“I’m afraid I can’t give you very long, Mr. Pawle,” he said, glancing instinctively at the old lawyer. “I’ve a most important engagement in half an hour, and it won’t be put off. But I can give you ten minutes.”
“I am deeply obliged to your lordship,” answered Mr. Pawle. “As your lordship will have seen from my card, I am one of the partners in Crawle, Pawle and Rattenbury—a firm not at all unknown, I think. Allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Viner, a gentlemen who is deeply concerned and interested in the matter I want to mention to your lordship.”
Lord Ellingham responded politely to Viner’s bow and drew two chairs forward.
“Sit down, Mr. Pawle; sit down, Mr. Viner,” he said. He dropped into a chair near a desk which stood in the centre of the room and looked interrogatively at his elder visitor. “Have you some business to discuss, Mr. Pawle?” he asked.
“Some business, my lord, which, I confess at once, is of extraordinary nature,” answered the old lawyer. “I will go straight to it. Your lordship has doubtless read in the newspapers of the murder of a man named Ashton in Lonsdale Passage, in the Bayswater district?”
Lord Ellingham glanced at a pile of newspapers which lay on a side-table.
“Yes,” he answered, “I have. I’ve been much interested in it—as a murder. A curious and mysterious case, don’t you think?”
“We,” replied Mr. Pawle, waving a hand toward Viner, “know it to be a much more mysterious case than anybody could gather from the newspaper accounts, for they know little who have written them, and we, who are behind the scenes, know a great deal. Now, your lordship will have seen that a young man, an actor named Langton Hyde, has been arrested and charged, and is on remand. This unfortunate fellow was an old schoolmate of Mr. Viner—they were at Rugby together; and Mr. Viner—and I may say I myself also—is convinced beyond doubt of his entire innocence, and we want to clear him; we are doing all we can to clear him. And it is because of this that we have ventured to call on your lordship.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Lord Ellingham. “But—what can I do! How do I come in?”
“My lord,” said Mr. Pawle in his most solemn manner, “I will go straight to this point also. We have reason to feel sure, from undoubted evidence, that Mr. John Ashton, a very wealthy man, who had recently come from Australia, where he had lived for a great many years, to settle here in London, had in his possession when he was murdered certain highly important papers relating to your lordship’s family, and that he was murdered for the sake of them!”
The puzzled expression which Viner had noted in Lord Ellingham’s boyish face when they entered the room grew more and more marked as Mr. Pawle proceeded, and he turned on the old lawyer at the end with a stare of amazement.
“You really think that!” he exclaimed.
“I shall be very much surprised if I’m not right!” declared Mr. Pawle.
“But what papers?” asked Lord Ellingham. “And what—how could this Mr. Ashton, who, you say, came from Australia, be in possession of papers relating to my family? I never heard of him.”
“Your lordship,” said Mr. Pawle, “is doubtless well aware that some years ago there was a very strange—shall we call it romance?—in your family. A very remarkable episode, anyway, a most unusual—”
“You mean the strange disappearance of my uncle—this Lord Marketstoke?” interrupted Lord Ellingham with a smile. “Oh, of course, I know all about that.”
“Very well, my lord,” continued Mr. Pawle. “Then your lordship is aware that Lord Marketstoke was believed to have gone to the Colonies—Australia or New Zealand—and was—lost there. His death was presumed. Now, Ashton came from Australia, and as I say, we believe him to have brought with him certain highly important papers relative to Lord Marketstoke, whom we think to have been well known to him at one time. Indeed, we felt sure that Ashton knew Lord Marketstoke’s secret. Now, my lord, we are also confident that whoever killed John Ashton did so in order to get hold of certain papers which, I feel certain, Ashton made a habit of carrying on his person—papers relating to his friend Lord Marketstoke’s identity.”
Lord Ellingham remained silent for a moment, looking from one visitor to another. It was very clear to Viner that some train of thought had been aroused in him and that he was closely pursuing it. He fixed his gaze at last on the old lawyer.
“Mr. Pawle,” he said quietly, “have you any proof—undoubted proof—that Mr. Ashton did possess papers relating to my long-missing uncle?”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Pawle, “I have!” He pulled out the bundle of letters which he and Viner had unearthed from the Japanese cabinet. “This! It is a packet of letters written by the seventh Countess of Ellingham to her elder son, the Lord Marketstoke we are talking of, when he was a boy at Eton. Your Lordship will probably recognize your grandmother’s handwriting.”
Lord Ellingham bent over the letter which Mr. Pawle spread before him.
“Yes,” he said, “I know the writing quite well. And—these were in Mr. Ashton’s possession?”
“We have just found them—Mr. Viner and I—in a cabinet in his house,” replied Mr. Pawle. “They are the only papers we have so far been able to bring to light. But as I have said, we are convinced there were others—much more important ones!—in his possession, probably in his pocketbook.”
Lord Ellingham handed the letters back.
“You think that this Mr. Ashton was in possession of a secret relating to the missing man—my uncle, Lord Marketstoke?” he asked.
“I am convinced of it!” declared Mr. Pawle.
Lord Ellingham glanced shrewdly at his visitors.
“I should like to know what it was!” he said.
“Your lordship feels as I do,” remarked Mr. Pawle. “But now I should like to ask a question which arises out of this visit. As we approached your lordship’s door, just now, we
