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The Paradise Mystery

by J. S. Fletcher · English · Gutenberg #5308 · 451,047 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Paradise Mystery

Author: J. S. Fletcher


        
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #5308]
                Most recently updated: March 15, 2018

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PARADISE MYSTERY ***





THE PARADISE MYSTERY


By J. S. Fletcher





CHAPTER I. ONLY THE GUARDIAN

American tourists, sure appreciators of all that is ancient and
picturesque in England, invariably come to a halt, holding their breath
in a sudden catch of wonder, as they pass through the half-ruinous
gateway which admits to the Close of Wrychester. Nowhere else in England
is there a fairer prospect of old-world peace. There before their eyes,
set in the centre of a great green sward, fringed by tall elms and giant
beeches, rises the vast fabric of the thirteenth-century Cathedral, its
high spire piercing the skies in which rooks are for ever circling and
calling. The time-worn stone, at a little distance delicate as lacework,
is transformed at different hours of the day into shifting shades of
colour, varying from grey to purple: the massiveness of the great nave
and transepts contrasts impressively with the gradual tapering of
the spire, rising so high above turret and clerestory that it at last
becomes a mere line against the ether. In morning, as in afternoon, or
in evening, here is a perpetual atmosphere of rest; and not around the
great church alone, but in the quaint and ancient houses which fence in
the Close. Little less old than the mighty mass of stone on which their
ivy-framed windows look, these houses make the casual observer feel
that here, if anywhere in the world, life must needs run smoothly. Under
those high gables, behind those mullioned windows, in the beautiful
old gardens lying between the stone porches and the elm-shadowed lawn,
nothing, one would think, could possibly exist but leisured and pleasant
existence: even the busy streets of the old city, outside the crumbling
gateway, seem, for the moment, far off.

In one of the oldest of these houses, half hidden behind trees and
shrubs in a corner of the Close, three people sat at breakfast one fine
May morning. The room in which they sat was in keeping with the old
house and its surroundings--a long, low-ceilinged room, with oak
panelling around its walls, and oak beams across its roof--a room of
old furniture, and, old pictures, and old books, its antique atmosphere
relieved by great masses of flowers, set here and there in old china
bowls: through its wide windows, the casements of which were thrown wide
open, there was an inviting prospect of a high-edged flower garden, and,
seen in vistas through the trees and shrubberies, of patches of the west
front of the Cathedral, now sombre and grey in shadow. But on the garden
and into this flower-scented room the sun was shining gaily through the
trees, and making gleams of light on the silver and china on the table
and on the faces of the three people who sat around it.

Of these three, two were young, and the third was one of those men
whose age it is never easy to guess--a tall, clean-shaven, bright-eyed,
alert-looking man, good-looking in a clever, professional sort of way, a
man whom no one could have taken for anything but a member of one of the
learned callings. In some lights he looked no more than forty: a strong
light betrayed the fact that his dark hair had a streak of grey in
it, and was showing a tendency to whiten about the temples. A
strong, intellectually superior man, this, scrupulously groomed and
well-dressed, as befitted what he really was--a medical practitioner
with an excellent connection amongst the exclusive society of a
cathedral town. Around him hung an undeniable air of content and
prosperity--as he turned over a pile of letters which stood by his
plate, or glanced at the morning newspaper which lay at his elbow, it
was easy to see that he had no cares beyond those of the day, and that
they--so far as he knew then--were not likely to affect him greatly.
Seeing him in these pleasant domestic circumstances, at the head of
his table, with abundant evidences of comfort and refinement and modest
luxury about him, any one would have said, without hesitation, that Dr.
Mark Ransford was undeniably one of the fortunate folk of this world.

The second person of the three was a boy of apparently seventeen--a
well-built, handsome lad of the senior schoolboy type, who was devoting
himself in business-like fashion to two widely-differing pursuits--one,
the consumption of eggs and bacon and dry toast; the other, the study
of a Latin textbook, which he had propped up in front of him against the
old-fashioned silver cruet. His quick eyes wandered alternately between
his book and his plate; now and then he muttered a line or two to
himself. His companions took no notice of these combinations of eating
and learning: they knew from experience that it was his way to make up
at breakfast-time for the moments he had stolen from his studies the
night before.

It was not difficult to see that the third member of the party, a girl
of nineteen or twenty, was the boy's sister. Each had a wealth of brown
hair, inclining, in the girl's case to a shade that had tints of gold in
it; each had grey eyes, in which there was a mixture of blue; each had
a bright, vivid colour; each was undeniably good-looking and eminently
healthy. No one would have doubted that both had lived a good deal of
an open-air existence: the boy was already muscular and sinewy: the
girl looked as if she was well acquainted with the tennis racket and
the golf-stick. Nor would any one have made the mistake of thinking
that these two were blood relations of the man at the head of the
table--between them and him there was not the least resemblance of
feature, of colour, or of manner.

While the boy learnt the last lines of his Latin, and the doctor turned
over the newspaper, the girl read a letter--evidently, from the large
sprawling handwriting, the missive of some girlish correspondent. She
was deep in it when, from one of the turrets of the Cathedral, a bell
began to ring. At that, she glanced at her brother.

“There's Martin, Dick!” she said. “You'll have to hurry.”

Many a long year before that, in one of the bygone centuries, a worthy
citizen of Wrychester, Martin by name, had left a sum of money to the
Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral on condition that as long as ever the
Cathedral stood, they should cause to be rung a bell from its smaller
bell-tower for three minutes before nine o'clock every morning, all the
year round. What Martin's object had been no one now knew--but this bell
served to remind young gentlemen going to offices, and boys going to
school, that the hour of their servitude was near. And Dick Bewery,
without a word, bolted half his coffee, snatched up his book, grabbed
at a cap which lay with more books on a chair close by, and vanished
through the open window. The doctor laughed, laid aside his newspaper,
and handed his cup across the table.

“I don't think you need bother yourself about Dick's ever being late,
Mary,” he said. “You are not quite aware of the power of legs that are
only seventeen years old. Dick could get to any given point in just
about one-fourth of the time that I could, for instance--moreover, he
has a cunning knowledge of every short cut in the city.”

Mary Bewery took the empty cup and began to refill it.

“I don't like him to be late,” she remarked. “It's the beginning of bad
habits.”

“Oh, well!” said Ransford indulgently. “He's pretty free from anything
of that sort, you know. I haven't even suspected him of smoking, yet.”

“That's because he thinks smoking would stop his growth and interfere
with his cricket,” answered Mary. “He would smoke if it weren't for
that.”

“That's giving him high praise, then,” said Ransford. “You couldn't
give him higher! Know how to repress his inclinations. An excellent
thing--and most unusual, I fancy. Most people--don't!”

He took his refilled cup, rose from the table, and opened a box of
cigarettes which stood on the mantelpiece. And the girl, instead of
picking up her letter again, glanced at him a little doubtfully.

“That reminds me of--of something I wanted to say to you,” she said.
“You're quite right about people not repressing their inclinations. I--I
wish some people would!”

Ransford turned quickly from the hearth and gave her a sharp look,
beneath which her colour heightened. Her eyes shifted their gaze away to
her letter, and she picked it up and began to fold it nervously. And at
that Ransford rapped out a name, putting a quick suggestion of meaning
inquiry into his voice.

“Bryce?” he asked.

The girl nodded her face showing distinct annoyance and dislike. Before
saying more, Ransford lighted a cigarette.

“Been at it again?” he said at last. “Since last time?”

“Twice,” she answered. “I didn't like to tell you--I've hated to bother
you about it. But--what am I to do? I dislike him intensely--I can't
tell why, but it's there, and nothing could ever alter the feeling.
And though I told him--before--that it was useless--he mentioned it
again--yesterday--at Mrs. Folliot's garden-party.”

“Confound his impudence!” growled Ransford. “Oh, well!--I'll have to
settle with him myself. It's useless trifling with anything like that. I
gave him a quiet hint before. And since he won't take it--all right!”

“But--what shall you do?” she asked anxiously. “Not--send him away?”

“If he's any decency about him, he'll go--after what I say to him,”
 answered Ransford. “Don't you trouble yourself about it--I'm not at all
keen about him. He's a clever enough fellow, and a good assistant, but I
don't like him, personally--never did.”

“I don't want to think that anything that I say should lose him his
situation--or whatever you call it,” she remarked slowly. “That would
seem--”

“No need to bother,” interrupted Ransford. “He'll get another in two
minutes--so to speak. Anyway, we can't have this going on. The fellow
must be an ass! When I was young--”

He stopped short at that, and turning away, looked out across the garden
as if some recollection had suddenly struck him.

“When you were young--which is, of course, such an awfully long time
since!” said the girl, a little teasingly. “What?”

“Only that if a woman said No--unmistakably--once, a man took it as
final,” replied Ransford. “At least--so I was always given to believe.
Nowadays--”

“You forget that Mr. Pemberton Bryce is what most people would call a
very pushing young man,” said Mary. “If he doesn't get what he wants in
this world, it won't be for not asking for it. But--if you must speak
to him--and I really think you must!--will you tell him that he is
not going to get--me? Perhaps he'll take it finally from you--as my
guardian.”

“I don't know if parents and guardians count for much in these
degenerate days,” said Ransford. “But--I won't have him annoying you.
And--I suppose it has come to annoyance?”

“It's very annoying to be asked three times by a man whom you've told
flatly, once for all, that you don't want him, at any time, ever!” she
answered. “It's--irritating!”

“All right,” said Ransford quietly. “I'll speak to him. There's going to
be no annoyance for you under this roof.”

The girl gave him a quick glance, and Ransford turned away from her and
picked up his letters.

“Thank you,” she said. “But--there's no need to tell me that, because I
know it already. Now I wonder if you'll tell me something more?”

Ransford turned back with a sudden apprehension.

“Well?” he asked brusquely. “What?”

“When are you going to tell me all about--Dick and myself?” she asked.
“You promised that you would, you know, some day. And--a whole year's
gone by since then. And--Dick's seventeen! He won't be satisfied
always--just to know no more than that our father and mother died when
we were very little, and that you've been guardian--and all that you
have been!--to us. Will he, now?”

Ransford laid down his letters again, and thrusting his hands in his
pockets, squared his shoulders against the mantelpiece. “Don't you think
you might wait until you're twenty-one?” he asked.

“Why?” she said, with a laugh. “I'm just twenty--do you really think I
shall be any wiser in twelve months? Of course I shan't!”

“You don't know that,” he replied. “You may be--a great deal wiser.”

“But what has that got to do with it?” she persisted. “Is there any
reason why I shouldn't be told--everything?”

She was looking at him with a certain amount of demand--and Ransford,
who had always known that some moment of this sort must inevitably come,
felt that she was not going to be put off with ordinary excuses. He
hesitated--and she went on speaking.

“You know,” she continued, almost pleadingly. “We don't know
anything--at all. I never have known, and until lately Dick has been too
young to care--”

“Has he begun asking questions?” demanded Ransford hastily.

“Once or twice, lately--yes,” replied Mary. “It's only natural.” She
laughed a little--a forced laugh. “They say,” she went on, “that
it doesn't matter, nowadays, if you can't tell who your grandfather
was--but, just think, we don't know who our father was--except that his
name was John Bewery. That doesn't convey much.”

“You know more,” said Ransford. “I told you--always have told you--that
he was an early friend of mine, a man of business, who, with your
mother, died young, and I, as their friend, became guardian to you and
Dick. Is--is there anything much more that I could tell?”

“There's something I should very much like to know--personally,” she
answered, after a pause which lasted so long that Ransford began to feel
uncomfortable under it. “Don't be angry--or hurt--if I tell you plainly
what it is. I'm quite sure it's never even occurred to Dick--but I'm
three years ahead of him. It's this--have we been dependent on you?”

Ransford's face flushed and he turned deliberately to the window, and
for a moment stood staring out on his garden and the glimpses of the
Cathedral. And just as deliberately as he had turned away, he turned
back.

“No!” he said. “Since you ask me, I'll tell you that. You've both got
money--due to you when you're of age. It--it's in my hands. Not a
great lot--but sufficient to--to cover all your expenses.
Education--everything. When you're twenty-one, I'll hand over
yours--when Dick's twenty-one, his. Perhaps I ought to have told you
all that before, but--I didn't think it necessary. I--I dare say I've a
tendency to let things slide.”

“You've never let things slide about us,” she replied quickly, with
a sudden glance which made him turn away again. “And I only wanted to
know--because I'd got an idea that--well, that we were owing everything
to you.”

“Not from me!” he exclaimed.

“No--that would never be!” she said. “But--don't you understand?
I--wanted to know--something. Thank you. I won't ask more now.”

“I've always meant to tell you--a good deal,” remarked Ransford, after
another pause. “You see, I can scarcely--yet--realize that you're both
growing up! You were at school a year ago. And Dick is still very young.
Are--are you more satisfied now?” he went on anxiously. “If not--”

“I'm quite satisfied,” she answered. “Perhaps--some day--you'll tell me
more about our father and mother?--but never mind even that now. You're
sure you haven't minded my asking--what I have asked?”

“Of course not--of course not!” he said hastily. “I ought to have
remembered. And--but we'll talk again. I must get into the surgery--and
have a word with Bryce, too.”

“If you could only make him see reason and promise not to offend again,”
 she said. “Wouldn't that solve the difficulty?”

Ransford shook his head and made no answer. He picked up his letters
again and went out, and down a long stone-walled passage which led to
his surgery at the side of the house. He was alone there when he had
shut the door--and he relieved his feelings with a deep groan.

“Heaven help me if the lad ever insists on the real truth and on having
proofs and facts given to him!” he muttered. “I shouldn't mind telling
her, when she's a bit older--but he wouldn't understand as she would.
Anyway, thank God I can keep up the pleasant fiction about the money
without her ever knowing that I told her a deliberate lie just now.
But--what's in the future? Here's one man to be dismissed already, and
there'll be others, and one of them will be the favoured man. That man
will have to be told! And--so will she, then. And--my God! she doesn't
see, and mustn't see, that I'm madly in love with her myself! She's no
idea of it--and she shan't have; I must--must continue to be--only the
guardian!”

He laughed a little cynically as he laid his letters down on his
desk and proceeded to open them--in which occupation he was presently
interrupted by the opening of the side-door and the entrance of Mr.
Pemberton Bryce.




CHAPTER II. MAKING AN ENEMY


It was characteristic of Pemberton Bryce that he always walked into a
room as if its occupant were asleep and he was afraid of waking him.
He had a gentle step which was soft without being stealthy, and quiet
movements which brought him suddenly to anybody's side before his
presence was noticed. He was by Ransford's desk ere Ransford knew he was
in the surgery--and Ransford's sudden realization of his presence
roused a certain feeling of irritation in his mind, which he instantly
endeavoured to suppress--it was no use getting cross with a man of whom
you were about to rid yourself, he said to himself. And for the moment,
after replying to his assistant's greeting--a greeting as quiet as his
entrance--he went on reading his letters, and Bryce turned off to that
part of the surgery in which the drugs were kept, and busied himself
in making up some prescription. Ten minutes went by in silence; then
Ransford pushed his correspondence aside, laid a paper-weight on it, and
twisting his chair round, looked at the man to whom he was going to say
some unpleasant things. Within himself he was revolving a question--how
would Bryce take it?

He had never liked this assistant of his, although he had then had him
in employment for nearly two years. There was something about Pemberton
Bryce which he did not understand and could not fathom. He had come to
him with excellent testimonials and good recommendations; he was well up
to his work, successful with patients, thoroughly capable as a
general practitioner--there was no fault to be found with him on
any professional grounds. But to Ransford his personality was
objectionable--why, he was not quite sure. Outwardly, Bryce was rather
more than presentable--a tall, good-looking man of twenty-eight or
thirty, whom some people--women especially--would call handsome; he was
the sort of young man who knows the value of good clothes and a smart
appearance, and his professional manner was all that could be desired.
But Ransford could not help distinguishing between Bryce the doctor
and Bryce the man--and Bryce the man he did not like. Outside the
professional part of him, Bryce seemed to him to be undoubtedly deep,
sly, cunning--he conveyed the impression of being one of those men whose
ears are always on the stretch, who take everything in and give little
out. There was a curious air of watchfulness and of secrecy about him
in private matters which was as repellent--to Ransford's thinking--as
it was hard to explain. Anyway, in private affairs, he did not like his
assistant, and he liked him less than ever as he glanced at him on this
particular occasion.

“I want a word with you,” he said curtly. “I'd better say it now.”

Bryce, who was slowly pouring some liquid from one bottle into another,
looked quietly across the room and did not interrupt himself in his
work. Ransford knew that he must have recognized a certain significance
in the words just addressed to him--but he showed no outward sign of it,
and the liquid went on trickling from one bottle to the other with the
same uniform steadiness.

“Yes?” said Bryce inquiringly. “One moment.”

He finished his task calmly, put the corks in the bottles, labelled one,
restored the other to a shelf, and turned round. Not a man to be easily
startled--not easily turned from a purpose, this, thought Ransford as
he glanced at Bryce's eyes, which had a trick of fastening their gaze on
people with an odd, disconcerting persistency.

“I'm sorry to say what I must say,” he began. “But--you've brought it on
yourself. I gave you a hint some time ago that your attentions were not
welcome to Miss Bewery.”

Bryce made no immediate response. Instead, leaning almost carelessly and
indifferently against the table at which he had been busy with drugs
and bottles, he took a small file from his waistcoat pocket and began to
polish his carefully cut nails.

“Yes?” he said, after a pause. “Well?”

“In spite of it,” continued Ransford, “you've since addressed her again
on the matter--not merely once, but twice.”

Bryce put his file away, and thrusting his hands in his pockets,
crossed his feet as he leaned back against the table--his whole attitude
suggesting, whether meaningly or not, that he was very much at his ease.

“There's a great deal to be said on a point like this,” he observed. “If
a man wishes a certain young woman to become his wife, what right has
any other man--or the young woman herself, for that matter to say that
he mustn't express his desires to her?”

“None,” said Ransford, “provided he only does it once--and takes the
answer he gets as final.”

“I disagree with you entirely,” retorted Bryce. “On the last particular,
at any rate. A man who considers any word of a woman's as being final is
a fool. What a woman thinks on Monday she's almost dead certain not to
think on Tuesday. The whole history of human relationship is on my side
there. It's no opinion--it's a fact.”

Ransford stared at this frank remark, and Bryce went on, coolly and
imperturbably, as if he had been discussing a medical problem.

“A man who takes a woman's first answer as final,” he continued, “is, I
repeat, a fool. There are lots of reasons why a woman shouldn't know
her own mind at the first time of asking. She may be too surprised. She
mayn't be quite decided. She may say one thing when she really means
another. That often happens. She isn't much better equipped at the
second time of asking. And there are women--young ones--who aren't
really certain of themselves at the third time. All that's common
sense.”

“I'll tell you what it is!” suddenly exclaimed Ransford, after remaining
silent for a moment under this flow of philosophy. “I'm not going to
discuss theories and ideas. I know one young woman, at any rate, who
is certain of herself. Miss Bewery does not feel any inclination to
you--now, nor at any time to be! She's told you so three times. And--you
should take her answer and behave yourself accordingly!”

Bryce favoured his senior with a searching look.

“How does Miss Bewery know that she mayn't be inclined to--in the
future?” he asked. “She may come to regard me with favour.”

“No, she won't!” declared Ransford. “Better hear the truth, and be done
with it. She doesn't like you--and she doesn't want to, either. Why
can't you take your answer like a man?”

“What's your conception of a man?” asked Bryce.

“That!--and a good one,” exclaimed Ransford.

“May satisfy you--but not me,” said Bryce. “Mine's different. My
conception of a man is of a being who's got some perseverance. You can
get anything in this world--anything!--by pegging away for it.”

“You're not going to get my ward,” suddenly said Ransford. “That's flat!
She doesn't want you--and she's now said so three times. And--I support
her.”

“What have you against me?” asked Bryce calmly. “If, as you say, you
support her in her resolution not to listen to my proposals, you must
have something against me. What is it?”

“That's a question you've no right to put,” replied Ransford, “for it's
utterly unnecessary. So I'm not going to answer it. I've nothing against
you as regards your work--nothing! I'm willing to give you an excellent
testimonial.”

“Oh!” remarked Bryce quietly. “That means--you wish me to go away?”

“I certainly think it would be best,” said Ransford.

“In that case,” continued Bryce, more coolly than ever, “I shall
certainly want to know what you have against me--or what Miss Bewery has
against me. Why am I objected to as a suitor? You, at any rate, know
who I am--you know that my father is of our own profession, and a man
of reputation and standing, and that I myself came to you on high
recommendation. Looked at from my standpoint, I'm a thoroughly eligible
young man. And there's a point you forget--there's no mystery about me!”

Ransford turned sharply in his chair as he noticed the emphasis which
Bryce put on his last word.

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

“What I've just said,” replied Bryce. “There's no mystery attaching to
me. Any question about me can be answered. Now, you can't say that as
regards your ward. That's a fact, Dr. Ransford.”

Ransford, in years gone by, had practised himself in the art of
restraining his temper--naturally a somewhat quick one. And he made
a strong effort in that direction now, recognizing that there was
something behind his assistant's last remark, and that Bryce meant him
to know it was there.

“I'll repeat what I've just said,” he answered. “What do you mean by
that?”

“I hear things,” said Bryce. “People will talk--even a doctor can't
refuse to hear what gossiping and garrulous patients say. Since she
came to you from school, a year ago, Wrychester people have been much
interested in Miss Bewery, and in her brother, too. And there are a good
many residents of the Close--you know their nice, inquisitive ways!--who
want to know who the sister and brother really are--and what your
relationship is to them!”

“Confound their impudence!” growled Ransford.

“By all means,” agreed Bryce. “And--for all I care--let them be
confounded, too. But if you imagine that the choice and select coteries
of a cathedral town, consisting mainly of the relicts of deceased
deans, canons, prebendaries and the like, and of maiden aunts, elderly
spinsters, and tea-table-haunting curates, are free from gossip--why,
you're a singularly innocent person!”

“They'd better not begin gossiping about my affairs,” said Ransford.
“Otherwise--”

“You can't stop them from gossiping about your affairs,” interrupted
Bryce cheerfully. “Of course they gossip about your affairs; have
gossiped about them; will continue to gossip about them. It's human
nature!”

“You've heard them?” asked Ransford, who was too vexed to keep back his
curiosity. “You yourself?”

“As you are aware, I am often asked out to tea,” replied Bryce, “and
to garden-parties, and tennis-parties, and choice and cosy functions
patronized by curates and associated with crumpets. I have heard--with
these ears. I can even repeat the sort of thing I have heard.
'That dear, delightful Miss Bewery--what a charming girl! And that
good-looking boy, her brother--quite a dear! Now I wonder who they
really are? Wards of Dr. Ransford, of course! Really, how very
romantic!--and just a little--eh?--unusual? Such a comparatively young
man to have such a really charming girl as his ward! Can't be more than
forty-five himself, and she's twenty--how very, very romantic! Really,
one would think there ought to be a chaperon!'”

“Damn!” said Ransford under his breath.

“Just so,” agreed Bryce. “But--that's the sort of thing. Do you want
more? I can supply an unlimited quantity in the piece if you like. But
it's all according to sample.”

“So--in addition to your other qualities,” remarked Ransford, “you're a
gossiper?”

Bryce smiled slowly and shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “I'm a listener. A good one, too. But do you see my
point? I say--there's no mystery about me. If Miss Bewery will honour
me with her hand, she'll get a man whose antecedents will bear the
strictest investigation.”

“Are you inferring that hers won't?” demanded Ransford.

“I'm not inferring anything,” said Bryce. “I am speaking for myself, of
myself. Pressing my own claim, if you like, on you, the guardian. You
might do much worse than support my claims, Dr. Ransford.”

“Claims, man!” retorted Ransford. “You've got no claims! What are you
talking about? Claims!”

“My pretensions, then,” answered Bryce. “If there is a mystery--as
Wrychester people say there is--about Miss Bewery, it would be safe with
me. Whatever you may think, I'm a thoroughly dependable man--when it's
in my own interest.”

“And--when it isn't?” asked Ransford. “What are you then?--as you're so
candid.”

“I could be a very bad enemy,” replied Bryce.

There was a moment's silence, during which the two men looked
attentively at each other.

“I've told you the truth,” said Ransford at last. “Miss Bewery flatly
refuses to entertain any idea whatever of ever marrying you. She
earnestly hopes that that eventuality may never be mentioned to her
again. Will you give me your word of honour to respect her wishes?”

“No!” answered Bryce. “I won't!”

“Why not?” asked Ransford, with a faint show of anger. “A woman's
wishes!”

“Because I may consider that I see signs of a changed mind in her,” said
Bryce. “That's why.”

“You'll never see any change of mind,” declared Ransford. “That's
certain. Is that your fixed determination?”

“It is,” answered Bryce. “I'm not the sort of man who is easily
repelled.”

“Then, in that case,” said Ransford, “we had better part company.” He
rose from his desk, and going over to a safe which stood in a corner,
unlocked it and took some papers from an inside drawer. He consulted
one of these and turned to Bryce. “You remember our agreement?” he
continued. “Your engagement was to be determined by a three months'
notice on either side, or, at my will, at any time by payment of three
months' salary?”

“Quite right,” agreed Bryce. “I remember, of course.”

“Then I'll give you a cheque for three months' salary--now,” said
Ransford, and sat down again at his desk. “That will settle matters
definitely--and, I hope, agreeably.”

Bryce made no reply. He remained leaning against the table, watching
Ransford write the cheque. And when Ransford laid the cheque down at the
edge of the desk he made no movement towards it.

“You must see,” remarked Ransford, half apologetically, “that it's the
only thing I can do. I can't have any man who's not--not welcome to
her, to put it plainly--causing any annoyance to my ward. I repeat,
Bryce--you must see it!”

“I have nothing to do with what you see,” answered Bryce. “Your opinions
are not mine, and mine aren't yours. You're really turning me away--as
if I were a dishonest foreman!--because in my opinion it would be a very
excellent thing for her and for myself if Miss Bewery would consent to
marry me. That's the plain truth.”

Ransford allowed himself to take a long and steady look at Bryce. The
thing was done now, and his dismissed assistant seemed to be taking it
quietly--and Ransford's curiosity was aroused.

“I can't make you out!” he exclaimed. “I don't know whether you're the
most cynical young man I ever met, or whether you're the most obtuse--”

“Not the last, anyway,” interrupted Bryce. “I assure you of that!”

“Can't you see for yourself, then, man, that the girl doesn't want you!”
 said Ransford. “Hang it!--for anything you know to the contrary, she may
have--might have--other ideas!”

Bryce, who had been staring out of a side window for the last minute or
two, suddenly laughed, and, lifting a hand, pointed into the garden. And
Ransford turned--and saw Mary Bewery walking there with a tall lad, whom
he recognized as one Sackville Bonham, stepson of Mr. Folliot, a wealthy
resident of the Close. The two young people were laughing and chatting
together with evident great friendliness.

“Perhaps,” remarked Bryce quietly, “her ideas run in--that direction? In
which case, Dr. Ransford, you'll have trouble. For Mrs. Folliot, mother
of yonder callow youth, who's the apple of her eye, is one of the
inquisitive ladies of whom I've just told you, and if her son unites
himself with anybody, she'll want to know exactly who that anybody is.
You'd far better have supported me as an aspirant! However--I suppose
there's no more to say.”

“Nothing!” answered Ransford. “Except to say good-day--and good-bye to
you. You needn't remain--I'll see to everything. And I'm going out now.
I think you'd better not exchange any farewells with any one.”

Bryce nodded silently, and Ransford, picking up his hat and gloves, left
the surgery by the side door. A moment later, Bryce saw him crossing the
Close.




CHAPTER III. ST. WRYTHA'S STAIR


The summarily dismissed assistant, thus left alone, stood for a moment
in evident deep thought before he moved towards Ransford's desk and
picked up the cheque. He looked at it carefully, folded it neatly, and
put it away in his pocket-book; after that he proceeded to collect a
few possessions of his own, instruments, books from various drawers and
shelves. He was placing these things in a small hand-bag when a gentle
tap sounded on the door by which patients approached the surgery.

“Come in!” he called.

There was no response, although the door was slightly ajar; instead,
the knock was repeated, and at that Bryce crossed the room and flung the
door open.

A man stood outside--an elderly, slight-figured, quiet-looking man, who
looked at Bryce with a half-deprecating, half-nervous air; the air of a
man who was shy in manner and evidently fearful of seeming to intrude.
Bryce's quick, observant eyes took him in at a glance, noting a much
worn and lined face, thin grey hair and tired eyes; this was a man, he
said to himself, who had seen trouble. Nevertheless, not a poor man,
if his general appearance was anything to go by--he was well and even
expensively dressed, in the style generally affected by well-to-do
merchants and city men; his clothes were fashionably cut, his silk hat
was new, his linen and boots irreproachable; a fine diamond pin gleamed
in his carefully arranged cravat. Why, then, this unmistakably furtive
and half-frightened manner--which seemed to be somewhat relieved at the
sight of Bryce?

“Is this--is Dr. Ransford within?” asked the stranger. “I was told this
is his house.”

“Dr. Ransford is out,” replied Bryce. “Just gone out--not five minutes
ago. This is his surgery. Can I be of use?”

The man hesitated, looking beyond Bryce into the room.

“No, thank you,” he said at last. “I--no, I don't want professional
services--I just called to see Dr. Ransford--I--the fact is, I once knew
some one of that name. It's no matter--at present.”

Bryce stepped outside and pointed across the Close.

“Dr. Ransford,” he said, “went over there--I rather fancy he's gone to
the Deanery--he has a case there. If you went through Paradise, you'd
very likely meet him coming back--the Deanery is the big house in the
far corner yonder.”

The stranger followed Bryce's outstretched finger.

“Paradise?” he said, wonderingly. “What's that?”

Bryce pointed to a long stretch of grey wall which projected from the
south wall of the Cathedral into the Close.

“It's an enclosure--between the south porch and the transept,” he said.
“Full of old tombs and trees--a sort of wilderness--why called Paradise
I don't know. There's a short cut across it to the Deanery and that part
of the Close--through that archway you see over there. If you go across,
you're almost sure to meet Dr. Ransford.”

“I'm much obliged to you,” said the stranger. “Thank you.”

He turned away in the direction which Bryce had indicated, and Bryce
went back--only to go out again and call after him.

“If you don't meet him, shall I say you'll call again?” he asked.
“And--what name?”

The stranger shook his head.

“It's immaterial,” he answered. “I'll see him--somewhere--or later. Many
thanks.”

He went on his way towards Paradise, and Bryce returned to the surgery
and completed his preparations for departure. And in the course of
things, he more than once looked through the window into the garden and
saw Mary Bewery still walking and talking with young Sackville Bonham.

“No,” he muttered to himself. “I won't trouble to exchange any
farewells--not because of Ransford's hint, but because there's no need.
If Ransford thinks he's going to drive me out of Wrychester before I
choose to go he's badly mistaken--it'll be time enough to say farewell
when I take my departure--and that won't be just yet. Now I wonder
who that old chap was? Knew some one of Ransford's name once, did he?
Probably Ransford himself--in which case he knows more of Ransford than
anybody in Wrychester knows--for nobody in Wrychester knows anything
beyond a few years back. No, Dr. Ransford!--no farewells--to anybody! A
mere departure--till I turn up again.”

But Bryce was not to get away from the old house without something in
the nature of a farewell. As he walked out of the surgery by the side
entrance, Mary Bewery, who had just parted from young Bonham in the
garden and was about to visit her dogs in the stable yard, came along:
she and Bryce met, face to face. The girl flushed, not so much from
embarrassment as from vexation; Bryce, cool as ever, showed no sign of
any embarrassment. Instead, he laughed, tapping the hand-bag which he
carried under one arm.

“Summarily turned out--as if I had been stealing the spoons,” he
remarked. “I go--with my small belongings. This is my first reward--for
devotion.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” answered Mary, sweeping by him with a
highly displeased glance. “Except that you have brought it on yourself.”

“A very feminine retort!” observed Bryce. “But--there is no malice in
it? Your anger won't last more than--shall we say a day?”

“You may say what you like,” she replied. “As I just said, I have
nothing to say--now or at any time.”

“That remains to be proved,” remarked Bryce. “The phrase is one of much
elasticity. But for the present--I go!”

He walked out into the Close, and without as much as a backward look
struck off across the sward in the direction in which, ten minutes
before, he had sent the strange man. He had rooms in a quiet lane on the
farther side of the Cathedral precinct, and his present intention was to
go to them to leave his bag and make some further arrangements. He had
no idea of leaving Wrychester--he knew of another doctor in the city who
was badly in need of help: he would go to him--would tell him, if need
be, why he had left Ransford. He had a multiplicity of schemes and ideas
in his head, and he began to consider some of them as he stepped out of
the Close into the ancient enclosure which all Wrychester folk knew by
its time-honoured name of Paradise. This was really an outer court of
the old cloisters; its high walls, half-ruinous, almost wholly covered
with ivy, shut in an expanse of turf, liberally furnished with yew and
cypress and studded with tombs and gravestones. In one corner rose a
gigantic elm; in another a broken stairway of stone led to a doorway set
high in the walls of the nave; across the enclosure itself was a pathway
which led towards the houses in the south-east corner of the Close. It
was a curious, gloomy spot, little frequented save by people who went
across it rather than follow the gravelled paths outside, and it was
untenanted when Bryce stepped into it. But just as he walked through the
archway he saw Ransford. Ransford was emerging hastily from a postern
door in the west porch--so hastily that Bryce checked himself to look at
him. And though they were twenty yards apart, Bryce saw that Ransford's
face was very pale, almost to whiteness, and that he was unmistakably
agitated. Instantly he connected that agitation with the man who had
come to the surgery door.

“They've met!” mused Bryce, and stopped, staring after Ransford's
retreating figure. “Now what is it in that man's mere presence that's
upset Ransford? He looks like a man who's had a nasty, unexpected
shock--a bad 'un!”

He remained standing in the archway, gazing after the retreating figure,
until Ransford had disappeared within his own garden; still wondering
and speculating, but not about his own affairs, he turned across
Paradise at last and made his way towards the farther corner. There was
a little wicket-gate there, set in the ivied wall; as Bryce opened it,
a man in the working dress of a stone-mason, whom he recognized as being
one of the master-mason's staff, came running out of the bushes.
His face, too, was white, and his eyes were big with excitement. And
recognizing Bryce, he halted, panting.

“What is it, Varner?” asked Bryce calmly. “Something happened?”

The man swept his hand across his forehead as if he were dazed, and then
jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“A man!” he gasped. “Foot of St. Wrytha's Stair there, doctor. Dead--or
if not dead, near it. I saw it!”

Bryce seized Varner's arm and gave it a shake.

“You saw--what?” he demanded.

“Saw him--fall. Or rather--flung!” panted Varner. “Somebody--couldn't
see who, nohow--flung him right through yon doorway, up there. He fell
right over the steps--crash!” Bryce looked over the tops of the yews and
cypresses at the doorway in the clerestory to which Varner pointed--a
low, open archway gained by the half-ruinous stair. It was forty feet at
least from the ground.

“You saw him--thrown!” he exclaimed. “Thrown--down there? Impossible,
man!”

“Tell you I saw it!” asserted Varner doggedly. “I was looking at one
of those old tombs yonder--somebody wants some repairs doing--and the
jackdaws were making such a to-do up there by the roof I glanced up at
them. And I saw this man thrown through that door--fairly flung through
it! God!--do you think I could mistake my own eyes?”

“Did you see who flung him?” asked Bryce.

“No; I saw a hand--just for one second, as it might be--by the edge of
the doorway,” answered Varner. “I was more for watching him! He sort
of tottered for a second on the step outside the door, turned over and
screamed--I can hear it now!--and crashed down on the flags beneath.”

“How long since?” demanded Bryce.

“Five or six minutes,” said Varner. “I rushed to him--I've been doing
what I could. But I saw it was no good, so I was running for help--”

Bryce pushed him towards the bushes by which they were standing.

“Take me to him,” he said. “Come on!”

Varner turned back, making a way through the cypresses. He led Bryce to
the foot of the great wall of the nave. There in the corner formed by
the angle of nave and transept, on a broad pavement of flagstones, lay
the body of a man crumpled up in a curiously twisted position. And with
one glance, even before he reached it, Bryce knew what body it was--that
of the man who had come, shyly and furtively, to Ransford's door.

“Look!” exclaimed Varner, suddenly pointing. “He's stirring!”

Bryce, whose gaze was fastened on the twisted figure, saw a slight
movement which relaxed as suddenly as it had occurred. Then came
stillness. “That's the end!” he muttered. “The man's dead! I'll
guarantee that before I put a hand on him. Dead enough!” he went on, as
he reached the body and dropped on one knee by it. “His neck's broken.”

The mason bent down and looked, half-curiously, half-fearfully, at the
dead man. Then he glanced upward--at the open door high above them in
the walls.

“It's a fearful drop, that, sir,” he said. “And he came down with such
violence. You're sure it's over with him?”

“He died just as we came up,” answered Bryce. “That movement we saw was
the last effort--involuntary, of course. Look here, Varner!--you'll have
to get help. You'd better fetch some of the cathedral people--some of
the vergers. No!” he broke off suddenly, as the low strains of an organ
came from within the great building. “They're just beginning the morning
service--of course, it's ten o'clock. Never mind them--go straight to
the police. Bring them back--I'll stay here.”

The mason turned off towards the gateway of the Close, and while
the strains of the organ grew louder, Bryce bent over the dead man,
wondering what had really happened. Thrown from an open doorway in the
clerestory over St. Wrytha's Stair?--it seemed almost impossible! But a
sudden thought struck him: supposing two men, wishing to talk in privacy
unobserved, had gone up into the clerestory of the Cathedral--as
they easily could, by more than one door, by more than one stair--and
supposing they had quarrelled, and one of them had flung or pushed
the other through the door above--what then? And on the heels of that
thought hurried another--this man, now lying dead, had come to the
surgery, seeking Ransford, and had subsequently gone away, presumably
in search of him, and Bryce himself had just seen Ransford, obviously
agitated and pale of cheek, leaving the west porch; what did it all
mean? what was the apparently obvious inference to be drawn? Here was
the stranger dead--and Varner was ready to swear that he had seen
him thrown, flung violently, through the door forty feet above. That
was--murder! Then--who was the murderer?

Bryce looked carefully and narrowly around him. Now that Varner had gone
away, there was not a human being in sight, nor anywhere near, so far as
he knew. On one side of him and the dead man rose the grey walls of nave
and transept; on the other, the cypresses and yews rising amongst the
old tombs and monuments. Assuring himself that no one was near, no eye
watching, he slipped his hand into the inner breast pocket of the dead
man's smart morning coat. Such a man must carry papers--papers would
reveal something. And Bryce wanted to know anything--anything that would
give information and let him into whatever secret there might be between
this unlucky stranger and Ransford.

But the breast pocket was empty; there was no pocket-book there; there
were no papers there. Nor were there any papers elsewhere in the other
pockets which he hastily searched: there was not even a card with a name
on it. But he found a purse, full of money--banknotes, gold, silver--and
in one of its compartments a scrap of paper folded curiously, after the
fashion of the cocked-hat missives of another age in which envelopes had
not been invented. Bryce hurriedly unfolded this, and after one glance
at its contents, made haste to secrete it in his own pocket. He had only
just done this and put back the purse when he heard Varner's voice, and
a second later the voice of Inspector Mitchington, a well-known police
official. And at that Bryce sprang to his feet, and when the mason and
his companions emerged from the bushes was standing looking thoughtfully
at the dead man. He turned to Mitchington with a shake of the head.

“Dead!” he said in a hushed voice. “Died as we got to him. Broken--all
to pieces, I should say--neck and spine certainly. I suppose Varner's
told you what he saw.”

Mitchington, a sharp-eyed, dark-complexioned man, quick of movement,
nodded, and after one glance at the body, looked up at the open doorway
high above them.

“That the door?” he asked, turning to Varner. “And--it was open?”

“It's always open,” answered Varner. “Least-ways, it's been open, like
that, all this spring, to my knowledge.”

“What is there behind it?” inquired Mitchington.

“Sort of gallery, that runs all round the nave,” replied Varner.
“Clerestory gallery--that's what it is. People can go up there and walk
around--lots of 'em do--tourists, you know. There's two or three ways up
to it--staircases in the turrets.”

Mitchington turned to one of the two constables who had followed him.

“Let Varner show you the way up there,” he said. “Go quietly--don't
make any fuss--the morning service is just beginning. Say nothing to
anybody--just take a quiet look around, along that gallery, especially
near the door there--and come back here.” He looked down at the dead man
again as the mason and the constable went away. “A stranger, I should
think, doctor--tourist, most likely. But--thrown down! That man Varner
is positive. That looks like foul play.”

“Oh, there's no doubt of that!” asserted Bryce. “You'll have to go
into that pretty deeply. But the inside of the Cathedral's like a
rabbit-warren, and whoever threw the man through that doorway no doubt
knew how to slip away unobserved. Now, you'll have to remove the body to
the mortuary, of course--but just let me fetch Dr. Ransford first.
I'd like some other medical man than myself to see him before he's
moved--I'll have him here in five minutes.”

He turned away through the bushes and emerging upon the Close ran across
the lawns in the direction of the house which he had left not twenty
minutes before. He had but one idea as he ran--he wanted to see Ransford
face to face with the dead man--wanted to watch him, to observe him,
to see how he looked, how he behaved. Then he, Bryce, would
know--something.

But he was to know something before that. He opened the door of the
surgery suddenly, but with his usual quietness of touch. And on the
threshold he paused. Ransford, the very picture of despair, stood just
within, his face convulsed, beating one hand upon the other.




CHAPTER IV. THE ROOM AT THE MITRE


In the few seconds which elapsed before Ransford recognized Bryce's
presence, Bryce took a careful, if swift, observation of his late
employer. That Ransford was visibly upset by something was plain enough
to see; his face was still pale, he was muttering to himself, one
clenched fist was pounding the open palm of the other hand--altogether,
he looked like a man who is suddenly confronted with some fearful
difficulty. And when Bryce, having looked long enough to satisfy his
wishes, coughed gently, he started in such a fashion as to suggest that
his nerves had become unstrung.

“What is it?--what are you doing there?” he demanded almost fiercely.
“What do you mean by coming in like that?”

Bryce affected to have seen nothing.

“I came to fetch you,” he answered. “There's been an accident in
Paradise--man fallen from that door at the head of St. Wrytha's Stair. I
wish you'd come--but I may as well tell you that he's past help--dead!”

“Dead! A man?” exclaimed Ransford. “What man? A workman?”

Bryce had already made up his mind about telling Ransford of the
stranger's call at the surgery. He would say nothing--at that time at
any rate. It was improbable that any one but himself knew of the call;
the side entrance to the surgery was screened from the Close by a
shrubbery; it was very unlikely that any passer-by had seen the man call
or go away. No--he would keep his knowledge secret until it could be
made better use of.

“Not a workman--not a townsman--a stranger,” he answered. “Looks like a
well-to-do tourist. A slightly-built, elderly man--grey-haired.”

Ransford, who had turned to his desk to master himself, looked round
with a sudden sharp glance--and for the moment Bryce was taken aback.
For he had condemned Ransford--and yet that glance was one of apparently
genuine surprise, a glance which almost convinced him, against his
will, against only too evident facts, that Ransford was hearing of the
Paradise affair for the first time.

“An elderly man--grey-haired--slightly built?” said Ransford. “Dark
clothes--silk hat?”

“Precisely,” replied Bryce, who was now considerably astonished. “Do you
know him?”

“I saw such a man entering the Cathedral, a while ago,” answered
Ransford. “A stranger, certainly. Come along, then.”

He had fully recovered his self-possession by that time, and he led
the way from the surgery and across the Close as if he were going on
an ordinary professional visit. He kept silence as they walked rapidly
towards Paradise, and Bryce was silent, too. He had studied Ransford
a good deal during their two years' acquaintanceship, and he knew
Ransford's power of repressing and commanding his feelings and
concealing his thoughts. And now he decided that the look and start
which he had at first taken to be of the nature of genuine astonishment
were cunningly assumed, and he was not surprised when, having reached
the group of men gathered around the body, Ransford showed nothing but
professional interest.

“Have you done anything towards finding out who this unfortunate
man is?” asked Ransford, after a brief examination, as he turned to
Mitchington. “Evidently a stranger--but he probably has papers on him.”

“There's nothing on him--except a purse, with plenty of money in it,”
 answered Mitchington. “I've been through his pockets myself: there isn't
a scrap of paper--not even as much as an old letter. But he's evidently
a tourist, or something of the sort, and so he'll probably have stayed
in the city all night, and I'm going to inquire at the hotels.”

“There'll be an inquest, of course,” remarked Ransford mechanically.
“Well--we can do nothing, Mitchington. You'd better have the body
removed to the mortuary.” He turned and looked up the broken stairway
at the foot of which they were standing. “You say he fell down that?” he
asked. “Whatever was he doing up there?”

Mitchington looked at Bryce.

“Haven't you told Dr. Ransford how it was?” he asked.

“No,” answered Bryce. He glanced at Ransford, indicating Varner, who had
come back with the constable and was standing by. “He didn't fall,” he
went on, watching Ransford narrowly. “He was violently flung out of that
doorway. Varner here saw it.”

Ransford's cheek flushed, and he was unable to repress a slight start.
He looked at the mason.

“You actually saw it!” he exclaimed. “Why, what did you see?”

“Him!” answered Varner, nodding at the dead man. “Flung, head and heels,
clean through that doorway up there. Hadn't a chance to save himself, he
hadn't! Just grabbed at--nothing!--and came down. Give a year's wages if
I hadn't seen it--and heard him scream.”

Ransford was watching Varner with a set, concentrated look.

“Who--flung him?” he asked suddenly. “You say you saw!”

“Aye, sir, but not as much as all that!” replied the mason. “I just saw
a hand--and that was all. But,” he added, turning to the police with a
knowing look, “there's one thing I can swear to--it was a gentleman's
hand! I saw the white shirt cuff and a bit of a black sleeve!”

Ransford turned away. But he just as suddenly turned back to the
inspector.

“You'll have to let the Cathedral authorities know, Mitchington,” he
said. “Better get the body removed, though, first--do it now before the
morning service is over. And--let me hear what you find out about his
identity, if you can discover anything in the city.”

He went away then, without another word or a further glance at the dead
man. But Bryce had already assured himself of what he was certain was
a fact--that a look of unmistakable relief had swept across Ransford's
face for the fraction of a second when he knew that there were no papers
on the dead man. He himself waited after Ransford had gone; waited until
the police had fetched a stretcher, when he personally superintended
the removal of the body to the mortuary outside the Close. And there a
constable who had come over from the police-station gave a faint hint as
to further investigation.

“I saw that poor gentleman last night, sir,” he said to the inspector.
“He was standing at the door of the Mitre, talking to another
gentleman--a tallish man.”

“Then I'll go across there,” said Mitchington. “Come with me, if you
like, Dr. Bryce.”

This was precisely what Bryce desired--he was already anxious to acquire
all the information he could get. And he walked over the way with the
inspector, to the quaint old-world inn which filled almost one side
of the little square known as Monday Market, and in at the courtyard,
where, looking out of the bow window which had served as an outer bar
in the coaching days, they found the landlady of the Mitre, Mrs.
Partingley. Bryce saw at once that she had heard the news.

“What's this, Mr. Mitchington?” she demanded as they drew near across
the cobble-paved yard. “Somebody's been in to say there's been an
accident to a gentleman, a stranger--I hope it isn't one of the two
we've got in the house?”

“I should say it is, ma'am,” answered the inspector. “He was seen
outside here last night by one of our men, anyway.”

The landlady uttered an expression of distress, and opening a side-door,
motioned them to step into her parlour.

“Which of them is it?” she asked anxiously. “There's two--came together
last night, they did--a tall one and a short one. Dear, dear me!--is it
a bad accident, now, inspector?”

“The man's dead, ma'am,” replied Mitchington grimly. “And we want to
know who he is. Have you got his name--and the other gentleman's?”

Mrs. Partingley uttered another exclamation of distress and
astonishment, lifting her plump hands in horror. But her business
faculties remained alive, and she made haste to produce a big visitors'
book and to spread it open before her callers.

“There it is!” she said, pointing to the two last entries. “That's the
short gentleman's name--Mr. John Braden, London. And that's the
tall one's--Mr. Christopher Dellingham--also London. Tourists, of
course--we've never seen either of them before.”

“Came together, you say, Mrs. Partingley?” asked Mitchington. “When was
that, now?”

“Just before dinner, last night,” answered the landlady. “They'd
evidently come in by the London train--that gets in at six-forty, as you
know. They came here together, and they'd dinner together, and spent the
evening together. Of course, we took them for friends. But they didn't
go out together this morning, though they'd breakfast together. After
breakfast, Mr. Dellingham asked me the way to the old Manor Mill, and
he went off there, so I concluded. Mr. Braden, he hung about a bit,
studying a local directory I'd lent him, and after a while he asked me
if he could hire a trap to take him out to Saxonsteade this afternoon.
Of course, I said he could, and he arranged for it to be ready at
two-thirty. Then he went out, and across the market towards the
Cathedral. And that,” concluded Mrs. Partingley, “is about all I know,
gentlemen.”

“Saxonsteade, eh?” remarked Mitchington. “Did he say anything about his
reasons for going there?”

“Well, yes, he did,” replied the landlady. “For he asked me if I thought
he'd be likely to find the Duke at home at that time of day. I said I
knew his Grace was at Saxonsteade just now, and that I should think the
middle of the afternoon would be a good time.”

“He didn't tell you his business with the Duke?” asked Mitchington.

“Not a word!” said the landlady. “Oh, no!--just that, and no more.
But--here's Mr. Dellingham.”

Bryce turned to see a tall, broad-shouldered, bearded man pass the
window--the door opened and he walked in, to glance inquisitively at the
inspector. He turned at once to Mrs. Partingley.

“I hear there's been an accident to that gentleman I came in with last
night?” he said. “Is it anything serious? Your ostler says--”

“These gentlemen have just come about it, sir,” answered the landlady.
She glanced at Mitchington. “Perhaps you'll tell--” she began.

“Was he a friend of yours, sir?” asked Mitchington. “A personal friend?”

“Never saw him in my life before last night!” replied the tall man. “We
just chanced to meet in the train coming down from London, got talking,
and discovered we were both coming to the same place--Wrychester.
So--we came to this house together. No--no friend of mine--not even an
acquaintance--previous, of course, to last night. Is--is it anything
serious?”

“He's dead, sir,” replied Mitchington. “And now we want to know who he
is.”

“God bless my soul! Dead? You don't say so!” exclaimed Mr. Dellingham.
“Dear, dear! Well, I can't help you--don't know him from Adam. Pleasant,
well-informed man--seemed to have travelled a great deal in foreign
countries. I can tell you this much, though,” he went on, as if a sudden
recollection had come to him; “I gathered that he'd only just arrived in
England--in fact, now I come to think of it, he said as much. Made some
remark in the train about the pleasantness of the English landscape,
don't you know?--I got an idea that he'd recently come from some country
where trees and hedges and green fields aren't much in evidence. But--if
you want to know who he is, officer, why don't you search him? He's sure
to have papers, cards, and so on about him.”

“We have searched him,” answered Mitchington. “There isn't a paper, a
letter, or even a visiting card on him.”

Mr. Dellingham looked at the landlady.

“Bless me!” he said. “Remarkable! But he'd a suit-case, or something of
the sort--something light--which he carried up from the railway station
himself. Perhaps in that--”

“I should like to see whatever he had,” said Mitchington. “We'd better
examine his room, Mrs. Partingley.”

Bryce presently followed the landlady and the inspector upstairs--Mr.
Dellingham followed him. All four went into a bedroom which looked
out on Monday Market. And there, on a side-table, lay a small leather
suit-case, one which could easily be carried, with its upper half thrown
open and back against the wall behind.

The landlady, Mr. Dellingham and Bryce stood silently by while the
inspector examined the contents of this the only piece of luggage in
the room. There was very little to see--what toilet articles the visitor
brought were spread out on the dressing-table--brushes, combs, a case
of razors, and the like. And Mitchington nodded side-wise at them as he
began to take the articles out of the suit-case.

“There's one thing strikes me at once,” he said. “I dare say you
gentlemen notice it. All these things are new! This suit-case hasn't
been in use very long--see, the leather's almost unworn--and those
things on the dressing-table are new. And what there is here
looks new, too. There's not much, you see--he evidently had
no intention of a long stop. An extra pair of trousers--some
shirts--socks--collars--neckties--slippers--handkerchiefs--that's about
all. And the first thing to do is to see if the linen's marked with name
or initials.”

He deftly examined the various articles as he took them out, and in the
end shook his head.

“No name--no initials,” he said. “But look here--do you see, gentlemen,
where these collars were bought? Half a dozen of them, in a box. Paris!
There you are--the seller's name, inside the collar, just as in England.
Aristide Pujol, 82, Rue des Capucines. And--judging by the look
of 'em--I should say these shirts were bought there, too--and the
handkerchiefs--and the neckwear--they all have a foreign look. There may
be a clue in that--we might trace him in France if we can't in England.
Perhaps he is a Frenchman.”

“I'll take my oath he isn't!” exclaimed Mr. Dellingham. “However long
he'd been out of England he hadn't lost a North-Country accent! He was
some sort of a North-Countryman--Yorkshire or Lancashire, I'll go bail.
No Frenchman, officer--not he!”

“Well, there's no papers here, anyway,” said Mitchington, who had now
emptied the suit-case. “Nothing to show who he was. Nothing here, you
see, in the way of paper but this old book--what is it--History of
Barthorpe.”

“He showed me that in the train,” remarked Mr. Dellingham. “I'm
interested in antiquities and archaeology, and anybody who's long in my
society finds it out. We got talking of such things, and he pulled out
that book, and told me with great pride, that he'd picked it up from
a book-barrow in the street, somewhere in London, for one-and-six. I
think,” he added musingly, “that what attracted him in it was the
old calf binding and the steel frontispiece--I'm sure he'd no great
knowledge of antiquities.”

Mitchington laid the book down, and Bryce picked it up, examined the
title-page, and made a mental note of the fact that Barthorpe was a
market-town in the Midlands. And it was on the tip of his tongue to
say that if the dead man had no particular interest in antiquities and
archaeology, it was somewhat strange that he should have bought a book
which was mainly antiquarian, and that it might be that he had so
bought it because of a connection between Barthorpe and himself. But he
remembered that it was his own policy to keep pertinent facts for his
own private consideration, so he said nothing. And Mitchington presently
remarking that there was no more to be done there, and ascertaining from
Mr. Dellingham that it was his intention to remain in Wrychester for
at any rate a few days, they went downstairs again, and Bryce and the
inspector crossed over to the police-station.

The news had spread through the heart of the city, and at the
police-station doors a crowd had gathered. Just inside two or three
principal citizens were talking to the Superintendent--amongst them was
Mr. Stephen Folliot, the stepfather of young Bonham--a big, heavy-faced
man who had been a resident in the Close for some years, was known to be
of great wealth, and had a reputation as a grower of rare roses. He was
telling the Superintendent something--and the Superintendent beckoned to
Mitchington.

“Mr. Folliot says he saw this gentleman in the Cathedral,” he said.
“Can't have been so very long before the accident happened, Mr. Folliot,
from what you say.”

“As near as I can reckon, it would be five minutes to ten,” answered Mr.
Folliot. “I put it at that because I'd gone in for the morning service,
which is at ten. I saw him go up the inside stair to the clerestory
gallery--he was looking about him. Five minutes to ten--and it must have
happened immediately afterwards.”

Bryce heard this and turned away, making a calculation for himself. It
had been on the stroke of ten when he saw Ransford hurrying out of the
west porch. There was a stairway from the gallery down to that west
porch. What, then, was the inference? But for the moment he drew
none--instead, he went home to his rooms in Friary Lane, and shutting
himself up, drew from his pocket the scrap of paper he had taken from
the dead man.




CHAPTER V. THE SCRAP OF PAPER


When Bryce, in his locked room, drew that bit of paper from his pocket,
it was with the conviction that in it he held a clue to the secret of
the morning's adventure. He had only taken a mere glance at it as he
withdrew it from the dead man's purse, but he had seen enough of what
was written on it to make him certain that it was a document--if such a
mere fragment could be called a document--of no ordinary importance.
And now he unfolded and laid it flat on his table and looked at it
carefully, asking himself what was the real meaning of what he saw.

There was not much to see. The scrap of paper itself was evidently a
quarter of a leaf of old-fashioned, stoutish notepaper, somewhat yellow
with age, and bearing evidence of having been folded and kept flat in
the dead man's purse for some time--the creases were well-defined,
the edges were worn and slightly stained by long rubbing against the
leather. And in its centre were a few words, or, rather abbreviations of
words, in Latin, and some figures:

          In Para.  Wrycestr.  juxt.  tumb.
          Ric. Jenk. ex cap.  xxiii. xv.

Bryce at first sight took them to be a copy of some inscription but his
knowledge of Latin told him, a moment later, that instead of being an
inscription, it was a direction. And a very plain direction, too!--he
read it easily. In Paradise, at Wrychester, next to, or near, the tomb
of Richard Jenkins, or, possibly, Jenkinson, from, or behind, the head,
twenty-three, fifteen--inches, most likely. There was no doubt that
there was the meaning of the words. What, now, was it that lay behind
the tomb of Richard Jenkins, or Jenkinson, in Wrychester Paradise?--in
all probability twenty-three inches from the head-stone, and fifteen
inches beneath the surface. That was a question which Bryce immediately
resolved to find a satisfactory answer to; in the meantime there were
other questions which he set down in order on his mental tablets. They
were these:

 1.  Who, really, was the man who had registered at the
     Mitre under the name of John Braden?

 2.  Why did he wish to make a personal call on the
     Duke of Saxonsteade?

 3.  Was he some man who had known Ransford in time
     past--and whom Ransford had no desire to meet again?

 4.  Did Ransford meet him--in the Cathedral?

 5.  Was it Ransford who flung him to his death down
     St. Wrytha's Stair?

 6.  Was that the real reason of the agitation in which
     he, Bryce, had found Ransford a few moments after
     the discovery of the body?

There was plenty of time before him for the due solution of these
mysteries, reflected Bryce--and for solving another problem which might
possibly have some relationship to them--that of the exact connection
between Ransford and his two wards. Bryce, in telling Ransford that
morning of what was being said amongst the tea-table circles of the old
cathedral city, had purposely only told him half a tale. He knew,
and had known for months, that the society of the Close was greatly
exercised over the position of the Ransford menage. Ransford, a
bachelor, a well-preserved, active, alert man who was certainly of no
more than middle age and did not look his years, had come to Wrychester
only a few years previously, and had never shown any signs of forsaking
his single state. No one had ever heard him mention his family or
relations; then, suddenly, without warning, he had brought into his
house Mary Bewery, a handsome young woman of nineteen, who was said
to have only just left school, and her brother Richard, then a boy of
sixteen, who had certainly been at a public school of repute and was
entered at the famous Dean's School of Wrychester as soon as he came
to his new home. Dr. Ransford spoke of these two as his wards, without
further explanation; the society of the Close was beginning to want
much more explanation. Who were they--these two young people? Was Dr.
Ransford their uncle, their cousin--what was he to them? In any case,
in the opinion of the elderly ladies who set the tone of society in
Wrychester, Miss Bewery was much too young, and far too pretty, to be
left without a chaperon. But, up to then, no one had dared to say as
much to Dr. Ransford--instead, everybody said it freely behind his back.

Bryce had used eyes and ears in relation to the two young people. He had
been with Ransford a year when they arrived; admitted freely to their
company, he had soon discovered that whatever relationship existed
between them and Ransford, they had none with anybody else--that
they knew of. No letters came for them from uncles, aunts, cousins,
grandfathers, grandmothers. They appeared to have no memories or
reminiscences of relatives, nor of father or mother; there was a curious
atmosphere of isolation about them. They had plenty of talk about what
might be called their present--their recent schooldays, their youthful
experiences, games, pursuits--but none of what, under any circumstances,
could have been a very far-distant past. Bryce's quick and attentive
ears discovered things--for instance that for many years past Ransford
had been in the habit of spending his annual two months' holiday with
these two. Year after year--at any rate since the boy's tenth year--he
had taken them travelling; Bryce heard scraps of reminiscences of tours
in France, and in Switzerland, and in Ireland, and in Scotland--even as
far afield as the far north of Norway. It was easy to see that both boy
and girl had a mighty veneration for Ransford; just as easy to see that
Ransford took infinite pains to make life something more than happy and
comfortable for both. And Bryce, who was one of those men who
firmly believe that no man ever does anything for nothing and that
self-interest is the mainspring of Life, asked himself over and over
again the question which agitated the ladies of the Close: Who are
these two, and what is the bond between them and this sort of
fairy-godfather-guardian?

And now, as he put away the scrap of paper in a safely-locked desk,
Bryce asked himself another question: Had the events of that morning
anything to do with the mystery which hung around Dr. Ransford's wards?
If it had, then all the more reason why he should solve it. For Bryce
had made up his mind that, by hook or by crook, he would marry Mary
Bewery, and he was only too eager to lay hands on anything that would
help him to achieve that ambition. If he could only get Ransford into
his power--if he could get Mary Bewery herself into his power--well and
good. Once he had got her, he would be good enough to her--in his way.

Having nothing to do, Bryce went out after a while and strolled round to
the Wrychester Club--an exclusive institution, the members of which
were drawn from the leisured, the professional, the clerical, and the
military circles of the old city. And there, as he expected, he found
small groups discussing the morning's tragedy, and he joined one of
them, in which was Sackville Bonham, his presumptive rival, who was
busily telling three or four other young men what his stepfather, Mr.
Folliot, had to say about the event.

“My stepfather says--and I tell you he saw the man,” said Sackville, who
was noted in Wrychester circles as a loquacious and forward youth; “he
says that whatever happened must have happened as soon as ever the old
chap got up into that clerestory gallery. Look here!--it's like this.
My stepfather had gone in there for the morning service--strict old
church-goer he is, you know--and he saw this stranger going up the
stairway. He's positive, Mr. Folliot, that it was then five minutes to
ten. Now, then, I ask you--isn't he right, my stepfather, when he says
that it must have happened at once--immediately?

“Because that man, Varner, the mason, says he saw the man fall before
ten. What?”

One of the group nodded at Bryce.

“I should think Bryce knows what time it happened as well as anybody,”
 he said. “You were first on the spot, Bryce, weren't you?”

“After Varner,” answered Bryce laconically. “As to the time--I could fix
it in this way--the organist was just beginning a voluntary or something
of the sort.”

“That means ten o'clock--to the minute--when he was found!” exclaimed
Sackville triumphantly. “Of course, he'd fallen a minute or two before
that--which proves Mr. Folliot to be right. Now what does that prove?
Why, that the old chap's assailant, whoever he was, dogged him along
that gallery as soon as he entered, seized him when he got to the open
doorway, and flung him through! Clear as--as noonday!”

One of the group, a rather older man than the rest, who was leaning
back in a tilted chair, hands in pockets, watching Sackville Bonham
smilingly, shook his head and laughed a little.

“You're taking something for granted, Sackie, my son!” he said. “You're
adopting the mason's tale as true. But I don't believe the poor man was
thrown through that doorway at all--not I!”

Bryce turned sharply on this speaker--young Archdale, a member of a
well-known firm of architects.

“You don't?” he exclaimed. “But Varner says he saw him thrown!”

“Very likely,” answered Archdale. “But it would all happen so quickly
that Varner might easily be mistaken. I'm speaking of something I know.
I know every inch of the Cathedral fabric--ought to, as we're always
going over it, professionally. Just at that doorway, at the head of St.
Wrytha's Stair, the flooring of the clerestory gallery is worn so smooth
that it's like a piece of glass--and it slopes! Slopes at a very steep
angle, too, to the doorway itself. A stranger walking along there might
easily slip, and if the door was open, as it was, he'd be shot out and
into space before he knew what was happening.”

This theory produced a moment's silence--broken at last by Sackville
Bonham.

“Varner says he saw--saw!--a man's hand, a gentleman's hand,” insisted
Sackville. “He saw a white shirt cuff, a bit of the sleeve of a coat.
You're not going to get over that, you know. He's certain of it!”

“Varner may be as certain of it as he likes,” answered Archdale, almost
indifferently, “and still he may be mistaken. The probability is that
Varner was confused by what he saw. He may have had a white shirt cuff
and the sleeve of a black coat impressed upon him, as in a flash--and
they were probably those of the man who was killed. If, as I suggest,
the man slipped, and was shot out of that open doorway, he would execute
some violent and curious movements in the effort to save himself in
which his arms would play an important part. For one thing, he would
certainly throw out an arm--to clutch at anything. That's what Varner
most probably saw. There's no evidence whatever that the man was flung
down.”

Bryce turned away from the group of talkers to think over Archdale's
suggestion. If that suggestion had a basis of fact, it destroyed his own
theory that Ransford was responsible for the stranger's death. In
that case, what was the reason of Ransford's unmistakable agitation
on leaving the west porch, and of his attack--equally unmistakable--of
nerves in the surgery? But what Archdale had said made him inquisitive,
and after he had treated himself--in celebration of his freedom--to an
unusually good lunch at the Club, he went round to the Cathedral to make
a personal inspection of the gallery in the clerestory.

There was a stairway to that gallery in the corner of the south
transept, and Bryce made straight for it--only to find a policeman
there, who pointed to a placard on the turret door. “Closed, doctor--by
order of the Dean and Chapter,” he announced. “Till further orders. The
fact was, sir,” he went on confidentially, “after the news got out, so
many people came crowding in here and up to that gallery that the Dean
ordered all the entrances to be shut up at once--nobody's been allowed
up since noon.”

“I suppose you haven't heard anything of any strange person being seen
lurking about up there this morning?” asked Bryce.

“No, sir. But I've had a bit of a talk with some of the vergers,”
 replied the policeman, “and they say it's a most extraordinary thing
that none of them ever saw this strange gentleman go up there, nor even
heard any scuffle. They say--the vergers--that they were all about at
the time, getting ready for the morning service, and they neither saw
nor heard. Odd, sir, ain't it?”

“The whole thing's odd,” agreed Bryce, and left the Cathedral. He walked
round to the wicket gate which admitted to that side of Paradise--to
find another policeman posted there. “What!--is this closed, too?” he
asked.

“And time, sir,” said the man. “They'd ha' broken down all the shrubs
in the place if orders hadn't been given! They were mad to see where the
gentleman fell--came in crowds at dinnertime.”

Bryce nodded, and was turning away, when Dick Bewery came round a corner
from the Deanery Walk, evidently keenly excited. With him was a girl of
about his own age--a certain characterful young lady whom Bryce knew
as Betty Campany, daughter of the librarian to the Dean and Chapter and
therefore custodian of one of the most famous cathedral libraries in
the country. She, too, was apparently brimming with excitement, and her
pretty and vivacious face puckered itself into a frown as the policeman
smiled and shook his head.

“Oh, I say, what's that for?” exclaimed Dick Bewery. “Shut up?--what a
lot of rot! I say!--can't you let us go in--just for a minute?”

“Not for a pension, sir!” answered the policeman good-naturedly. “Don't
you see the notice? The Dean 'ud have me out of the force by tomorrow if
I disobeyed orders. No admittance, nowhere, nohow! But lor' bless
yer!” he added, glancing at the two young people. “There's nothing to
see--nothing!--as Dr. Bryce there can tell you.”

Dick, who knew nothing of the recent passages between his guardian and
the dismissed assistant, glanced at Bryce with interest.

“You were on the spot first, weren't you?” he asked: “Do you think it
really was murder?”

“I don't know what it was,” answered Bryce. “And I wasn't first on the
spot. That was Varner, the mason--he called me.” He turned from the lad
to glance at the girl, who was peeping curiously over the gate into
the yews and cypresses. “Do you think your father's at the Library just
now?” he asked. “Shall I find him there?”

“I should think he is,” answered Betty Campany. “He generally goes down
about this time.” She turned and pulled Dick Bewery's sleeve. “Let's go
up in the clerestory,” she said. “We can see that, anyway.”

“Also closed, miss,” said the policeman, shaking his head. “No
admittance there, neither. The public firmly warned off--so to speak. 'I
won't have the Cathedral turned into a peepshow!' that's precisely what
I heard the Dean say with my own ears. So--closed!”

The boy and the girl turned away and went off across the Close, and the
policeman looked after them and laughed.

“Lively young couple, that, sir!” he said. “What they call healthy
curiosity, I suppose? Plenty o' that knocking around in the city today.”

Bryce, who had half-turned in the direction of the Library, at the other
side of the Close, turned round again.

“Do you know if your people are doing anything about identifying the
dead man?” he asked. “Did you hear anything at noon?”

“Nothing but that there'll be inquiries through the newspapers, sir,”
 replied the policeman. “That's the surest way of finding something out.
And I did hear Inspector Mitchington say that they'd have to ask the
Duke if he knew anything about the poor man--I suppose he'd let fall
something about wanting to go over to Saxonsteade.”

Bryce went off in the direction of the Library thinking. The
newspapers?--yes, no better channel for spreading the news. If Mr. John
Braden had relations and friends, they would learn of his sad death
through the newspapers, and would come forward. And in that case--

“But it wouldn't surprise me,” mused Bryce, “if the name given at the
Mitre is an assumed name. I wonder if that theory of Archdale's is a
correct one?--however, there'll be more of that at the inquest tomorrow.
And in the meantime--let me find out something about the tomb of Richard
Jenkins, or Jenkinson--whoever he was.”

The famous Library of the Dean and Chapter of Wrychester was housed in
an ancient picturesque building in one corner of the Close, wherein, day
in and day out, amidst priceless volumes and manuscripts, huge folios
and weighty quartos, old prints, and relics of the mediaeval ages,
Ambrose Campany, the librarian, was pretty nearly always to be found,
ready to show his treasures to the visitors and tourists who came from
all parts of the world to see a collection well known to bibliophiles.
And Ambrose Campany, a cheery-faced, middle-aged man, with booklover and
antiquary written all over him, shockheaded, blue-spectacled, was there
now, talking to an old man whom Bryce knew as a neighbour of his
in Friary Lane--one Simpson Barker, a quiet, meditative old fellow,
believed to be a retired tradesman who spent his time in gentle
pottering about the city. Bryce, as he entered, caught what Campany was
just then saying.

“The most important thing I've heard about it,” said Campany, “is--that
book they found in the man's suit-case at the Mitre. I'm not a
detective--but there's a clue!”




CHAPTER VI. BY MISADVENTURE


Old Simpson Harker, who sat near the librarian's table, his hands
folded on the crook of his stout walking stick, glanced out of a pair
of unusually shrewd and bright eyes at Bryce as he crossed the room and
approached the pair of gossipers.

“I think the doctor was there when that book you're speaking of was
found,” he remarked. “So I understood from Mitchington.”

“Yes, I was there,” said Bryce, who was not unwilling to join in the
talk. He turned to Campany. “What makes you think there's a clue--in
that?” he asked.

“Why this,” answered the librarian. “Here's a man in possession of
an old history of Barthorpe. Barthorpe is a small market-town in the
Midlands--Leicestershire, I believe, of no particular importance that I
know of, but doubtless with a story of its own. Why should any one but a
Barthorpe man, past or present, be interested in that story so far as to
carry an old account of it with him? Therefore, I conclude this stranger
was a Barthorpe man. And it's at Barthorpe that I should make inquiries
about him.”

Simpson Harker made no remark, and Bryce remembered what Mr. Dellingham
had said when the book was found.

“Oh, I don't know!” he replied carelessly. “I don't see that
that follows. I saw the book--a curious old binding and queer old
copper-plates. The man may have picked it up for that reason--I've
bought old books myself for less.”

“All the same,” retorted Campany, “I should make inquiry at Barthorpe.
You've got to go on probabilities. The probabilities in this case are
that the man was interested in the book because it dealt with his own
town.”

Bryce turned away towards a wall on which hung a number of charts and
plans of Wrychester Cathedral and its precincts--it was to inspect one
of these that he had come to the Library. But suddenly remembering that
there was a question which he could ask without exciting any suspicion
or surmise, he faced round again on the librarian.

“Isn't there a register of burials within the Cathedral?” he inquired.
“Some book in which they're put down? I was looking in the Memorials of
Wrychester the other day, and I saw some names I want to trace.”

Campany lifted his quill pen and pointed to a case of big leather-bound
volumes in a far corner of the room.

“Third shelf from the bottom, doctor,” he replied. “You'll see two books
there--one's the register of all burials within the Cathedral itself
up to date: the other's the register of those in Paradise and the
cloisters. What names are you wanting to trace?”

But Bryce affected not to hear the last question; he walked over to
the place which Campany had indicated, and taking down the second book
carried it to an adjacent table. Campany called across the room to him.

“You'll find useful indexes at the end,” he said. “They're all brought
up to the present time--from four hundred years ago, nearly.”

Bryce turned to the index at the end of his book--an index written out
in various styles of handwriting. And within a minute he found the name
he wanted--there it was plainly before him--Richard Jenkins, died March
8th, 1715: buried, in Paradise, March 10th. He nearly laughed aloud
at the ease with which he was tracing out what at first had seemed a
difficult matter to investigate. But lest his task should seem too easy,
he continued to turn over the leaves of the big folio, and in order to
have an excuse if the librarian should ask him any further questions, he
memorized some of the names which he saw. And after a while he took the
book back to its shelf, and turned to the wall on which the charts and
maps were hung. There was one there of Paradise, whereon was marked the
site and names of all the tombs and graves in that ancient enclosure;
from it he hoped to ascertain the exact position and whereabouts of
Richard Jenkins's grave.

But here Bryce met his first check. Down each side of the old
chart--dated 1850--there was a tabulated list of the tombs in Paradise.
The names of families and persons were given in this list--against each
name was a number corresponding with the same number, marked on the
various divisions of the chart. And there was no Richard Jenkins on
that list--he went over it carefully twice, thrice. It was not there.
Obviously, if the tomb of Richard Jenkins, who was buried in Paradise in
1715, was still there, amongst the cypresses and yew trees, the name and
inscription on it had vanished, worn away by time and weather, when that
chart had been made, a hundred and thirty-five years later. And in that
case, what did the memorandum mean which Bryce had found in the dead
man's purse?

He turned away at last from the chart, at a loss--and Campany glanced at
him.

“Found what you wanted?” he asked.

“Oh, yes!” replied Bryce, primed with a ready answer. “I just wanted to
see where the Spelbanks were buried--quite a lot of them, I see.”

“Southeast corner of Paradise,” said Campany. “Several tombs. I could
have spared you the trouble of looking.”

“You're a regular encyclopaedia about the place,” laughed Bryce. “I
suppose you know every spout and gargoyle!”

“Ought to,” answered the librarian. “I've been fed on it, man and boy,
for five-and-forty years.”

Bryce made some fitting remark and went out and home to his rooms--there
to spend most of the ensuing evening in trying to puzzle out the various
mysteries of the day. He got no more light on them then, and he was
still exercising his brains on them when he went to the inquest next
morning--to find the Coroner's court packed to the doors with an
assemblage of townsfolk just as curious as he was. And as he sat
there, listening to the preliminaries, and to the evidence of the first
witnesses, his active and scheming mind figured to itself, not without
much cynical amusement, how a word or two from his lips would go far
to solve matters. He thought of what he might tell--if he told all the
truth. He thought of what he might get out of Ransford if he, Bryce,
were Coroner, or solicitor, and had Ransford in that witness-box.
He would ask him on his oath if he knew that dead man--if he had had
dealings with him in times past--if he had met and spoken to him on that
eventful morning--he would ask him, point-blank, if it was not his hand
that had thrown him to his death. But Bryce had no intention of making
any revelations just then--as for himself he was going to tell just as
much as he pleased and no more. And so he sat and heard--and knew from
what he heard that everybody there was in a hopeless fog, and that in
all that crowd there was but one man who had any real suspicion of the
truth, and that that man was himself.

The evidence given in the first stages of the inquiry was all known to
Bryce, and to most people in the court, already. Mr. Dellingham told
how he had met the dead man in the train, journeying from London to
Wrychester. Mrs. Partingley told how he had arrived at the Mitre,
registered in her book as Mr. John Braden, and had next morning asked if
he could get a conveyance for Saxonsteade in the afternoon, as he
wished to see the Duke. Mr. Folliot testified to having seen him in the
Cathedral, going towards one of the stairways leading to the gallery.
Varner--most important witness of all up to that point--told of what he
had seen. Bryce himself, followed by Ransford, gave medical evidence;
Mitchington told of his examination of the dead man's clothing and
effects in his room at the Mitre. And Mitchington added the first
information which was new to Bryce.

“In consequence of finding the book about Barthorpe in the suit-case,”
 said Mitchington, “we sent a long telegram yesterday to the police
there, telling them what had happened, and asking them to make the most
careful inquiries at once about any townsman of theirs of the name of
John Braden, and to wire us the result of such inquiries this morning.
This is their reply, received by us an hour ago. Nothing whatever is
known at Barthorpe--which is a very small town--of any person of that
name.”

So much for that, thought Bryce. He turned with more interest to the
next witness--the Duke of Saxonsteade, the great local magnate, a big,
bluff man who had been present in court since the beginning of the
proceedings, in which he was manifestly highly interested. It was
possible that he might be able to tell something of moment--he might,
after all, know something of this apparently mysterious stranger, who,
for anything that Mrs. Partingley or anybody else could say to the
contrary, might have had an appointment and business with him.

But his Grace knew nothing. He had never heard the name of John Braden
in his life--so far as he remembered. He had just seen the body of the
unfortunate man and had looked carefully at the features. He was not a
man of whom he had any knowledge whatever--he could not recollect ever
having seen him anywhere at any time. He knew literally nothing of
him--could not think of any reason at all why this Mr. John Braden
should wish to see him.

“Your Grace has, no doubt, had business dealings with a good many people
at one time or another,” suggested the Coroner. “Some of them, perhaps,
with men whom your Grace only saw for a brief space of time--a few
minutes, possibly. You don't remember ever seeing this man in that way?”

“I'm credited with having an unusually good memory for faces,” answered
the Duke. “And--if I may say so--rightly. But I don't remember this
man at all--in fact, I'd go as far as to say that I'm positive I've
never--knowingly--set eyes on him in my life.”

“Can your Grace suggest any reason at all why he should wish to call on
you?” asked the Coroner.

“None! But then,” replied the Duke, “there might be many
reasons--unknown to me, but at which I can make a guess. If he was an
antiquary, there are lots of old things at Saxonsteade which he might
wish to see. Or he might be a lover of pictures--our collection is a bit
famous, you know. Perhaps he was a bookman--we have some rare editions.
I could go on multiplying reasons--but to what purpose?”

“The fact is, your Grace doesn't know him and knows nothing about him,”
 observed the Coroner.

“Just so--nothing!” agreed the Duke and stepped down again.

It was at this stage that the Coroner sent the jurymen away in charge of
his officer to make a careful personal inspection of the gallery in the
clerestory. And while they were gone there was some commotion caused
in the court by the entrance of a police official who conducted to the
Coroner a middle-aged, well-dressed man whom Bryce at once set down as
a London commercial magnate of some quality. Between the new arrival
and the Coroner an interchange of remarks was at once made, shared in
presently by some of the officials at the table. And when the jury came
back the stranger was at once ushered into the witness-box, and the
Coroner turned to the jury and the court.

“We are unexpectedly able to get some evidence of identity, gentlemen,”
 he observed. “The gentleman who has just stepped into the witness-box
is Mr. Alexander Chilstone, manager of the London & Colonies Bank, in
Threadneedle Street. Mr. Chilstone saw particulars of this matter in the
newspapers this morning, and he at once set off to Wrychester to tell
us what he knows of the dead man. We are very much obliged to Mr.
Chilstone--and when he has been sworn he will perhaps kindly tell us
what he can.”

In the midst of the murmur of sensation which ran round the court, Bryce
indulged himself with a covert look at Ransford who was sitting opposite
to him, beyond the table in the centre of the room. He saw at once that
Ransford, however strenuously he might be fighting to keep his
face under control, was most certainly agitated by the Coroner's
announcement. His cheeks had paled, his eyes were a little dilated, his
lips parted as he stared at the bank-manager--altogether, it was more
than mere curiosity that was indicated on his features. And Bryce,
satisfied and secretly elated, turned to hear what Mr. Alexander
Chilstone had to tell.

That was not much--but it was of considerable importance. Only two
days before, said Mr. Chilstone--that was, on the day previous to his
death--Mr. John Braden had called at the London & Colonies Bank, of
which he, Mr. Chilstone, was manager, and introducing himself as having
just arrived in England from Australia, where, he said, he had been
living for some years, had asked to be allowed to open an account. He
produced some references from agents of the London & Colonies Bank, in
Melbourne, which were highly satisfactory; the account being opened, he
paid into it a sum of ten thousand pounds in a draft at sight drawn by
one of those agents. He drew nothing against this, remarking casually
that he had plenty of money in his pocket for the present: he did not
even take the cheque-book which was offered him, saying that he would
call for it later.

“He did not give us any address in London, nor in England,” continued
the witness. “He told me that he had only arrived at Charing Cross that
very morning, having travelled from Paris during the night. He said that
he should settle down for a time at some residential hotel in London,
and in the meantime he had one or two calls, or visits, to make in the
country: when he returned from them, he said, he would call on me again.
He gave me very little information about himself: it was not necessary,
for his references from our agents in Australia were quite satisfactory.
But he did mention that he had been out there for some years, and had
speculated in landed property--he also said that he was now going to
settle in England for good. That,” concluded Mr. Chilstone, “is all I
can tell of my own knowledge. But,” he added, drawing a newspaper from
his pocket, “here is an advertisement which I noticed in this morning's
Times as I came down. You will observe,” he said, as he passed it to
the Coroner, “that it has certainly been inserted by our unfortunate
customer.”

The Coroner glanced at a marked passage in the personal column of the
Times, and read it aloud:

“The advertisement is as follows,” he announced. “'If this meets the eye
of old friend Marco, he will learn that Sticker wishes to see him
again. Write J. Braden, c/o London & Colonies Bank, Threadneedle Street,
London.'”

Bryce was keeping a quiet eye on Ransford. Was he mistaken in believing
that he saw him start; that he saw his cheek flush as he heard the
advertisement read out? He believed he was not mistaken--but if he was
right, Ransford the next instant regained full control of himself and
made no sign. And Bryce turned again to Coroner and witness.

But the witness had no more to say--except to suggest that the bank's
Melbourne agents should be cabled to for information, since it was
unlikely that much more could be got in England. And with that the
middle stage of the proceedings ended--and the last one came, watched
by Bryce with increasing anxiety. For it was soon evident, from certain
remarks made by the Coroner, that the theory which Archdale had put
forward at the club in Bryce's hearing the previous day had gained
favour with the authorities, and that the visit of the jurymen to the
scene of the disaster had been intended by the Coroner to predispose
them in behalf of it. And now Archdale himself, as representing the
architects who held a retaining fee in connection with the Cathedral,
was called to give his opinion--and he gave it in almost the same words
which Bryce had heard him use twenty-four hours previously. After him
came the master-mason, expressing the same decided conviction--that the
real truth was that the pavement of the gallery had at that particular
place become so smooth, and was inclined towards the open doorway at
such a sharp angle, that the unfortunate man had lost his footing on it,
and before he could recover it had been shot out of the arch and over
the broken head of St. Wrytha's Stair. And though, at a juryman's wish,
Varner was recalled, and stuck stoutly to his original story of having
seen a hand which, he protested, was certainly not that of the dead
man, it soon became plain that the jury shared the Coroner's belief that
Varner in his fright and excitement had been mistaken, and no one was
surprised when the foreman, after a very brief consultation with his
fellows, announced a verdict of death by misadventure.

“So the city's cleared of the stain of murder!” said a man who sat next
to Bryce. “That's a good job, anyway! Nasty thing, doctor, to think of
a murder being committed in a cathedral. There'd be a question of
sacrilege, of course--and all sorts of complications.”

Bryce made no answer. He was watching Ransford, who was talking to the
Coroner. And he was not mistaken now--Ransford's face bore all the
signs of infinite relief. From--what? Bryce turned, to leave the stuffy,
rapidly-emptying court. And as he passed the centre table he saw old
Simpson Harker, who, after sitting in attentive silence for three hours
had come up to it, picked up the “History of Barthorpe” which had
been found in Braden's suit-case and was inquisitively peering at its
title-page.




CHAPTER VII. THE DOUBLE TRAIL


Pemberton Bryce was not the only person in Wrychester who was watching
Ransford with keen attention during these events. Mary Bewery, a young
woman of more than usual powers of observation and penetration, had been
quick to see that her guardian's distress over the affair in Paradise
was something out of the common. She knew Ransford for an exceedingly
tender-hearted man, with a considerable spice of sentiment in his
composition: he was noted for his more than professional interest in the
poorer sort of his patients and had gained a deserved reputation in the
town for his care of them. But it was somewhat surprising, even to Mary,
that he should be so much upset by the death of a total stranger as to
lose his appetite, and, for at any rate a couple of days, be so restless
that his conduct could not fail to be noticed by herself and her
brother. His remarks on the tragedy were conventional enough--a most
distressing affair--a sad fate for the poor fellow--most unexplainable
and mysterious, and so on--but his concern obviously went beyond that.
He was ill at ease when she questioned him about the facts; almost
irritable when Dick Bewery, schoolboy-like, asked him concerning
professional details; she was sure, from the lines about his eyes and a
worn look on his face, that he had passed a restless night when he came
down to breakfast on the morning of the inquest. But when he returned
from the inquest she noticed a change--it was evident, to her ready
wits, that Ransford had experienced a great relief. He spoke of relief,
indeed, that night at dinner, observing that the verdict which the jury
had returned had cleared the air of a foul suspicion; it would have
been no pleasant matter, he said, if Wrychester Cathedral had gained an
unenviable notoriety as the scene of a murder.

“All the same,” remarked Dick, who knew all the talk of the town,
“Varner persists in sticking to what he's said all along. Varner
says--said this afternoon, after the inquest was over--that he's
absolutely certain of what he saw, and that he not only saw a hand in
a white cuff and black coat sleeve, but that he saw the sun gleam for
a second on the links in the cuff, as if they were gold or diamonds.
Pretty stiff evidence that, sir, isn't it?”

“In the state of mind in which Varner was at that moment,” replied
Ransford, “he wouldn't be very well able to decide definitely on what he
really did see. His vision would retain confused images. Probably he saw
the dead man's hand--he was wearing a black coat and white linen. The
verdict was a most sensible one.”

No more was said after that, and that evening Ransford was almost
himself again. But not quite himself. Mary caught him looking very
grave, in evident abstraction, more than once; more than once she heard
him sigh heavily. But he said no more of the matter until two days
later, when, at breakfast, he announced his intention of attending John
Braden's funeral, which was to take place that morning.

“I've ordered the brougham for eleven,” he said, “and I've arranged with
Dr. Nicholson to attend to any urgent call that comes in between that
and noon--so, if there is any such call, you can telephone to him. A few
of us are going to attend this poor man's funeral--it would be too bad
to allow a stranger to go to his grave unattended, especially after
such a fate. There'll be somebody representing the Dean and Chapter,
and three or four principal townsmen, so he'll not be quite neglected.
And”--here he hesitated and looked a little nervously at Mary, to whom
he was telling all this, Dick having departed for school--“there's a
little matter I wish you'd attend to--you'll do it better than I should.
The man seems to have been friendless; here, at any rate--no relations
have come forward, in spite of the publicity--so--don't you think it
would be rather--considerate, eh?--to put a wreath, or a cross, or
something of that sort on his grave--just to show--you know?”

“Very kind of you to think of it,” said Mary. “What do you wish me to
do?”

“If you'd go to Gardales', the florists, and order--something fitting,
you know,” replied Ransford, “and afterwards--later in the day--take it
to St. Wigbert's Churchyard--he's to be buried there--take it--if you
don't mind--yourself, you know.”

“Certainly,” answered Mary. “I'll see that it's done.”

She would do anything that seemed good to Ransford--but all the same she
wondered at this somewhat unusual show of interest in a total stranger.
She put it down at last to Ransford's undoubted sentimentality--the
man's sad fate had impressed him. And that afternoon the sexton at St.
Wigbert's pointed out the new grave to Miss Bewery and Mr. Sackville
Bonham, one carrying a wreath and the other a large bunch of lilies.
Sackville, chancing to encounter Mary at the florist's, whither he had
repaired to execute a commission for his mother, had heard her business,
and had been so struck by the notion--or by a desire to ingratiate
himself with Miss Bewery--that he had immediately bought flowers
himself--to be put down to her account--and insisted on accompanying
Mary to the churchyard.

Bryce heard of this tribute to John Braden next day--from Mrs. Folliot,
Sackville Bonham's mother, a large lady who dominated certain circles
of Wrychester society in several senses. Mrs. Folliot was one of those
women who have been gifted by nature with capacity--she was conspicuous
in many ways. Her voice was masculine; she stood nearly six feet in her
stoutly-soled shoes; her breadth corresponded to her height; her eyes
were piercing, her nose Roman; there was not a curate in Wrychester
who was not under her thumb, and if the Dean himself saw her coming, he
turned hastily into the nearest shop, sweating with fear lest she should
follow him. Endued with riches and fortified by assurance, Mrs. Folliot
was the presiding spirit in many movements of charity and benevolence;
there were people in Wrychester who were unkind enough to say--behind
her back--that she was as meddlesome as she was most undoubtedly
autocratic, but, as one of her staunchest clerical defenders once
pointed out, these grumblers were what might be contemptuously dismissed
as five-shilling subscribers. Mrs. Folliot, in her way, was undoubtedly
a power--and for reasons of his own Pemberton Bryce, whenever he met
her--which was fairly often--was invariably suave and polite.

“Most mysterious thing, this, Dr. Bryce,” remarked Mrs. Folliot in her
deepest tones, encountering Bryce, the day after the funeral, at the
corner of a back street down which she was about to sail on one of her
charitable missions, to the terror of any of the women who happened to
be caught gossiping. “What, now, should make Dr. Ransford cause flowers
to be laid on the grave of a total stranger? A sentimental feeling?
Fiddle-de-dee! There must be some reason.”

“I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, Mrs. Folliot,”
 answered Bryce, whose ears had already lengthened. “Has Dr. Ransford
been laying flowers on a grave?--I didn't know of it. My engagement with
Dr. Ransford terminated two days ago--so I've seen nothing of him.”

“My son, Mr. Sackville Bonham,” said Mrs. Folliot, “tells me
that yesterday Miss Bewery came into Gardales' and spent a
sovereign--actually a sovereign!--on a wreath, which, she told
Sackville, she was about to carry, at her guardian's desire, to
this strange man's grave. Sackville, who is a warm-hearted boy, was
touched--he, too, bought flowers and accompanied Miss Bewery. Most
extraordinary! A perfect stranger! Dear me--why, nobody knows who the
man was!”

“Except his bank-manager,” remarked Bryce, “who says he's holding ten
thousand pounds of his.”

“That,” admitted Mrs. Folliot gravely, “is certainly a consideration.
But then, who knows?--the money may have been stolen. Now, really, did
you ever hear of a quite respectable man who hadn't even a visiting-card
or a letter upon him? And from Australia, too!--where all the people
that are wanted run away to! I have actually been tempted to wonder, Dr.
Bryce, if Dr. Ransford knew this man--in years gone by? He might have,
you know, he might have--certainly! And that, of course, would explain
the flowers.”

“There is a great deal in the matter that requires explanation, Mrs.
Folliot,” said Bryce. He was wondering if it would be wise to instil
some minute drop of poison into the lady's mind, there to increase in
potency and in due course to spread. “I--of course, I may have been
mistaken--I certainly thought Dr. Ransford seemed unusually agitated by
this affair--it appeared to upset him greatly.”

“So I have heard--from others who were at the inquest,” responded Mrs.
Folliot. “In my opinion our Coroner--a worthy man otherwise--is not
sufficiently particular. I said to Mr. Folliot this morning, on reading
the newspaper, that in my view that inquest should have been adjourned
for further particulars. Now I know of one particular that was never
mentioned at the inquest!”

“Oh?” said Bryce. “And what?”

“Mrs. Deramore, who lives, as you know, next to Dr. Ransford,” replied
Mrs. Folliot, “told me this morning that on the morning of the accident,
happening to look out of one of her upper windows, she saw a man whom,
from the description given in the newspapers, was, Mrs. Deramore feels
assured, was the mysterious stranger, crossing the Close towards the
Cathedral in, Mrs. Deramore is positive, a dead straight line from
Dr. Ransford's garden--as if he had been there. Dr. Bryce!--a direct
question should have been asked of Dr. Ransford--had he ever seen that
man before?”

“Ah, but you see, Mrs. Folliot, the Coroner didn't know what Mrs.
Deramore saw, so he couldn't ask such a question, nor could any one
else,” remarked Bryce, who was wondering how long Mrs. Deramore remained
at her upper window and if she saw him follow Braden. “But there are
circumstances, no doubt, which ought to be inquired into. And it's
certainly very curious that Dr. Ransford should send a wreath to the
grave of--a stranger.”

He went away convinced that Mrs. Folliot's inquisitiveness had been
aroused, and that her tongue would not be idle: Mrs. Folliot, left to
herself, had the gift of creating an atmosphere, and if she once got
it into her head that there was some mysterious connection between Dr.
Ransford and the dead man, she would never rest until she had spread her
suspicions. But as for Bryce himself, he wanted more than suspicions--he
wanted facts, particulars, data. And once more he began to go over the
sum of evidence which had accrued.

The question of the scrap of paper found in Braden's purse, and of the
exact whereabouts of Richard Jenkins's grave in Paradise, he left
for the time being. What was now interesting him chiefly was the
advertisement in the Times to which the bank-manager from London had
drawn attention. He had made haste to buy a copy of the Times and to
cut out the advertisement. There it was--old friend Marco was wanted by
(presumably old friend) Sticker, and whoever Sticker might be he could
certainly be found under care of J. Braden. It had never been in doubt
a moment, in Bryce's mind, that Sticker was J. Braden himself. Who, now,
was Marco? Who--a million to one on it!--but Ransford, whose Christian
name was Mark?

He reckoned up his chances of getting at the truth of the affair anew
that night. As things were, it seemed unlikely that any relations of
Braden would now turn up. The Wrychester Paradise case, as the reporters
had aptly named it, had figured largely in the newspapers, London and
provincial; it could scarcely have had more publicity--yet no one, save
this bank-manager, had come forward. If there had been any one to
come forward the bank-manager's evidence would surely have proved an
incentive to speed--for there was a sum of ten thousand pounds awaiting
John Braden's next-of-kin. In Bryce's opinion the chance of putting in
a claim to ten thousand pounds is not left waiting forty-eight
hours--whoever saw such a chance would make instant use of telegraph or
telephone. But no message from anybody professing relationship with the
dead man had so far reached the Wrychester police.

When everything had been taken into account, Bryce saw no better clue
for the moment than that suggested by Ambrose Campany--Barthorpe.
Ambrose Campany, bookworm though he was, was a shrewd, sharp fellow,
said Bryce--a man of ideas. There was certainly much in his suggestion
that a man wasn't likely to buy an old book about a little insignificant
town like Barthorpe unless he had some interest in it--Barthorpe, if
Campany's theory were true, was probably the place of John Braden's
origin.

Therefore, information about Braden, leading to knowledge of his
association or connection with Ransford, might be found at Barthorpe.
True, the Barthorpe police had already reported that they could tell
nothing about any Braden, but that, in Bryce's opinion, was neither
here nor there--he had already come to the conclusion that Braden was an
assumed name. And if he went to Barthorpe, he was not going to trouble
the police--he knew better methods than that of finding things out. Was
he going?--was it worth his while? A moment's reflection decided that
matter--anything was worth his while which would help him to get a
strong hold on Mark Ransford. And always practical in his doings, he
walked round to the Free Library, obtained a gazeteer, and looked up
particulars of Barthorpe. There he learnt that Barthorpe was an ancient
market-town of two thousand inhabitants in the north of Leicestershire,
famous for nothing except that it had been the scene of a battle at
the time of the Wars of the Roses, and that its trade was mainly in
agriculture and stocking-making--evidently a slow, sleepy old place.

That night Bryce packed a hand-bag with small necessaries for a few
days' excursion, and next morning he took an early train to London; the
end of that afternoon found him in a Midland northern-bound express,
looking out on the undulating, green acres of Leicestershire. And while
his train was making a three minutes' stop at Leicester itself, the
purpose of his journey was suddenly recalled to him by hearing the
strident voices of the porters on the platform.

“Barthorpe next stop!--next stop Barthorpe!”

One of two other men who shared a smoking compartment with Bryce turned
to his companion as the train moved off again.

“Barthorpe?” he remarked. “That's the place that was mentioned in
connection with that very queer affair at Wrychester, that's been
reported in the papers so much these last few days. The mysterious
stranger who kept ten thousand in a London bank, and of whom nobody
seems to know anything, had nothing on him but a history of Barthorpe.
Odd! And yet, though you'd think he'd some connection with the place, or
had known it, they say nobody at Barthorpe knows anything about anybody
of his name.”

“Well, I don't know that there is anything so very odd about it, after
all,” replied the other man. “He may have picked up that old book for
one of many reasons that could be suggested. No--I read all that case
in the papers, and I wasn't so much impressed by the old book feature
of it. But I'll tell you what--there was a thing struck me. I know this
Barthorpe district--we shall be in it in a few minutes--I've been a good
deal over it. This strange man's name was given in the papers as John
Braden. Now close to Barthorpe--a mile or two outside it, there's a
village of that name--Braden Medworth. That's a curious coincidence--and
taken in conjunction with the man's possession of an old book about
Barthorpe--why, perhaps there's something in it--possibly more than I
thought for at first.”

“Well--it's an odd case--a very odd case,” said the first speaker.
“And--as there's ten thousand pounds in question, more will be heard of
it. Somebody'll be after that, you may be sure!”

Bryce left the train at Barthorpe thanking his good luck--the man in
the far corner had unwittingly given him a hint. He would pay a visit to
Braden Medworth--the coincidence was too striking to be neglected. But
first Barthorpe itself--a quaint old-world little market-town, in
which some of even the principal houses still wore roofs of thatch, and
wherein the old custom of ringing the curfew bell was kept up. He found
an old-fashioned hotel in the marketplace, under the shadow of the
parish church, and in its oak-panelled dining-room, hung about with
portraits of masters of foxhounds and queer old prints of sporting and
coaching days, he dined comfortably and well.

It was too late to attempt any investigations that evening, and
when Bryce had finished his leisurely dinner he strolled into the
smoking-room--an even older and quainter apartment than that which
he had just left. It was one of those rooms only found in very old
houses--a room of nooks and corners, with a great open fireplace, and
old furniture and old pictures and curiosities--the sort of place to
which the old-fashioned tradesmen of the small provincial towns still
resort of an evening rather than patronize the modern political clubs.
There were several men of this sort in the room when Bryce entered,
talking local politics amongst themselves, and he found a quiet corner
and sat down in it to smoke, promising himself some amusement from the
conversation around him; it was his way to find interest and amusement
in anything that offered. But he had scarcely settled down in a
comfortably cushioned elbow chair when the door opened again and into
the room walked old Simpson Harker.




CHAPTER VIII. THE BEST MAN


Old Harker's shrewd eyes, travelling round the room as if to inspect the
company in which he found himself, fell almost immediately on Bryce--but
not before Bryce had had time to assume an air and look of innocent
and genuine surprise. Harker affected no surprise at all--he looked the
astonishment he felt as the younger man rose and motioned him to the
comfortable easy-chair which he himself had just previously taken.

“Dear me!” he exclaimed, nodding his thanks. “I'd no idea that I should
meet you in these far-off parts, Dr. Bryce! This is a long way from
Wrychester, sir, for Wrychester folk to meet in.”

“I'd no idea of meeting you, Mr. Harker,” responded Bryce. “But it's
a small world, you know, and there are a good many coincidences in it.
There's nothing very wonderful in my presence here, though--I ran down
to see after a country practice--I've left Dr. Ransford.”

He had the lie ready as soon as he set eyes on Harker, and whether
the old man believed it or not, he showed no sign of either belief or
disbelief. He took the chair which Bryce drew forward and pulled out an
old-fashioned cigar-case, offering it to his companion.

“Will you try one, doctor?” he asked. “Genuine stuff that, sir--I've a
friend in Cuba who remembers me now and then. No,” he went on, as Bryce
thanked him and took a cigar, “I didn't know you'd finished with the
doctor. Quietish place this to practise in, I should think--much quieter
even than our sleepy old city.”

“You know it?” inquired Bryce.

“I've a friend lives here--old friend of mine,” answered Harker. “I come
down to see him now and then--I've been here since yesterday. He does a
bit of business for me. Stopping long, doctor?”

“Only just to look round,” answered Bryce.

“I'm off tomorrow morning--eleven o'clock,” said Harker. “It's a longish
journey to Wrychester--for old bones like mine.”

“Oh, you're all right!--worth half a dozen younger men,” responded
Bryce. “You'll see a lot of your contemporaries out, Mr. Harker.
Well--as you've treated me to a very fine cigar, now you'll let me treat
you to a drop of whisky?--they generally have something of pretty good
quality in these old-fashioned establishments, I believe.”

The two travellers sat talking until bedtime--but neither made any
mention of the affair which had recently set all Wrychester agog with
excitement. But Bryce was wondering all the time if his companion's
story of having a friend at Barthorpe was no more than an excuse, and
when he was alone in his own bedroom and reflecting more seriously he
came to the conclusion that old Harker was up to some game of his own in
connection with the Paradise mystery.

“The old chap was in the Library when Ambrose Campany said that there
was a clue in that Barthorpe history,” he mused. “I saw him myself
examining the book after the inquest. No, no, Mr. Harker!--the facts
are too plain--the evidences too obvious. And yet--what interest has a
retired old tradesman of Wrychester got in this affair? I'd give a good
deal to know what Harker really is doing here--and who his Barthorpe
friend is.”

If Bryce had risen earlier next morning, and had taken the trouble to
track old Harker's movements, he would have learnt something that would
have made him still more suspicious. But Bryce, seeing no reason for
hurry, lay in bed till well past nine o'clock, and did not present
himself in the coffee-room until nearly half-past ten. And at that
hour Simpson Harker, who had breakfasted before nine, was in close
consultation with his friend--that friend being none other than the
local superintendent of police, who was confidentially closeted with the
old man in his private house, whither Harker, by previous arrangement,
had repaired as soon as his breakfast was over. Had Bryce been able to
see through walls or hear through windows, he would have been surprised
to find that the Harker of this consultation was not the quiet,
easy-going, gossipy old gentleman of Wrychester, but an eminently
practical and business-like man of affairs.

“And now as regards this young fellow who's staying across there at the
Peacock,” he was saying in conclusion, at the very time that Bryce was
leisurely munching his second mutton chop in the Peacock coffee-room,
“he's after something or other--his talk about coming here to see after
a practice is all lies!--and you'll keep an eye on him while he's
in your neighbourhood. Put your best plainclothes man on to him at
once--he'll easily know him from the description I gave you--and let him
shadow him wherever he goes. And then let me know of his movement--he's
certainly on the track of something, and what he does may be useful
to me--I can link it up with my own work. And as regards the other
matter--keep me informed if you come on anything further. Now I'll go
out by your garden and down the back of the town to the station. Let me
know, by the by, when this young man at the Peacock leaves here, and, if
possible--and you can find out--for where.”

Bryce was all unconscious that any one was interested in his movements
when he strolled out into Barthorpe market-place just after eleven.
He had asked a casual question of the waiter and found that the old
gentleman had departed--he accordingly believed himself free from
observation. And forthwith he set about his work of inquiry in his own
fashion. He was not going to draw any attention to himself by asking
questions of present-day inhabitants, whose curiosity might then be
aroused; he knew better methods than that. Every town, said Bryce to
himself, possesses public records--parish registers, burgess rolls,
lists of voters; even small towns have directories which are more
or less complete--he could search these for any mention or record of
anybody or any family of the name of Braden. And he spent all that day
in that search, inspecting numerous documents and registers and books,
and when evening came he had a very complete acquaintance with the
family nomenclature of Barthorpe, and he was prepared to bet odds
against any one of the name of Braden having lived there during the past
half-century. In all his searching he had not once come across the name.

The man who had spent a very lazy day in keeping an eye on Bryce, as he
visited the various public places whereat he made his researches, was
also keeping an eye upon him next morning, when Bryce, breakfasting
earlier than usual, prepared for a second day's labours. He followed
his quarry away from the little town: Bryce was walking out to Braden
Medworth. In Bryce's opinion, it was something of a wild-goose chase to
go there, but the similarity in the name of the village and of the dead
man at Wrychester might have its significance, and it was but a two
miles' stroll from Barthorpe. He found Braden Medworth a very small,
quiet, and picturesque place, with an old church on the banks of a river
which promised good sport to anglers. And there he pursued his tactics
of the day before and went straight to the vicarage and its vicar, with
a request to be allowed to inspect the parish registers. The vicar,
having no objection to earning the resultant fees, hastened to comply
with Bryce's request, and inquired how far back he wanted to search and
for what particular entry.

“No particular entry,” answered Bryce, “and as to period--fairly recent.
The fact is, I am interested in names. I am thinking”--here he used
one more of his easily found inventions--“of writing a book on English
surnames, and am just now inspecting parish registers in the Midlands
for that purpose.”

“Then I can considerably simplify your labours,” said the vicar, taking
down a book from one of his shelves. “Our parish registers have been
copied and printed, and here is the volume--everything is in there from
1570 to ten years ago, and there is a very full index. Are you staying
in the neighbourhood--or the village?”

“In the neighbourhood, yes; in the village, no longer than the time I
shall spend in getting some lunch at the inn yonder,” answered Bryce,
nodding through an open window at an ancient tavern which stood in the
valley beneath, close to an old stone bridge. “Perhaps you will kindly
lend me this book for an hour?--then, if I see anything very noteworthy
in the index, I can look at the actual registers when I bring it back.”

The vicar replied that that was precisely what he had been about to
suggest, and Bryce carried the book away. And while he sat in the inn
parlour awaiting his lunch, he turned to the carefully-compiled index,
glancing it through rapidly. On the third page he saw the name Bewery.

If the man who had followed Bryce from Barthorpe to Braden Medworth had
been with him in the quiet inn parlour he would have seen his quarry
start, and heard him let a stifled exclamation escape his lips. But the
follower, knowing his man was safe for an hour, was in the bar outside
eating bread and cheese and drinking ale, and Bryce's surprise was
witnessed by no one. Yet he had been so much surprised that if all
Wrychester had been there he could not, despite his self-training in
watchfulness, have kept back either start or exclamation.

Bewery! A name so uncommon that here--here, in this out-of-the-way
Midland village!--there must be some connection with the object of his
search. There the name stood out before him, to the exclusion of all
others--Bewery--with just one entry of figures against it. He turned to
page 387 with a sense of sure discovery.

And there an entry caught his eye at once--and he knew that he had
discovered more than he had ever hoped for. He read it again and again,
gloating over his wonderful luck.

June 19th, 1891. John Brake, bachelor, of the parish of St. Pancras,
London, to Mary Bewery, spinster, of this parish, by the Vicar.
Witnesses, Charles Claybourne, Selina Womersley, Mark Ransford.

Twenty-two years ago! The Mary Bewery whom Bryce knew in Wrychester was
just about twenty--this Mary Bewery, spinster, of Braden Medworth, was,
then, in all probability, her mother. But John Brake who married that
Mary Bewery--who was he? Who indeed, laughed Bryce, but John Braden,
who had just come by his death in Wrychester Paradise? And there was the
name of Mark Ransford as witness. What was the further probability? That
Mark Ransford had been John Brake's best man; that he was the Marco
of the recent Times advertisement; that John Braden, or Brake, was the
Sticker of the same advertisement. Clear!--clear as noonday! And--what
did it all mean, and imply, and what bearing had it on Braden or Brake's
death?

Before he ate his cold beef, Bryce had copied the entry from the
reprinted register, and had satisfied himself that Ransford was not a
name known to that village--Mark Ransford was the only person of the
name mentioned in the register. And his lunch done, he set off for the
vicarage again, intent on getting further information, and before he
reached the vicarage gates noticed, by accident, a place whereat he was
more likely to get it than from the vicar--who was a youngish man. At
the end of the few houses between the inn and the bridge he saw a little
shop with the name Charles Claybourne painted roughly above its open
window. In that open window sat an old, cheery-faced man, mending shoes,
who blinked at the stranger through his big spectacles.

Bryce saw his chance and turned in--to open the book and point out the
marriage entry.

“Are you the Charles Claybourne mentioned there?” he asked, without
ceremony.

“That's me, sir!” replied the old shoemaker briskly, after a glance.
“Yes--right enough!”

“How came you to witness that marriage?” inquired Bryce.

The old man nodded at the church across the way.

“I've been sexton and parish clerk two-and-thirty years, sir,” he said.
“And I took it on from my father--and he had the job from his father.”

“Do you remember this marriage?” asked Bryce, perching himself on the
bench at which the shoemaker was working. “Twenty-two years since, I
see.”

“Aye, as if it was yesterday!” answered the old man with a smile. “Miss
Bewery's marriage?--why, of course!”

“Who was she?” demanded Bryce.

“Governess at the vicarage,” replied Claybourne. “Nice, sweet young
lady.”

“And the man she married?--Mr. Brake,” continued Bryce. “Who was he?”

“A young gentleman that used to come here for the fishing, now and
then,” answered Claybourne, pointing at the river. “Famous for our trout
we are here, you know, sir. And Brake had come here for three years
before they were married--him and his friend Mr. Ransford.”

“You remember him, too?” asked Bryce.

“Remember both of 'em very well indeed,” said Claybourne, “though I
never set eyes on either after Miss Mary was wed to Mr. Brake. But I
saw plenty of 'em both before that. They used to put up at the inn
there--that I saw you come out of just now. They came two or three times
a year--and they were a bit thick with our parson of that time--not this
one: his predecessor--and they used to go up to the vicarage and smoke
their pipes and cigars with him--and of course, Mr. Brake and the
governess fixed it up. Though, you know, at one time it was considered
it was going to be her and the other young gentleman, Mr. Ransford--yes!
But, in the end, it was Brake--and Ransford stood best man for him.”

Bruce assimilated all this information greedily--and asked for more.

“I'm interested in that entry,” he said, tapping the open book. “I know
some people of the name of Bewery--they may be relatives.”

The shoemaker shook his head as if doubtful.

“I remember hearing it said,” he remarked, “that Miss Mary had no
relations. She'd been with the old vicar some time, and I don't remember
any relations ever coming to see her, nor her going away to see any.”

“Do you know what Brake was?” asked Bryce. “As you say he came here for
a good many times before the marriage, I suppose you'd hear something
about his profession, or trade, or whatever it was?”

“He was a banker, that one,” replied Claybourne. “A banker--that was
his trade, sir. T'other gentleman, Mr. Ransford, he was a doctor--I mind
that well enough, because once when him and Mr. Brake were fishing here,
Thomas Joynt's wife fell downstairs and broke her leg, and they fetched
him to her--he'd got it set before they'd got the reg'lar doctor out
from Barthorpe yonder.”

Bryce had now got all the information he wanted, and he made the old
parish clerk a small present and turned to go. But another question
presented itself to his mind and he reentered the little shop.

“Your late vicar?” he said. “The one in whose family Miss Bewery was
governess--where is he now? Dead?”

“Can't say whether he's dead or alive, sir,” replied Claybourne.
“He left this parish for another--a living in a different part of
England--some years since, and I haven't heard much of him from that
time to this--he never came back here once, not even to pay us a
friendly visit--he was a queerish sort. But I'll tell you what, sir,”
 he added, evidently anxious to give his visitor good value for his
half-crown, “our present vicar has one of those books with the names
of all the clergymen in 'em, and he'd tell you where his predecessor is
now, if he's alive--name of Reverend Thomas Gilwaters, M.A.--an Oxford
college man he was, and very high learned.”

Bryce went back to the vicarage, returned the borrowed book, and asked
to look at the registers for the year 1891. He verified his copy and
turned to the vicar.

“I accidentally came across the record of a marriage there in which I'm
interested,” he said as he paid the search fees. “Celebrated by your
predecessor, Mr. Gilwaters. I should be glad to know where Mr. Gilwaters
is to be found. Do you happen to possess a clerical directory?”

The vicar produced a “Crockford”, and Bryce turned over its pages. Mr.
Gilwaters, who from the account there given appeared to be an elderly
man who had now retired, lived in London, in Bayswater, and Bryce made a
note of his address and prepared to depart.

“Find any names that interested you?” asked the vicar as his caller
left. “Anything noteworthy?”

“I found two or three names which interested me immensely,” answered
Bryce from the foot of the vicarage steps. “They were well worth
searching for.”

And without further explanation he marched off to Barthorpe duly
followed by his shadow, who saw him safely into the Peacock an hour
later--and, an hour after that, went to the police superintendent with
his report.

“Gone, sir,” he said. “Left by the five-thirty express for London.”




CHAPTER IX. THE HOUSE OF HIS FRIEND


Bryce found himself at eleven o'clock next morning in a small book-lined
parlour in a little house which stood in a quiet street in the
neighbourhood of Westbourne Grove. Over the mantelpiece, amongst other
odds and ends of pictures and photographs, hung a water-colour drawing
of Braden Medworth--and to him presently entered an old, silver-haired
clergyman whom he at once took to be Braden Medworth's former vicar,
and who glanced inquisitively at his visitor and then at the card which
Bryce had sent in with a request for an interview.

“Dr. Bryce?” he said inquiringly. “Dr. Pemberton Bryce?”

Bryce made his best bow and assumed his suavest and most ingratiating
manner.

“I hope I am not intruding on your time, Mr. Gilwaters?” he said. “The
fact is, I was referred to you, yesterday, by the present vicar of
Braden Medworth--both he, and the sexton there, Claybourne, whom you, of
course, remember, thought you would be able to give me some information
on a subject which is of great importance--to me.”

“I don't know the present vicar,” remarked Mr. Gilwaters, motioning
Bryce to a chair, and taking another close by. “Clayborne, of course,
I remember very well indeed--he must be getting an old man now--like
myself! What is it you want to know, now?”

“I shall have to take you into my confidence,” replied Bryce, who had
carefully laid his plans and prepared his story, “and you, I am sure,
Mr. Gilwaters, will respect mine. I have for two years been in practice
at Wrychester, and have there made the acquaintance of a young lady whom
I earnestly desire to marry. She is the ward of the man to whom I have
been assistant. And I think you will begin to see why I have come to you
when I say that this young lady's name is--Mary Bewery.”

The old clergyman started, and looked at his visitor with unusual
interest. He grasped the arm of his elbow chair and leaned forward.

“Mary Bewery!” he said in a low whisper. “What--what is the name of the
man who is her--guardian?”

“Dr. Mark Ransford,” answered Bryce promptly.

The old man sat upright again, with a little toss of his head.

“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “Mark Ransford! Then--it must have been
as I feared--and suspected!”

Bryce made no remark. He knew at once that he had struck on something,
and it was his method to let people take their own time. Mr. Gilwaters
had already fallen into something closely resembling a reverie: Bryce
sat silently waiting and expectant. And at last the old man leaned
forward again, almost eagerly.

“What is it you want to know?” he asked, repeating his first question.
“Is--is there some--some mystery?”

“Yes!” replied Bryce. “A mystery that I want to solve, sir. And I dare
say that you can help me, if you'll be so good. I am convinced--in fact,
I know!--that this young lady is in ignorance of her parentage, that
Ransford is keeping some fact, some truth back from her--and I want to
find things out. By the merest chance--accident, in fact--I discovered
yesterday at Braden Medworth that some twenty-two years ago you married
one Mary Bewery, who, I learnt there, was your governess, to a John
Brake, and that Mark Ransford was John Brake's best man and a witness
of the marriage. Now, Mr. Gilwaters, the similarity in names is too
striking to be devoid of significance. So--it's of the utmost importance
to me!--can or will you tell me--who was the Mary Bewery you married to
John Brake? Who was John Brake? And what was Mark Ransford to either, or
to both?”

He was wondering, all the time during which he reeled off these
questions, if Mr. Gilwaters was wholly ignorant of the recent affair
at Wrychester. He might be--a glance round his book-filled room had
suggested to Bryce that he was much more likely to be a bookworm than a
newspaper reader, and it was quite possible that the events of the day
had small interest for him. And his first words in reply to Bryce's
questions convinced Bryce that his surmise was correct and that the
old man had read nothing of the Wrychester Paradise mystery, in which
Ransford's name had, of course, figured as a witness at the inquest.

“It is nearly twenty years since I heard any of their names,” remarked
Mr. Gilwaters. “Nearly twenty years--a long time! But, of course, I can
answer you. Mary Bewery was our governess at Braden Medworth. She came
to us when she was nineteen--she was married four years later. She was a
girl who had no friends or relatives--she had been educated at a school
in the North--I engaged her from that school, where, I understood, she
had lived since infancy. Now then, as to Brake and Ransford. They were
two young men from London, who used to come fishing in Leicestershire.
Ransford was a few years the younger--he was either a medical student in
his last year, or he was an assistant somewhere in London. Brake--was a
bank manager in London--of a branch of one of the big banks. They
were pleasant young fellows, and I used to ask them to the vicarage.
Eventually, Mary Bewery and John Brake became engaged to be married. My
wife and I were a good deal surprised--we had believed, somehow, that
the favoured man would be Ransford. However, it was Brake--and Brake she
married, and, as you say, Ransford was best man. Of course, Brake took
his wife off to London--and from the day of her wedding, I never saw her
again.”

“Did you ever see Brake again?” asked Bryce. The old clergyman shook his
head.

“Yes!” he said sadly. “I did see Brake again--under grievous, grievous
circumstances!”

“You won't mind telling me what circumstances?” suggested Bryce. “I will
keep your confidence, Mr. Gilwaters.”

“There is really no secret in it--if it comes to that,” answered the old
man. “I saw John Brake again just once. In a prison cell!”

“A prison cell!” exclaimed Bryce. “And he--a prisoner?”

“He had just been sentenced to ten years' penal servitude,” replied Mr.
Gilwaters. “I had heard the sentence--I was present. I got leave to see
him. Ten years' penal servitude!--a terrible punishment. He must have
been released long ago--but I never heard more.”

Bryce reflected in silence for a moment--reckoning and calculating.

“When was this--the trial?” he asked.

“It was five years after the marriage--seventeen years ago,” replied Mr.
Gilwaters.

“And--what had he been doing?” inquired Bryce.

“Stealing the bank's money,” answered the old man. “I forget what the
technical offence was--embezzlement, or something of that sort. There
was not much evidence came out, for it was impossible to offer any
defence, and he pleaded guilty. But I gathered from what I heard that
something of this sort occurred. Brake was a branch manager. He was, as
it were, pounced upon one morning by an inspector, who found that his
cash was short by two or three thousand pounds. The bank people seemed
to have been unusually strict and even severe--Brake, it was said, had
some explanation, but it was swept aside and he was given in charge. And
the sentence was as I said just now--a very savage one, I thought.
But there had recently been some bad cases of that sort in the banking
world, and I suppose the judge felt that he must make an example. Yes--a
most trying affair!--I have a report of the case somewhere, which I cut
out of a London newspaper at the time.”

Mr. Gilwaters rose and turned to an old desk in the corner of his
room, and after some rummaging of papers in a drawer, produced a
newspaper-cutting book and traced an insertion in its pages. He handed
the book to his visitor.

“There is the account,” he said. “You can read it for yourself. You will
notice that in what Brake's counsel said on his behalf there are one or
two curious and mysterious hints as to what might have been said if it
had been of any use or advantage to say it. A strange case!”

Bryce turned eagerly to the faded scrap of newspaper.


              BANK MANAGER'S DEFALCATION.

  At the Central Criminal Court yesterday, John Brake,
  thirty-three, formerly manager of the Upper Tooting
  branch of the London & Home Counties Bank, Ltd.,
  pleaded guilty to embezzling certain sums, the
  property of his employers.

  Mr. Walkinshaw, Q.C., addressing the court on behalf
  of the prisoner, said that while it was impossible
  for his client to offer any defence, there were
  circumstances in the case which, if it had been worth
  while to put them in evidence, would have shown that
  the prisoner was a wronged and deceived man.  To use
  a Scriptural phrase, Brake had been wounded in the
  house of his friend.  The man who was really guilty
  in this affair had cleverly escaped all consequences,
  nor would it be of the least use to enter into any
  details respecting him.  Not one penny of the money
  in question had been used by the prisoner for his own
  purposes.  It was doubtless a wrong and improper thing
  that his client had done, and he had pleaded guilty and
  would submit to the consequences.  But if everything in
  connection with the case could have been told, if it
  would have served any useful purpose to tell it, it
  would have been seen that what the prisoner really was
  guilty of was a foolish and serious error of judgment.
  He himself, concluded the learned counsel, would go so
  far as to say that, knowing what he did, knowing what
  had been told him by his client in strict confidence,
  the prisoner, though technically guilty, was morally
  innocent.

  His Lordship, merely remarking that no excuse of any
  sort could be offered in a case of this sort, sentenced
  the prisoner to ten years' penal servitude.

Bryce read this over twice before handing back the book.

“Very strange and mysterious, Mr. Gilwaters,” he remarked. “You say that
you saw Brake after the case was over. Did you learn anything?”

“Nothing whatever!” answered the old clergyman. “I got permission to see
him before he was taken away. He did not seem particularly pleased or
disposed to see me. I begged him to tell me what the real truth was. He
was, I think, somewhat dazed by the sentence--but he was also sullen
and morose. I asked him where his wife and two children--one, a mere
infant--were. For I had already been to his private address and
had found that Mrs. Brake had sold all the furniture and
disappeared--completely. No one--thereabouts, at any rate--knew where
she was, or would tell me anything. On my asking this, he refused to
answer. I pressed him--he said finally that he was only speaking the
truth when he replied that he did not know where his wife was. I said I
must find her. He forbade me to make any attempt. Then I begged him
to tell me if she was with friends. I remember very well what he
replied.--'I'm not going to say one word more to any man living,
Mr. Gilwaters,' he answered determinedly. 'I shall be dead to the
world--only because I've been a trusting fool!--for ten years or
thereabouts, but, when I come back to it, I'll let the world see what
revenge means! Go away!' he concluded. 'I won't say one word more.'
And--I left him.”

“And--you made no more inquiries?--about the wife?” asked Bryce.

“I did what I could,” replied Mr. Gilwaters. “I made some inquiry in
the neighbourhood in which they had lived. All I could discover was
that Mrs. Brake had disappeared under extraordinarily mysterious
circumstances. There was no trace whatever of her. And I speedily found
that things were being said--the usual cruel suspicions, you know.”

“Such as--what?” asked Bryce.

“That the amount of the defalcations was much larger than had been
allowed to appear,” replied Mr. Gilwaters. “That Brake was a very clever
rogue who had got the money safely planted somewhere abroad, and that
his wife had gone off somewhere--Australia, or Canada, or some other
far-off region--to await his release. Of course, I didn't believe
one word of all that. But there was the fact--she had vanished! And
eventually, I thought of Ransford, as having been Brake's great friend,
so I tried to find him. And then I found that he, too, who up to
that time had been practising in a London suburb--Streatham--had also
disappeared. Just after Brake's arrest, Ransford had suddenly sold his
practice and gone--no one knew where, but it was believed--abroad. I
couldn't trace him, anyway. And soon after that I had a long illness,
and for two or three years was an invalid, and--well, the thing was over
and done with, and, as I said just now, I have never heard anything of
any of them for all these years. And now!--now you tell me that there
is a Mary Bewery who is a ward of a Dr. Mark Ransford at--where did you
say?”

“At Wrychester,” answered Bryce. “She is a young woman of twenty, and
she has a brother, Richard, who is between seventeen and eighteen.”

“Without a doubt those are Brake's children!” exclaimed the old man.
“The infant I spoke of was a boy. Bless me!--how extraordinary. How long
have they been at Wrychester?”

“Ransford has been in practice there some years--a few years,” replied
Bryce. “These two young people joined him there definitely two years
ago. But from what I have learnt, he has acted as their guardian ever
since they were mere children.”

“And--their mother?” asked Mr. Gilwaters.

“Said to be dead--long since,” answered Bryce. “And their father,
too. They know nothing. Ransford won't tell them anything. But, as you
say--I've no doubt of it myself now--they must be the children of John
Brake.”

“And have taken the name of their mother!” remarked the old man.

“Had it given to them,” said Bryce. “They don't know that it isn't
their real name. Of course, Ransford has given it to them! But now--the
mother?”

“Ah, yes, the mother!” said Mr. Gilwaters. “Our old governess! Dear me!”

“I'm going to put a question to you,” continued Bryce, leaning nearer
and speaking in a low, confidential tone. “You must have seen much of
the world, Mr. Gilwaters--men of your profession know the world, and
human nature, too. Call to mind all the mysterious circumstances, the
veiled hints, of that trial. Do you think--have you ever thought--that
the false friend whom the counsel referred to was--Ransford? Come, now!”

The old clergyman lifted his hands and let them fall on his knees.

“I do not know what to say!” he exclaimed. “To tell you the truth, I
have often wondered if--if that was what really did happen. There is the
fact that Brake's wife disappeared mysteriously--that Ransford made a
similar mysterious disappearance about the same time--that Brake was
obviously suffering from intense and bitter hatred when I saw him after
the trial--hatred of some person on whom he meant to be revenged--and
that his counsel hinted that he had been deceived and betrayed by
a friend. Now, to my knowledge, he and Ransford were the closest of
friends--in the old days, before Brake married our governess. And I
suppose the friendship continued--certainly Ransford acted as best man
at the wedding! But how account for that strange double disappearance?”

Bryce had already accounted for that, in his own secret mind. And now,
having got all that he wanted out of the old clergyman, he rose to take
his leave.

“You will regard this interview as having been of a strictly private
nature, Mr. Gilwaters?” he said.

“Certainly!” responded the old man. “But--you mentioned that you wished
to marry the daughter? Now that you know about her father's past--for I
am sure she must be John Brake's child--you won't allow that to--eh?”

“Not for a moment!” answered Bryce, with a fair show of magnanimity.
“I am not a man of that complexion, sir. No!--I only wished to clear up
certain things, you understand.”

“And--since she is apparently--from what you say--in ignorance of her
real father's past--what then?” asked Mr. Gilwaters anxiously. “Shall
you--”

“I shall do nothing whatever in any haste,” replied Bryce. “Rely upon me
to consider her feelings in everything. As you have been so kind, I will
let you know, later, how matters go.”

This was one of Pemberton Bryce's ready inventions. He had not the least
intention of ever seeing or communicating with the late vicar of Braden
Medworth again; Mr. Gilwaters had served his purpose for the time being.
He went away from Bayswater, and, an hour later, from London, highly
satisfied. In his opinion, Mark Ransford, seventeen years before, had
taken advantage of his friend's misfortunes to run away with his wife,
and when Brake, alias Braden, had unexpectedly turned up at Wrychester,
he had added to his former wrong by the commission of a far greater one.




CHAPTER X. DIPLOMACY


Bryce went back to Wrychester firmly convinced that Mark Ransford had
killed John Braden. He reckoned things up in his own fashion. Some
years must have elapsed since Braden, or rather Brake's release. He had
probably heard, on his release, that Ransford and his, Brake's, wife had
gone abroad--in that case he would certainly follow them. He might have
lost all trace of them; he might have lost his original interest in his
first schemes of revenge; he might have begun a new life for himself in
Australia, whence he had undoubtedly come to England recently. But
he had come, at last, and he had evidently tracked Ransford to
Wrychester--why, otherwise, had he presented himself at Ransford's door
on that eventful morning which was to witness his death? Nothing, in
Bryce's opinion, could be clearer. Brake had turned up. He and Ransford
had met--most likely in the precincts of the Cathedral. Ransford, who
knew all the quiet corners of the old place, had in all probability
induced Brake to walk up into the gallery with him, had noticed the
open doorway, had thrown Brake through it. All the facts pointed to
that conclusion--it was a theory which, so far as Bryce could see, was
perfect. It ought to be enough--proved--to put Ransford in a criminal
dock. Bryce resolved it in his own mind over and over again as he sped
home to Wrychester--he pictured the police listening greedily to all
that he could tell them if he liked. There was only one factor in the
whole sum of the affair which seemed against him--the advertisement in
the Times. If Brake desired to find Ransford in order to be revenged on
him, why did he insert that advertisement, as if he were longing to meet
a cherished friend again? But Bryce gaily surmounted that obstacle--full
of shifts and subtleties himself, he was ever ready to credit others
with trading in them, and he put the advertisement down as a clever ruse
to attract, not Ransford, but some person who could give information
about Ransford. Whatever its exact meaning might have been, its
existence made no difference to Bryce's firm opinion that it was Mark
Ransford who flung John Brake down St. Wrytha's Stair and killed him. He
was as sure of that as he was certain that Braden was Brake. And he was
not going to tell the police of his discoveries--he was not going to
tell anybody. The one thing that concerned him was--how best to make
use of his knowledge with a view to bringing about a marriage between
himself and Mark Ransford's ward. He had set his mind on that for twelve
months past, and he was not a man to be baulked of his purpose. By
fair means, or foul--he himself ignored the last word and would have
substituted the term skilful for it--Pemberton Bryce meant to have Mary
Bewery.

Mary Bewery herself had no thought of Bryce in her head when, the
morning after that worthy's return to Wrychester, she set out, alone,
for the Wrychester Golf Club. It was her habit to go there almost every
day, and Bryce was well acquainted with her movements and knew precisely
where to waylay her. And empty of Bryce though her mind was, she was not
surprised when, at a lonely place on Wrychester Common, Bryce turned the
corner of a spinny and met her face to face.

Mary would have passed on with no more than a silent recognition--she
had made up her mind to have no further speech with her guardian's
dismissed assistant. But she had to pass through a wicket gate at that
point, and Bryce barred the way, with unmistakable purpose. It was plain
to the girl that he had laid in wait for her. She was not without a
temper of her own, and she suddenly let it out on the offender.

“Do you call this manly conduct, Dr. Bryce?” she demanded, turning an
indignant and flushed face on him. “To waylay me here, when you know
that I don't want to have anything more to do with you. Let me through,
please--and go away!”

But Bryce kept a hand on the little gate, and when he spoke there was
that in his voice which made the girl listen in spite of herself.

“I'm not here on my own behalf,” he said quickly. “I give you my word
I won't say a thing that need offend you. It's true I waited here for
you--it's the only place in which I thought I could meet you, alone.
I want to speak to you. It's this--do you know your guardian is in
danger?”

Bryce had the gift of plausibility--he could convince people, against
their instincts, even against their wills, that he was telling the
truth. And Mary, after a swift glance, believed him.

“What danger?” she asked. “And if he is, and if you know he is--why
don't you go direct to him?”

“The most fatal thing in the world to do!” exclaimed Bryce. “You know
him--he can be nasty. That would bring matters to a crisis. And that, in
his interest, is just what mustn't happen.”

“I don't understand you,” said Mary.

Bryce leaned nearer to her--across the gate.

“You know what happened last week,” he said in a low voice. “The strange
death of that man--Braden.”

“Well?” she asked, with a sudden look of uneasiness. “What of it?”

“It's being rumoured--whispered--in the town that Dr. Ransford
had something to do with that affair,” answered Bryce.
“Unpleasant--unfortunate--but it's a fact.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Mary with a heightening colour. “What could
he have to do with it? What could give rise to such
foolish--wicked--rumours?”

“You know as well as I do how people talk, how they will talk,” said
Bryce. “You can't stop them, in a place like Wrychester, where everybody
knows everybody. There's a mystery around Braden's death--it's no use
denying it. Nobody knows who he was, where he came from, why he came.
And it's being hinted--I'm only telling you what I've gathered--that
Dr. Ransford knows more than he's ever told. There are, I'm afraid,
grounds.”

“What grounds?” demanded Mary. While Bryce had been speaking, in his
usual slow, careful fashion, she had been reflecting--and remembering
Ransford's evident agitation at the time of the Paradise affair--and his
relief when the inquest was over--and his sending her with flowers to
the dead man's grave and she began to experience a sense of uneasiness
and even of fear. “What grounds can there be?” she added. “Dr. Ransford
didn't know that man--had never seen him!”

“That's not certain,” replied Bryce. “It's said--remember, I'm only
repeating things--it's said that just before the body was discovered,
Dr. Ransford was seen--seen, mind you!--leaving the west porch of the
Cathedral, looking as if he had just been very much upset. Two persons
saw this.”

“Who are they?” asked Mary.

“That I'm not allowed to tell you,” said Bryce, who had no intention of
informing her that one person was himself and the other imaginary. “But
I can assure you that I am certain--absolutely certain!--that their
story is true. The fact is--I can corroborate it.”

“You!” she exclaimed.

“I!” replied Bryce. “I will tell you something that I have never told
anybody--up to now. I shan't ask you to respect my confidence--I've
sufficient trust in you to know that you will, without any asking.
Listen!--on that morning, Dr. Ransford went out of the surgery in the
direction of the Deanery, leaving me alone there. A few minutes later, a
tap came at the door. I opened it--and found--a man standing outside!”

“Not--that man?” asked Mary fearfully.

“That man--Braden,” replied Bryce. “He asked for Dr. Ransford. I said
he was out--would the caller leave his name? He said no--he had called
because he had once known a Dr. Ransford, years before. He added
something about calling again, and he went away--across the Close
towards the Cathedral. I saw him again--not very long afterwards--lying
in the corner of Paradise--dead!”

Mary Bewery was by this time pale and trembling--and Bryce continued to
watch her steadily. She stole a furtive look at him.

“Why didn't you tell all this at the inquest?” she asked in a whisper.

“Because I knew how damning it would be to--Ransford,” replied Bryce
promptly. “It would have excited suspicion. I was certain that no one
but myself knew that Braden had been to the surgery door--therefore, I
thought that if I kept silence, his calling there would never be known.
But--I have since found that I was mistaken. Braden was seen--going away
from Dr. Ransford's.”

“By--whom?” asked Mary.

“Mrs. Deramore--at the next house,” answered Bryce. “She happened to
be looking out of an upstairs window. She saw him go away and cross the
Close.”

“Did she tell you that?” demanded Mary, who knew Mrs. Deramore for a
gossip.

“Between ourselves,” said Bryce, “she did not! She told Mrs.
Folliot--Mrs. Folliot told me.”

“So--it is talked about!” exclaimed Mary.

“I said so,” assented Bryce. “You know what Mrs. Folliot's tongue is.”

“Then Dr. Ransford will get to hear of it,” said Mary.

“He will be the last person to get to hear of it,” affirmed Bryce.
“These things are talked of, hole-and-corner fashion, a long time before
they reach the ears of the person chiefly concerned.”

Mary hesitated a moment before she asked her next question.

“Why have you told me all this?” she demanded at last.

“Because I didn't want you to be suddenly surprised,” answered Bryce.
“This--whatever it is--may come to a sudden head--of an unpleasant sort.
These rumours spread--and the police are still keen about finding out
things concerning this dead man. If they once get it into their heads
that Dr. Ransford knew him--”

Mary laid her hand on the gate between them--and Bryce, who had done
all he wished to do at that time, instantly opened it, and she passed
through.

“I am much obliged to you,” she said. “I don't know what it all
means--but it is Dr. Ransford's affair--if there is any affair, which I
doubt. Will you let me go now, please?”

Bryce stood aside and lifted his hat, and Mary, with no more than a nod,
walked on towards the golf club-house across the Common, while Bryce
turned off to the town, highly elated with his morning's work. He had
sown the seeds of uneasiness and suspicion broadcast--some of them, he
knew, would mature.

Mary Bewery played no golf that morning. In fact, she only went on to
the club-house to rid herself of Bryce, and presently she returned home,
thinking. And indeed, she said to herself, she had abundant food for
thought. Naturally candid and honest, she did not at that moment doubt
Bryce's good faith; much as she disliked him in most ways she knew that
he had certain commendable qualities, and she was inclined to believe
him when he said that he had kept silence in order to ward off
consequences which might indirectly be unpleasant for her. But of him
and his news she thought little--what occupied her mind was the possible
connection between the stranger who had come so suddenly and disappeared
so suddenly--and for ever!--and Mark Ransford. Was it possible--really
possible--that there had been some meeting between them in or about the
Cathedral precincts that morning? She knew, after a moment's reflection,
that it was very possible--why not? And from that her thoughts followed
a natural trend--was the mystery surrounding this man connected in any
way with the mystery about herself and her brother?--that mystery
of which (as it seemed to her) Ransford was so shy of speaking. And
again--and for the hundredth time--she asked herself why he was so
reticent, so evidently full of dislike of the subject, why he could not
tell her and Dick whatever there was to tell, once for all?

She had to pass the Folliots' house in the far corner of the Close on
her way home--a fine old mansion set in well-wooded grounds, enclosed by
a high wall of old red brick. A door in that wall stood open, and inside
it, talking to one of his gardeners, was Mr. Folliot--the vistas behind
him were gay with flowers and rich with the roses which he passed all
his days in cultivating. He caught sight of Mary as she passed the open
doorway and called her back.

“Come in and have a look at some new roses I've got,” he said.
“Beauties! I'll give you a handful to carry home.”

Mary rather liked Mr. Folliot. He was a big, half-asleep sort of man,
who had few words and could talk about little else than his hobby. But
he was a passionate lover of flowers and plants, and had a positive
genius for rose-culture, and was at all times highly delighted to take
flower-lovers round his garden. She turned at once and walked in, and
Folliot led her away down the scented paths.

“It's an experiment I've been trying,” he said, leading her up to a
cluster of blooms of a colour and size which she had never seen before.
“What do you think of the results?”

“Magnificent!” exclaimed Mary. “I never saw anything so fine!”

“No!” agreed Folliot, with a quiet chuckle. “Nor anybody else--because
there's no such rose in England. I shall have to go to some of these
learned parsons in the Close to invent me a Latin name for this--it's
the result of careful experiments in grafting--took me three years to
get at it. And see how it blooms,--scores on one standard.”

He pulled out a knife and began to select a handful of the finest
blooms, which he presently pressed into Mary's hand.

“By the by,” he remarked as she thanked him and they turned away along
the path, “I wanted to have a word with you--or with Ransford. Do you
know--does he know--that that confounded silly woman who lives near
to your house--Mrs. Deramore--has been saying some things--or a
thing--which--to put it plainly--might make some unpleasantness for
him?”

Mary kept a firm hand on her wits--and gave him an answer which was true
enough, so far as she was aware.

“I'm sure he knows nothing,” she said. “What is it, Mr. Folliot?”

“Why, you know what happened last week,” continued Folliot, glancing
knowingly at her. “The accident to that stranger. This Mrs. Deramore,
who's nothing but an old chatterer, has been saying, here and there,
that it's a very queer thing Dr. Ransford doesn't know anything about
him, and can't say anything, for she herself, she says, saw the very man
going away from Dr. Ransford's house not so long before the accident.”

“I am not aware that he ever called at Dr. Ransford's,” said Mary. “I
never saw him--and I was in the garden, about that very time, with your
stepson, Mr. Folliot.”

“So Sackville told me,” remarked Folliot. “He was present--and so was
I--when Mrs. Deramore was tattling about it in our house yesterday. He
said, then, that he'd never seen the man go to your house. You never
heard your servants make any remark about it?”

“Never!” answered Mary.

“I told Mrs. Deramore she'd far better hold her tongue,” continued
Folliot. “Tittle-tattle of that sort is apt to lead to unpleasantness.
And when it came to it, it turned out that all she had seen was this
stranger strolling across the Close as if he'd just left your house.
If--there's always some if! But I'll tell you why I mentioned it to
you,” he continued, nudging Mary's elbow and glancing covertly first at
her and then at his house on the far side of the garden. “Ladies that
are--getting on a bit in years, you know--like my wife, are apt to let
their tongues wag, and between you and me, I shouldn't wonder if Mrs.
Folliot has repeated what Mrs. Deramore said--eh? And I don't want the
doctor to think that--if he hears anything, you know, which he may, and,
again, he might--to think that it originated here. So, if he should ever
mention it to you, you can say it sprang from his next-door neighbour.
Bah!--they're a lot of old gossips, these Close ladies!”

“Thank you,” said Mary. “But--supposing this man had been to our
house--what difference would that make? He might have been for half a
dozen reasons.”

Folliot looked at her out of his half-shut eyes.

“Some people would want to know why Ransford didn't tell that--at the
inquest,” he answered. “That's all. When there's a bit of mystery, you
know--eh?”

He nodded--as if reassuringly--and went off to rejoin his gardener, and
Mary walked home with her roses, more thoughtful than ever. Mystery?--a
bit of mystery? There was a vast and heavy cloud of mystery, and she
knew she could have no peace until it was lifted.




CHAPTER XI. THE BACK ROOM


In the midst of all her perplexity at that moment, Mary Bewery was
certain of one fact about which she had no perplexity nor any doubt--it
would not be long before the rumours of which Bryce and Mr. Folliot had
spoken. Although she had only lived in Wrychester a comparatively short
time she had seen and learned enough of it to know that the place was a
hotbed of gossip. Once gossip was started there, it spread, widening in
circle after circle. And though Bryce was probably right when he said
that the person chiefly concerned was usually the last person to hear
what was being whispered, she knew well enough that sooner or later this
talk about Ransford would come to Ransford's own ears. But she had no
idea that it was to come so soon, nor from her own brother.

Lunch in the Ransford menage was an informal meal. At a quarter past one
every day, it was on the table--a cold lunch to which the three members
of the household helped themselves as they liked, independent of the
services of servants. Sometimes all three were there at the same moment;
sometimes Ransford was half an hour late; the one member who was always
there to the moment was Dick Bewery, who fortified himself sedulously
after his morning's school labours. On this particular day all three met
in the dining-room at once, and sat down together. And before Dick had
eaten many mouthfuls of a cold pie to which he had just liberally helped
himself he bent confidentially across the table towards his guardian.

“There's something I think you ought to be told about, sir,” he remarked
with a side-glance at Mary. “Something I heard this morning at school.
You know, we've a lot of fellows--town boys--who talk.”

“I daresay,” responded Ransford dryly. “Following the example of their
mothers, no doubt. Well--what is it?”

He, too, glanced at Mary--and the girl had her work set to look
unconscious.

“It's this,” replied Dick, lowering his voice in spite of the fact
that all three were alone. “They're saying in the town that you know
something which you won't tell about that affair last week. It's being
talked of.”

Ransford laughed--a little cynically.

“Are you quite sure, my boy, that they aren't saying that I daren't
tell?” he asked. “Daren't is a much more likely word than won't, I
think.”

“Well--about that, sir,” acknowledged Dick. “Comes to that, anyhow.”

“And what are their grounds?” inquired Ransford. “You've heard them,
I'll be bound!”

“They say that man--Braden--had been here--here, to the house!--that
morning, not long before he was found dead,” answered Dick. “Of course,
I said that was all bosh!--I said that if he'd been here and seen you,
I'd have heard of it, dead certain.”

“That's not quite so dead certain, Dick, as that I have no knowledge of
his ever having been here,” said Ransford. “But who says he came here?”

“Mrs. Deramore,” replied Dick promptly. “She says she saw him go
away from the house and across the Close, a little before ten. So Jim
Deramore says, anyway--and he says his mother's eyes are as good as
another's.”

“Doubtless!” assented Ransford. He looked at Mary again, and saw that
she was keeping hers fixed on her plate. “Well,” he continued, “if it
will give you any satisfaction, Dick, you can tell the gossips that Dr.
Ransford never saw any man, Braden or anybody else, at his house that
morning, and that he never exchanged a word with Braden. So much for
that! But,” he added, “you needn't expect them to believe you. I know
these people--if they've got an idea into their heads they'll ride it to
death. Nevertheless, what I say is a fact.”

Dick presently went off--and once more Ransford looked at Mary. And this
time, Mary had to meet her guardian's inquiring glance.

“Have you heard anything of this?” he asked.

“That there was a rumour--yes,” she replied without hesitation.
“But--not until just now--this morning.”

“Who told you of it?” inquired Ransford.

Mary hesitated. Then she remembered that Mr. Folliot, at any rate, had
not bound her to secrecy.

“Mr. Folliot,” she replied. “He called me into his garden, to give me
those roses, and he mentioned that Mrs. Deramore had said these things
to Mrs. Folliot, and as he seemed to think it highly probable that Mrs.
Folliot would repeat them, he told me because he didn't want you to
think that the rumour had originally arisen at his house.”

“Very good of him, I'm sure,” remarked Ransford dryly. “They all like to
shift the blame from one to another! But,” he added, looking searchingly
at her, “you don't know anything about--Braden's having come here?”

He saw at once that she did, and Mary saw a slight shade of anxiety come
over his face.

“Yes, I do!” she replied. “That morning. But--it was told to me, only
today, in strict confidence.”

“In strict confidence!” he repeated. “May I know--by whom?”

“Dr. Bryce,” she answered. “I met him this morning. And I think you
ought to know. Only--it was in confidence.” She paused for a moment,
looking at him, and her face grew troubled. “I hate to suggest it,”
 she continued, “but--will you come with me to see him, and I'll
ask him--things being as they are--to tell you what he told me. I
can't--without his permission.”

Ransford shook his head and frowned.

“I dislike it!” he said. “It's--it's putting ourselves in his power,
as it were. But--I'm not going to be left in the dark. Put on your hat,
then.”

Bryce, ever since his coming to Wrychester, had occupied rooms in an
old house in Friary Lane, at the back of the Close. He was comfortably
lodged. Downstairs he had a double sitting-room, extending from the
front to the back of the house; his front window looked out on one
garden, his back window on another. He had just finished lunch in the
front part of his room, and was looking out of his window, wondering
what to do with himself that afternoon, when he saw Ransford and Mary
Bewery approaching. He guessed the reason of their visit at once,
and went straight to the front door to meet them, and without a word
motioned them to follow him into his own quarters. It was characteristic
of him that he took the first word--before either of his visitors could
speak.

“I know why you've come,” he said, as he closed the door and glanced at
Mary. “You either want my permission that you should tell Dr. Ransford
what I told you this morning, or, you want me to tell him myself. Am I
right?”

“I should be glad if you would tell him,” replied Mary. “The rumour you
spoke of has reached him--he ought to know what you can tell. I have
respected your confidence, so far.”

The two men looked at each other. And this time it was Ransford who
spoke first.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that there is no great reason for privacy.
If rumours are flying about in Wrychester, there is an end of privacy.
Dick tells me they are saying at the school that it is known that
Braden called on me at my house shortly before he was found dead. I know
nothing whatever of any such call! But--I left you in my surgery that
morning. Do you know if he came there?”

“Yes!” answered Bryce. “He did come. Soon after you'd gone out.”

“Why did you keep that secret?” demanded Ransford. “You could have told
it to the police--or to the Coroner--or to me. Why didn't you?”

Before Bryce could answer, all three heard a sharp click of the front
garden gate, and looking round, saw Mitchington coming up the walk.

“Here's one of the police, now,” said Bryce calmly. “Probably come to
extract information. I would much rather he didn't see you here--but I'd
also like you to hear what I shall say to him. Step inside there,” he
continued, drawing aside the curtains which shut off the back room.
“Don't stick at trifles!--you don't know what may be afoot.”

He almost forced them away, drew the curtains again, and hurrying to the
front door, returned almost immediately with Mitchington.

“Hope I'm not disturbing you, doctor,” said the inspector, as Bryce
brought him in and again closed the door. “Not? All right, then--I came
round to ask you a question. There's a queer rumour getting out in the
town, about that affair last week. Seems to have sprung from some of
those old dowagers in the Close.”

“Of course!” said Bryce. He was mixing a whisky-and-soda for his caller,
and his laugh mingled with the splash of the siphon. “Of course! I've
heard it.”

“You've heard?” remarked Mitchington. “Um! Good health, sir!--heard, of
course, that--”

“That Braden called on Dr. Ransford not long before the accident, or
murder, or whatever it was, happened,” said Bryce. “That's it--eh?”

“Something of that sort,” agreed Mitchington. “It's being said, anyway,
that Braden was at Ransford's house, and presumably saw him, and that
Ransford, accordingly, knows something about him which he hasn't told.
Now--what do you know? Do you know if Ransford and Braden did meet that
morning?”

“Not at Ransford's house, anyway,” answered Bryce promptly. “I can prove
that. But since this rumour has got out, I'll tell you what I do know,
and what the truth is. Braden did come to Ransford's--not to the house,
but to the surgery. He didn't see Ransford--Ransford had gone out,
across the Close. Braden saw--me!”

“Bless me!--I didn't know that,” remarked Mitchington. “You never
mentioned it.”

“You'll not wonder that I didn't,” said Bryce, laughing lightly, “when I
tell you what the man wanted.”

“What did he want, then?” asked Mitchington.

“Merely to be told where the Cathedral Library was,” answered Bryce.

Ransford, watching Mary Bewery, saw her cheeks flush, and knew that
Bryce was cheerfully telling lies. But Mitchington evidently had no
suspicion.

“That all?” he asked. “Just a question?”

“Just a question--that question,” replied Bryce. “I pointed out the
Library--and he walked away. I never saw him again until I was fetched
to him--dead. And I thought so little of the matter that--well, it never
even occurred to me to mention it.”

“Then--though he did call--he never saw Ransford?” asked the inspector.

“I tell you Ransford was already gone out,” answered Bryce. “He saw no
one but myself. Where Mrs. Deramore made her mistake--I happen to know,
Mitchington, that she started this rumour--was in trying to make two
and two into five. She saw this man crossing the Close, as if from
Ransford's house and she at once imagined he'd seen and been talking
with Ransford.”

“Old fool!” said Mitchington. “Of course, that's how these tales get
about. However, there's more than that in the air.”

The two listeners behind the curtains glanced at each other. Ransford's
glance showed that he was already chafing at the unpleasantness of his
position--but Mary's only betokened apprehension. And suddenly, as if
she feared that Ransford would throw the curtains aside and walk into
the front room, she laid a hand on his arm and motioned him to be
patient--and silent.

“Oh?” said Bryce. “More in the air? About that business?”

“Just so,” assented Mitchington. “To start with, that man Varner, the
mason, has never ceased talking. They say he's always at it--to the
effect that the verdict of the jury at the inquest was all wrong, and
that his evidence was put clean aside. He persists that he did see--what
he swore he saw.”

“He'll persist in that to his dying day,” said Bryce carelessly. “If
that's all there is--”

“It isn't,” interrupted the inspector. “Not by a long chalk! But
Varner's is a direct affirmation--the other matter's a sort of ugly
hint. There's a man named Collishaw, a townsman, who's been employed
as a mason's labourer about the Cathedral of late. This Collishaw,
it seems, was at work somewhere up in the galleries, ambulatories,
or whatever they call those upper regions, on the very morning of the
affair. And the other night, being somewhat under the influence of
drink, and talking the matter over with his mates at a tavern, he let
out some dark hints that he could tell something if he liked. Of course,
he was pressed to tell them--and wouldn't. Then--so my informant tells
me--he was dared to tell, and became surlily silent. That, of course,
spread, and got to my ears. I've seen Collishaw.”

“Well?” asked Bryce.

“I believe the man does know something,” answered Mitchington. “That's
the impression I carried away, anyhow. But--he won't speak. I charged
him straight out with knowing something--but it was no good. I told him
of what I'd heard. All he would say was that whatever he might have said
when he'd got a glass of beer or so too much, he wasn't going to say
anything now neither for me nor for anybody!”

“Just so!” remarked Bryce. “But--he'll be getting a glass too much
again, some day, and then--then, perhaps he'll add to what he said
before. And--you'll be sure to hear of it.”

“I'm not certain of that,” answered Mitchington. “I made some inquiry
and I find that Collishaw is usually a very sober and retiring sort of
chap--he'd been lured on to drink when he let out what he did. Besides,
whether I'm right or wrong, I got the idea into my head that he'd
already been--squared!”

“Squared!” exclaimed Bryce. “Why, then, if that affair was really
murder, he'd be liable to being charged as an accessory after the fact!”

“I warned him of that,” replied Mitchington. “Yes, I warned him
solemnly.”

“With no effect?” asked Bryce.

“He's a surly sort of man,” said Mitchington. “The sort that takes
refuge in silence. He made no answer beyond a growl.”

“You really think he knows something?” suggested Bryce. “Well--if there
is anything, it'll come out--in time.”

“Oh, it'll come out!” assented Mitchington. “I'm by no means satisfied
with that verdict of the coroner's inquiry. I believe there was foul
play--of some sort. I'm still following things up--quietly. And--I'll
tell you something--between ourselves--I've made an important discovery.
It's this. On the evening of Braden's arrival at the Mitre he was out,
somewhere, for a whole two hours--by himself.”

“I thought we learned from Mrs. Partingley that he and the other man,
Dellingham, spent the evening together?” said Bryce.

“So we did--but that was not quite so,” replied Mitchington. “Braden
went out of the Mitre just before nine o'clock and he didn't return
until a few minutes after eleven. Now, then, where did he go?”

“I suppose you're trying to find that out?” asked Bryce, after a pause,
during which the listeners heard the caller rise and make for the door.

“Of course!” replied Mitchington, with a confident laugh. “And--I shall!
Keep it to yourself, doctor.”

When Bryce had let the inspector out and returned to his sitting-room,
Ransford and Mary had come from behind the curtains. He looked at them
and shook his head.

“You heard--a good deal, you see,” he observed.

“Look here!” said Ransford peremptorily. “You put that man off about the
call at my surgery. You didn't tell him the truth.”

“Quite right,” assented Bryce. “I didn't. Why should I?”

“What did Braden ask you?” demanded Ransford. “Come, now?”

“Merely if Dr. Ransford was in,” answered Bryce, “remarking that he had
once known a Dr. Ransford. That was--literally--all. I replied that you
were not in.”

Ransford stood silently thinking for a moment or two. Then he moved
towards the door.

“I don't see that any good will come of more talk about this,” he said.
“We three, at any rate, know this--I never saw Braden when he came to my
house.”

Then he motioned Mary to follow him, and they went away, and Bryce,
having watched them out of sight, smiled at himself in his mirror--with
full satisfaction.




CHAPTER XII. MURDER OF THE MASON'S LABOURER


It was towards noon of the very next day that Bryce made a forward step
in the matter of solving the problem of Richard Jenkins and his tomb
in Paradise. Ever since his return from Barthorpe he had been making
attempts to get at the true meaning of this mystery. He had paid so
many visits to the Cathedral Library that Ambrose Campany had asked him
jestingly if he was going in for archaeology; Bryce had replied that
having nothing to do just then he saw no reason why he shouldn't improve
his knowledge of the antiquities of Wrychester. But he was scrupulously
careful not to let the librarian know the real object of his prying and
peeping into the old books and documents. Campany, as Bryce was very
well aware, was a walking encyclopaedia of information about Wrychester
Cathedral: he was, in fact, at that time, engaged in completing a
history of it. And it was through that history that Bryce accidentally
got his precious information. For on the day following the interview
with Mary Bewery and Ransford, Bryce being in the library was treated
by Campany to an inspection of certain drawings which the librarian had
made for illustrating his work-drawings, most of them, of old brasses,
coats of arms, and the like,--And at the foot of one of these, a drawing
of a shield on which was sculptured three crows, Bryce saw the name
Richard Jenkins, armiger. It was all he could do to repress a start and
to check his tongue. But Campany, knowing nothing, quickly gave him the
information he wanted.

“All these drawings,” he said, “are of old things in and about the
Cathedral. Some of them, like that, for instance, that Jenkins shield,
are of ornamentations on tombs which are so old that the inscriptions
have completely disappeared--tombs in the Cloisters, and in Paradise.
Some of those tombs can only be identified by these sculptures and
ornaments.”

“How do you know, for instance, that any particular tomb or monument is,
we'll say, Jenkins's?” asked Bryce, feeling that he was on safe ground.
“Must be a matter of doubt if there's no inscription left, isn't it?”

“No!” replied Campany. “No doubt at all. In that particular case,
there's no doubt that a certain tomb out there in the corner of
Paradise, near the east wall of the south porch, is that of one Richard
Jenkins, because it bears his coat-of-arms, which, as you see, bore
these birds--intended either as crows or ravens. The inscription's clean
gone from that tomb--which is why it isn't particularized in that chart
of burials in Paradise--the man who prepared that chart didn't know
how to trace things as we do nowadays. Richard Jenkins was, as you may
guess, a Welshman, who settled here in Wrychester in the seventeenth
century: he left some money to St. Hedwige's Church, outside the
walls, but he was buried here. There are more instances--look at this,
now--this coat-of-arms--that's the only means there is of identifying
another tomb in Paradise--that of Gervase Tyrrwhit. You see his armorial
bearings in this drawing? Now those--”

Bryce let the librarian go on talking and explaining, and heard all he
had to say as a man hears things in a dream--what was really active in
his own mind was joy at this unexpected stroke of luck: he himself might
have searched for many a year and never found the last resting-place of
Richard Jenkins. And when, soon after the great clock of the Cathedral
had struck the hour of noon, he left Campany and quitted the Library, he
walked over to Paradise and plunged in amongst its yews and cypresses,
intent on seeing the Jenkins tomb for himself. No one could suspect
anything from merely seeing him there, and all he wanted was one glance
at the ancient monument.

But Bryce was not to give even one look at Richard Jenkins's tomb that
day, nor the next, nor for many days--death met him in another form
before he had taken many steps in the quiet enclosure where so much of
Wrychester mortality lay sleeping.

From over the topmost branches of the old yew trees a great shaft
of noontide sunlight fell full on a patch of the grey walls of the
high-roofed nave. At the foot of it, his back comfortably planted
against the angle of a projecting buttress, sat a man, evidently fast
asleep in the warmth of those powerful rays. His head leaned down and
forward over his chest, his hands were folded across his waist, his
whole attitude was that of a man who, having eaten and drunken in the
open air, has dropped off to sleep. That he had so dropped off while
in the very act of smoking was evident from the presence of a short,
well-blackened clay pipe which had fallen from his lips and lay in the
grass beside him. Near the pipe, spread on a coloured handkerchief, were
the remains of his dinner--Bryce's quick eye noticed fragments of bread,
cheese, onions. And close by stood one of those tin bottles in which
labouring men carry their drink; its cork, tied to the neck by a piece
of string, dangled against the side. A few yards away, a mass of fallen
rubbish and a shovel and wheelbarrow showed at what the sleeper had been
working when his dinner-hour and time for rest had arrived.

Something unusual, something curiously noticeable--yet he could not
exactly tell what--made Bryce go closer to the sleeping man. There was
a strange stillness about him--a rigidity which seemed to suggest
something more than sleep. And suddenly, with a stifled exclamation,
he bent forward and lifted one of the folded hands. It dropped like a
leaden weight when Bryce released it, and he pushed back the man's face
and looked searchingly into it. And in that instant he knew that for
the second time within a fortnight he had found a dead man in Wrychester
Paradise.

There was no doubt whatever that the man was dead. His hands and body
were warm enough--but there was not a flicker of breath; he was as dead
as any of the folk who lay six feet beneath the old gravestones around
him. And Bryce's practised touch and eye knew that he was only just
dead--and that he had died in his sleep. Everything there pointed
unmistakably to what had happened. The man had eaten his frugal dinner,
washed it down from his tin bottle, lighted his pipe, leaned back in the
warm sunlight, dropped asleep--and died as quietly as a child taken from
its play to its slumbers.

After one more careful look, Bryce turned and made through the trees
to the path which crossed the old graveyard. And there, going leisurely
home to lunch, was Dick Bewery, who glanced at the young doctor
inquisitively.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed with the freedom of youth towards something not
much older. “You there? Anything on?”

Then he looked more clearly, seeing Bryce to be pale and excited. Bryce
laid a hand on the lad's arm.

“Look here!” he said. “There's something wrong--again!--in here. Run
down to the police-station--get hold of Mitchington--quietly, you
understand!--bring him here at once. If he's not there, bring somebody
else--any of the police. But--say nothing to anybody but them.”

Dick gave him another swift look, turned, and ran. And Bryce went back
to the dead man--and picked up the tin bottle, and making a cup of his
left hand poured out a trickle of the contents. Cold tea!--and, as far
as he could judge, nothing else. He put the tip of his little finger
into the weak-looking stuff, and tasted--it tasted of nothing but a
super-abundance of sugar.

He stood there, watching the dead man until the sound of footsteps
behind him gave warning of the return of Dick Bewery, who, in another
minute, hurried through the bushes, followed by Mitchington. The boy
stared in silence at the still figure, but the inspector, after a hasty
glance, turned a horrified face on Bryce.

“Good Lord!” he gasped. “It's Collishaw!”

Bryce for the moment failed to comprehend this, and Mitchington shook
his head.

“Collishaw!” he repeated. “Collishaw, you know! The man I told you about
yesterday afternoon. The man that said--”

Mitchington suddenly checked himself, with a glance at Dick Bewery.

“I remember--now,” said Bryce. “The mason's labourer! So--this is the
man, eh? Well, Mitchington, he's dead!--I found him dead, just now. I
should say he'd been dead five to ten minutes--not more. You'd better
get help--and I'd like another medical man to see him before he's
removed.”

Mitchington looked again at Dick.

“Perhaps you'd fetch Dr. Ransford, Mr--Richard?” he asked. “He's
nearest.”

“Dr. Ransford's not at home,” said Dick. “He went to Highminster--some
County Council business or other--at ten this morning, and he won't be
back until four--I happen to know that. Shall I run for Dr. Coates?”

“If you wouldn't mind,” said Mitchington, “and as it's close by, drop in
at the station again and tell the sergeant to come here with a couple of
men. I say!” he went on, when the boy had hurried off, “this is a queer
business, Dr. Bryce! What do you think?”

“I think this,” answered Bryce. “That man!--look at him!--a strong,
healthy-looking fellow, in the very prime of life--that man has met his
death by foul means. You take particular care of those dinner things
of his--the remains of his dinner, every scrap--and of that tin bottle.
That, especially. Take all these things yourself, Mitchington, and lock
them up--they'll be wanted for examination.”

Mitchington glanced at the simple matters which Bryce indicated. And
suddenly he turned a half-frightened glance on his companion.

“You don't mean to say that--that you suspect he's been poisoned?” he
asked. “Good Lord, if that is so--”

“I don't think you'll find that there's much doubt about it,” answered
Bryce. “But that's a point that will soon be settled. You'd better tell
the Coroner at once, Mitchington, and he'll issue a formal order to Dr.
Coates to make a post-mortem. And,” he added significantly, “I shall be
surprised if it isn't as I say--poison!”

“If that's so,” observed Mitchington, with a grim shake of his head, “if
that really is so, then I know what I shall think! This!” he went
on, pointing to the dead man, “this is--a sort of sequel to the other
affair. There's been something in what the poor chap said--he did know
something against somebody, and that somebody's got to hear of it--and
silenced him. But, Lord, doctor, how can it have been done?”

“I can see how it can have been done, easy enough,” said Bryce. “This
man has evidently been at work here, by himself, all the morning. He of
course brought his dinner with him. He no doubt put his basket and his
bottle down somewhere, while he did his work. What easier than for some
one to approach through these trees and shrubs while the man's back was
turned, or he was busy round one of these corners, and put some deadly
poison into that bottle? Nothing!”

“Well,” remarked Mitchington, “if that's so, it proves something
else--to my mind.”

“What!” asked Bryce.

“Why, that whoever it was who did it was somebody who had a knowledge
of poison!” answered Mitchington. “And I should say there aren't many
people in Wrychester who have such knowledge outside yourselves and the
chemists. It's a black business, this!”

Bryce nodded silently. He waited until Dr. Coates, an elderly man who
was the leading practitioner in the town, arrived, and to him he gave
a careful account of his discovery. And after the police had taken the
body away, and he had accompanied Mitchington to the police-station and
seen the tin bottle and the remains of Collishaw's dinner safely locked
up, he went home to lunch, and to wonder at this strange development.
The inspector was doubtless right in saying that Collishaw had been
done to death by somebody who wanted to silence him--but who could
that somebody be? Bryce's thoughts immediately turned to the fact that
Ransford had overheard all that Mitchington had said, in that very room
in which he, Bryce, was then lunching--Ransford! Was it possible that
Ransford had realized a danger in Collishaw's knowledge, and had--

He was interrupted at this stage by Mitchington, who came hurriedly in
with a scared face.

“I say, I say!” he whispered as soon as Bryce's landlady had shut the
door on them. “Here's a fine business! I've heard something--something
I can hardly credit--but it's true. I've been to tell Collishaw's family
what's happened. And--I'm fairly dazed by it--yet it's there--it is so!”

“What's so?” demanded Bryce. “What is it that's true?”

Mitchington bent closer over the table.

“Dr. Ransford was fetched to Collishaw's cottage at six o'clock this
morning!” he said. “It seems that Collishaw's wife has been in a poor
way about her health of late, and Dr. Ransford has attended her, off and
on. She had some sort of a seizure this morning--early--and Ransford
was sent for. He was there some little time--and I've heard some queer
things.”

“What sort of queer things?” demanded Bryce. “Don't be afraid of
speaking out, man!--there's no one to hear but myself.”

“Well, things that look suspicious, on the face of it,” continued
Mitchington, who was obviously much upset. “As you'll acknowledge when
you hear them. I got my information from the next-door neighbour, Mrs.
Batts. Mrs. Batts says that when Ransford--who'd been fetched by Mrs.
Batts's eldest lad--came to Collishaw's house, Collishaw was putting up
his dinner to take to his work--”

“What on earth made Mrs. Batts tell you that?” interrupted Bryce.

“Oh, well, to tell you the truth, I put a few questions to her as to
what went on while Ransford was in the house,” answered Mitchington.
“When I'd once found that he had been there, you know, I naturally
wanted to know all I could.”

“Well?” asked Bryce.

“Collishaw, I say, was putting up his dinner to take to his work,”
 continued Mitchington. “Mrs. Batts was doing a thing or two about the
house. Ransford went upstairs to see Mrs. Collishaw. After a while he
came down and said he would have to remain a little. Collishaw went
up to speak to his wife before going out. And then Ransford asked
Mrs. Batts for something--I forget what--some small matter which the
Collishaw's hadn't got and she had, and she went next door to fetch it.
Therefore--do you see?--Ransford was left alone with--Collishaw's tin
bottle!”

Bryce, who had been listening attentively, looked steadily at the
inspector.

“You're suspecting Ransford already!” he said.

Mitchington shook his head.

“What's it look like?” he answered, almost appealingly. “I put it to
you, now!--what does it look like? Here's this man been poisoned without
a doubt--I'm certain of it. And--there were those rumours--it's idle to
deny that they centred in Ransford. And--this morning Ransford had the
chance!”

“That's arguing that Ransford purposely carried a dose of poison to
put into Collishaw's tin bottle!” said Bryce half-sneeringly. “Not very
probable, you know, Mitchington.”

Mitchington spread out his hands.

“Well, there it is!” he said. “As I say, there's no denying the
suspicious look of it. If I were only certain that those rumours about
what Collishaw hinted he could say had got to Ransford's ears!--why,
then--”

“What's being done about that post-mortem?” asked Bryce.

“Dr. Coates and Dr. Everest are going to do it this afternoon,” replied
Mitchington. “The Coroner went to them at once, as soon as I told him.”

“They'll probably have to call in an expert from London,” said Bryce.
“However, you can't do anything definite, you know, until the result's
known. Don't say anything of this to anybody. I'll drop in at your place
later and hear if Coates can say anything really certain.”

Mitchington went away, and Bryce spent the rest of the afternoon
wondering, speculating and scheming. If Ransford had really got rid of
this man who knew something--why, then, it was certainly Ransford who
killed Braden.

He went round to the police-station at five o'clock. Mitchington drew
him aside.

“Coates says there's no doubt about it!” he whispered. “Poisoned!
Hydrocyanic acid!”




CHAPTER XIII. BRYCE IS ASKED A QUESTION


Mitchington stepped aside into a private room, motioning Bryce to follow
him. He carefully closed the door, and looking significantly at his
companion, repeated his last words, with a shake of the head.

“Poisoned!--without the very least doubt,” he whispered. “Hydrocyanic
acid--which, I understand, is the same thing as what's commonly called
prussic acid. They say then hadn't the least difficulty in finding that
out! so there you are.”

“That's what Coates has told you, of course?” asked Bryce. “After the
autopsy?”

“Both of 'em told me--Coates, and Everest, who helped him,” replied
Mitchington. “They said it was obvious from the very start. And--I say!”

“Well?” said Bryce.

“It wasn't in that tin bottle, anyway,” remarked Mitchington, who was
evidently greatly weighted with mystery.

“No!--of course it wasn't!” affirmed Bryce. “Good Heavens, man--I know
that!”

“How do you know?” asked Mitchington.

“Because I poured a few drops from tha

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