Page:The Middle of Things - Fletcher (1922).djvu/180

 "I wish I'd been present when Methley and Woodlesford put forward that proposition," exclaimed the old lawyer. "Did they seem serious?"

"Oh, I think they were quite serious," replied Lord Ellingham. "They seemed so; they spoke of it as what they called a domestic arrangement."

"Excellent phrase!" remarked Mr. Pawle. "And what said your lordship to their—or the claimant's proposition?"

"I told them that the matter was so serious that they and I must see my solicitors about it," answered Lord Ellingham, "and I arranged to meet them here at one o'clock today. They quite agreed that that was the proper thing to do, and went away. Then—you and Mr. Viner called."

"With, I understand, another extraordinary story," remarked Mr. Carless. "The particulars of which His Lordship has also told me. Now, Pawle, what do you really say about all this?"

Mr. Pawle smote his clenched right fist on the palm of his open left hand.

"I will tell you what I say, Carless!" he exclaimed with emphasis. "I say that whatever the papers and documents were which were produced by this man to Methley and Woodlesford, they were stolen from the body of John Ashton, who was foully murdered in Lonsdale Passage only last week. I'll stake all I have on that! Now, then, did this claimant steal them? Did he murder John Ashton for them? No—a thousand times no, for no man would have been such a fool as to come forward with them so soon after his victim's death! This claimant doesn't know how or where or when they were obtained—he doesn't sus-