Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/123

 seven—and gave me proof of his certainty. Seems to me that Wraypoole's assailant, after knocking him down in Miss Tandy's flat and seizing the manuscript, scuttled off in the Gray's Inn Road direction and dropped his loot! That's about it. For there's no doubt this is the manuscript Miss Tandy described to us.

"Have you examined it?" asked Wedgwood.

"Read it clean through! It's a sort of family history of recent generations of the Mortovers, tracing a descent down—in the eldest son line—to that girl who came to see you, Avice Mortover. A pretty straightforward narrative, I should say—but there are blanks left here and there. And there's a pedigree—sort of family tree business."

"Let's look," said Wedgwood. He opened the mud-stained cover and began to glance over the written contents. With much of what John Wraypoole had written the detective was already familiar, either through his own investigations or because of his conversation with Mr. Umpeltye. But when he came to the pedigree of which the inspector had spoken he let out a sudden exclamation.

"By George!" he said. "Look at that! Now that is something I didn't know and that'll come in uncommonly useful! See?"