"What I'd like to know," said Viner, "is--who is the other man? But as you say, it is certainly a very curious thing that we should find the first man evidently in touch with Lord Ellingham--considering our recent discoveries. But--what are you going to do?" "Going in here," affirmed Mr. Pawle, "to the fountain-head. We may get to know something. Have you a card?" The footman who took the cards looked doubtfully at them and their presenters. "His Lordship is just going out," he said, glancing over his shoulder. "I don't know--" Mr. Pawle pointed to the name of his firm at the corner of his card. "I think Lord Ellingham will see me," he said. "Tell his lordship I shall not detain him many minutes if he will be kind enough to give me an interview." The man went away--to return in a few minutes and to lead the callers into a room at the rear of the hall, wherein, his back to the fire, his look and attitude one of puzzled surprise, stood a very young man, dressed in the height of fashion, who, as his servant had said, was obviously just ready to go out. Viner, remembering what had brought him and Mr. Pawle there, looked at Lord Ellingham closely--he seemed to be frank, ingenuous, and decidedly youthful. But there was something decidedly practical and business-like in his greeting of his visitors. "I'm afraid I can't give you very long, Mr. Pawle," he said, glancing instinctively at the old lawyer. "I've a most important engagement in half an hour, and it won't be put off. But I can give you ten minutes." "I am deeply obliged to your lordship," answered Mr. Pawle. "As your lordship will have seen from my card, I am one of the partners in Crawle, Pawle and Rattenbury--a firm not at all unknown, I think. Allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Viner, a gentlemen who is deeply concerned and interested in the matter I want to mention to your lordship." Lord Ellingham responded politely to Viner's bow and drew two chairs forward. "Sit down, Mr. Pawle; sit down, Mr. Viner," he said. He dropped into a chair near a desk which stood in the centre of the room and looked interrogatively at his elder visitor. "Have you some business to discuss, Mr. Pawle?" he asked. "Some business, my lord, which, I confess at once, is of extraordinary nature," answered the old lawyer. "I will go straight to it. Your lordship has doubtless read in the newspapers of the murder of a man named Ashton in Lonsdale Passage, in the Bayswater district?" Lord Ellingham glanced at a pile of newspapers which lay on a side-table. "Yes," he answered, "I have. I've been much interested in it--as a murder. A curious and mysterious case, don't you think?"