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
