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?”
