"But I don't know Melbourne very well; I know Sydney and Brisbane better. However, an idea strikes me—Ashton may have had something to do with the purloining of my letters and effects at Wirra-Worra, when I met with the accident I told you of."
"So far as we are aware," remarked Mr. Carless, "Ashton was an eminently respectable man!"
"So far as you know!" said Mr. Cave. "There is a good deal in the saving clause, I think. I have known a good many men in Australia who were highly respectable in the last stages of life who had been anything but that in their earlier ones! Of what class was this Ashton?"
"I met him, occasionally," said Methley, "though I never knew who he was until after his death. He was a very pleasant, kindly, good-humoured man—but," he added, "I should say, from his speech and manners, a man who had risen from a somewhat humble position of life. I remember noticing his hands—they were the hands of a man who at some period had done hard manual labour."
Mr. Cave smiled knowingly.
"There you are!" he said. "He had probably been a miner! Taking everything into consideration, I am inclined to believe that he was most likely one of the men, or the man, who stole my papers thirty-two years ago."
"There may be something in this," remarked Mr. Pawle, glancing uneasily at Mr. Carless. "It is a fact that the packet of letters to which Mr. Cave referred this morning as having been written by the Countess of Ellingham to Lord Marketstoke when a
