"God bless me!" he exclaimed. "So it is! I'd forgotten that. Dear me!
Now, that's very odd--too odd, perhaps, to be a coincidence. Very
interesting, indeed! Favourite family name without a doubt."
Viner silently went round the chapel, inspecting every monument its four
walls sheltered.
"It occurs just nineteen times," he announced at last. "Now, is it a
coincidence that Miss Wickham's name should be Avice? Or is it that
there's some connection between her and all these dead and gone Avices?"
"Very strange!" admitted Mr. Pawle. "Viner--we'll go next and have a look
at the parish registers. But look here! Not a word to parson or clerk
about our business! We merely wish to make search for a certain legal
purpose, eh?"
Three hours later Viner, heartily weary of turning over old registers
full of crabbed writing, was glad when Mr. Pawle closed the one on
which he was engaged, intimated that he had seen all he wanted, paid
the fees for his search, and whispered to his companion that they would
go to lunch.
"Well?" asked Viner as they walked across the square to the Ellington
Arms. "Have we done anything?"
"Probably!" answered Mr.
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