Mr Rensley stared at that. “Burton?” he echoed. “Do you mean my lodge-keeper?”
Mr Brent coughed. “Let us say, sir, the lodge-keeper at Barham. You know we said we would not be — er — controversial.”
Mr Rensley said something under his breath, at which Mr Clapperly frowned. “Why should he arrive?” he asked brusquely.
“The claimant, sir, desired it. Also Mrs Staines, who is, I believe, Burton’s sister.”
“I know nothing about her,” Rensley answered. “Has that impostor bribed them to recognise him?”
Young Mr Clapperly, a man of some forty years, begged Mr Rensley to moderate his language. Mr Brent assured Rensley that my lord had not set eyes on either Burton or his sister since his arrival: both brother and sister were as mystified as he was himself.
Shortly after this the couple arrived, and were ushered into the big library.
Burton was a stockily-built man of middle age, sandy-haired and blue-eyed; his sister was rather older, a respectable-looking woman, who dropped a shy curtsey to Rensley, and another to the lawyers. She was given a chair by the table, and sat down on the extreme edge of it, with her brother beside her.
“Three o’clock,” said young Mr Clapperly, consulting a large watch. “I think we said three, sir?”
A coach was heard to drive up, as though in answer. In a few minutes the door opened to admit my Lord Barham, my Lord Clevedale, and Mr Fontenoy.