"Cave-Gray? Is that the family name?" interrupted Mr. Pawle.
"That's the family name, sir--Cave-Gray," replied Mrs. Summers. "One of the oldest families in these parts, sir--the earldom dates from Queen Anne. Well, the Honourable Charles Cave-Gray, and his solicitors, of course, came to the conclusion that Lord Marketstoke was dead, and so--I don't understand the legal niceties, gentlemen, but they went to the courts to get something done which presumed his death and let Mr. Charles come into the title and estates. And in the end that had been done, and Mr. Charles became the eighth Earl of Ellingham."
"I remember it now," muttered Mr. Pawle. "Yes--curious case. But it was proved to the court, I recollect, that everything possible had been done to find the missing heir--and without result."
"Just so, sir, and so Mr. Charles succeeded," asserted Mrs. Summers. "He was a very nice, pleasant man, not a bit like his father--a very good and considerate landlord, and much respected. But he's gone now--died three years ago; and his son, a young man of twenty-two or three, succeeded him--that's the present Earl, gentlemen. And of him we see very little; he scarcely ever stayed at Ellingham Park, except for a bit of shooting, since he came to the title. And now," she concluded, with a shrewd glance at the old lawyer, "I wonder if you see, sir, what it was that came into my mind when this Mr. John Ashton came here a few weeks ago, especially after I heard him say what he did, and after I saw how he was spending his time here?"
"I've no inkling, ma'am; I've no inkling!" said Mr. Pawle. "You wondered--"
"I wondered," murmured Mrs. Summers, bending closer to her listeners, "if the man who called himself John Ashton wasn't in reality the long-lost Lord Marketstoke."
Mr. Pawle, after a glance at Viner which seemed to be full of many meanings, bent forward in his chair and laid a hand on the old landlady's arm.
"Now, have you said as much as that to anybody before?" he asked, eking her significantly. "Have you mentioned it to your neighbours, for instance, or to any one in the town?"
"No, sir!" declared Mrs. Summers promptly. "Not to a soul! I'm given to keeping my ideas to myself, especially on matters of importance. There is no one here in Marketstoke that I would have mentioned such a thing to, now that the late steward, Mr. Marcherson, is dead. I shouldn't have mentioned it to you two gentlemen if it hadn't been for this dreadful news in the papers. No, I've kept my thoughts at home."