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Updated: May 29, 2025
"Very clearly put, my dear much obliged to you," said Mr. Pawle. "Now, I suppose you were at the Ellingham Arms when this Mr. Ashton came there?" "Oh, yes, sir; I live there!" "To be sure! Now, what sort of man was he in appearance?" "A tall, big gentleman, sir, with a beard, going a little grey. He was wearing a blue serge suit." Mr. Pawle nodded at Viner. "Seems like our man," he remarked.
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 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?"
"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."
"But now I should like to ask a question which arises out of this visit. As we approached your lordship's door, just now, we saw, leaving it, two men. One of them, my friend Mr. Viner immediately recognized. He does not know who the man is " "Which of the two men do you mean!" interrupted Lord Ellingham. "I may as well say that they had just left me." "The clean-shaven man," answered Viner.
"I wish I'd been present when Methley and Woodlesford put forward that proposition," exclaimed the old lawyer. "Did they seem serious?" "Oh, I think they were quite serious," replied Lord Ellingham. "They seemed so; they spoke of it as what they called a domestic arrangement." "Excellent phrase!" remarked Mr. Pawle. "And what said your lordship to their or the claimant's proposition?"
"It looks like it. And this man who was there last night " "Why a man?" "He took your overcoat, instead of his own, didn't he? It may have been it's curious, isn't it, that we've had no suggestion of Ellingham in all the rest of the material."
He pulled out the bundle of letters which he and Viner had unearthed from the Japanese cabinet. "This! It is a packet of letters written by the seventh Countess of Ellingham to her elder son, the Lord Marketstoke we are talking of, when he was a boy at Eton. Your Lordship will probably recognize your grandmother's handwriting." Lord Ellingham bent over the letter which Mr. Pawle spread before him.
"I think his man has some such impression, but I believe it to be utterly unfounded. I cannot find that he ever expressed any wish concerning the disposition of the picture to any of his friends. Unfortunately, Sir Hugh was not always discreet in his remarks to his servants." "Captain Gresham, Lady Ellingham, and Miss Ellingham," announced a servant, appearing at the door.
"Then," suggested Viner, "don't you think it would be advisable, rather than that Lord Ellingham should be kept in suspense, that we should go round to the police-station and inspect the documents?
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