"A most extraordinary coincidence!" exclaimed Mr. Carless excitedly. "I don't care twopence what anybody says—we all know that the most surprising coincidences do occur. Nothing but a coincidence! I assert—what is it, Portlethwaite?"

The elderly clerk had been manifesting a strong desire to get in a word, and he now rapped his senior employer's elbow.

"Mr. Carless," he said earnestly, "you know that before I came to you, now nearly forty years ago, I was a medical student: you know, too, you and Mr. Driver, why I gave up medicine for the law. But—I haven't forgotten all of that I learned in the medical schools and the hospitals."

"Well, Portlethwaite," demanded Mr. Carless, "what is it? You've some idea?"

"Gentlemen," answered the elderly clerk. "I was always particularly interested in anatomy in my medical student days. I've been looking attentively at what I could see of that man's injured finger since he sat down at that desk. And I'll lay all I have that he lost the two joints of that finger within the last three months! The scar over the stump had not long been healed. That's a fact!"

Mr. Carless looked round with a triumphant smile.

"There!" he exclaimed. "What did I tell you? Coincidence—nothing but coincidence!"

But Portlethwaite shook his head.

"Why not say design, Mr. Carless?" he said meaningly. "Why not say design? If this man, or the people who are behind him, knew that the real Lord Marketstoke had a finger missing, what easier—in view of the stake they're playing for—than to remove one of this man's fingers? Design, sir, design. All part of the scheme!"

The elderly clerk's listeners looked at each other.

"I'll tell you what it is!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle with sudden emphasis. "The more we see and hear of this affair, the more I'm convinced that it is, as Portlethwaite says, a conspiracy. You know, that fellow who has just been here was distinctly taken aback when you, Carless, informed him that it was going to be a case of all or nothing. He—or the folk behind him—evidently expected that they'd be able to effect a money settlement. Now, I should say that the real reason of his somewhat hasty retirement was that he wanted to consult his principal or principals. Did you notice that he was not really affronted by your remark? Not he! His personal dignity wasn't ruffled a bit. He was taken aback! He's gone off to consult. Carless, you ought to have that man carefully shadowed, to see where and to whom he goes."

"Good idea!" muttered Mr. Driver. "We might see to that."

"I can put a splendid man on to him, at once, Mr. Carless," remarked Portlethwaite. "If you could furnish me with his address—"

"Methley and Woodlesford know it," said Mr. Carless. "Um—yes, that might be very useful. Ring Methley's up, Portlethwaite, and ask if they would oblige us with the name of Mr. Cave's hotel—some residential hotel in Lancaster Gate, I believe."

Mr. Pawle and Viner went away, ruminating over the recent events, and walked to the old lawyer's offices in Bedford Row. Mr. Pawle's own particular clerk met them as they entered.

"There's Mr. Roland Perkwite, of the Middle Temple, in your room, sir," he said, addressing his master. "You may remember him, sir—we've briefed him once or twice in some small cases. Mr. Perkwite wants to see you about this Ashton affair—he says he's something to tell you."

Mr. Pawle looked at Viner and beckoned him to follow.

"Here a little, and there a little!" he whispered. "What are we going to hear this time?"



CHAPTER XXI

THE MARSEILLES MEETING

The man who was waiting in Mr. Pawle's room, and who rose from his chair with alacrity as the old lawyer entered with Viner at his heels, was an alert, sharp-eyed person of something under middle-age, whose clean-shaven countenance and general air immediately suggested the Law Courts. And he went straight to business before he had released the hand which Mr. Pawle extended to him.

"Your clerk has no doubt already told you what I came about, Mr. Pawle?" he said. "This Ashton affair."

"Just so," answered Mr. Pawle. "You know something about it? This gentleman is Mr. Richard Viner, who is interested in it—considerably."

"To be sure," said the barrister. "One of the witnesses, of course. I read the whole thing up last night. I have been on the Continent—the French Riviera, Italy, the Austrian Tyrol—for some time, Mr. Pawle, and only returned to town yesterday. I saw something, in an English newspaper, in Paris, the other day, about this Ashton business, and as my clerk keeps the Times for me when I am absent, last night I read over the proceedings before the magistrate and before the coroner. And of course I saw your request for information about Ashton and his recent movements."

"And you've some to give?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"I have some to give," assented Mr. Perkwite, as the three men sat down by Mr. Pawle's desk. "Certainly—and I should say it's of considerable importance. The fact is I met Ashton at Marseilles, and spent the better part of the week in his company at the Hotel de Louvre there."

"When was that?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"About three months ago," replied the barrister. "I had gone straight to Marseilles from London; he had come there from Italy by way of Monte Carlo and Nice. We happened to get into conversation on the night of my arrival, and we afterwards spent most of our time together. And finding out that I was a barrister, he confided certain things to me and asked my advice."

"Aye—and on what, now?" enquired the old lawyer.

"It was the last night we were together," replied Mr. Perkwite. "We had by that time become very friendly, and I had promised to renew our acquaintance on my return to London, where, Ashton told me, he intended to settle down for the rest of his life. Now on that last evening at Marseilles I had been telling him, after dinner, of some curious legal cases, and he suddenly remarked that he would like to tell me of a matter which might come within the law, and on which he should be glad of advice. He then asked me if I had ever heard of the strange disappearance of Lord Marketstoke, heir to the seventh Earl of Ellingham. I replied that I had at the time when application was made to the courts for leave to presume Lord Marketstoke's death.

"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 Mr. Pawle with a look in Viner's direction. "Now we are indeed coming to something! He was to meet him in Paris! Viner, I'll wager the world against a China orange that that's the man whom Armitstead saw in company with Ashton in the Rue Royale, and—no doubt—the man of Lonsdale Passage! Mr. Perkwite, this is most important. Did Ashton tell you the name of this man?"

The old lawyer was tremulous with excited interest, and Mr. Perkwite was obviously sorry to disappoint him.

"Unfortunately, he did not!" he replied. "He merely told me that he was a man who had lived in Melbourne for some time and had known Marketstoke and himself very intimately—had left Melbourne just after Marketstoke's death, and had settled in London. No, he did not mention his name."

"Disappointing!" muttered Mr. Pawle. "That's the nearest approach to a clue that we've had, Perkwite. If we only knew who that man was! But—what more can you tell us?"

"Nothing more, I'm afraid," answered the barrister. "I promised to call on Ashton when I returned to London, and when he'd started housekeeping, and we parted—I went on next morning to Genoa, and he set off for Paris. He was a pleasant, kindly, sociable fellow," concluded Mr. Perkwite, "and I was much grieved to hear of his sad fate."

"He didn't correspond with you at all after you left him at Marseilles?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"No," replied the barrister. "No—I never heard of or from him until I read of his murder."

Pawle turned to Viner.

"I think we'd better tell Perkwite of all that's happened, within our own ken," he said, and proceeded to give the visitor a brief account of the various important details. "Now," he concluded, "it seems to me there's only one conclusion to be arrived at. The man who shared the secret with Ashton is certainly the man whom Armitstead saw with him in Paris. He is probably the man whom Hyde saw leaving Londsdale Passage, just before Hyde found the body. And he is without doubt the murderer, and is the man to whom this claimant fellow is acting as cat's-paw. And—who is he?"

"There must be some way of finding that out," observed Mr. Perkwite. "If your theory is correct, that this claimant is merely a man who is being put forward, then surely the thing to do is to get at the person or persons behind him, through him!"

"Aye, there's that to be thought of," asserted Mr. Pawle. "But it may be a tougher job than we think for. It would have been a tremendous help if Ashton had only mentioned a name to you."

"Sorry, but he didn't," said Mr. Perkwite. "You feel," he continued after a moment's silence, "you feel that this affair of the Ellingham succession lies at the root of the Ashton mystery—that he was really murdered by somebody who wanted to get possession of those papers?"

"And to remain sole repository of the secret," declared Mr. Pawle. "Isn't it established that beyond yourself and this unknown man nobody but Ashton knew the secret?"

"There is another matter, though," remarked Viner. He turned to the visitor. "You said that you and Ashton became very friendly and confidential during your stay in Marseilles. Pray, did he never show you anything of a valuable nature which he carried in his pocketbook?"

The barrister's keen eyes suddenly lighted up with recollection.

"Yes!" he exclaimed. "Now you come to suggest it, he did! A diamond!"

"Ah!" said Mr. Pawle. "So you saw that!"

"Yes, I saw it," assented Mr. Perkwite. "He showed it to me as a sort of curiosity—a stone which had some romantic history attaching to it. But I was not half as much interested in that as in the other affair."

"All the same," remarked Mr. Pawle, "that diamond is worth some fifty or sixty thousand pounds, Perkwite—and it's missing!"

Mr. Perkwite looked his astonishment.

"You mean—he had it on him when he was murdered?" he asked.

"So it's believed," replied Mr. Pawle.

"In that case it might form a clue," said the barrister.

"When it's heard of," admitted Mr. Pawle, with a grim smile. "Not till then!"

"From what we have heard," remarked Viner, "Ashton carried that diamond in the pocketbook which contained his papers—the papers you have told me of, and some of which have certainly come into possession of this claimant person. Now, whoever stole the papers, of course got the diamond."

Mr. Perkwite seemed to consider matters during a moment's silence; finally he turned to the old lawyer.

"I have been thinking over something that might be done," he said. "I see that the coroner's inquest was adjourned. Now, as that inquest is, of course, being held to inquire into the circumstances of Ashton's death, I suggest that I should come forward as a witness and should prove that Ashton showed certain papers relating to the Ellingham peerage to me at Marseilles; I can tell the story, as a witness. It can then be proved by you, or by Carless, that a man claiming to be the missing Lord Marketstoke showed these stolen papers to you. In the meantime, get the coroner to summon this man as a witness, and take care that he's brought to the court. Once there, let him be asked how he came into possession of these papers? Do you see my idea?"

"Capital!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "An excellent notion! Much obliged to you, Perkwite. It shall be done—I'll see to it at once. Yes, to be sure, that will put this fellow in a tight corner."

"Don't be surprised if he hasn't some very clever explanation to give," said the barrister warningly. "The whole thing is evidently a well-concocted conspiracy. But when is the adjourned inquest?"

"Day after tomorrow," replied Mr. Pawle, after glancing at his desk-diary.

"And tomorrow morning," remarked Viner, "Hyde comes up before the magistrate again, on remand."

He was half-minded to tell Mr. Pawle there and then of his secret dealings with Methley that day, but on reflection he decided that he would keep the matter to himself. Viner had an idea which he had not communicated even to Methley. It had struck him that the mysterious deux ex machina who was certainly at the back of all this business might not improbably be so anxious about his schemes that he would, unknown and unsuspected, attend the magistrates' court. Would Hyde, his wits sharpened by danger, be able to spot him as the muffled man of Lonsdale Passage?



CHAPTER XXII

ON REMAND

When Langton Hyde was brought up before the magistrate next morning, the court was crowded to its utmost limits; and Viner, looking round him from his seat near the solicitors' table saw that most of the people interested in the case were present. Mr. Carless was whispering with Mr. Pawle; Lord Ellingham had a seat close by; in the front of the public gallery Miss Penkridge, grim and alert, was in charge of the timid and shrinking sisters of the unfortunate prisoner. There, too, were Mr. Armitstead and Mr. Isidore Rosenbaum, and Mr. Perkwite, all evidently very much alive to certain possibilities. But Viner looked in vain for either Methley or Woodlesford or their mysterious client; they were certainly not present when Hyde was put into the dock, and Viner began to wonder if the events of the previous day had warned Mr. Cave and those behind him to avoid publicity.

Instructed by Viner, who was determined to spare neither effort nor money to clear his old schoolmate, Felpham had engaged the services of one of the most brilliant criminal barristers of the day, Mr. Millington-Bywater, on behalf of his client; and he and Viner had sat up half the night with him, instructing him in the various mysteries and ramifications of the case. A big, heavy-faced, shrewd-eyed man, Mr. Millington-Bywater made no sign, and to all outward appearance showed no very great interest while the counsel who now appeared on behalf of the police, completed his case against the prisoner.

The only new evidence produced by the prosecution was that of the greengrocer on whose premises Hyde had admitted that he passed most of the night of the murder, and in whose shed the missing valuables had been found. The greengrocer's evidence as to his discovery was given in a plain and straightforward fashion—he was evidently a man who would just tell what he actually saw, and brought neither fancy nor imagination to bear on his observation. But when the prosecution had done with him, Mr. Millington-Bywater rose and quietly asked the police to produce the watch, chain and ring which the greengrocer had found, in their original wrappings. He held up the wrapping-papers to the witness and asked him if he could swear that this was what he had found the valuables in and had given to the police. The greengrocer was positive as to this; he was positive, too, that the other wrappings which Felpham had carefully preserved were those which had been on the outside of the parcel and had been thrown aside by himself on its discovery and afterwards picked up by Viner. Mr. Millington-Bywater handed all these papers up to the magistrate, directing his attention to the strong odour of drugs or chemicals which still pervaded them, and to the address of the manufacturing chemists which appeared on the outer wrapping. The magistrate seemed somewhat mystified.

"What is the object of this?" he asked, glancing at the defending counsel. "It is admitted that these are the wrappings in which the watch, and chain and ring were found in the witness's shed, but"—he paused, with another inquiring look—"you propose to—what?" he asked.

"I propose, Your Worship, to prove that these things were never put there by the prisoner at all!" answered Mr. Millington-Bywater, promptly and with an assurance which was not lost on the spectators. "I intend to show that they were purposely placed in that outhouse by the real murderer of John Ashton after the statement made by the prisoner at the inquest became public—placed there, of course, to divert any possible suspicion of himself.

"And now," he continued, after the greengrocer had left the box and the prosecuting counsel had intimated that he had no more evidence to bring forward at present, "now I will outline the defence which I shall set up on behalf of my client. I intend to prove that John Ashton was murdered by some man not yet discovered, who killed him in order to gain possession of certain papers which he carried on him—papers of extreme importance, as will be shown. We know where certain of those papers are, and we hope before very long to know where the rest are, and also where a certain very valuable diamond is, which the murdered man had on him at the time of his death. I shall, indeed, prove that the prisoner—certainly through his own foolishness—is wrongly accused. It will be within your worship's recollection that when the prisoner was first before you, he very unwisely refused to give his name and address or any information—he subsequently repented of that and made a statement, not only to the police but before the coroner. Now, I propose to put him into that box so that he may give evidence, and I shall then call certain witnesses who will offer evidence which will go to prove that what I say as regards the murder of Ashton is more than probable—namely, that he was murdered for the sake of the documents he had on him, and that the spoiling of his money and valuables was a mere piece of bluff, intended to mislead. Let the prisoner go into the box!"

There was a continued deep silence in court while Hyde, under examination, repeated the story which he had told to Viner and Drillford and before the coroner and his jury. It was a plain, consecutive story, in which he set forth the circumstances preceding the evening of the murder and confessed his picking up of the ring which lay on the pavement by Ashton's body. He kept his eyes steadily fixed on Mr. Millington-Bywater under this examination, never removing them from him save when the magistrate interposed with an occasional remark or question. But at one point a slight commotion in court caused him to look among the spectators, and Viner, following the direction of his eyes, saw him start, and at the same instant saw what it was that he started at. Methley, followed by the claimant, was quietly pushing a way through the throng between the door and the solicitor's table.

Viner leaned closer to Mr. Pawle.

"Do you see?" he whispered. "Hyde evidently recognizes one of those two! Now—which?"

Mr. Pawle glanced at the prisoner. Hyde's face, hitherto pale, had flushed a little, and his eyes had grown bright; he looked as if he had suddenly seen a friend's face in a hostile crowd. But Mr. Millington-Bywater, who had been bending over his papers, suddenly looked up with another question, and Hyde again turned his attention to him.

"All that you really know of this matter," asked Mr. Millington-Bywater, "is that you chanced to turn up Lonsdale Passage, saw a man lying on the pavement and a ring close by, and that, being literally starving and desperate, you snatched up that ring and ran away as fast as you could?"

"Yes—that is all," asserted Hyde. "Except that I had met a man, as I have already told you, at the end of the passage by which I entered."

"You did not even know whether this man lying on the pavement was alive or dead?"

"I thought he might be drunk," replied Hyde. "But after I had snatched up the ring I never thought at all until I had run some distance. I was afraid of being followed."

"Now why were you afraid of being followed?"

"I was famishing!" answered Hyde. "I knew I could get something, some money, on that ring, in the morning, and I wanted to stick to it. I was afraid that the man whom I met as I ran out of the passage, whom I now know to have been Mr. Viner, might follow me and make me give up the ring. And the ring meant food."

Mr. Millington-Bywater let this answer sink into the prevalent atmosphere and suddenly turned to another matter. The knife which had been found in Hyde's possession was lying with certain other exhibits on the solicitor's table, and Mr. Millington-Bywater pointed to it.

"Now about that knife," he said. "It is yours? Very well—how long have you had it?"

"Three or four years," replied Hyde, promptly. "I bought it when I was touring in the United States, at a town called Guthrie, in Oklahoma. And," he added suddenly and with a triumphant smile as of a man who is unexpectedly able to clinch an argument, "there is a gentleman there who was with me when I bought it—Mr. Nugent Starr!"

From the magistrate on his bench to the policeman at the door every person in court turned to look at the man to whom the prisoner pointed an out-stretched finger. And Mr. Pawle let out an irrepressible exclamation.

"Good God!" he said. "The claimant fellow!"

But Viner said nothing. He was staring, as everybody else was, at the man who sat by Methley. He, suddenly aware that Hyde had pointed to him, was obviously greatly taken aback and embarrassed—he looked sharply at the prisoner, knitted his brows, shook his head, and turning to Methley muttered something which no one else caught. Mr. Millington-Bywater looked at him and turned to his client.

"You say there is a gentleman here—that gentleman!—who was with you when you bought that knife?" he asked. "A friend of yours, then?"

"Well—we were playing in the same company," asserted Hyde. "Mr. Moreby-Bannister's company. He was heavy lead—I was juvenile. He knows me well enough. He was with me when I bought that knife in a hardware store in Guthrie."

The magistrate's eye was on the man who sat by Methley, and there was a certain amount of irritation in it. And suddenly Methley whispered something to his companion and the man shyly but with a noticeable composure stood up.

"I beg Your Worship's pardon," he said, quietly, with a polite bow to the bench, "but really, the witness is under a mistaken impression! I don't know him, and I have never been in the town he mentions—in fact, I have never been in the United States. I am very sorry, but, really, there is some strange mistake—I—the witness is an absolute stranger to me!"

The attention of all present was transferred to Hyde. And Hyde flushed, leaned forward over the ledge of the witness-box and gave the claimant a long, steady stare.

"No mistake at all!" he suddenly exclaimed in a firm voice. "That's Mr. Nugent Starr! I played with him for over twelve months."

While this had been going on, Felpham on one side, and Carless on the other, had been whispering to Mr. Millington-Bywater, who listened to both with growing interest, and began to nod to each with increasing intelligence—and then, suddenly, the prosecuting counsel played unexpectedly and directly into his hand.

"If Your Worship pleases," said the prosecuting counsel, "I should like to have the prisoner's assertion categorically denied—it may be of importance. Perhaps this gentleman will go into the box and deny it on oath."

Mr. Millington-Bywater sat down as quickly as if a heavy hand had forced him into his seat, and Viner saw a swift look of gratification cross his features. Close by, Mr. Pawle chuckled with joy.

"By the Lord Harry!" he whispered, "the very thing we wanted! No need to wait for the adjourned coroner's inquest, Viner—the thing'll come out now!"

Viner did not understand. He saw Hyde turned out of the box; he saw the claimant, after an exchange of remarks with Methley, step into it; he heard him repeat on oath the denial he had just uttered, after stating that his name was Cave, and that he lived at the Belmead Hotel, Lancaster Gate; and he saw Mr. Millington-Bywater, after exchanging a few questions and answers in whispers with Hyde over the ledge of the dock, turn to the witness as he was about to step down.

"A moment, sir," he said. "I want to ask you a few questions, with the permission of His Worship, who will soon see that they are very pertinent. So," he went on, "you reside at the Belmead Hotel, in Lancaster Gate, and your name is Edward Cave?"

"At present," answered the witness, stiffly.

"Do you mean that your name is Edward Cave—at present?"

"My name is Edward Cave, and at present I live—as I have stated," replied the witness with dignity.

"You have just stated, on oath, that you are not Nugent Starr, have never been so called, don't know the prisoner, never met him in America, have never set foot in America! Now, then—mind, you're on your oath!—is Edward Cave your real or full name?"

"Well, strictly speaking," answered the witness, after some hesitation, "no, it is not. My full name is Cave-Gray—my family name; but for the present—"

"For the present you wish to be called Mr. Cave. Now, sir, are you not the person who claims to be the rightful Earl of Ellingham?"

A murmur of excited interest ran round the court, and everybody recognized that a new stage of the case had been entered upon. Every eye, especially the observant eyes on the bench, were fixed on the witness, who now looked considerably ruffled. He glanced at Methley—but Methley sat with averted look and made no sign; he looked at the magistrate; the magistrate, it was plain, expected the question to be answered. And the answer came, almost sullenly.

"Yes, I am!"

"That is to say, you are really—or you claim to be really—the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared from England some thirty-five years ago, and you have now returned, though you are legally presumed to be dead, to assert your rights to titles and estates? You absolutely claim to be the ninth Earl of Ellingham?"

"Yes!"

"Where have you been during the last thirty-five years?"

"In Australia."

"What part?"

"Chiefly in Melbourne. But I was for four or five years up-country."

"What name did you go under there?"

Mr. Pawle, Mr. Carless and the rest of the spectators who were in these secrets regarded the witness with keen attention when this question was put to him. But his answer came promptly.

"At first, under the name of Wickham. Later under the one I now use—Cave."

"Did you marry out there?"

"Never!"

"And so, of course, you never had a daughter?"

"I have never been married and have never had daughter or son!"

Mr. Millington-Bywater turned to Mr. Carless, at his left elbow, and exchanged two or three whispered remarks with him. At last he looked round again at the witness.

"Yesterday," he said, "in your character of claimant to the Ellingham title and estates you showed to Messrs. Carless & Driver, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and to the present holder of the title, certain documents, letters, papers, which would go some way toward establishing your claim to be what you profess to be. Now, I will say at once that we believe these papers to have been stolen from the body of John Ashton when he was murdered. And I will ask you a direct question, on your oath! Have those papers always been in your possession since you left England thirty-five years ago?"

The witness drew himself up and looked steadily at his questioner.

"No!" he answered firmly. "They were stolen from me almost as soon as I arrived in Australia. I have only just regained possession of them."



CHAPTER XXIII

IS THIS MAN RIGHT?

A murmur of astonishment ran through the court as the witness made his last reply, and those most closely interested in him turned and looked at each other with obvious amazement. And for a moment Mr. Millington-Bywater seemed to be at a loss; in the next he bent forward toward the witness-box and fixed the man standing there with a piercing look.

"Do you seriously tell us, on your oath, that these papers—your papers, if you are what you claim to be—were stolen from you many years ago, and have only just been restored to you?" he asked. "On your oath, mind!"

"I do tell you so," answered the witness quietly. "I am on oath."

The magistrate glanced at Mr. Millington-Bywater.

"What is the relevancy of this—in relation to the prisoner and the charge against him?" he inquired. "You have some point, of course?"

"The relevancy is this, Your Worship," replied Mr. Millington-Bywater: "Our contention is that the papers referred to were until recently in the custody of John Ashton, the murdered man—I can put a witness in the box who can give absolute proof of that, a highly reputable witness, who is present,—and that John Ashton was certainly murdered by some person or persons who, for purposes of their own, wished to gain possession of them. Now, we know that they are in possession of the present witness, or rather, of his solicitors, to whom he has handed them. I mean to prove that Ashton was murdered in the way, and for the reason I suggest, and that accordingly the prisoner is absolutely innocent of the charge brought against him. I should therefore like to ask this witness to tell us how he regained possession of these papers, for I am convinced that in what he can tell us lies the secret of Ashton's murder. Now," he continued, turning again to the witness as the magistrate nodded assent, "we will assume for the time being that you are what you represent yourself to be—the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared from England thirty-five years ago. You have just heard what I said to His Worship—about these papers, and what I put forward as regards their connection with the murder of John Ashton? Will you tell us how you lost those papers, and more particularly, how you recently regained possession of them? You see the immense, the vital importance of this to the unfortunate young fellow in the dock?"

"Who," answered the witness with a calm smile, "is quite and utterly mistaken in thinking that he knew me in America, for I have certainly never set foot in America, neither North nor South, in my life! I am very much surprised indeed to be forced into publicity as I have been this morning—I came here as a merely curious spectator and had no idea whatever that I should be called into this box. But if any evidence of mine can establish, or help to establish, the prisoner's innocence, I will give it only too gladly."

"Much obliged to you, sir," said Mr. Millington-Bywater, who, in Viner's opinion, was evidently impressed by the witness's straightforward tone and candid demeanour.

"Well, if you will tell us—in your own way—about these papers, now—always remembering that we have absolute proof that until recently they were in the possession of John Ashton? Let me preface whatever you choose to tell us with a question: Do you know that they were in possession of John Ashton?"

"I have no more idea or knowledge of whose hands they were in, and had been in, for many years, until they were restored to me, than the man in the moon has!" affirmed the witness. "I'll tell you the whole story—willingly: I could have told it yesterday to certain gentlemen, whom I see present, if they had not treated me as an impostor as soon as they saw me. Well,"—here he folded his hands on the ledge of the witness-box, and quietly fixing his eyes on the examining counsel, proceeded to speak in a calm, conversational tone—"the story is this: I left England about five-and-thirty years ago after certain domestic unpleasantnesses which I felt so much that I determined to give up all connection with my family and to start an absolutely new life of my own. I went away to Australia and landed there under the name of Wickham. I had a certain amount of money which had come to me from my mother. I speculated with it on my arrival, somewhat foolishly, no doubt, and I lost it—every penny.

"So then I was obliged to work for my living. I went up country, and for some time worked as a miner in the Bendigo district. I had been working in this way perhaps fourteen months when an accident occurred in the mine at which I was engaged. There was a serious fall of earth and masonry; two or three of my fellow-workers were killed on the spot, and I was taken up for dead. I was removed to a local hospital—there had been some serious injury to my head and spine, but I still had life in me, and I was brought round. But I remained in hospital, in a sort of semiconscious state, for a long time—months. When I went back, after my discharge, to my quarters—nothing but a rough shanty which I had shared with many other men—all my possessions had vanished. Among them, of course, were the papers I had kept, and a packet of letters written to me by my mother when I was a schoolboy at Eton.

"Of course, I knew at once what had happened—some one of my mates, believing me to be dead, had appropriated all my belongings and gone off with them. There was nothing at all to be wondered at in that—it was the usual thing in such a society. And I knew there was nothing to do but to accept my loss philosophically."

"Did you make no effort to recover your possessions?" asked Mr. Millington-Bywater.

"No," answered the witness with a quiet smile. "I didn't! I knew too much of the habits of men in mining centers to waste time in that way. A great many men had left that particular camp during my illness—it would have been impossible to trace each one. No—after all, I had left England in order to lose my identity, and now, of course, it was gone. I went away into quite another part of the country—into Queensland. I began trading in Brisbane, and I did very well there, and remained there many years. Then I went farther south, to Sydney—and I did very well there too. It was in Sydney, years after that, that I saw the advertisements in the newspapers, English and Colonial, setting forth that my father was dead, and asking for news of myself. I took no notice of them—I had not the least desire to return to England, no wish for the title, and I was quite content that my youngest brother should get that and the estates. So I did nothing; nobody knew who I really was—"

"One moment!" said Mr. Millington-Bywater. "While you were at the mining-camp, in the Bendigo district, did you ever reveal your secret to any of your fellow-miners?"

"Never!" answered the witness. "I never revealed it to a living soul until I told my solicitor there, Mr. Methley, after my recent arrival in London."

"But of course, whoever stole your letters and so on, would discover, or guess at, the truth?" suggested Mr. Millington-Bywater.

"Oh, of course, of course!" said the witness. "Well as I was saying, I did nothing—except to keep an eye on the papers. I saw in due course that leave to presume my death had been given, and that my younger brother had assumed the title, and administered the estate, and I was quite content. The fact was, I was at that time doing exceedingly well, and I was too much interested in my doings to care about what was going on in England. All my life," continued the witness, with a slight smile, "I have had a—I had better call it a weakness—for speculating; and when I had got a goodly sum of money together by my trading venture in Brisbane and Sydney, I began speculating again, in Melbourne chiefly. And—to cut my story short—last year I had one of my periodic bad turns of fortune: I lost a lot of money. Now, I am, as you see, getting on in life, over sixty—and it occurred to me that if I came over to England and convinced my nephew, the present holder of the title and estates, that I am really who I am, he would not be averse—we have always been a generous family—to giving me enough to settle down on in Australia for the rest of my days. Perhaps I had better say at once, since we are making matters so very public, that I do not want the title, nor the estate; I will be quite candid and say what I do want—enough to let me live in proper comfort in Australia, whither I shall again repair as soon as I settle my affairs here."

Mr. Millington-Bywater glanced at the magistrate and then at the witness.

"Well, now, these papers?" he said. "You didn't bring them to London with you?"

"Of course not!" answered the witness. "I had not seen or heard of them for thirty-two years! No I relied, on coming to this country, on other things to prove my identity, such as my knowledge of Marketstoke and Ellingham, my thorough acquaintance with the family history, my recollection of people I had known, like Mr. Carless, Mr. Driver, and their clerk, Mr. Portlethwaite, and on the fact that I lost this finger through a shooting accident when I was a boy, at Ellingham. Curiously," he added with another smile, "these things don't seem to have much weight. But no! I had no papers when I landed here."

"How did they come into your possession, then?" asked Mr. Millington-Bywater. "That is what we most earnestly desire to know. Let me impress upon you, sir, that this is the most serious and fateful question I can possibly put to you! How did you get them?"

"And—from whom?" said the magistrate. "From whom?"

The witness shook his head.

"I can tell you exactly how I got them," he answered. "But I can't tell you from whom, for I don't know! What I can tell you is this: When I arrived at Tilbury from Melbourne, I asked a fellow-passenger with whom I came along to London if he could tell me of a quiet, good hotel in the neighbourhood of the parks—he recommended the Belfield, in Lancaster Gate. I went there and put myself up, and from it I went out and about a good deal, looking up old haunts. I also lunched and dined a good many times at some of the new restaurants which had sprung into being since I left London. I mention this to show you that I was where I could be seen and noticed, as I evidently was. One afternoon, while I was sitting in the smoking-room at my hotel, the page-boy came in with a letter on his tray, approached me, and said that it had been brought by a district messenger. It was addressed simply, 'Mr. Cave'—the name by which I had registered at the hotel—and was sealed; the inclosure, on a half-sheet of note-paper, was typewritten. I have it here," continued the witness, producing a pocketbook and taking out an envelope. "I will read its contents, and I shall be glad to let any one concerned see it. There is no address and no date, and it says this: 'If you wish to recover the papers and letters which were lost by you when you went into hospital at Wirra-Worra, Bendigo, thirty-two years ago, be at the Speke Monument in Kensington Gardens at five o'clock this afternoon.' There was no signature."

Another murmur of intense and excited interest ran round the court as the witness handed the letter up to the magistrate, who, after looking it over, passed it on to the counsel below. They, in their turn, showed it to Mr. Carless, Mr. Pawle and Lord Ellingham, Mr. Pawle, showing it to Viner, whispered in his ear:

"If this man's telling the truth," he said, "this is the most extraordinary story I ever heard in my life."

"It seems to me that it is the truth!" muttered Viner. "And I'm pretty certain that at last we're on the way-to finding out who killed Ashton. But let's hear the end."

Mr. Millington-Bywater handed the letter back with a polite bow—it was very obvious to more than one observer that he had by this time quite accepted the witness as what he claimed to be.

"You kept the appointment?" he asked.

"I did, indeed!" exclaimed the witness. "As much out of greatly excited curiosity as anything! It seemed to me a most extraordinary thing that papers stolen from me in Australia thirty-two years ago should be returned to me in London! Yes, I walked down to the Speke Monument. I saw no one about there but a heavily veiled woman who walked about on one side of the obelisk while I patrolled the other. Eventually she approached me, and at once asked me if I had kept secret the receipt of the mysterious letter? I assured her that I had. She then told me that she was the ambassadress of the people who had my letters and papers, and who had seen and recognized me in London and tracked me to my hotel. She was empowered to negotiate with me for the handing over of the papers. There were stipulations. I was to give my solemn word of honour that I would not follow her, or cause her to be followed. I was not to ask questions. And I was to give a post-dated check on the bank at which I had opened an account in London, on receipt of the papers. The check was to be post-dated one month; it was to be made out to bearer, and the amount was ten thousand pounds. I agreed!"

"You really agreed!" exclaimed Mr. Millington-Bywater.

"I agreed! I wanted my papers. We parted, with an agreement that we were to meet two days later at the same place. I was there—so was the woman. She handed me a parcel, and I immediately took it to an adjacent seat and examined it. Everything that I could remember was there, with two exceptions. The packet of letters from my mother, to which I referred just now, was missing; so was a certain locket, which had belonged to her, and of which I had taken great care since her death, up to the time of my accident in the mining-camp. I pointed out these omissions to the woman: she answered that the papers which she had handed over were all that had been in her principal's possession. Thereupon I gave her the check which had been agreed upon, and we parted."

"And that is all you know of her?" asked Mr. Millington-Bywater.

"All!"

"Can you describe her?"

"A tallish, rather well-built woman, but so veiled that I could see nothing of her features; it was, moreover, nearly dark on both occasions. From her speech and manner, she was, I should say, a woman of education and refinement."

"Did you try to trace her, or her principals, through the district messenger who brought the letter?"

"Certainly not! I told you, just now, that I gave my word of honour: I couldn't."

Mr. Millington-Bywater turned to the magistrate.

"I can, if Your Worship desires it, put a witness in the box who can prove beyond doubt that the papers of which we have just heard this remarkable story, were recently in the possession of John Ashton," he said. "He is Mr. Cecil Perkwite, of the Middle Temple—a member of my own profession."

But the magistrate, who appeared unusually thoughtful, shook his head.

"After what we have heard," he said, "I think we had better adjourn. The prisoner will be remanded—as before—for another week."

When the magistrate had left the bench, and the court was humming with the murmur of tongues suddenly let free, Mr. Pawle forced his way to the side of the last witness.

"Whoever you are, sir," he said, "there's one thing certain—nobody but you can supply the solution of the mystery about Ashton's death! Come with me and Carless at once."



CHAPTER XXIV

THE BROKEN LETTER

The man whose extraordinary story had excited such intense interest had become the object of universal attention. Hyde, hitherto the centre of attraction, was already forgotten, and instead of people going away from the court to canvass his guilt or his innocence, they surged round the witness whose testimony, strange and unexpected, had so altered the probabilities of the case. It was with difficulty that Methley got his client away into a private room; there they were joined by Mr. Carless, Mr. Pawle, Mr. Perkwite, Lord Ellingham and Viner, and behind a locked door these men looked at each other and at this centre of interest with the air of those to whom something extraordinary has just been told. After a moment of silence Mr. Carless spoke, addressing the man whose story had brought matters to an undeniable crisis.

"I am sure," he said gravely, and with a side glance at Lord Ellingham, "that if your story is true, sir,—and after what we have just heard, I am beginning to think that my first conclusions may have been wrong ones,—no one will welcome your reappearance more warmly than the young gentleman whom you will turn out of title and property! But you must see for yourself that your claims must be thoroughly investigated—and as what you have now just told affects other people, and we must invite you to full discussion, I propose that, for the time being, we address you as Mr. Cave."

The claimant smiled, and nodded genially to the young man whose uncle he alleged himself to be.

"I wish to remain Mr. Cave," he said. "I don't want to turn my nephew out of title and property, so long as he will do something for his old uncle. Call me Mr. Cave, by all means."

"We must talk—and at once," said Mr. Carless. "There are several points arising out of your evidence on which you must give me information. Whoever is at the back of that woman who handed you those papers is probably the murderer of John Ashton—and that is what must be got at. Now, where can we have a conference—immediately?—Your office, Methley, is not far away, I think."

"My house is nearer," said Viner. "Come—we shall be perfectly quiet in my study, and there will be nothing to interrupt us. Let us go now."

A police official let them out by a side-door, and Viner and Mr. Pawle led the way through some side-streets to Markendale Square, the others coming behind, conversing eagerly about the events of the morning. Mr. Pawle, on his part, was full of excitement.

"If we can only trace that woman, Viner!" he exclaimed. "That's the next thing! Get hold of her, whoever she is, and then—ah, we shall be in sight of the finishing-part."

"What about tracing the whole lot through the check he has given?" suggested Viner. "Wouldn't that be a good way?"

"We should have to wait nearly a month," answered Mr. Pawle. "And even then it would be difficult—simple though it seems at first sight. There are folk who deal in post-dated checks, remember! This may have been dealt with already—aye, and that diamond too; and the man who has got the proceeds may already be many a mile away. Deep, cunning folk they are who have been in this, Viner. And now—speed is the thing!"

Viner led his guests into his library, and as he placed chairs for them round a centre table, an idea struck him.

"I have a suggestion to make," he said with a shy smile at the legal men. "My aunt, Miss Penkridge, who lives with me, is an unusually sharp, shrewd woman. She has taken vast interest in this affair, and I have kept her posted up in all its details. She was in court just now and heard Mr. Cave's story. If no one has any objection, I should like her to be present at our deliberations—as a mysterious woman has entered into the case, Miss Penkridge may be able to suggest something."

"Excellent idea!" exclaimed Mr. Carless. "A shrewd woman is worth her weight in gold! By all means bring Miss Penkridge in—she may, as you say, make some suggestion."

Miss Penkridge, fetched into the room and duly introduced, lost no time in making a suggestion of an eminently practical nature—that as all these gentlemen had been cooped up in that stuffy police-court for two or three hours, they would be none the worse for a glass of wine, and she immediately disappeared, jingling a bunch of keys, to reappear a few minutes later in charge of the parlour-maid carrying decanters and glasses.

"A very comfortable suggestion, that, ma'am," observed Mr. Carless, bowing to his hostess over a glass of old sherry. "Your intuition does you credit! But now, gentlemen, and Miss Penkridge, straight to business! Mr. Cave, the first question I want to put to you is this: on what date did you receive the letter which you exhibited in court this morning?"

Mr. Cave produced a small pocket diary and turned over its pages.

"I can tell you that," he answered. "I made a note of it at the time. It was—yes, here we are—on the twenty-first of November."

"And you received these papers, I think you said, two days later?"

"Yes—on the twenty-third. Here is the entry."

Mr. Carless looked round at the assembled faces.

"John Ashton was murdered on the night of the twenty-second of November," he remarked significantly. "Therefore he had not been murdered when the veiled woman first met Mr. Cave for the first time, and he had been murdered when she met Mr. Cave the second time!"

There was a silence as significant as Mr. Carless' tone upon this—broken at last by Mr. Cave.

"If I may say a word or two," he remarked diffidently. "I don't understand matters about this John Ashton. The barrister who asked me questions—Mr. Millington-Bywater, is it—said that he, or somebody, had positive proof that Mr. Ashton had my papers in his possession for some time previous to his death. Is that really so?"

Mr. Carless pointed to Mr. Perkwite.

"This is the gentleman whom Mr. Millington-Bywater could have put in the box this morning to prove that," he replied. "Mr. Perkwite, of the Middle Temple—a barrister-at-law, Mr. Cave. Mr. Perkwite met Mr. Ashton some three months ago at Marseilles, and Mr. Ashton then not only asked his advice about the Ellingham affair, alleging that he knew the missing Lord Marketstoke, but showed him the papers which you have recently deposited with Mr. Methley here—which papers, Ashton alleged, were intrusted to him by Lord Marketstoke on his deathbed. Ashton, according to Mr. Perkwite, took particular care of these papers, and always carried them about with him in a pocketbook."

Mr. Cave appeared to be much exercised in thought on hearing this.

"It is, of course, absurd to say that Lord Marketstoke —myself!—intrusted papers to any one on his deathbed, since I am very much alive," he said. "But it is, equally of course, quite possible that Ashton had my papers. Who was Ashton?"

"A man who had lived in Australia for some thirty-five or forty years at least," replied Mr. Carless, "and who recently returned to England and settled down in London, in this very square. He lived chiefly in Melbourne, but we have heard that for some four or five years he was somewhere up country. You never heard of him out there? He was evidently well known in Melbourne."

"No, I never heard of him," replied Mr. Cave. "But I don't know Melbourne very well; I know Sydney and Brisbane better. However, an idea strikes me—Ashton may have had something to do with the purloining of my letters and effects at Wirra-Worra, when I met with the accident I told you of."

"So far as we are aware," remarked Mr. Carless, "Ashton was an eminently respectable man!"

"So far as you know!" said Mr. Cave. "There is a good deal in the saving clause, I think. I have known a good many men in Australia who were highly respectable in the last stages of life who had been anything but that in their earlier ones! Of what class was this Ashton?"

"I met him, occasionally," said Methley, "though I never knew who he was until after his death. He was a very pleasant, kindly, good-humoured man—but," he added, "I should say, from his speech and manners, a man who had risen from a somewhat humble position of life. I remember noticing his hands—they were the hands of a man who at some period had done hard manual labour."

Mr. Cave smiled knowingly.

"There you are!" he said. "He had probably been a miner! Taking everything into consideration, I am inclined to believe that he was most likely one of the men, or the man, who stole my papers thirty-two years ago."

"There may be something in this," remarked Mr. Pawle, glancing uneasily at Mr. Carless. "It is a fact that the packet of letters to which Mr. Cave referred this morning as having been written by the Countess of Ellingham to Lord Marketstoke when a boy at school, was found by Mr. Viner and myself in Ashton's house, and that the locket which he also mentioned is in existence—facts which Mr. Cave will doubtless be glad to know of. But," added the old lawyer, shaking his head, "what does all this imply? That Ashton, of whom up to now we have heard nothing but good, was not only a thief, but an impostor who was endeavouring, or meant to endeavour, to palm off a bogus claimant on people, who, but for Mr. Cave's appearance and evidence, would certainly have been deceived! It is most amazing."

"Don't forget," said Viner quietly, "that Mr. Perkwite says that Ashton showed him at Marseilles a certain marriage certificate and a birth certificate."

Mr. Carless started.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "I had forgotten that. Um! However, don't let us forget, just now, that our main object in meeting was to do something towards tracking these people who gave Mr. Cave these papers. Now, Mr. Cave, you got no information out of the woman?"

"None!" answered Mr. Cave. "I was not to ask questions, you remember."

"You took her for a gentlewoman?"

"Yes—from her speech and manner."

"Did she imply to you that she was an intermediary?"

"Yes—she spoke of some one, indefinitely, you know, for whom she was acting."

"And she told you, I think, that you had been recognized, in London, since your arrival, by some one who had known you in Australia years before?"

"Yes—certainly she told me that."

"Just let me look at that typewritten letter again, will you?" asked Mr. Carless. "It seems impossible, but we might get something out of that."

Mr. Cave handed the letter over, and once more it was passed from hand to hand: finally it fell into the hands of Miss Penkridge, who began to examine it with obvious curiosity.

"Afraid there's nothing to be got out of that!" sighed Mr. Carless. "The rogues were cunning enough to typewrite the message—if there'd been any handwriting, now, we might have had a chance! You say there was nothing on the envelope but your name, Mr. Cave?"

Mr. Cave opened his pocketbook again.

"There is the envelope," he said. "Nothing but Mr. Cave, as you see—that is also typewritten."

Miss Penkridge picked up the envelope as Mr. Cave tossed it across the table. She appeared to examine it carefully, but suddenly she turned to Mr. Carless.

"There is a clue in these things!" she exclaimed. "A plain clue! One that's plain enough to me, anyway. I could follow it up. I don't know whether you gentlemen can."

Mr. Carless, who had, up to that point, treated Miss Penkridge with good-humoured condescension, turned sharply upon her.

"What do you mean, ma'am?" he asked. "You really see something in—in a typewritten letter?"

"A great deal!" answered Miss Penkridge. "And in the stationery on which it's typed, and in the envelope in which it's inclosed. Now look here: This letter has been typed on a half-sheet of notepaper. Hold the half-sheet up to the light—what do you see? One half of the name and address of the stationer who supplied it, in watermark. What is that one half?"

Mr. Carless held the paper to the light and saw on the top line, ... "sforth," on the middle line, ... "nd Stationer" and, ... "n Hill" on the bottom line.

"My nephew there," went on Miss Penkridge, "knows what that would be, in full, if the other half of the sheet were here. It would be precisely what it is under the flap of this envelope—there you are! 'Bigglesforth, Bookseller and Stationer, Craven Hill.' Everybody in this district knows Bigglesforth—we get our stationery from him. Now, Bigglesforth has not such a very big business in really expensive notepaper like this—the other half of the sheet, of course, would have a finely engraved address on it—and you can trace the owner of this paper through him, with patience and trouble.

"But here's a still better clue! Look at this typewritten letter. In it, the letter o occurs with frequency. Now, notice—the letter is broken, imperfect; the top left-hand curve has been chipped off. Do you mean to tell me that with time and trouble and patience you can't find out to whom that machine belongs? Taking the fact that this half-sheet of notepaper came from Bigglesforth's, of Craven Hill," concluded Miss Penkridge with emphasis, "I should say that this document—so important—came from somebody who doesn't live a million miles from here!"

Mr. Carless had followed Miss Penkridge with admiring attention, and he now rose to his feet.

"Ma'am," he exclaimed, "Mr. Viner's notion of having you to join our council has proved invaluable! I'll have that clue followed up instantly! Gentlemen, we can do no more just now—let us separate. Mr. Cave—you'll continue to be heard of at the Belfield Hotel?"

"I shall be at your service any time, Mr. Carless," responded Mr. Cave. "A telephone message will bring me at once to Lincoln's Inn Fields."

The assembly broke up, and Viner was left alone with Miss Penkridge.

"That was clever of you!" he said, admiringly. "I should never have noticed that. But—there are a lot of typewriting machines in London!"

"Not so many owned by customers of Bigglesforth's!" retorted Miss Penkridge. "I'd work it out, if I were a detective!"

The parlour-maid looked in and attracted Viner's attention.

"Mr. Felpham wants you at the telephone, sir," she said.



CHAPTER XXV

THROUGH THE TELEPHONE

Events had crowded so thick and fast upon Viner during the last day or two, that he went to the telephone fully expecting to hear of some new development. But he was scarcely prepared for his solicitor's first words.

"Viner!" said Felpham, whose voice betrayed his excitement. "Is that man Cave still with you?"

"No!" answered Viner. "Why?"

"Listen carefully," responded Felpham. "In spite of all he asserts, and his long tale this morning at the police-court, I believe he's a rank impostor! I've just had another talk with Hyde."

"Well?" demanded Viner.

"Hyde," answered Felpham, "persists that he's not mistaken. He swears that the man is Nugent Starr. He says there's no doubt of it! And he's told me of another actor, a man named George Bellingham, who's now somewhere in London, who can positively identify him as Starr. I'm going to find Bellingham this afternoon—there's some deep-laid plot in all this, and that fellow had been cleverly coached in the event of his being unexpectedly tackled.... Viner!"

"Well—I'm listening carefully," replied Viner.

"Where's this man gone?" demanded Felpham.

"To his hotel, I should think," answered Viner. "He left here just before one."

"Listen!" said Felpham. "Do you think it would be wise to post New Scotland Yard on to him—detectives, you know?"

Viner considered swiftly. In the rush of events he had forgotten that Carless had already given instructions for the watching of the pseudo Mr. Cave.

"Why not find this man Bellingham first?" he suggested. "If he can prove, positively, that the fellow is Nugent Starr, you'd have something definite to work on. Where can Bellingham be found?"

"Hyde's given me the address of a theatrical agent in Bedford Street who's likely to know of his whereabouts," replied Felpham. "I'm going over there at once. Hyde saw Bellingham in town three weeks ago."

"Let me know at once," said Viner. "If you find Bellingham, take him to the Belfield Hotel and contrive to show him the man. Call me up later."

He went away from his telephone and sought Miss Penkridge, whom he found in her room, arraying herself for out of doors.

"Here's a new development!" he exclaimed, shutting the door on them. "Felpham's just telephoned to say that Hyde persists that the man who calls himself Cave is Nugent Starr! In that case, he won't—"

Miss Penkridge interrupted her nephew with a sniff.

"My dear Richard," she said, with a note of contemptuous impatience, "in a case like this, you don't know who's who or who isn't who! It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the man turns out to be Nugent Starr."

"How did he come by such a straight tale, then?" asked Viner doubtfully.

"Carefully prepared—in case of need," declared Miss Penkridge as she tied her bonnet-strings with a decisive tug. "The whole thing's a plant!"

"That's what Felpham says," remarked Viner. "But—where are you going?" he broke off as Miss Penkridge, seizing an umbrella, started for the door. "Lunch is just going in."

"My lunch can wait—I've had a biscuit and a glass of sherry," asserted Miss Penkridge. "I'm going round to Bigglesforth the stationer's, to follow up that clue I suggested just now. I dare say I can do a bit of detective work as well as another, and in my opinion, Richard, there's no time to be lost. I have been blessed and endowed," continued Miss Penkridge, as she laid hold of the door-handle, "with exceedingly acute perceptions, and I saw something when I made that suggestion which I'm quite sure none of you men, with all your brains, saw!"

"What?" demanded Viner.

"I saw that my suggestion wasn't at all pleasing to the man who calls himself Cave!" exclaimed Miss Penkridge. "It was only a flash of his eye, a sudden droop at the corners of his lips—but I saw! And I saw something else, too—that he got away as quickly as ever he could after I'd made that suggestion."

Viner looked at his aunt with amused wonder. He thought she was unduly suspicious, and Miss Penkridge guessed his thoughts.

"You'll see," she said as she opened the door.

"There are going to be strange revelations, Richard Viner, my boy! You said at the beginning of this that you'd suddenly got plunged into the middle of things—well, in my opinion, we're now coming to the end of things, and I'm going to do my bit to bring it about."

With that Miss Penkridge sailed away, her step determined and her head high, and Viner, pondering many matters, went downstairs to entertain his visitors, the unlucky Hyde's sisters, with stories of the morning's proceedings and hopes of their brother's speedy acquittal. The poor ladies were of that temperament which makes its possessors clutch eagerly at any straw of hope floating on the sea of trouble, and they listened eagerly to all that their host could tell.

"Langton has an excellent memory!" declared the elder Miss Hyde. "Don't you remember, sister, what a quantity of poetical pieces he knew by heart when he was quite a child?"

"Before he was seven years of age!" said the younger sister. "And at ten he could recite the whole of the trial scene from 'The Merchant of Venice.' Oh, yes, he always had a marvellous memory! If Langton says he remembers this man in America, dear Mr. Viner, I am sure Langton will be right, and that this is the man. But what a very dreadful person to utter such terrible falsehoods!"

"And on oath!" said the elder Miss Hyde, solemnly. "On oath, sister!"

"Sad!" murmured the younger lady. "Most sad! We find London life very disturbing, dear Mr. Viner, after our quiet country existence."

"There are certainly some disturbing elements in it," admitted Viner.

Just then came another interruption; for the second time since his return from the police-court, he was summoned to the telephone. To his great surprise, the voice that hailed him was Mrs. Killenhall's.

"Is that Mr. Viner?" the voice demanded in its usual brisk, clear tones.

"Yes," answered Viner. "Is that Mrs. Killenhall?"

"Yes!" came the prompt reply. "Mr. Viner, can you be so very kind? Miss Wickham and I have come down to the City on some business connected with Mr. Ashton, and we do so want somebody's help. Can you run down at once and join us? So sorry to trouble you, but we really do want a gentleman here."

"Certainly!" responded Viner. "I'll come to you at once. But where are you?"

"Come to 23 Mirrapore Street, off Whitechapel Road," answered Mrs. Killenhall. "There is some one here who knew Mr. Ashton, and I should like you to see him. Can you come at once? And have you the address right?"

"A moment—repeat it, please," replied Viner, pulling out a memorandum book. He noted the address and spoke again: "I'll be there in half an hour, Mrs. Killenhall," he said. "Sooner, if it's possible."

"Thank you so much," responded Mrs. Killenhall's steady voice. "So good of you—good-bye for the present, then."

"Good-bye," said Viner. He hurried away into the hall, snatched up a hat, and letting himself out of the house, ran to the nearest cab-stand and beckoned to a chauffeur who often took him about. "I want to get along to Mirrapore Street, Whitechapel Road," he said, as he sprang into the car. "Do you know whereabouts it is?"

The chauffeur knitted his brows and shook his head.

"There's a sight of small streets running off Whitechapel Road, both sides, sir," he answered. "It'll be one of them—I'll find it. Mirrapore Street? Right, sir."

"Get there as quickly as possible," said Viner. "The quicker the better."

It was not until he had gone a good half of his journey that Viner began to wonder whatever it was that had taken Miss Wickham and her chaperon down to the far boundaries of the City—or, indeed, farther. Mrs. Killenhall had said the City, but Viner knew his London well enough to know that Whitechapel Road lies without the City confines. She had said, too, that a man who knew Mr. Ashton was there with her and Miss Wickham—what man, wondered Viner, and what doing in a district like that toward which he was speeding?

The chauffeur did the run to Whitechapel Road in unusually good time; it was little more than two o'clock when the car passed the parish church. But the man had gone from one end of the road to the other, from the end of High Street to the beginning of Mile End Road, without success, when he stopped and looked in at his passenger.

"Can't see no street of that name on either side, Mr. Viner," he said. "Have you got it right, sir?"

"That's the name given me," answered Viner. He pointed to a policeman slowly patrolling the side walk. "Ask him," he said. "He'll know."

The policeman, duly questioned, seemed surprised at first; then recollection evidently awoke in him.

"Mirrypoor Street?" he said. "Oh, yes! Second to your left, third to the right—nice sort o' street for a car like yours to go into, too!"

Viner overheard this and put his head out of the window.

"Why?" he demanded.

The policeman, quick to recognize a superior person, touched his helmet and stepped off the curb toward his questioner.

"Pretty low quarter down there, sir," he said, with a significant glance in the direction concerned. "If you've business that way, I should advise you to look after yourself—some queer places down those streets, sir."

"Thanks," responded Viner with a grim smile. "Go on, driver, as quick as you can, and stop at the corner of the street."

The car swung out of Whitechapel Road into a long, dismal street, the shabbiness of which increased the further the main thoroughfare was left behind; and Viner, looking right and left, saw that the small streets running off that which he was traversing were still more dismal, still more shabby. Suddenly the car twisted to the right and stopped, and Viner was aware of a long, narrow street, more gloomy than the rest, wherein various doubtful-looking individuals moved about, and groups of poorly clad children played in the gutters.

"All right," he said as he got down from the car, and the chauffeur made a grimace at the unlovely vista. "Look here—I don't want you to wait here. Go back to Whitechapel Road and hang about the end of the street we've just come down. I'll come back there to you."

"Not afraid of going down here alone, then, sir?" asked the chauffeur. "It's a bit as that policeman said."

"I'm all right," repeated Viner. "You go back and wait. I may be some time. I mayn't be long."

He turned away down the street—and in spite of his declaration, he felt that this was certainly the most doubtful place he had ever been in. There were evil and sinister faces on the sidewalks; evil and sinister eyes looking out of dirty windows; here and there a silent-footed figure went by him in the gloom of the December day with the soft step of a wild animal; here and there, men leaning against the wall, glared suspiciously at him or fixed rapacious eyes on his good clothes. There were shops in this street such as Viner had never seen the like of—shops wherein coarse, dreadful looking food was exposed for sale; and there were public-houses from which came the odour of cheap gin and bad beer and rank tobacco; an atmosphere of fried fish and something far worse hung heavily above the dirty pavements, and at every step he took Viner asked himself the same question—what on earth could Miss Wickham and Mrs. Killenhall be doing in this wretched neighbourhood?

Suddenly he came to the house he wanted—Number 23. It was just like all the other houses, of sombre grey brick, except for the fact that it looked somewhat cleaner than the rest, was furnished with blinds and curtains, and in the front downstairs window had a lower wire blind, on which was worked in tarnished gilt letters, the word Surgery. On the door was a brass plate, also tarnished, across which ran three lines in black:

"Dr. Martincole. Attendance: 3 to 6 p. m. Saturdays. 5 to 9.30 p. m."

Before Viner took the bell in hand, he glanced at the houses which flanked this East-end surgery. One was a poor-looking, meanly equipped chemist's shop; the other a second-hand clothing establishment. And comforting himself with the thought that if need arose the apparently fairly respectable proprietors of these places might reasonably be called upon for assistance, he rang the bell of Number 23 and awaited the opening of the door with considerable curiosity.

The door was opened by Mrs. Killenhall herself, and Viner's quick eye failed to notice anything in her air or manner that denoted uneasiness. She smiled and motioned him to enter, shutting the door after him as he stepped into the narrow entrance hall.

"So very good of you to come, Mr. Viner, and so quickly," she said. "You found your way all right?"

"Yes, but I'm a good deal surprised to find you and Miss Wickham in this neighbourhood," answered Viner. "This is a queer place, Mrs. Killenhall. I hope—"

"Oh, we're all right!" said Mrs. Killenhall, with a reassuring smile. "It is certainly a queer neighbourhood, but Dr. Martincole is an old friend of mine, and we're safe enough under his roof. He'll be here in a few minutes, and then—"

"This man who knew Mr. Ashton?" interrupted Viner. "Where is he?"

"Dr. Martincole will bring him in," said Mrs. Killenhall, "Come upstairs, Mr. Viner."

Viner noticed that the house through which he was led was very quiet, and larger than he should have guessed at from the street frontage. From what he could see, it was well furnished, but dark and gloomy; gloomy, too, was a back room, high up the stairs, into which Mrs. Killenhall presently showed him. There, looking somewhat anxious, sat Miss Wickham, alone.

"Here's Mr. Viner," said Mrs. Killenhall. "I'll tell Dr. Martincole he's come."

She motioned Viner to a chair and went out. But the next instant Viner swung quickly round. As the door closed, he had heard the unmistakable click of a patent lock.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE DISMAL STREET

Unknown to those who had taken part in the conference at Viner's house, unknown even to Carless, who in the multiplicity of his engagements, had forgotten the instructions which he had given on the previous afternoon to Portlethwaite, a strict watch was being kept on the man around whom all the events of that morning had centred. Portlethwaite, after Methley and his client had left Carless and Driver's office, had given certain instructions to one of his fellow-clerks, a man named Millwaters, in whose prowess as a spy he had unlimited belief. Millwaters was a fellow of experience. He possessed all the qualities of a sleuth-hound and was not easily baffled in difficult adventures. In his time he had watched erring husbands and doubtful wives; he had followed more than one high-placed wrong-doer running away from the consequences of forgery or embezzlement; he had conducted secret investigations into the behaviour of persons about whom his employers wanted to know something. In person and appearance he was eminently fitted for his job—a little, inconspicuous, plain-featured man who contrived to look as if he never saw anything. And to him, knowing that he was to be thoroughly depended upon, Portlethwaite had given precise orders.

"You'll go up to Lancaster Gate tonight, Millwaters, and get a good look at that chap," Portlethwaite had told him. "Take plenty of money—I'll speak to the cashier about that—and be prepared for anything, even to following, if he bolts. Once you've seen him, you're not to lose sight of him; make sure of him last thing today and first thing tomorrow. Follow him wherever he goes, make a note of wherever he goes, and particularly of whoever he meets. And if there's need, ring me up here, and let's know what's happening, or if you want assistance."

There was no need for Millwaters to promise faithful compliance; Portlethwaite knew well enough that to put him on a trail was equivalent to putting a hound on the scent of a fox or a terrier to the run of a rat. And that evening, Millwaters, who had clever ways of his own, made himself well acquainted with the so-called Mr. Cave's appearance, and assured himself that his man had gone peacefully to rest at his hotel, and he had seen him again before breakfast next morning and had been in quiet and unobtrusive attendance upon him when, later, he visited Methley's office and subsequently walked away with Methley to the police-court. And Millwaters was in the police-court, meditatively sucking peppermint lozenges in a corner, when Mr. Cave was unexpectedly asked to give evidence; he was there, too, until Mr. Cave left the court.

Cave's remarkable story ran off Millwaters' mentality like raindrops off a steep roof. It mattered nothing to him. He did not care the value of a brass button if Cave was Earl of Ellingham or Duke of Ditchmoor; his job was to keep his eye on him, whoever he was. And so when Viner and his party went round to Markendale Square, Millwaters slunk along in their rear, and at a corner of the Square he remained, lounging about, until his quarry reappeared. Two or three of the other men came out with Cave, but Millwaters noticed that Cave immediately separated from them. He was evidently impressing upon them that he was in a great hurry about something or other, and sped away from them, Millwaters's cold eye upon him. And within a minute Millwaters had observed what seemed to him highly suspicious circumstance—Cave, on leaving the others, had shot off down a side-street in the direction of Lancaster Gate, but as soon as he was out of sight of Markendale Square, had doubled in his tracks, hurried down another turning and sped away as fast as he could walk towards Paddington Station.

Millwaters, shorter in the leg than the tall man in front, had to hurry to keep him in sight, but he was never far behind as Cave hastened along Craven Road and made for the terminus. Once or twice in this chase the quarry lifted a hand to an approaching taxicab, only to find each was engaged; it was not until he and his pursuer were in front of the Great Western Hotel that Cave found an empty cab, hailed it, and sprang in. Millwaters grinned quietly at that; he was used to this sort of chase, and he had memorized car and number before Cave had been driven off. It was a mere detail to charter the next, and to give a quiet word and wink to its chauffeur, who was opening its door for Millwaters when a third person came gently alongside and tapped the clerk's shoulder. Millwaters turned sharply and encountered Mr. Perkwite's shrewd eyes.

"All right, Millwaters!" said the barrister. "I know what you're after! I'm after the same bird. We'll go together."

Millwaters knew Mr. Perkwite very well as a promising young barrister whom Carless and Driver sometimes favoured with briefs. Mr. Perkwite's presence did not disturb him; he moved into the farther corner, and Mr. Perkwite slipped inside. The car moved off in pursuit of the one in front.

"So you're on that game, Mr. Perkwite?" remarked Millwaters. "Ah! And who might have got you on to it, if one may ask?"

"You know that I was at your people's office yesterday?" said Perkwite.

"Saw you there," replied Millwaters.

"It was about this business," said the barrister. "Did you see me in the police-court this morning?"

"I did—listening for all you were worth," answered the clerk.

"And I dare say you saw me go with the rest of them to Mr. Viner's, in Markendale Square?" said Perkwite.

"Right again, sir," assented Millwaters. "I did."

"This fellow in front," observed Perkwite, "made some statements at Viner's, in answer to your principal, Mr. Carless, which incline me to the opinion that he's an impostor in spite of his carefully concocted stories."

"Shouldn't wonder, Mr. Perkwite." said Millwaters. "But that's not my business. My job is to keep him under observation."

"That's what I set out to do when I came out of Viner's," said the barrister. "He's up to something. He assured us as we left the house that he'd a most pressing engagement at his hotel in Lancaster Gate; the next minute, happening to glance down a side-street, I saw him cutting off in the direction of Paddington. And now he's evidently making for the City."

"Well, I'm after him," remarked Millwaters. He leaned out of his window, called the chauffeur, and gave him some further instructions. "Intelligent chap, this, Mr. Perkwite," he said as he sat down again. "He understands—some of 'em are poor hands at this sort of game."

"You're a pretty good hand yourself, I think?" suggested the barrister, with a smile.

"Ought to be," said Millwaters. "Had plenty of experience, anyway."

It seemed to Perkwite that his companion kept no particular observation on the car in front as it sped along to and through the northern edge of the City and beyond. But Millwaters woke to action as their own car progressed up Whitechapel Road, and suddenly he gave a warning word to the barrister and a smart tap on the window behind their driver. The car came to a halt by the curb; and Millwaters, slipping out, pushed some money into the man's hand and drew Perkwite amongst the people who were crowding the sidewalk. The barrister looked in front and around and seemed at a loss.

"Where is he?" he asked. "Hang it, I've lost him!"

"I haven't!" said Millwaters. "He left his car before we left ours. Our man knew what he was after—he slowed up and passed him until I saw where he went." He twisted Perkwite round and pointed to the mouth of a street which they had just passed.

"He's gone down there," he said. "Nice neighbourhood, too! I know something of it. Now, Mr. Perkwite, if you please, we'll separate. You take the right of that street—I'll take the left. Keep a look out for my gentleman's Homburg hat—grey, with a black band—and keep the tail of your eye on me, too."