"For the present you wish to be called Mr. Cave. Now, sir, are you not the person who claims to be the rightful Earl of Ellingham?" A murmur of excited interest ran round the court, and everybody recognized that a new stage of the case had been entered upon. Every eye, especially the observant eyes on the bench, were fixed on the witness, who now looked considerably ruffled. He glanced at Methley--but Methley sat with averted look and made no sign; he looked at the magistrate; the magistrate, it was plain, expected the question to be answered. And the answer came, almost sullenly. "Yes, I am!" "That is to say, you are really--or you claim to be really--the Lord Marketstoke who disappeared from England some thirty-five years ago, and you have now returned, though you are legally presumed to be dead, to assert your rights to titles and estates? You absolutely claim to be the ninth Earl of Ellingham?" "Yes!" "Where have you been during the last thirty-five years?" "In Australia." "What part?" "Chiefly in Melbourne. But I was for four or five years up-country." "What name did you go under there?" Mr. Pawle, Mr. Carless and the rest of the spectators who were in these secrets regarded the witness with keen attention when this question was put to him. But his answer came promptly. "At first, under the name of Wickham. Later under the one I now use--Cave." "Did you marry out there?" "Never!" "And so, of course, you never had a daughter?" "I have never been married and have never had daughter or son!" Mr. Millington-Bywater turned to Mr. Carless, at his left elbow, and exchanged two or three whispered remarks with him. At last he looked round again at the witness. "Yesterday," he said, "in your character of claimant to the Ellingham title and estates you showed to Messrs. Carless & Driver, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and to the present holder of the title, certain documents, letters, papers, which would go some way toward establishing your claim to be what you profess to be. Now, I will say at once that we believe these papers to have been stolen from the body of John Ashton when he was murdered. And I will ask you a direct question, on your oath! Have those papers always been in your possession since you left England thirty-five years ago?" The witness drew himself up and looked steadily at his questioner. "No!" he answered firmly. "They were stolen from me almost as soon as I arrived in Australia. I have only just regained possession of them." CHAPTER XXIII IS THIS MAN RIGHT? A murmur of astonishment ran through the court as the witness made his last reply, and those most closely interested in him turned and looked at each other with obvious amazement. And for a moment Mr. Millington-Bywater seemed to be at a loss; in the next he bent forward toward the witness-box and fixed the man standing there with a piercing look.