Carless looked round at the assembled faces.
"John Ashton was murdered on the night of the twenty-second of November,"
he remarked significantly. "Therefore he had not been murdered when the
veiled woman first met Mr. Cave for the first time, and he had been
murdered when she met Mr. Cave the second time!"
There was a silence as significant as Mr. Carless' tone upon this--broken
at last by Mr. Cave.
"If I may say a word or two," he remarked diffidently. "I don't
understand matters about this John Ashton. The barrister who asked me
questions--Mr. Millington-Bywater, is it--said that he, or somebody, had
positive proof that Mr. Ashton had my papers in his possession for some
time previous to his death. Is that really so?"
Mr. Carless pointed to Mr. Perkwite.
"This is the gentleman whom Mr. Millington-Bywater could have put in the
box this morning to prove that," he replied. "Mr. Perkwite, of the Middle
Temple--a barrister-at-law, Mr. Cave. Mr. Perkwite met Mr. Ashton some
three months ago at Marseilles, and Mr. Ashton then not only asked his
advice about the Ellingham affair, alleging that he knew the missing Lord
Marketstoke, but showed him the papers which you have recently deposited
with Mr.
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