"Well?" asked Viner as they walked across the square to the Ellington
Arms. "Have we done anything?"
"Probably!" answered Mr. Pawle. "For you never know how these little matters might help. We've established two facts, anyway. One—that there have never been any folk of the name of Ashton in this town since the registers came into being in 1567; the other, that the name Avice was a very favourite one indeed amongst the women of the Cave-Gray family. And there's just another little fact which I discovered, and said nothing about while the vicar and clerk were about—it may be nothing, and it may be something."
"What is it?" asked Viner.
"Well," answered Mr. Pawle pausing a few yards away from the porch of the hotel, and speaking in a confidential voice, "it's this: In turning up the records of the Cave-Gray family, as far as they are shown in their parish registers, I found that Stephen John Cave-Gray, sixth Earl of Ellingham, married one Georgina Wickham. Now, is that another coincidence? There you get the two names in combination—Avice Wickham. That particular Countess of Ellingham would, of course, be the grandmother of the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared. Did he think of her maiden name, Wickham, when he wanted a new one for himself? Possibly! And when he married, and had a daughter, did he think of the Christian name so popular with his own womenfolk of previous generations, and call his daughter Avice? And are Marketstoke and Wickham and Ashton all one and the same man?"
"Upon my word, it's a strange muddle!" exclaimed Viner.
"Nothing as yet to what it will be," remarked Mr. Pawle sententiously.
"Come on—I'm famishing. Let's lunch—and then we'll go back to town."
Another surprise awaited them when they walked into Mr. Pawle's office in Bedford Row at four o'clock that afternoon. A card lay on the old lawyer's blotting-pad, and after glancing at it, he passed it to Viner.
"See that?" he said. "Now, who on earth is Mr. Armitstead Ashton Armitstead, of Rouendale House, Rawtenstall? Who left this?" he went on, as a clerk entered the room with some letters.
"A gentleman who called at three o'clock, sir," replied the clerk. "He said he's travelled specially from Lancashire to see you about the Ashton affair. He's going to call again, sir. In fact," concluded the clerk, glancing into the anteroom, "I think he's here now."
"Bring him in," commanded Mr. Pawle. He made a grimace at Viner as the clerk disappeared. "You see how things develop," he murmured. "What are we going to hear next?"