"Nothing ma'am, could be more pleasant and gratifying, as far as material comfort goes," answered Mr. Pawle with conviction. "The dinner was excellent; your wine is sound; this old room is a veritable haven! I wish we were visiting you under less sad conditions. And now about your recollections of this poor gentleman, ma'am?"

The landlady laid a large book on the table, and opening it at a page where at she had placed a marker, pointed to a signature.

"That is the writing of the Mr. John Ashton who came here," she said.

"He registered his name and address the day he came--there it is: 'John Ashton, 7 Markendale Square, London, W.' You gentlemen will recognise it, perhaps?"

Mr. Pawle put up his gla.s.ses, glanced once at the open book, and turned to Viner with a confirmatory nod.

"That's Ashton's writing, without a doubt," he said. "It's a signature not to be forgotten when you've once seen it. Well, that establishes the fact that he undoubtedly came here on that date. Now, ma'am, what can you tell about him?"

Mrs. Summers took the chair which Viner drew forward to the hearth and folded her hands over her silk ap.r.o.n.

"Well sir," she answered, "a good deal. Mr. Ashton came here one Monday afternoon, in a motorcar, with his luggage, and asked if I could give him rooms and accommodation for a few days. Of course I could--he had this room and the room I pointed out upstairs, and he stayed here until the Thursday, when he left soon after lunch--the same car came for him. And he hadn't been in the house an hour, gentlemen, before I wondered if he hadn't been here before."

"Interesting--very!" said Mr. Pawle. "Now, why, ma'am did you wonder that?"

"Well, sir," replied Mrs. Summers, "because, after he'd looked round the house, and seen his room upstairs, he went out to the front door, and then I followed him, to ask if he had any particular wishes about his dinner that evening. Our front door, as you will see in the morning, fronts the market square, and from it you can see about all there is to see of the town. He was standing at the door, under the porch, looking all round him, and I overheard him talking to himself as I went up behind him.

"'Aye!' he was saying, as he looked this way and that, 'there's the old church, and the old moot-hall, and the old market-place, and the old gabled and thatched houses, and even the old town pump--they haven't changed a bit, I reckon, in all these years!' Then he caught sight of me, and he smiled. 'Not many changes in this old place, landlady, in your time?' he said pleasantly. 'No, sir,' I answered. 'We don't change much in even a hundred years in Marketstoke.' 'No!' he said, and shook his head. 'No--the change is in men, in men!' And then he suddenly set straight off across the square to the churchyard. 'You've known Marketstoke before,' I said to myself."

"You didn't ask him that?" inquired Mr. Pawle, eagerly.

"I didn't, sir," replied Mrs. Summers. "I never asked him a question all the time he was here. I thought that if I was correct in what I fancied, I should hear him say something. But he never did say anything of that sort--all the same, I felt more and more certain that he did know the place. And during the time he was here, he went about in it in a fashion that convinced me that my ideas were right. He was in and around the church a great deal--the vicar and the parish clerk can tell you more about his visits there than I can--and he was at the old moot-hall several times, looking over certain old things they keep there, and he visited Ellingham Park twice, and was shown over the house. And before he'd been here two days I came to a certain conclusion about him, and I've had it ever since, though he never said one word, or did one thing that could positively confirm me in it."

"Yes!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "And that, ma'am, was--"

"That he was somebody who disappeared from Marketstoke thirty-five years ago," answered the landlady, "disappeared completely, and has never been heard of from that day to this!"

Mr. Pawle turned slowly and looked at Viner. He nodded his head several times, then turned to Mrs. Summers and regarded her fixedly.

"And that somebody?" he asked in hushed accents. "Who was he?"

The landlady smoothed her silk ap.r.o.n and shook her head.

"It's a long story, sir," she answered. "I think you must have heard something of it--though to be sure, it was not talked of much at the time, and didn't become public until legal proceedings became necessary, some years ago. You're aware, of course, that just outside the town here is Ellingham Park, the seat of the Earl of Ellingham. Well, what I have to tell you has to do with them, and I shall have to go back a good way.

Thirty-five years ago the head of the family was the seventh Earl, who was then getting on in life. He was a very overbearing, harsh old gentleman, not at all liked--the people here in Marketstoke, nearly all of them his tenants, used to be perpetually at variance with him about something or other; he was the sort of man who wanted to have his own way about everything. And he had trouble at home, at any rate with his elder son,--he only had two sons and no daughter,--and about the time I'm talking of it came to a head. n.o.body ever knew exactly what it was all about, but it was well known that Lord Marketstoke--that was the elder son's name--and his father, the Earl, were at cross purposes, if not actually at daggers drawn, about something or other. And when Lord Marketstoke was about twenty five or twenty-six there was a great quarrel between them; it broke out one night, after dinner; the servants heard angry words between them. That night, gentlemen, Lord Marketstoke left the house and set off to London, and from that day to this he has never been heard of or seen again--hereabouts, at any rate."

Mr. Pawle, who was listening with the deepest interest and attention, glanced at Viner as if to entreat the same care on his part.

"I do remember something of this, now I come to think of it," he said.

"There were some legal proceedings in connection with this disappearance, I believe, some years ago."

"Yes, sir--they were in the newspapers," a.s.serted the old landlady. "But of course, those of us about here knew of how things stood long before that. Lord Marketstoke went away, as I have said. It was known that he had money of his own, that had come to him from his mother, who had died years before all this. But it wasn't known where he went. Some said he'd gone to the Colonies; some said to America. And at one time there was a rumour that he'd taken another name and joined some foreign army, and been killed in its service. Anyway, n.o.body ever heard a word of him--Mr.

Marcherson, who was steward at Ellingham Park for over forty years (he died last year, a very old man) a.s.sured me that from the day on which Lord Marketstoke left his father's house not one word of him, not a breath, ever reached any of those he'd left behind him. There was absolute silence--he couldn't have disappeared more completely if they'd laid him in the family vault in Marketstoke church."

"And evident intention to disappear!" observed Mr. Pawle. "You'll mark that, Viner--it's important. Well, ma'am," he added, turning again to Mrs. Summers. "And--what happened next?"

"Well sir, there was nothing much happened," continued the landlady.

"Matters went on in pretty much the usual way. The old Earl got older, of course, and his temper got worse. Mr. Marcherson a.s.sured me that he was never known to mention his missing son--to anybody. And in the end, perhaps about fifteen years after Lord Marketstoke had gone away, he died. And then there was no end of trouble and bother. The Earl had left no will; at any rate, no will could be found, and no lawyer could be heard of who had ever made one. And of course, n.o.body knew where the new Earl was, nor even if he was alive or dead. There were advertis.e.m.e.nts sent out all over the world--Mr. Marcherson told me that they were translated into I don't know how many foreign languages and published in every quarter of the globe--asking for news of him and stating that his father was dead. That was done for some time."

"With no result?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"No result whatever, sir--I understand that the family solicitors never had one single reply," answered Mrs. Summers. "I understand, too, that for some time before the old Earl's death they'd been trying to trace Lord Marketstoke from his last known movements. But that had failed too.

He had chambers in London, and he kept a manservant there; the manservant could only say that on the night on which his young master left Ellingham Park he returned to his chambers, went to bed--and had gone when he, the manservant, rose in the morning. No, sir; all the efforts and advertis.e.m.e.nts were no good whatever, and after some time--some considerable time--the younger brother, the Honourable Charles Cave-Gray--"

"Cave-Gray? Is that the family name?" interrupted Mr. Pawle.

"That's the family name, sir--Cave-Gray," replied Mrs. Summers. "One of the oldest families in these parts, sir--the earldom dates from Queen Anne. Well, the Honourable Charles Cave-Gray, and his solicitors, of course, came to the conclusion that Lord Marketstoke was dead, and so--I don't understand the legal niceties, gentlemen, but they went to the courts to get something done which presumed his death and let Mr.

Charles come into the t.i.tle and estates. And in the end that had been done, and Mr. Charles became the eighth Earl of Ellingham."

"I remember it now," muttered Mr. Pawle. "Yes--curious case. But it was proved to the court, I recollect, that everything possible had been done to find the missing heir--and without result."

"Just so, sir, and so Mr. Charles succeeded," a.s.serted Mrs. Summers. "He was a very nice, pleasant man, not a bit like his father--a very good and considerate landlord, and much respected. But he's gone now--died three years ago; and his son, a young man of twenty-two or three, succeeded him--that's the present Earl, gentlemen. And of him we see very little; he scarcely ever stayed at Ellingham Park, except for a bit of shooting, since he came to the t.i.tle. And now," she concluded, with a shrewd glance at the old lawyer, "I wonder if you see, sir, what it was that came into my mind when this Mr. John Ashton came here a few weeks ago, especially after I heard him say what he did, and after I saw how he was spending his time here?"

"I've no inkling, ma'am; I've no inkling!" said Mr. Pawle. "You wondered--"

"I wondered," murmured Mrs. Summers, bending closer to her listeners, "if the man who called himself John Ashton wasn't in reality the long-lost Lord Marketstoke."

CHAPTER X

THE PARISH REGISTER

Mr. Pawle, after a glance at Viner which seemed to be full of many meanings, bent forward in his chair and laid a hand on the old landlady's arm.

"Now, have you said as much as that to anybody before?" he asked, eking her significantly. "Have you mentioned it to your neighbours, for instance, or to any one in the town?"

"No, sir!" declared Mrs. Summers promptly. "Not to a soul! I'm given to keeping my ideas to myself, especially on matters of importance. There is no one here in Marketstoke that I would have mentioned such a thing to, now that the late steward, Mr. Marcherson, is dead. I shouldn't have mentioned it to you two gentlemen if it hadn't been for this dreadful news in the papers. No, I've kept my thoughts at home."

"Wise woman!" said Mr. Pawle. "But now let me ask you a few questions.

Did you know this Lord Marketstoke before he disappeared?"

"I only saw him two or three times," replied the landlady. "It was seldom that he came to Ellingham Park, after his majority. Of course, I saw him a good deal when he was a mere boy. But after he was grown up, only, as I say, a very few times."

"But you remember him?" suggested Mr. Pawle.

"Oh, very well indeed!" said Mrs. Summers. "I saw him last a day or two before he went away for good."

"Well, now, did you think you recognized anything of him--making allowance for the difference in age--in this man who called himself John Ashton?" asked Mr. Pawle. "For that, of course, is important!"

"Mr. Ashton," answered Mrs. Summers, "was just such a man as Lord Marketstoke might have been expected to become. Height, build--all the Cave-Grays that I've known were big men--colour, were alike. Of course, Mr. Ashton had a beard, slightly grey, but he was a grey-haired man. All the family had crown hair; the present Lord Ellingham is crown-haired.

And Mr. Ashton had grey eyes--every Cave-Gray that I remember was grey-eyed. I should say that Mr. Ashton was just what I should have expected Lord Marketstoke to be at sixty."

"I suppose Ashton never said or did anything here to reveal his secret, if he had one?" asked Mr. Pawle, after a moment's thoughtful pause.