Lord Ellingham handed the letters back.

"You think that this Mr. Ashton was in possession of a secret relating to
the missing man--my uncle, Lord Marketstoke?" he asked.

"I am convinced of it!" declared Mr. Pawle.

Lord Ellingham glanced shrewdly at his visitors.

"I should like to know what it was!" he said.

"Your lordship feels as I do," remarked Mr. Pawle. "But now I should
like to ask a question which arises out of this visit. As we approached
your lordship's door, just now, we saw, leaving it, two men. One of
them, my friend Mr. Viner immediately recognized. He does not know who
the man is--"

"Which of the two men do you mean!" interrupted Lord Ellingham. "I may as
well say that they had just left me."

"The clean-shaven man," answered Viner.

"Whom Mr. Viner knows for a fact," continued Mr. Pawle, "to have been in
Ashton's company only an hour or so before Ashton's murder!"

Lord Ellingham looked at Viner in obvious surprise.

"But you do not know who he is?" he exclaimed.

"No," replied Viner, "I don't. But there is no doubt of the truth of what