“Thereupon, pledging me to secrecy for the time being, Ashton went on to tell me that Lord Marketstoke was well known to him and that he alone knew all the facts of the matter, though a certain amount of them was known to another man, now living in London. He said that Marketstoke, after a final quarrel with his father, left England in such a fashion that no one could trace him, taking with him the fortune which he had inherited from his mother, and eventually settled in Australia, where he henceforth lived under the name of Wickham. According to Ashton, he and Marketstoke became friends, close friends, at a very early period of Marketstoke’s career in Australia, and the friendship deepened and existed until Marketstoke’s death some twelve or thirteen years ago. But Ashton never had the slightest notion of Marketstoke’s real identity until his friend’s last days. Then Marketstoke told him the plain truth; and the fact who he really was at the same time was confided to another man—who, however, was not told all the details which were given to Ashton.
“Now, Marketstoke had married in Australia. His wife was dead. But he had a daughter who was about six years of age at the time of her father’s death. Marketstoke confided her to Ashton, with a wish that she should be sent home to England to be educated. He also handed over to Ashton a considerable sum of money for this child. Further, he gave him a quantity of papers, letters, family documents, and so on. He had a purpose. He left it to Ashton—in whom he evidently had the most absolute confidence—as to whether this girl’s claim to the title and estates should be set up. And when Ashton had finished telling me all this, I found that one of his principal reasons in coming to England to settle down, was the wish to find out how things were with the present holder of the title: if, he said, he discovered that he was a worthy sort of young fellow, he, Ashton, should be inclined to let the secret die with him. He told me that the girl already had some twelve thousand pounds of her own, and that it was his intention to leave her the whole of his own fortune, and as she was absolutely ignorant of her real position, he might perhaps leave her so. But in view of the possibility of his setting up her claim, he asked me some questions on legal points, and of course I asked him to let me see the papers of which he had spoken.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Pawle, with a sigh of relieved satisfaction. “Then you saw them?”
“Yes—he showed me the whole lot,” replied Mr. Perkwite. “Not so many, after all—those that were really pertinent, at any rate. He carried those in a pocketbook; had so carried them, he told me, ever since Marketstoke had handed them to him; they had never, he added, been out of his possession, day or night, since Marketstoke’s death. Now, on examining the papers, I at once discovered two highly important facts. Although Marketstoke went to and lived in Australia under the name of Wickham, he had taken good care to get married in his own proper name, and there, amongst the documents, was the marriage certificate, in which he was correctly described. Further, his daughter had been correctly designated in the register of her birth; there was a copy, properly attested, of the entry.”
Mr. Pawle glanced at Viner, and Viner knew what he was thinking of. The two documents just described by Mr. Perkwite had not been among the papers which Methley and Woodlesford had exhibited at Carless & Driver’s office.
“A moment,” said Mr. Pawle, lifting an arresting finger. “Did you happen to notice where this marriage took place?”
“It was not in Melbourne,” replied Mr. Perkwite.
“My recollection is that it was at some place of a curious name. Ashton told me that Marketstoke’s wife had been a governess in the family of some well-to-do-sheep-farmer—she was an English girl, and an orphan. The child, however, was certainly born in Melbourne and registered in Melbourne.”
“Now, that’s odd!” remarked Mr. Pawle. “You’d have thought that when Lord Marketstoke was so extensively advertised for some years ago, on the death of his father, some of these officials—”
“Ah! I put that point to Ashton,” interrupted Mr. Perkwite. “He said that Marketstoke, though he had taken good care to be married in his own name and had exercised equal precaution about his daughter, had pledged everybody connected with his marriage and the child’s birth to secrecy.”
“Aye!” muttered Mr. Pawle. “He would do that, of course. But continue.”
“Well,” said the barrister, “after seeing these papers, I had no doubt whatever that the case as presented by Ashton was quite clear, and that his ward Miss Avice Wickham is without doubt Countess of Ellingham (the title, I understand, going in the female as well as the male line) and rightful owner of the estates. And I told him that his best plan, on reaching England, was to put the whole matter before the family solicitors. However, he said that before doing that, there were two things he wanted to do. One was to find out for himself how things were—if the young earl was a satisfactory landlord and so on, and likely to be a credit to the family; the other was that he wanted to consult the man who shared with him the bare knowledge that the man who had been known in Melbourne as Wickham was really the missing Lord Marketstoke. And he added that he had already telegraphed to this man to meet him in Paris.”
“Ah!” exclaimed
