The Middle of Things Page 21

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE MARSEILLES MEETING

  The man who was waiting in Mr. Pawle's room, and who rose from his chairwith alacrity as the old lawyer entered with Viner at his heels, was analert, sharp-eyed person of something under middle-age, whoseclean-shaven countenance and general air immediately suggested the LawCourts. And he went straight to business before he had released the handwhich 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? Thisgentleman is Mr. Richard Viner, who is interested in it--considerably."

  "To be sure," said the barrister. "One of the witnesses, of course. Iread the whole thing up last night. I have been on the Continent--theFrench Riviera, Italy, the Austrian Tyrol--for some time, Mr. Pawle, andonly returned to town yesterday. I saw something, in an Englishnewspaper, in Paris, the other day, about this Ashton business, and as myclerk keeps the _Times_ for me when I am absent, last night I read overthe proceedings before the magistrate and before the coroner. And ofcourse I saw your request for information about Ashton and his recentmovements."

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

  "I have some to give," assented Mr. Perkwite, as the three men sat downby Mr. Pawle's desk. "Certainly--and I should say it's of considerableimportance. The fact is I met Ashton at Marseilles, and spent the betterpart 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 toMarseilles from London; he had come there from Italy by way of MonteCarlo and Nice. We happened to get into conversation on the night of myarrival, and we afterwards spent most of our time together. And findingout that I was a barrister, he confided certain things to me and askedmy advice."

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

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

  "Thereupon, pledging me to secrecy for the time being, Ashton went onto tell me that Lord Marketstoke was well known to him and that healone knew all the facts of the matter, though a certain amount of themwas known to another man, now living in London. He said thatMarketstoke, after a final quarrel with his father, left England insuch a fashion that no one could trace him, taking with him the fortunewhich he had inherited from his mother, and eventually settled inAustralia, 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 thefriendship deepened and existed until Marketstoke's death some twelveor thirteen years ago. But Ashton never had the slightest notion ofMarketstoke's real identity until his friend's last days. ThenMarketstoke told him the plain truth; and the fact who he really was atthe same time was confided to another man--who, however, was not toldall the details which were given to Ashton.

  "Now, Marketstoke had married in Australia. His wife was dead. But he hada daughter who was about six years of age at the time of her father'sdeath. Marketstoke confided her to Ashton, with a wish that she should besent home to England to be educated. He also handed over to Ashton aconsiderable sum of money for this child. Further, he gave him a quantityof papers, letters, family documents, and so on. He had a purpose. Heleft it to Ashton--in whom he evidently had the most absoluteconfidence--as to whether this girl's claim to the title and estatesshould be set up. And when Ashton had finished telling me all this, Ifound that one of his principal reasons in coming to England to settledown, was the wish to find out how things were with the present holder ofthe title: if, he said, he discovered that he was a worthy sort of youngfellow, he, Ashton, should be inclined to let the secret die with him. Hetold 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 perhapsleave 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 tolet me see the papers of which he had spoken."

  "Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle, with a sigh of relieved satisfaction. "Thenyou 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 carriedthose in a pocketbook; had so carried them, he told me, ever sinceMarketstoke had handed them to him; they had never, he added, been out ofhis possession, day or night, since Marketstoke's death. Now, onexamining the papers, I at once discovered two highly important facts.Although Marketstoke went to and lived in Australia under the name ofWickham, he had taken good care to get married in his own proper name,and there, amongst the documents, was the marriage certificate, in whichhe was correctly described. Further, his daughter had been correctlydesignated in the register of her birth; there was a copy, properlyattested, of the entry."

  Mr. Pawle glanced at Viner, and Viner knew what he was thinking of. Thetwo documents just described by Mr. Perkwite had not been among thepapers which Methley and Woodlesford had exhibited at Carless &Driver's office.

  "A moment," said Mr. Pawle, lifting an arresting finger. "Did you happento 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. Ashtontold me that Marketstoke's wife had been a governess in the family ofsome well-to-do-sheep-farmer--she was an English girl, and an orphan. Thechild, however, was certainly born in Melbourne and registered inMelbourne."

  "Now, that's odd!" remarked Mr. Pawle. "You'd have thought that when LordMarketstoke was so extensively advertised for some years ago, on thedeath of his father, some of these officials--"

  "Ah! I put that point to Ashton," interrupted Mr. Perkwite. "He said thatMarketstoke, though he had taken good care to be married in his own nameand had exercised equal precaution about his daughter, had pledgedeverybody 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 doubtwhatever that the case as presented by Ashton was quite clear, and thathis ward Miss Avice Wickham is without doubt Countess of Ellingham (thetitle, I understand, going in the female as well as the male line) andrightful owner of the estates. And I told him that his best plan, onreaching England, was to put the whole matter before the familysolicitors. However, he said that before doing that, there were twothings he wanted to do. One was to find out for himself how thingswere--if the young earl was a satisfactory landlord and so on, andlikely to be a credit to the family; the other was that he wanted toconsult the man who shared with him the bare knowledge that the man whohad been known in Melbourne as Wickham was really the missing LordMarketstoke. And he added that he had already telegraphed to this man tomeet him in Paris."

  "Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle with a look in Viner's direction. "Now we areindeed coming to something! He was to meet him in Paris! Viner, I'll wagerthe world against a China orange that that's the man whom Armitstead sawin company with Ashton in the Rue Royale, and--no doubt--the man ofLonsdale Passage! Mr. Perkwite, this is most important. Did Ashton tellyou the name of this man?"

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

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

  "Disappointing!" muttered Mr. Pawle. "That's the nearest approach to aclue 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 callon 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, "andI 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 Iread of his murder."

  Pawle turned to Viner.

  "I think we'd better tell Perkwite of all that's happened, within our ownken," he said, and proceeded to give the visitor a brief account of thevarious important details. "Now," he concluded, "it seems to me there'sonly one conclusion to be arrived at. The man who shared the secret withAshton is certainly the man whom Armitstead saw with him in Paris. He isprobably the man whom Hyde saw leaving Londsdale Passage, just beforeHyde found the body. And he is without doubt the murderer, and is the manto 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. "Ifyour theory is correct, that this claimant is merely a man who is beingput forward, then surely the thing to do is to get at the person orpersons behind him, through him!"

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

  "Sorry, but he didn't," said Mr. Perkwite. "You feel," he continued aftera moment's silence, "you feel that this affair of the Ellinghamsuccession lies at the root of the Ashton mystery--that he was reallymurdered by somebody who wanted to get possession of those papers?"

  "And to remain sole repository of the secret," declared Mr. Pawle. "Isn'tit established that beyond yourself and this unknown man nobody butAshton knew the secret?"

  "There is another matter, though," remarked Viner. He turned to thevisitor. "You said that you and Ashton became very friendly andconfidential during your stay in Marseilles. Pray, did he never show youanything 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 ofcuriosity--a stone which had some romantic history attaching to it. But Iwas not half as much interested in that as in the other affair."

  "All the same," remarked Mr. Pawle, "that diamond is worth some fifty orsixty 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. "Nottill then!"

  "From what we have heard," remarked Viner, "Ashton carried thatdiamond in the pocketbook which contained his papers--the papers youhave told me of, and some of which have certainly come into possessionof this claimant person. Now, whoever stole the papers, of course gotthe 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 seethat the coroner's inquest was adjourned. Now, as that inquest is, ofcourse, being held to inquire into the circumstances of Ashton's death, Isuggest that I should come forward as a witness and should prove thatAshton showed certain papers relating to the Ellingham peerage to me atMarseilles; I can tell the story, as a witness. It can then be proved byyou, or by Carless, that a man claiming to be the missing LordMarketstoke showed these stolen papers to you. In the meantime, get thecoroner to summon this man as a witness, and take care that he's broughtto the court. Once there, let him be asked how he came into possession ofthese papers? Do you see my idea?"

  "Capital!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "An excellent notion! Much obliged toyou, 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 awell-concocted conspiracy. But when is the adjourned inquest?"

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

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

  He was half-minded to tell Mr. Pawle there and then of his secretdealings with Methley that day, but on reflection he decided that hewould keep the matter to himself. Viner had an idea which he had notcommunicated even to Methley. It had struck him that the mysterious_deux ex machina_ who was certainly at the back of all this businessmight not improbably be so anxious about his schemes that he would,unknown and unsuspected, attend the magistrates' court. Would Hyde, hiswits sharpened by danger, be able to spot him as the muffled man ofLonsdale Passage?