Page:The Middle of Things - Fletcher (1922).djvu/178

 that this man might possibly be a bogus claimant, who had somehow gained a thorough knowledge of the facts he was narrating, but the papers he produced, which, he alleged, had never been out of his possession since his secret flight from London, were—well, staggering. After inspecting them, Methley and Woodlesford came to the conclusion that their caller really was what he claimed to be—the missing man!"

"What were the papers?" demanded Mr. Pawle.

"Oh!" replied Mr. Carless, looking at his client. "Letters, certificates, and the like,—all, according to Methley and Woodlesford, excellent proofs of identity."

"Did they show them to Your Lordship?" asked Mr. Pawle.

"Oh, no! they only told me of them," answered Lord Ellingham. "They said, of course, that they would be shown to me, or to Mr. Carless."

"Aye!" muttered Mr. Pawle. "Just so! Yes, and they will have to be shown!"

"That follows as a matter of course," observed Mr. Carless. "But now, Pawle, we come to the real point of the case. Methley and Woodlesford, having informed His Lordship of all this when they called on him yesterday afternoon then proceeded to tell him precisely what their client, the claimant, as we will now call him, really wanted, for he had been at some pains, considerable pains, to make himself clear on that point to them, and he desired them to make themselves clear to Lord Ellingham, whom he throughout referred to as his nephew. He had no desire, he told them, to recover his title, nor the