The Middle of Things

by J. S. Fletcher

"Well, now, these papers?" he said. "You didn't bring them to London with you?"

"Of course not!" answered the witness. "I had not seen or heard of them for thirty-two years! No I relied, on coming to this country, on other things to prove my identity, such as my knowledge of Marketstoke and Ellingham, my thorough acquaintance with the family history, my recollection of people I had known, like Mr. Carless, Mr. Driver, and their clerk, Mr. Portlethwaite, and on the fact that I lost this finger through a shooting accident when I was a boy, at Ellingham. Curiously," he added with another smile, "these things don't seem to have much weight. But no! I had no papers when I landed here."

"How did they come into your possession, then?" asked Mr. Millington-Bywater. "That is what we most earnestly desire to know. Let me impress upon you, sir, that this is the most serious and fateful question I can possibly put to you! How did you get them?"

"And—from whom?" said the magistrate. "From whom?"

The witness shook his head.

"I can tell you exactly how I got them," he answered. "But I can't tell you from whom, for I don't know! What I can tell you is this: When I arrived at Tilbury from Melbourne, I asked a fellow-passenger with whom I came along to London if he could tell me of a quiet, good hotel in the neighbourhood of the parks—he recommended the Belfield, in Lancaster Gate. I went there and put myself up, and from it I went out and about a good deal, looking up old haunts. I also lunched and dined a good many times at some of the new restaurants which had sprung into being since I left London. I mention this to show you that I was where I could be seen and noticed, as I evidently was. One afternoon, while I was sitting in the smoking-room at my hotel, the page-boy came in with a letter on his tray, approached me, and said that it had been brought by a district messenger. It was addressed simply, 'Mr. Cave'—the name by which I had registered at the hotel—and was sealed; the inclosure, on a half-sheet of note-paper, was typewritten. I have it here," continued the witness, producing a pocketbook and taking out an envelope. "I will read its contents, and I shall be glad to let any one concerned see it. There is no address and no date, and it says this: 'If you wish to recover the papers and letters which were lost by you when you went into hospital at Wirra-Worra, Bendigo, thirty-two years ago, be at the Speke Monument in Kensington Gardens at five o'clock this afternoon.' There was no signature."

Another murmur of intense and excited interest ran round the court as the witness handed the letter up to the magistrate, who, after looking it over, passed it on to the counsel below. They, in their turn, showed it to Mr. Carless, Mr. Pawle and Lord Ellingham, Mr. Pawle, showing it to Viner, whispered in his ear:

"If this man's telling the truth," he said, "this is the most extraordinary story I ever heard in my life."

"It seems to me that it is the truth!" muttered Viner. "And I'm pretty certain that at last we're on the way-to finding out who killed Ashton. But let's hear the end."

Mr. Millington-Bywater handed the letter back with a polite bow—it was very obvious to more than one observer that he had by this time quite accepted the witness as what he claimed to be.