Page:The Middle of Things - Fletcher (1922).djvu/140

 "I had no idea that he had kept the letters, though!"

The two men went silently on with their search. But there was no further result. Ashton did not appear to have kept any letters or papers relative to his life or doings prior to his coming to England. Private documents of any sort he seemed to have none. And whatever business had taken him to Marketstoke, they could find no written reference to it; nor could they discover anything about the diamond of which Mr. Van Hoeren had spoken. They went upstairs to his bedroom and examined the drawers, cabinets and dressing-case—they found nothing.

"This is distinctly disappointing," remarked Mr. Pawle when he and Viner returned to the little room. "I never knew a man who left such small evidence behind him. It's quite evident to me that there's nothing whatever in this house that's going to be of any use to us. I wonder if he rented a box at any of the safe-deposit places? He must have had documents of some sort."

"In that case, we should surely have found a key, and perhaps a receipt for the rent of the box," suggested Viner. "I should have thought he'd have had a safe in his own house," he added, "but we don't hear of one."

Mr. Pawle looked round the room, as if suspicious that Ashton might have hidden papers in the stuffing of the sofa or the easy-chair.

"I wonder if there's anything in that," he said suddenly. "It looks like a receptacle of some sort."

Viner turned and saw the old lawyer pointing to a curious Japanese cabinet which stood in the mid-