"Nothing ma'am, could be more pleasant and gratifying, as far as material comfort goes," answered Mr. Pawle with conviction. "The dinner was excellent; your wine is sound; this old room is a veritable haven! I wish we were visiting you under less sad conditions. And now about your recollections of this poor gentleman, ma'am?"
The landlady laid a large book on the table, and opening it at a page where at she had placed a marker, pointed to a signature.
"That is the writing of the Mr. John Ashton who came here," she said.
"He registered his name and address the day he came—there it is: 'John
Ashton, 7 Markendale Square, London, W.' You gentlemen will recognise
it, perhaps?"
Mr. Pawle put up his glasses, glanced once at the open book, and turned to Viner with a confirmatory nod.
"That's Ashton's writing, without a doubt," he said. "It's a signature not to be forgotten when you've once seen it. Well, that establishes the fact that he undoubtedly came here on that date. Now, ma'am, what can you tell about him?"
Mrs. Summers took the chair which Viner drew forward to the hearth and folded her hands over her silk apron.
"Well sir," she answered, "a good deal. Mr. Ashton came here one Monday afternoon, in a motorcar, with his luggage, and asked if I could give him rooms and accommodation for a few days. Of course I could—he had this room and the room I pointed out upstairs, and he stayed here until the Thursday, when he left soon after lunch—the same car came for him. And he hadn't been in the house an hour, gentlemen, before I wondered if he hadn't been here before."
"Interesting—very!" said Mr. Pawle. "Now, why, ma'am did you wonder that?"
"Well, sir," replied Mrs. Summers, "because, after he'd looked round the house, and seen his room upstairs, he went out to the front door, and then I followed him, to ask if he had any particular wishes about his dinner that evening. Our front door, as you will see in the morning, fronts the market square, and from it you can see about all there is to see of the town. He was standing at the door, under the porch, looking all round him, and I overheard him talking to himself as I went up behind him.
"'Aye!' he was saying, as he looked this way and that, 'there's the old church, and the old moot-hall, and the old market-place, and the old gabled and thatched houses, and even the old town pump—they haven't changed a bit, I reckon, in all these years!' Then he caught sight of me, and he smiled. 'Not many changes in this old place, landlady, in your time?' he said pleasantly. 'No, sir,' I answered. 'We don't change much in even a hundred years in Marketstoke.' 'No!' he said, and shook his head. 'No—the change is in men, in men!' And then he suddenly set straight off across the square to the churchyard. 'You've known Marketstoke before,' I said to myself."