"Just so, sir, and so Mr. Charles succeeded," asserted Mrs. Summers. "He was a very nice, pleasant man, not a bit like his father--a very good and considerate landlord, and much respected. But he's gone now--died three years ago; and his son, a young man of twenty-two or three, succeeded him--that's the present Earl, gentlemen. And of him we see very little; he scarcely ever stayed at Ellingham Park, except for a bit of shooting, since he came to the title. And now," she concluded, with a shrewd glance at the old lawyer, "I wonder if you see, sir, what it was that came into my mind when this Mr. John Ashton came here a few weeks ago, especially after I heard him say what he did, and after I saw how he was spending his time here?" "I've no inkling, ma'am; I've no inkling!" said Mr. Pawle. "You wondered--" "I wondered," murmured Mrs. Summers, bending closer to her listeners, "if the man who called himself John Ashton wasn't in reality the long-lost Lord Marketstoke." CHAPTER X THE PARISH REGISTER Mr. Pawle, after a glance at Viner which seemed to be full of many meanings, bent forward in his chair and laid a hand on the old landlady's arm. "Now, have you said as much as that to anybody before?" he asked, eking her significantly. "Have you mentioned it to your neighbours, for instance, or to any one in the town?" "No, sir!" declared Mrs. Summers promptly. "Not to a soul! I'm given to keeping my ideas to myself, especially on matters of importance. There is no one here in Marketstoke that I would have mentioned such a thing to, now that the late steward, Mr. Marcherson, is dead. I shouldn't have mentioned it to you two gentlemen if it hadn't been for this dreadful news in the papers. No, I've kept my thoughts at home." "Wise woman!" said Mr. Pawle. "But now let me ask you a few questions. Did you know this Lord Marketstoke before he disappeared?" "I only saw him two or three times," replied the landlady. "It was seldom that he came to Ellingham Park, after his majority. Of course, I saw him a good deal when he was a mere boy. But after he was grown up, only, as I say, a very few times." "But you remember him?" suggested Mr. Pawle. "Oh, very well indeed!" said Mrs. Summers. "I saw him last a day or two before he went away for good." "Well, now, did you think you recognized anything of him--making allowance for the difference in age--in this man who called himself John Ashton?" asked Mr. Pawle. "For that, of course, is important!"