‘Not a doubt of-that, if you set about it in earnest.’
‘How did he come to drop his surname?’
‘That has to be accounted for.’
‘It follows—does it not?—that I am of the same blood as the present possessors of Moldwarp Hall?’
‘You are—but the relation is not a close one,’ said Mr Coningham.
‘Sir Giles was but distantly related to the stock of which you come.’
‘Then—but I must turn it over in my mind. I am rather in a maze.’
‘You have got some papers at the Moat?’ he said—interrogatively.
‘Yes; my friend Osborne has been looking over them. He found out this much—that there was once some connection between the Moat and the Hall, but at a far earlier date than this points to, or any of the hints to which I just now referred. The other day, when I dined at Sir Giles’s, Mr Alderforge said that Cumbermede was a name belonging to Sir Giles’s ancestry—or something to that effect; but that again could have had nothing to do with those papers, or with the Moat at all.’
Here I stopped, for I could not bring myself to refer to the sword. It was not merely that the subject was too painful: of all things I did not want to be cross-questioned by my lawyer-companion.