"
"Yes!" exclaimed Mr. Pawle. "And that, ma'am, was--"
"That he was somebody who disappeared from Marketstoke thirty-five years
ago," answered the landlady, "disappeared completely, and has never been
heard of from that day to this!"
Mr. Pawle turned slowly and looked at Viner. He nodded his head several
times, then turned to Mrs. Summers and regarded her fixedly.
"And that somebody?" he asked in hushed accents. "Who was he?"
The landlady smoothed her silk apron and shook her head.
"It's a long story, sir," she answered. "I think you must have heard
something of it--though to be sure, it was not talked of much at the
time, and didn't become public until legal proceedings became necessary,
some years ago. You're aware, of course, that just outside the town here
is Ellingham Park, the seat of the Earl of Ellingham. Well, what I have
to tell you has to do with them, and I shall have to go back a good way.
Thirty-five years ago the head of the family was the seventh Earl, who
was then getting on in life. He was a very overbearing, harsh old
gentleman, not at all liked--the people here in Marketstoke, nearly all
of them his tenants, used to be perpetually at variance with him about
something or other; he was the sort of man who wanted to have his own way
about everything.
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