CHAPTER X
THE PARISH REGISTER
Mr. Pawle, after a glance at Viner which seemed to be full of manymeanings, bent forward in his chair and laid a hand on the oldlandlady's arm.
"Now, have you said as much as that to anybody before?" he asked, ekingher significantly. "Have you mentioned it to your neighbours, forinstance, or to any one in the town?"
"No, sir!" declared Mrs. Summers promptly. "Not to a soul! I'm given tokeeping my ideas to myself, especially on matters of importance. There isno 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 havementioned it to you two gentlemen if it hadn't been for this dreadful newsin 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 seldomthat he came to Ellingham Park, after his majority. Of course, I saw hima good deal when he was a mere boy. But after he was grown up, only, as Isay, 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 twobefore he went away for good."
"Well, now, did you think you recognized anything of him--makingallowance for the difference in age--in this man who called himself JohnAshton?" asked Mr. Pawle. "For that, of course, is important!"
"Mr. Ashton," answered Mrs. Summers, "was just such a man as LordMarketstoke might have been expected to become. Height, build--all theCave-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. Allthe family had crown hair; the present Lord Ellingham is crown-haired.And Mr. Ashton had grey eyes--every Cave-Gray that I remember wasgrey-eyed. I should say that Mr. Ashton was just what I should haveexpected 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.
"Oh, nothing!" replied Mrs. Summers. "He occupied himself, as I tell you,while he was here, and finally he went away in the car in which he hadcome, saying that he had greatly enjoyed his stay, and that we should seehim again sometime. No--he never said anything about himself, that is.But he asked me several questions; I used to talk to him sometimes, of anevening, about the present Lord Ellingham."
"What sort of questions?" inquired Mr. Pawle.
"Oh--as to what sort of young man he was, and if he was a good landlordand so on," replied Mrs. Summers. "And I purposely told him about thedisappearance of thirty-five years ago, just to see what he would sayabout it."
"Ah! And what did he say?" asked Mr. Pawle.
"Nothing--except that it was extraordinary how people could disappear inthis world," said Mrs. Summers. "Whether he was interested or not, hedidn't show it."
"Probably felt that he knew more about it than you did," chuckled the oldsolicitor. "Well, ma'am, we're much obliged to you. Now take my adviceand keep to your very excellent plan of saying nothing. Tomorrow morningwe will just have a look into certain things, and see if we can discoveranything really pertinent, and you shall know what conclusion we come to.Viner!" Pawle went on, when the old landlady had left them alone, "whatdo you think of this extraordinary story? Upon my word, I think it quitepossible that the old lady's theory might be right, and that Ashton mayreally have been the missing Lord Marketstoke!"
"You think it probable that a man who was heir to an English earldom andto considerable estates could disappear like that, for so many years, andthen reappear?" asked Viner.
"I won't discuss the probability," answered Mr. Pawle, "but that it'spossible I should steadily affirm. I've known several very extraordinarycases of disappearance. In this particular instance--granting things tobe as Mrs. Summers suggests--see how easy the whole thing is. This youngman disappears. He goes to a far-off colony under an assumed name.Nobody knows him. It is ten thousand to one against his being recognizedby visitors from home. All the advertising in the world will fail toreveal his identity. The only person who knows who he is is himself. Andif he refuses to speak--there you are!"
"What surprises me," remarked Viner, "is that a man who evidently lived anew life for thirty-five years and prospered most successfully in it,should want to return to the old one."
"Ah, but you never know!" said the old lawyer. "Family feeling, oldassociations, loss of the old place--eh? As men get older, their thoughtsturn fondly to the scenes and memories of their youth, Viner. If Ashtonwas really the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared, he may have come downhere with no other thought than that of just revisiting his old home forsentimental reasons. He may not have had the slightest intention, forinstance, of setting up a claim to the title and estates."
"I don't understand much about the legal aspect of this," said Viner,"but I've been wondering about it while you and the landlady talked.Supposing Ashton to be the long-lost Lord Marketstoke--could he haveestablished a claim such as you speak of?"
"To be sure!" answered Mr. Pawle. "Had he been able to prove that he wasthe real Simon pure, he would have stepped into title and estates atonce. Didn't the old lady say that the seventh Earl died intestate? Verywell--the holders since his time, that is to say, Charles, who, hisbrother's death being presumed, became eighth Earl, and his son, thepresent holder, would have had to account for everything since the dayof the seventh Earl's death. When the seventh Earl died, his elder son,Lord Marketstoke, _ipso facto_, stepped into his shoes, and if he were,or is, still alive, he's in them still. All he had to do, at any moment,after his father's death, no matter who had come into title and estates,was to step forward and say: 'Here I am!--now I want my rights!'"
"A queer business altogether!" commented Viner. "But whoever Ashtonwas, he's dead. And the thing that concerns me is this: if he reallywas Earl of Ellingham, do you think that fact's got anything to do withhis murder?"
"That's just what we want to find out," answered Mr. Pawle eagerly. "It'squite conceivable that he may have been murdered by somebody who had aparticular interest in keeping him out of his rights. Such things havebeen known. I want to go into all that. But now here's another matter. IfAshton really was the missing Lord Marketstoke, who is this girl whom heput forward as his ward, to whom he's left his considerable fortune, andabout whom nobody knows anything? I've already told you there isn't asingle paper or document about her that I can discover. Was he really herguardian?"
"Has this anything to do with it?" asked Viner. "Does it come intothings?"
Mr. Pawle did not answer for a moment; he appeared to have struck a newvein of thought and to be exploring it deeply.
"In certain events, it would come into it pretty strongly!" he mutteredat last. "I'll tell you why, later on. Now I'm for bed--and first thingafter breakfast, in the morning, Viner, we'll go to work."
Viner had little idea of what the old solicitor meant as regards going towork; it seemed to him that for all practical purposes they were alreadyin a maze out of which there seemed no easy way. And he was not at allsure of what they were doing when, breakfast being over next morning, Mr.Pawle conducted him across the square to the old four-square churchyard,and for half an hour walked him up one path and down another and in andaround the ancient yew-trees and gravestones.
"Do you know what I've been looking for, Viner?" asked Mr. Pawle atlast as he turned towards the church porch. "I was looking forsomething, you know."
"Not the faintest notion!" answered Viner dismally. "I wondered!"
"I was looking," replied Mr. Pawle with a faint chuckle, "to see if Icould find any tombstones or monuments in this churchyard bearing thename Ashton. There isn't one! I take it from that significant fact thatAshton didn't come down here to visit the graves of his kindred. But nowcome into the church--Mrs. Summers told me this morning that there's achapel here in which the Cave-Gray family have b
een interred for two orthree centuries. Let's have a look at it."
Viner, who had a dilettante love of ancient architecture, was immediatelylost in admiration of the fine old structure into which he and hiscompanion presently stepped. He stood staring at the high rood, the fineold rood screen, the beauty of the clustered columns--had he been alone,and on any other occasion, he would have spent the morning in wanderingaround nave and aisles and transepts. But Mr. Pawle, severely practical,at once made for the northeast chapel; and Viner, after another glanceround, was forced to follow him.
"The Ellingham Chapel!" whispered the old solicitor as they passed a fineold stone screen which Viner mentally registered as fifteenth-century."No end of Cave-Grays laid here. What a profusion of monuments!"
Viner began to examine those monuments as well as the gloom of theNovember morning and the dark-painted glass of the windows would permit.And before very long he turned to his companion, who was laboriouslyreading the inscription on a great box-tomb which stood against thenorth wall.
"I say!" he whispered. "Here's a curious fact which, in view of what weheard last night, may be of use to us."
"What's that?" demanded Mr. Pawle.
Viner took him by the elbow and led him over to the south wall, on whichwas arranged a number of ancient tablets, grouped around a greataltar-tomb whereon were set up the painted effigies of a gentleman, hiswife, and several sons and daughters, all in ruffs, kneeling one afterthe other, each growing less in size and stature, in the attitude ofprayer. He pointed to the inscription on this, and from it to several ofthe smaller monuments.
"Look here!" he said. "There are Cave-Grays commemorated here from 1570until 1820. No end of 'em--men and women. And now, see--there's acertain Christian name--a woman's name--which occurs over and overagain. There it is--and there--and here--and here--and here again; it'sevidently been a favourite family name among the Cave-Gray women forthree hundred years at least. You see what it is? Avice!"
Mr. Pawle peered at the various places to which his companion'sfinger pointed.
"Yes," he answered, "I see it--several times, as you say. Avice! Yes?"
"Miss Wickham's Christian name is Avice," said Viner.
Mr. Pawle started.
"God bless me!" he exclaimed. "So it is! I'd forgotten that. Dear me!Now, that's very odd--too odd, perhaps, to be a coincidence. Veryinteresting, indeed! Favourite family name without a doubt."
Viner silently went round the chapel, inspecting every monument its fourwalls sheltered.
"It occurs just nineteen times," he announced at last. "Now, is it acoincidence that Miss Wickham's name should be Avice? Or is it thatthere's some connection between her and all these dead and gone Avices?"
"Very strange!" admitted Mr. Pawle. "Viner--we'll go next and have a lookat the parish registers. But look here! Not a word to parson or clerkabout our business! We merely wish to make search for a certain legalpurpose, eh?"
Three hours later Viner, heartily weary of turning over old registersfull of crabbed writing, was glad when Mr. Pawle closed the one onwhich he was engaged, intimated that he had seen all he wanted, paidthe fees for his search, and whispered to his companion that they wouldgo to lunch.
"Well?" asked Viner as they walked across the square to the EllingtonArms. "Have we done anything?"
"Probably!" answered Mr. Pawle. "For you never know how these littlematters might help. We've established two facts, anyway. One--that therehave never been any folk of the name of Ashton in this town since theregisters came into being in 1567; the other, that the name Avice was avery favourite one indeed amongst the women of the Cave-Gray family. Andthere's just another little fact which I discovered, and said nothingabout while the vicar and clerk were about--it may be nothing, and it maybe something."
"What is it?" asked Viner.
"Well," answered Mr. Pawle pausing a few yards away from the porch of thehotel, and speaking in a confidential voice, "it's this: In turning upthe records of the Cave-Gray family, as far as they are shown in theirparish registers, I found that Stephen John Cave-Gray, sixth Earl ofEllingham, married one Georgina Wickham. Now, is that anothercoincidence? There you get the two names in combination--Avice Wickham.That particular Countess of Ellingham would, of course, be thegrandmother of the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared. Did he think of hermaiden name, Wickham, when he wanted a new one for himself? Possibly! Andwhen he married, and had a daughter, did he think of the Christian nameso popular with his own womenfolk of previous generations, and call hisdaughter Avice? And are Marketstoke and Wickham and Ashton all one andthe same man?"
"Upon my word, it's a strange muddle!" exclaimed Viner.
"Nothing as yet to what it will be," remarked Mr. Pawle sententiously."Come on--I'm famishing. Let's lunch--and then we'll go back to town."
Another surprise awaited them when they walked into Mr. Pawle's office inBedford Row at four o'clock that afternoon. A card lay on the oldlawyer's blotting-pad, and after glancing at it, he passed it to Viner.
"See that?" he said. "Now, who on earth is Mr. Armitstead AshtonArmitstead, of Rouendale House, Rawtenstall? Who left this?" he went on,as a clerk entered the room with some letters.
"A gentleman who called at three o'clock, sir," replied the clerk. "Hesaid he's travelled specially from Lancashire to see you about the Ashtonaffair. He's going to call again, sir. In fact," concluded the clerk,glancing into the anteroom, "I think he's here now."
"Bring him in," commanded Mr. Pawle. He made a grimace at Viner as theclerk disappeared. "You see how things develop," he murmured. "What arewe going to hear next?"