The Middle of Things, J. S. Fletcher [interesting books to read for teens .TXT] 📗

massive wreath of flowers which had evidently just arrived from the florist's and been deposited on the centre-table.

"All we can do for him, you know!" murmured Mrs. Killenhall, with a glance at the two men. "He—he had so few friends here, poor man!"

"That remark, ma'am," observed Mr. Pawle, "is apropos of a subject that I want to ask Miss Wickham two or three questions about. Friends, now? Miss Wickham, you always understood that Mr. Ashton and your father were very close friends, I believe?"

"I always understood so—yes, Mr. Pawle," replied Miss Wickham.

"Did he ever tell you much about your father?"

"No, very little indeed. He never told me more than that they knew each other very well, in Australia, that my father died out there, comparatively young, and that he left me in his, Mr. Ashton's care."

"Did he ever tell you whether your father left you any money?" demanded the old lawyer.

Miss Wickham looked surprised.

"Oh, yes!" she answered. "I thought you'd know that. My father left me a good deal of money. Didn't Mr. Ashton tell you?"

"Never a word!" said Mr. Pawle. "Now—where is it, then?"

"In my bank," replied Miss Wickham promptly. "The London and Universal. When Mr. Ashton fetched me away from school and brought me here, he told me that he had twelve thousand pounds of mine which my father had left me, and he handed it over to me then and there, and took me to the London and Universal Bank, where I opened an account with it."

"Spent any of it?" asked Mr. Pawle dryly.

"Only a few pounds," answered Miss Wickham.

The old solicitor glanced at Viner, who, while these private matters were being inquired into, was affecting to examine the pictures on the walls.

"Most extraordinary!" he muttered. "All this convinces me that Ashton must have had papers and documents! These must have been—however, we don't know where they are. But there would surely be, for instance, your father's will, Miss Wickham. I suppose you've never seen such a document? No, to be sure! You left all to Ashton. Well, now, do you remember your father?"

"Only just—and very faintly, Mr. Pawle," replied Miss Wickham. "You must remember I was little more than five years old."

"Can you remember what he was like?"

"I think he was a big, tall man—but it's a mere impression."

"Listen!" said Mr. Pawle. "Did you ever, at any time, hear Mr. Ashton make any reference—I'm talking now of the last few weeks—to the Ellingham family, or to the Earl of Ellingham?"

"Never!" replied Miss Wickham. "Never heard of them. He never—"

Mrs. Killenhall was showing signs of a wish to speak, and Mr. Pawle turned to her.

"Have you, ma'am?" he asked.

"Yes," said Mrs. Killenhall, "I have! It was one night when Miss Wickham was out—you were at Mrs. Murray-Sinclair's, my dear—and Mr. Ashton and I dined alone. He asked me if I remembered the famous Ellingham case, some years ago—something about the succession to the title—he said he'd read it in the Colonial papers. Of course, I remembered it very well."

"Well, ma'am," said Mr. Pawle, "and what then?"

"I think that was all," answered Mrs. Killenhall. "He merely remarked that it was an odd case, and said no more."

"What made him mention it?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"Oh, we'd been talking about romances of the peerage," replied Mrs.
Killenhall. "I had told him of several."

"You're well up in the peerage, ma'am?" suggested the old lawyer.

"I know my Burke and my Debrett pretty thoroughly," said Mrs. Killenhall.
"Very interesting, of course."

Mr. Pawle, who was sitting close to Miss Wickham, suddenly pointed to a gold locket which she wore.

"Where did you get that, my dear?" he asked. "Unusual device, isn't it?"

"Mr. Ashton gave it to me, a few weeks ago," answered Miss Wickham. "He said it had belonged to my father."

The old lawyer bent nearer, looked more closely at the locket, and got up.

"Elegant old thing!" he said. "Not made yesterday, that! Well, ladies, you will see me, for this very sad occasion"—he waved a hand at the wreath of flowers—"tomorrow. In the meantime, if there is anything you want done, our young friend here is close at hand. Just now, however, I want him."

"Viner," observed Pawle when they had left the house, "it's very odd how unobservant some people are! Now, there's that woman we've just left, Mrs. Killenhall, who says that she's well up in her Debrett, and her Burke,—and there, seen by her many a time, is that locket which Miss Wickham is wearing, and she's never noticed it! Never, I mean, noticed what's on it. Why, I saw it—and its significance—instantly, just now, which was the first time I'd seen it!"

"What is it that's on it?" asked Viner.

"After we came back from Marketstoke," replied Mr. Pawle, "I looked up the Cave-Gray family and their peerage. That locket bears their device and motto. The device is a closed fist, grasping a handful of blades of wheat; the motto is Have and Hold. Viner, as sure as fate, that girl's father was the missing Lord Marketstoke, and Ashton knew the secret! I'm convinced of it—I'm positive of it. And now see the extraordinary position in which we're all placed. Ashton's dead, and there isn't one scrap of paper to show what it was that he really knew. Nothing—not one written line!"

"Because, as I said before, he was murdered for his papers," affirmed
Viner. "I'm sure of that as you are of the rest."

"I dare say you're right," agreed Mr. Pawle. "But, as I've said before, that presupposes that Ashton told somebody the secret. Now—who? Was it the man he was with in Paris? And if so, who is that man? But it's useless speculating. I've made up my mind to a certain course, Viner. Tomorrow, after the funeral, I'm going to call on the present Lord Ellingham—his town house is in Hertford Street, and I know he's in town—and ask him if he has heard anything of a mysterious nature relating to his long-missing uncle. We may hear something—you come with me."

Next day, toward the middle of the afternoon, Mr. Pawle and Viner got out of a taxicab in Park Lane and walked down Hertford Street, the old lawyer explaining the course he was about to take.

"This is a young man—not long come of age," he said. "He'll be quite well acquainted, however, with the family history, and if anything's happened lately, I dare say I can get him to talk. He—What is it?"

Viner had suddenly gripped his companion's arm and pulled him to a halt. He was looking ahead—at the house at which they were about to call. And there, just being shown out by a footman, was the man whom he had seen at the old-fashioned tavern in Notting Hill, and with him a tall, good-looking man whom he had never seen before.

CHAPTER XV THE PRESENT HOLDER

Mr. Pawle turned sharply on his companion as Viner pulled him up. He saw the direction of Viner's suddenly arrested gaze and looked from him to the two men who had now walked down the steps of the house and were advancing towards them.

"What is it?" he asked. "Those fellows are coming away from Lord
Ellingham's house. You seem to know them?"

"One of them," murmured Viner. "The clean-shaven man. Look at him!"

The two men came on in close, evidently absorbed conversation, passed Mr. Pawle and Viner without as much as a glance at them, and went along in the direction of Park Lane.

"Well?" demanded Mr. Pawle.

"The clean-shaven man is the man I told you of—the man who was in conversation with Ashton at that tavern in Notting Hill the night Ashton was murdered," answered Viner. "The other man I don't know."

Mr. Pawle turned and looked after the retreating figures.

"You're sure of that?" he asked.

"Certain!" replied Viner. "I should know him anywhere."

Mr. Pawle came to another halt, glancing first at the two men, now well up the street, and then at the somewhat sombre front of Ellingham House.

"Now, this is an extraordinary thing, Viner!" he exclaimed. "There's the man who, you say, was with Ashton not very long before he came to his end, and we find him coming away—presumably—from Lord Ellingham, certainly from Lord Ellingham's house! What on earth does it mean? And I wonder who the man is?"

"What I'd like to know," said Viner, "is—who is the other man? But as you say, it is certainly a very curious thing that we should find the first man evidently in touch with Lord Ellingham—considering our recent discoveries. But—what are you going to do?"

"Going in here," affirmed Mr. Pawle, "to the fountain-head. We may get to know something. Have you a card?"

The footman who took the cards looked doubtfully at them and their presenters.

"His Lordship is just going out," he said, glancing over his shoulder. "I don't know—"

Mr. Pawle pointed to the name of his firm at the corner of his card.

"I think Lord Ellingham will see me," he said. "Tell his lordship I shall not detain him many minutes if he will be kind enough to give me an interview."

The man went away—to return in a few minutes and to lead the callers into a room at the rear of the hall, wherein, his back to the fire, his look and attitude one of puzzled surprise, stood a very young man, dressed in the height of fashion, who, as his servant had said, was obviously just ready to go out. Viner, remembering what had brought him and Mr. Pawle there, looked at Lord Ellingham closely—he seemed to be frank, ingenuous, and decidedly youthful. But there was something decidedly practical and business-like in his greeting of his visitors.

"I'm afraid I can't give you very long, Mr. Pawle," he said, glancing instinctively at the old lawyer. "I've a most important engagement in half an hour, and it won't be put off. But I can give you ten minutes."

"I am deeply obliged to your lordship," answered Mr. Pawle. "As your lordship will have seen from my card, I am one of the partners in Crawle, Pawle and Rattenbury—a firm not at all unknown, I think. Allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Viner, a gentlemen who is deeply concerned and interested in the matter I want to mention to your lordship."

Lord Ellingham responded politely to Viner's bow and drew two chairs forward.

"Sit down, Mr. Pawle; sit down, Mr. Viner," he said. He dropped into a chair near a desk which stood in the centre of the room and looked interrogatively at his elder visitor. "Have you some business to discuss, Mr. Pawle?" he asked.

"Some business, my lord, which, I confess at once, is of extraordinary nature," answered the old lawyer. "I will go straight to it. Your lordship has doubtless read in the newspapers of the murder of a man named Ashton in Lonsdale Passage, in the Bayswater district?"

Lord Ellingham glanced at a pile of newspapers which lay on a side-table.

"Yes," he answered, "I have. I've been much interested in it—as a murder. A curious and mysterious case, don't you think?"

"We," replied Mr. Pawle, waving a hand toward Viner, "know it to be a much more mysterious case than anybody could gather from the newspaper accounts, for they know little who have written them, and we, who are behind the scenes, know a great deal. Now, your lordship will have seen that a young man, an actor named Langton Hyde, has been arrested and charged, and is on remand. This unfortunate fellow was an old schoolmate of Mr. Viner—they were at Rugby together; and Mr. Viner—and I may say I myself also—is convinced beyond doubt of his entire innocence, and we want to clear him; we are doing all we can to clear him. And it is because of this that we have ventured to call on your lordship."

"Oh!" exclaimed Lord Ellingham. "But—what can I do! How do I come in?"

"My lord," said Mr. Pawle in his most solemn manner, "I will go straight to this point also. We have reason to feel sure, from undoubted evidence, that Mr. John Ashton, a very wealthy man, who had recently come from Australia, where he had lived for a great many years, to settle here in London, had in his possession when he was murdered certain highly important papers relating to your lordship's family, and that he was murdered for the sake