“And the same bitter, penetrating smell about it!” said Felpham.
“Hyde, of course, if Drillford is correct, had all this paper in his pocket when he went into that shed,” said Viner. “But I have a different idea, and a different theory. Here,” he went on, folding his discoveries together neatly, “you take charge of these—and take care of them. They may be of more importance than we think.”
He went home full of thought, restored the sisters to something like cheerfulness by assuring them that the situation was no worse, and possibly rather better, and spent the rest of the evening in his study, silently working things out. Viner, by the time he went to bed, had evolved an idea, and it was still developing and growing stronger when he set out next morning to accompany Mr. Pawle to Lord Ellingham’s solicitors.
XVII
The Claimant
Carless and Driver practised their profession of the law in one of the old houses on the south side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields—a house so old that it immediately turned Viner’s thought to what he had read of the days wherein Inigo Jones exercised his art up the stately frontages, and duels were fought in the gardens which London children now sport in. In one of these houses lived Blackstone; in another Erskine; one ancient roof once sheltered John Milton; another heard the laughter of Nell Gwynn; up the panelled staircase which Mr. Pawle and his companion were presently conducted, the feet of many generations had trod. And the room into which they were duly conducted was so old-world in appearance with its oaken walls and carving and old-fashioned furniture that nothing but the fact that its occupants wore twentieth century garments would have convinced Viner that he had not been suddenly thrown back to the days of Queen Anne.
Lord Ellingham was already there when they arrived—in conference with his solicitor, Mr. Carless, a plump, rosy, active gentleman who wore mutton-chop whiskers and—secretly—prided himself on his likeness to the type of foxhunting squire. It was very evident to Viner that both solicitor and client were in a state of expectancy bordering on something very like excitement; and Mr. Carless, the preliminary greetings being over, plunged at once into the subject.
“I say, Pawle,” he exclaimed, turning at once to his fellow-practitioner, “this appears to be a most extraordinary business! His lordship has just been telling me all about the two calls he had yesterday—first from two men whom he’d never seen before—then from you two, who were also strangers. He has also told me what both lots of his callers had to say, and hang me if I ever heard of two such curious unfoldings coming one on top of the other. Sounds like a first-class mystery!”
“You forget,” remarked Mr. Pawle with a glance at Lord Ellingham, “that we don’t know—Mr. Viner and myself—what it was that his lordship’s first couple of callers told him. He left that until today.”
Mr. Carless looked at his client, who nodded his head as if in assent to something in the glance.
“Well, as I’m now in possession of the facts,” said he, “I’ll tell you, Pawle—His Lordship has given me a clear account of what his first callers said, and what you and Mr. Viner added to it. The two men whom you saw coming away from Ellingham House were Methley and Woodlesford, two solicitors who are in partnership in Edgware Road—I know of them: I think we’ve had conveyancing business with them once or twice. Quite a respectable firm—in a smallish way, you know, but all right so far as I know anything of them. Now, they came to Lord Ellingham yesterday afternoon with a most extraordinary story. His lordship tells me that he learned from your talk with him yesterday afternoon that you are pretty well acquainted, you and Mr. Viner, with his family history, so I’ll go straight to the point. What do you think Methley and Woodlesford came to tell him? You’d never guess!”
“I won’t try!” answered Mr. Pawle. “What, then?”
Mr. Carless smiled grimly.
“That the long-lost Lord Marketstoke was alive and in England!” he said. “Here, in fact, in London!”
Mr. Pawle smiled too. But his smile was not grim—it was, rather, the smile of a man who hears what he has been expecting to hear.
“I thought it would be something of that sort!” he exclaimed. “Aye, I fancied that would be the game!”
“You think it a game?” suggested Mr. Carless.
“And a highly dangerous one—as somebody will find out,” responded Mr. Pawle. “But—what did these fellows really say!”
“His lordship will correct me if I miss anything pertinent,” answered Mr. Carless with a glance at his client. “They said this—that they had been called upon by a gentleman now staying at one of the private residential hotels in Lancaster Gate, who was desirous of legal assistance in an important matter and had been recommended to them by a fellow-boarder at the hotel. He then told them that though he was now passing under the name of Cave—”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Pawle, with a snort which denoted a certain sort of surprised satisfaction. “Ah, to be sure! Cave, of course! But I interrupt you—pray proceed.”
“I see your point,” remarked Mr. Carless with a smile. “Well—although he was passing under the name of Cave, he was, in strict reality, the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared from England many years ago, who was never heard of again, and whose death had been presumed. He was, therefore, the rightful Earl of Ellingham, and as such entitled to the estates. He proceeded to tell Methley and Woodlesford his adventures.
“He had, he said, never at any time from boyhood been on good terms with his father: there had always been mutual dislike. As he grew to manhood, his father had thwarted him in every conceivable way. He himself as a young man, had developed radical and democratic ideas—this had caused a further widening of the breach.
