"Now I want you all to attend to me, very closely," he said. "I shall have to go into a detailed explanation, and you will very soon see what I am after. As you may be aware, I have been a personal friend of Bassett Oliver for some years, and a member of his company without break for the last eight years. I accompanied Bassett Oliver on his two trips to the United States—therefore, I was with him when he was last there, years ago.
"Now, while we were at Chicago that time, Bassett came to me one day with the typescript of a one-act play and told me that it had been sent to him by a correspondent signing himself Marston Greyle; who in a covering letter, said that he sprang from an old English family, and that the play dealt with a historic, romantic episode in its history. The principal part, he believed, was one which would suit Bassett—therefore he begged him to consider the matter. Bassett asked me to read the play, and I took it away, with the writer's letter, for that purpose. But we were just then very busy, and I had no opportunity of reading anything for a time. Later on, we went to St. Louis, and there, of course, Bassett, as usual, was much fêted and went out a great deal, lunching with people and so on. One day he came to me, 'By-the-bye, Dennie!' he said, 'I met that Mr. Marston Greyle today who sent me that romantic one-act thing. He wanted to know if I'd read it, and I had to confess that it was in your hands. Have you looked at it?' I, too, had to confess—I hadn't. 'Well,' said he, 'read it and let me know what you think—will it suit me?' I made time to read the little play during the following week, and I told Bassett that I didn't think it would suit him, but I felt sure it might suit Montagu Gaines, who plays just such parts. Bassett thereupon wrote to the author and said what I, his reader, thought, and kindly offered, as he knew Gaines intimately, to show the little work to him on his return to England. And this Mr. Marston Greyle wrote back, thanking Bassett warmly and accepting his kind offer. Accordingly, I brought the play with me to England. Montagu Gaines, however, had just set off on a two years' tour to Australia—consequently, the play and the author's two letters have remained in my possession ever since. And—here they are!"
Mr. Dennie laid his hand dramatically on his packet, looked significantly at his audience, and went on.
"Now, when I heard all that I did hear at that inquest yesterday," he said, "I naturally remembered that I had in my possession two letters which were undoubtedly written to Bassett Oliver by a young man named Marston Greyle, whom Oliver—just as undoubtedly!—had personally met in St. Louis. And so when the inquest was over, Mr. Copplestone, I recalled myself to Mrs. Greyle here, whom I had known many years ago, and I walked back to this house with her and her charming daughter, and—don't be angry, Mrs. Greyle—while the mother's back was turned—on hospitable thoughts intent—I got the daughter to lend me—secretly—a letter written by the present Squire of Scarhaven. Armed with that, I went home to my lodgings in Norcaster, found the letter written by the American Marston Greyle, and compared it with them. And—here is the result!"
The old actor selected the two American letters from his papers, laid them out on the table, and placed the letter which Audrey had given him beside them.
"Now!" he said, as his three companions bent eagerly over these exhibits,
"Look at those three letters. All bear the same signature, Marston
Greyle—but the hand-writing of those two is as different from that of
this one as chalk is from cheese!"
CHAPTER XIV
BY PRIVATE TREATY
There was little need for the three deeply interested listeners to look long at the letters—one glance was sufficient to show even a careless eye that the hand which had written one of them had certainly not written the other two. The letter which Audrey had handed to Mr. Dennie was penned in the style commonly known as commercial—plain, commonplace, utterly lacking in the characteristics which are supposed to denote imagination and a sense of artistry. It was the sort of caligraphy which one comes across every day in shops and offices and banks—there was nothing in any upstroke, downstroke or letter which lifted it from the very ordinary. But the other two letters were evidently written by a man of literary and artistic sense, possessing imagination and a liking for effect. It needed no expert in handwriting to declare that two totally different individuals had written those letters.
"And now," observed Mr. Dennie, breaking the silence and putting into words what each of the others was vaguely feeling, "the question is—what does all this mean? To start with, Marston Greyle is a most uncommon name. Is it possible there can be two persons of that name? That, at any rate, is the first thing that strikes me."