Page:The Middle of Things - Fletcher (1922).djvu/248

 papers in his possession for some time previous to his death. Is that really so?"

Mr. Carless pointed to Mr. Perkwite.

"This is the gentleman whom Mr. Millington-Bywater could have put in the box this morning to prove that," he replied. "Mr. Perkwite, of the Middle Temple—a barrister-at-law, Mr. Cave. Mr. Perkwite met Mr. Ashton some three months ago at Marseilles, and Mr. Ashton then not only asked his advice about the Ellingham affair, alleging that he knew the missing Lord Marketstoke, but showed him the papers which you have recently deposited with Mr. Methley here—which papers, Ashton alleged, were intrusted to him by Lord Marketstoke on his deathbed. Ashton, according to Mr. Perkwite, took particular care of these papers, and always carried them about with him in a pocketbook."

Mr. Cave appeared to be much exercised in thought on hearing this.

"It is, of course, absurd to say that Lord Marketstoke—myself!—intrusted papers to any one on his deathbed, since I am very much alive," he said. "But it is, equally of course, quite possible that Ashton had my papers. Who was Ashton?"

"A man who had lived in Australia for some thirty-five or forty years at least," replied Mr. Carless, "and who recently returned to England and settled down in London, in this very square. He lived chiefly in Melbourne, but we have heard that for some four or five years he was somewhere up country. You never heard of him out there? He was evidently well known in Melbourne."

"No, I never heard of him," replied Mr. Cave.