."

"Did he ever tell you whether your father left you any money?" demanded
the old lawyer.

Miss Wickham looked surprised.

"Oh, yes!" she answered. "I thought you'd know that. My father left me a
good deal of money. Didn't Mr. Ashton tell you?"

"Never a word!" said Mr. Pawle. "Now--where is it, then?"

"In my bank," replied Miss Wickham promptly. "The London and Universal.
When Mr. Ashton fetched me away from school and brought me here, he told
me that he had twelve thousand pounds of mine which my father had left
me, and he handed it over to me then and there, and took me to the London
and Universal Bank, where I opened an account with it."

"Spent any of it?" asked Mr. Pawle dryly.

"Only a few pounds," answered Miss Wickham.

The old solicitor glanced at Viner, who, while these private matters were
being inquired into, was affecting to examine the pictures on the walls.

"Most extraordinary!" he muttered. "All this convinces me that Ashton
must have had papers and documents! These must have been--however, we
don't know where they are. But there would surely be, for instance, your
father's will, Miss Wickham. I suppose you've never seen such a
document? No, to be sure! You left all to Ashton. Well, now, do you
remember your father?"

"Only just--and very faintly, Mr. Pawle," replied Miss Wickham. "You must
remember I was little more than five years old."

"Can you remember what he was like?"

"I think he was a big, tall man--but it's a mere impression."

"Listen!" said Mr. Pawle. "Did you ever, at any time, hear Mr. Ashton
make any reference--I'm talking now of the last few weeks--to the
Ellingham family, or to the Earl of Ellingham?"

"Never!" replied Miss Wickham. "Never heard of them. He never--"

Mrs. Killenhall was showing signs of a wish to speak, and Mr. Pawle
turned to her.

"Have you, ma'am?" he asked.

"Yes," said Mrs. Killenhall, "I have! It was one night when Miss Wickham
was out--you were at Mrs. Murray-Sinclair's, my dear--and Mr. Ashton and
I dined alone. He asked me if I remembered the famous Ellingham case,
some years ago--something about the succession to the title--he said he'd
read it in the Colonial papers. Of course, I remembered it very well."

"Well, ma'am," said Mr. Pawle, "and what then?"

"I think that was all," answered Mrs. Killenhall. "He merely remarked
that it was an odd case, and said no more."

"What made him mention it?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"Oh, we'd been talking about romances of the peerage," replied Mrs.
Killenhall. "I had told him of several."

"You're well up in the peerage, ma'am?" suggested the old lawyer.

"I know my Burke and my Debrett pretty thoroughly," said Mrs. Killenhall.
"Very interesting, of course."

Mr. Pawle, who was sitting close to Miss Wickham, suddenly pointed to a
gold locket which she wore.

"Where did you get that, my dear?" he asked. "Unusual device, isn't it?"

"Mr. Ashton gave it to me, a few weeks ago," answered Miss Wickham. "He
said it had belonged to my father."

The old lawyer bent nearer, looked more closely at the locket, and got
up.

"Elegant old thing!" he said. "Not made yesterday, that! Well, ladies,
you will see me, for this very sad occasion"--he waved a hand at the
wreath of flowers--"tomorrow. In the meantime, if there is anything you
want done, our young friend here is close at hand. Just now, however, I
want him."

"Viner," observed Pawle when they had left the house, "it's very odd how
unobservant some people are! Now, there's that woman we've just left,
Mrs. Killenhall, who says that she's well up in her Debrett, and her
Burke,--and there, seen by her many a time, is that locket which Miss
Wickham is wearing, and she's never noticed it! Never, I mean, noticed
what's on it. Why, I saw it--and its significance--instantly, just now,
which was the first time I'd seen it!"

"What is it that's on it?" asked Viner.

"After we came back from Marketstoke," replied Mr. Pawle, "I looked up
the Cave-Gray family and their peerage. That locket bears their device
and motto. The device is a closed fist, grasping a handful of blades of
wheat; the motto is _Have and Hold_. Viner, as sure as fate, that girl's
father was the missing Lord Marketstoke, and Ashton knew the secret! I'm
convinced of it--I'm positive of it. And now see the extraordinary
position in which we're all placed. Ashton's dead, and there isn't one
scrap of paper to show what it was that he really knew. Nothing--not one
written line!"

"Because, as I said before, he was murdered for his papers," affirmed
Viner. "I'm sure of that as you are of the rest."

"I dare say you're right," agreed Mr. Pawle. "But, as _I've_ said
before, that presupposes that Ashton told somebody the secret.
Now--who? Was it the man he was with in Paris? And if so, who is that
man? But it's useless speculating. I've made up my mind to a certain
course, Viner. Tomorrow, after the funeral, I'm going to call on the
present Lord Ellingham--his town house is in Hertford Street, and I
know he's in town--and ask him if he has heard anything of a mysterious
nature relating to his long-missing uncle. We may hear something--you
come with me."

Next day, toward the middle of the afternoon, Mr. Pawle and Viner got out
of a taxicab in Park Lane and walked down Hertford Street, the old lawyer
explaining the course he was about to take.

"This is a young man--not long come of age," he said. "He'll be quite
well acquainted, however, with the family history, and if anything's
happened lately, I dare say I can get him to talk. He--What is it?"

Viner had suddenly gripped his companion's arm and pulled him to a halt.
He was looking ahead--at the house at which they were about to call. And
there, just being shown out by a footman, was the man whom he had seen at
the old-fashioned tavern in Notting Hill, and with him a tall,
good-looking man whom he had never seen before.




CHAPTER XV

THE PRESENT HOLDER


Mr. Pawle turned sharply on his companion as Viner pulled him up. He saw
the direction of Viner's sudd

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