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Updated: June 28, 2025
I have come to certain conclusions. John Ashton, many years ago, fell in with the missing Lord Marketstoke, then living under the name of Wickham, in Australia, and they became close friends. At some time or other, Wickham told Ashton the real truth about himself, and when he died, left his little daughter " Carless looked sharply round. "Ah!" he exclaimed. "So there's a daughter?"
Now, Ashton came from Australia, and as I say, we believe him to have brought with him certain highly important papers relative to Lord Marketstoke, whom we think to have been well known to him at one time. Indeed, we felt sure that Ashton knew Lord Marketstoke's secret.
"Portlethwaite drew me aside to remind me of it. The real Lord Marketstoke, if he were alive, could easily be identified. He lost a finger when a mere boy." "Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "Good excellent! Best bit of evidence I've heard of. Hang this claimant! Now we can tell if Wickham really was Lord Marketstoke. If necessary, we can have his body exhumed and examined."
"Is it going, after all, to clear up the mystery of his death?" asked Viner. "That's what concerns me I'm afraid I'm a bit indifferent to the rest of it. What particular romance, do you think, could be attached to the mere fact that Ashton paid a three days' visit to Marketstoke?" Mr. Pawle drew out a well-filled cigar-case.
"What, then?" Mr. Carless smiled grimly. "That the long-lost Lord Marketstoke was alive and in England!" he said. "Here, in fact, in London!" Mr. Pawle smiled too. But his smile was not grim it was, rather, the smile of a man who hears what he has been expecting to hear. "I thought it would be something of that sort!" he exclaimed. "Aye, I fancied that would be the game!"
Armitstead's mind was swept clean away from the episode in Paris, Viner's from the revelations at Marketstoke, Mr. Pawle suddenly realized that here, at last, was something material and tangible which opened out all sorts of possibilities. And he voiced the thoughts of his two companions as he turned in amazement on the fat little man who sat complacently nursing his umbrella.
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.
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.
"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!
Look here! if Wickham was really Lord Marketstoke, and that girl across the hall is his daughter, she's probably I say probably, for I don't know if the succession in this case goes with the female line Countess of Ellingham, in her own right!" Viner looked his surprise. "Is that really so would it be so?" he asked. "It may be I'm not sure," replied Mr. Pawle.
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