'Foreman says that on morning of Braden's accident,Collishaw was at work in the north gallery of theclerestory, clearing away some timber which thecarpenters had left there. Collishaw was certainlythus engaged from nine o'clock until past eleventhat morning. Mem. Have investigated this myself.From the exact spot where C. was clearing the timber,there is an uninterrupted view of the gallery on thesouth side of the nave, and of the arched doorway atthe head of St. Wrytha's Stair.'”
“'Well,” observed Jettison, “that proves what I'm saying. It wasn't hush-money. For whoever it was that Collishaw saw lay hands on Braden, it wasn't Bryce—Bryce, we know, was at that time coming across the Close or crossing that path through the part you call Paradise: Varner's evidence proves that. So—if the fifty pounds wasn't paid for hush-money, what was it paid for?”
“Do you suggest anything?” asked Mitchington.
“I've thought of two or three things,” answered the detective. “One's this—was the fifty pounds paid for information? If so, and Bryce has that information, why doesn't he show his hand more plainly? If he bribed Collishaw with fifty pounds: to tell him who Braden's assailant was, he now knows!—so why doesn't he let it out, and have done with it?”
“Part of his game—if that theory's right,” murmured Mitchington.
“It mayn't be right,” said Jettison. “But it's one. And there's another—supposing he paid Collishaw that money on behalf of somebody else? I've thought this business out right and left, top-side and bottom-side, and hang me if I don't feel certain there is somebody else! What did Ransford tell us about Bryce and this old Harker—think of that! And yet, according to Bryce, Harker is one of our old Yard men!—and therefore ought to be above suspicion.”
Mitchington suddenly started as if an idea had occurred to him.
“I say, you know!” he exclaimed. “We've only Bryce's word for it that Harker is an ex-detective. I never heard that he was—if he is, he's kept it strangely quiet. You'd have thought that he'd have let us know, here, of his previous calling—I never heard of a policeman of any rank who didn't like to have a bit of talk with his own sort about professional matters.”
“Nor me,” assented Jettison. “And as you say, we've only Bryce's word. And, the more I think of it, the more I'm convinced there's somebody—some man of whom you don't seem to have the least idea—who's in this. And it may be that Bryce is in with him. However—here's one thing I'm going to do at once. Bryce gave us that information about the fifty pounds. Now I'm going to tell Bryce straight out that I've gone into that matter in my own fashion—a fashion he evidently never thought of—and ask him to explain why he drew a similar amount in gold. Come on round to his rooms.”
But Bryce was not to be found at his rooms—had not been back to his rooms, said his landlady, since he had ridden away early in the morning: all she knew was that he had ordered his dinner to be ready at his usual time that evening. With that the two men had to be content, and they went back to the police-station still discussing the situation. And they were still discussing it an hour later when a telegram was handed to Mitchington, who tore it open, glanced over its contents and passed it to his companion who read it aloud.
“Meet me with Jettison Wrychester Station on arrival of five-twenty express from London mystery cleared up guilty men known—Ransford.”
Jettison handed the telegram back.
“A man of his word!” he said. “He mentioned two days—he's done it in one! And now, my lad—do you notice?—he says men, not man! It's as I said—there's been more than one of 'em in this affair. Now then—who are they?”
Bryce had ridden away on his bicycle from Wrychester that morning intent on a new piece of diplomacy. He had sat up thinking for some time after the two police officials had left him at midnight, and it had occurred to him that there was a man from whom information could be had of whose services he had as yet made no use but who must be somewhere in the neighbourhood—the man Glassdale. Glassdale had been in Wrychester the previous evening; he could scarcely be far away now; there was certainly one person who would know where he could be found, and that person was the Duke of Saxonsteade. Bryce knew the Duke to be an extremely approachable man, a talkative, even a garrulous man, given to holding converse with anybody about anything, and he speedily made up his mind to ride over to Saxonsteade, invent a plausible excuse for his call, and get some news out of his Grace. Even if Glassdale had left the neighbourhood, there might be fragments of evidence to pick up from the Duke, for Glassdale, he knew, had given his former employer the information about the stolen jewels and would, no doubt, have added more about his acquaintance with Braden. And before Bryce came to his dreamed-of master-stroke in that matter, there were one or two things he wanted to clear up, to complete his double net, and he had an idea that an hour's chat with Glassdale would yield all that he desired.
The active brain that had stood Bryce in good stead while he spun his meshes and devised his schemes was more active than ever that early summer morning. It was a ten-mile ride through woods and valleys to Saxonsteade, and there were sights and beauties of nature on either side of him which any other man would have lingered to admire and most men would have been influenced by. But Bryce had no eyes for the clouds over the copper-crowned hills or the mystic shadows in the deep valleys or the new buds in the hedgerows, and no thought for the rustic folk whose cottages he passed here and there in a sparsely populated country. All his thoughts were fixed on his schemes, almost as mechanically as his eyes followed the white road in front of his wheel. Ever since he had set out on his campaign he had regularly taken stock of his position; he was for ever reckoning it up. And now, in his opinion, everything looked very promising. He had—so far as he was aware—created a definite atmosphere of suspicion around and against Ransford—it needed only a little more suggestion, perhaps a little more evidence to bring about Ransford's arrest. And the only question which at all troubled Bryce was—should he let matters go to that length before putting his ultimatum before Mary Bewery, or should he show her his hand first? For Bryce had so worked matters that a word from him to the police would damn Ransford or save him—and now it all depended, so far as Bryce himself was concerned, on Mary Bewery as to which word should be said. Elaborate as the toils were which he had laid out for Ransford to the police, he could sweep them up and tear them away with a sentence of added knowledge—if Mary Bewery made it worth his while. But first—before coming to the critical point—there was yet certain information which he desired to get, and he felt sure of getting it if he could find Glassdale. For Glassdale, according to all accounts, had known Braden intimately of late years, and was most likely in possession of facts about him—and Bryce had full confidence in himself as an interviewer of other men and a supreme belief that he could wheedle a secret out of anybody with whom he could procure an hour's quiet conversation.
As luck would have it, Bryce had no need to make a call upon the approachable and friendly Duke. Outside the little village at Saxonsteade, on the edge of the deep woods which fringed the ducal park, stood an old wayside inn, a relic of the coaching days, which bore on its sign the ducal arms. Into its old stone hall marched Bryce to refresh himself after his ride, and as he stood at the bow-windowed bar, he glanced into the garden beyond and there saw, comfortably smoking his pipe and reading the newspaper, the very man he was looking for.
Bryce had no spice of bashfulness, no want of confidence anywhere in his nature; he determined to attack Glassdale there and then. But he took a good look at his man before going out into the garden to him. A plain and ordinary sort of fellow, he thought; rather over middle age, with a tinge of grey in his hair and moustache; prosperous looking and well-dressed, and at that moment of the appearance of what he was probably taken for by the inn people—a tourist. Whether he was the sort who would be communicative or not, Bryce could not tell from outward signs, but he was going to try, and he presently found his card-case, took out a card, and strolling down the garden to the shady spot in which Glassdale sat, assumed his politest and suavest manner and presented himself.
“Allow me, sir,” he said, carefully abstaining from any mention of names. “May I have the pleasure of a few minutes' conversation with you?”
Glassdale cast a swift glance of surprise, not unmingled with suspicion, at the intruder—the sort of glance that a man used to watchfulness would throw at anybody, thought Bryce. But his face cleared as he read the card, though it was still doubtful as he lifted it again.
“You've the advantage of me, sir,” he said. “Dr. Bryce, I see. But—”
Bryce smiled and dropped into a garden chair at Glassdale's side.
“You needn't be afraid of talking to me,” he answered. “I'm well known in Wrychester. The Duke,” he went on, nodding his head in the direction of the great house which lay behind the woods at the foot of the garden, “knows me well enough—in fact, I was on my way to see his Grace now, to ask him if he could tell me where you could be found. The fact is, I'm aware of what happened last night—the jewel affair, you know—Mitchington told me—and of your friendship with Braden, and I want to ask you a question or two about Braden.”
Glassdale, who had looked somewhat mystified at the beginning of this address, seemed to understand matters better by the end of it.
“Oh, well, of course, doctor,” he said, “if that's it—but, of course—a word first!—these folk here at the inn don't know who I am or that I've any connection with the Duke on that affair. I'm Mr. Gordon here—just staying for a bit.”
“That's all right,” answered Bryce with a smile of understanding. “All this is between ourselves. I saw you with the Duke and the rest of them last night, and I recognized you just now. And all I want is a bit of talk about Braden. You knew him pretty well of late years?”
“Knew him for a good many years,” replied Glassdale. He looked narrowly at his visitor. “I suppose you know his story—and mine?” he asked. “Bygone affairs, eh?”
“Yes, yes!” answered Bryce reassuringly. “No need to go into that—that's all done with.”
“Aye—well, we both put things right,” said Glassdale. “Made restitution—both of us, you understand. So that is done with? And you know, then, of course, who Braden really was?”
“John Brake, ex bank-manager,” answered Bryce promptly. “I know all about it. I've been deeply interested and concerned in his death. And I'll tell you why. I want to marry his daughter.”
Glassdale turned and stared at his companion.
“His daughter!” he exclaimed. “Brake's daughter! God bless my soul! I never knew he had a daughter!”
It was Bryce's turn to stare now. He looked at Glassdale incredulously.
“Do you mean to tell me that you knew Brake all those years and that he never mentioned his children?” he exclaimed.
“Never a word of 'em!” replied Glassdale. “Never knew he had any!”
“Did he never speak of his past?” asked Bryce.
“Not in that respect,” answered Glassdale. “I'd no idea that he was—or had been—a married man. He certainly never mentioned wife nor children to me, sir, and yet I knew Brake about as intimately as two men can know each other for some years before we came back to England.”
Bryce fell into one of his fits of musing. What could be the meaning of this extraordinary silence on Brake's part? Was there still some hidden secret, some other mystery at which he had not yet guessed?
“Odd!” he remarked at last after a long pause during which Glassdale had watched him curiously. “But, did he ever speak to you of an old friend of his named Ransford—a doctor?”
“Never!” said Glassdale. “Never mentioned such a man!”
Bryce reflected again, and suddenly determined to be explicit.
“John Brake, the bank manager,” he said, “was married at a place called Braden Medworth, in Leicestershire, to a girl named Mary Bewery. He had two children, who would be, respectively, about four and one years of age when his—we'll call it misfortune—happened. That's a fact!”
“First I ever heard of it, then,” said Glassdale. “And that's a fact, too!”
“He'd also a very close friend named Ransford—Mark Ransford,” continued Bryce. “This Ransford was best man at Brake's wedding.”
“Never heard him speak of Ransford, nor of any wedding!” affirmed Glassdale. “All news to me, doctor.”
“This Ransford is now in practice in Wrychester,” said Bryce. “And he has two young people living with him as his wards—a girl of twenty, a boy of seventeen—who are, without doubt, John Brake's children. It is the daughter that I want to marry.”
Glassdale shook his head as if in sheer perplexity.
“Well, all I can say is, you surprise me!” he remarked. “I'd no idea of any such thing.”
“Do you think Brake came to Wrychester because of that?” asked Bryce.
“How can I answer that, sir, when I tell you that I never heard him breathe one word of any children?” exclaimed Glassdale. “No! I know his reason for coming to Wrychester. It was wholly and solely—as far as I know—to tell the Duke here about that jewel business, the secret of which had been entrusted to Brake and me by a man on his death-bed in Australia. Brake came to Wrychester by himself—I was to join him next morning: we were then to go to see the Duke together. When I got to Wrychester, I heard of Brake's accident, and being upset by it, I went away again and waited some days until yesterday, when I made up my mind to tell the Duke myself, as I did, with very fortunate results. No, that's the only reason I know of why Brake came this way. I tell you I knew nothing at all of his family affairs! He was a very close man, Brake, and apart from his business matters, he'd only one idea in his head, and that was lodged there pretty firmly, I can assure you!”
“What was it?” asked Bryce.
“He wanted to find a certain man—or, rather, two men—who'd cruelly deceived and wronged him, but one of 'em in particular,” answered Glassdale. “The particular one he believed to be in Australia, until near the end, when he got an idea that he'd left for England; as for the other, he didn't bother much about him. But the man that he did want!—ah, he wanted him badly!”
“Who was that man?” asked Bryce.
“A man of the name of Falkiner Wraye,” answered Glassdale promptly. “A man he'd known in London. This Wraye, together with his partner, a man called Flood, tricked Brake into lending 'em several thousands pounds—bank's money, of course—for a couple of days—no more—and then clean disappeared, leaving him to pay the piper! He was a fool, no doubt, but he'd been mixed up with them; he'd done it before, and they'd always kept their promises, and he did it once too often. He let 'em have some thousands; they disappeared, and the bank inspector happened to call at Brake's bank and ask for his balances. And—there he was. And—that's why he'd Falkiner Wraye on his mind—as his one big idea. T'other man was a lesser consideration, Wraye was the chief offender.”
“I wish you'd tell me all you know about Brake,” said Bryce after a pause during which he had done some thinking. “Between ourselves, of course.”
“Oh—I don't know that there's so much secrecy!” replied Glassdale almost indifferently. “Of course, I knew him first when we were both inmates of—you understand where; no need for particulars. But after we left that place, I never saw him again until we met in Australia a few years ago. We were both in the same trade—speculating in wool. We got pretty thick and used to see each other a great deal, and of course, grew confidential. He told me in time about his affair, and how he'd traced this Wraye to the United States, and then, I think, to New Zealand, and afterwards to Australia, and as I was knocking about the country a great deal buying up wool, he asked me to help him, and gave me a description of Wraye, of whom, he said, he'd certainly heard something when he first landed at Sydney, but had never been able to trace afterwards. But it was no good—I never either saw or heard of Wraye—and Brake came to the conclusion he'd left Australia. And I know he hoped to get news of him, somehow, when we returned to England.”
“That description, now?—what was it?” asked Bryce.
“Oh!” said Glassdale. “I can't remember it all, now—big man, clean shaven, nothing very particular except one thing. Wraye, according to Brake, had a bad scar on his left jaw and had lost the middle finger of his left hand—all from a gun accident. He—what's the matter, sir?”
Bryce had suddenly let his pipe fall from his lips. He took some time in picking it up. When he raised himself again his face was calm if a little flushed from stooping.
“Bit my pipe on a bad tooth!” he muttered. “I must have that tooth seen to. So you never heard or saw anything of this man?”
“Never!” answered Glassdale. “But I've wondered since this Wrychester affair if Brake accidentally came across one or other of those men, and if his death arose out of it. Now, look here, doctor! I read the accounts of the inquest on Brake—I'd have gone to it if I'd dared, but just then I hadn't made up my mind about seeing the Duke; I didn't know what to do, so I kept away, and there's a thing has struck me that I don't believe the police have ever taken the slightest, notice of.”
“What's that?” demanded Bryce.
“Why, this!” answered Glassdale. “That man who called himself Dellingham—who came with Brake to the Mitre Hotel at Wrychester—who is he? Where did Brake meet him? Where did he go? Seems to me the police have been strangely negligent about that! According to the accounts I've read, everybody just accepted this Dellingham's first statement, took his word, and let him—vanish! No one, as far as I know, ever verified his account of himself. A stranger!”
Bryce, who was already in one of his deep moods of reflection, got up from his chair as if to go.
“Yes,” he said. “There maybe something in your suggestion. They certainly did take his word without inquiry. It's true—he mightn't be what he said he was.”
“Aye, and from what I read, they never followed his movements that morning!” observed Glassdale. “Queer business altogether! Isn't there some reward offered, doctor? I heard of some placards or something, but I've never seen them; of course, I've only been here since yesterday morning.”
Bryce silently drew some papers from his pocket. From them he extracted the two handbills which Mitchington had given him and handed them over.
“Well, I must go,” he said. “I shall no doubt see you again in Wrychester, over this affair. For the present, all this is between ourselves, of course?”
“Oh, of course, doctor!” answered Glassdale. “Quite so!” Bryce went off and got his bicycle and rode away in the direction of Wrychester. Had he remained in that garden he would have seen Glassdale, after reading both the handbills, go into the house and have heard him ask the landlady at the bar to get him a trap and a good horse in it as soon as possible; he, too, now wanted to go to Wrychester and at once. But Bryce was riding down the road, muttering certain words to himself over and over again.
“The left jaw—and the left hand!” he repeated. “Left hand—left jaw! Unmistakable!”
The great towers of Wrychester Cathedral had come within Bryce's view before he had made up his mind as to the next step in this last stage of his campaign. He had ridden away from the Saxonsteade Arms feeling that he had got to do something at once, but he was not quite clear in his mind as to what that something exactly was. But now, as he topped a rise in the road, and saw Wrychester lying in its hollow beneath him, the summer sun shining on its red roofs and grey walls, he suddenly came to a decision, and instead of riding straight ahead into the old city he turned off at a by-road, made a line across the northern outskirts, and headed for the golf-links. He was almost certain to find Mary Bewery there at that hour, and he wanted to see her at once. The time for his great stroke had come.
But Mary Bewery was not there—had not been there that morning said the caddy-master. There were only a few players out. In one of them, coming towards the club-house, Bryce recognized Sackville Bonham. And at sight of Sackville, Bryce had an inspiration. Mary Bewery would not come up to the links now before afternoon; he, Bryce, would lunch there and then go towards Wrychester to meet her by the path across the fields on which he had waylaid her after his visit to Leicestershire. And meanwhile he would inveigle Sackville Bonham into conversation. Sackville fell readily into Bryce's trap. He was the sort of youth who loves to talk, especially in a hinting and mysterious fashion. And when Bryce, after treating him to an appetizer in the bar of the club-house, had suggested that they should lunch together and got him into a quiet corner of the dining-room, he launched forth at once on the pertinent matter of the day.
“Heard all about this discovery of those missing Saxonsteade diamonds?” he asked as he and Bryce picked up their knives and forks. “Queer business that, isn't it? Of course, it's got to do with those murders!”
“Think so?” asked Bryce.
“Can anybody think anything else?” said Sackville in his best dogmatic manner. “Why, the thing's plain. From what's been let out—not much, certainly, but enough—it's quite evident.”
“What's your theory?” inquired Bryce.
“My stepfather—knowing old bird he is, too!—sums the whole thing up to a nicety,” answered Sackville. “That old chap, Braden, you know, is in possession of that secret. He comes to Wrychester about it. But somebody else knows. That somebody gets rid of Braden. Why? So that the secret'll be known then only to one—the murderer! See! And why? Why?”
“Well, why?” repeated Bryce. “Don't see, so far.”
“You must be dense, then,” said Sackville with the lofty superiority of youth. “Because of the reward, of course! Don't you know that there's been a standing offer—never withdrawn!—of five thousand pounds for news of those jewels?”
“No, I didn't,” answered Bryce.
“Fact, sir—pure fact,” continued Sackville. “Now, five thousand, divided in two, is two thousand five hundred each. But five thousand, undivided, is—what?”
“Five thousand—apparently,” said Bryce.
“Just so! And,” remarked Sackville knowingly, “a man'll do a lot for five thousand.”
“Or—according to your argument—for half of it,” said Bryce. “What you—or your stepfather's—aiming at comes to this, that suspicion rests on Braden's sharer in the secret. That it?”
“And why not?” asked Sackville. “Look at what we know—from the account in the paper this morning. This other chap, Glassdale, waits a bit until the first excitement about Braden is over, then he comes forward and tells the Duke where the Duchess's diamonds are planted. Why? So that he can get the five thousand pound reward! Plain as a pikestaff! Only, the police are such fools.”
“And what about Collishaw?” asked Bryce, willing to absorb all his companion's ideas.
“Part of the game,” declared Sackville. “Same man that got rid of Braden got rid of that chap! Probably Collishaw knew a bit and had to be silenced. But, whether that Glassdale did it all off his own bat or whether he's somebody in with him, that's where the guilt'll be fastened in the end, my stepfather says. And—it'll be so. Stands to reason!”
“Anybody come forward about that reward your stepfather offered?” asked Bryce.
“I'm not permitted to say,” answered Sackville. “But,” he added, leaning closer to his companion across the table, “I can tell you this—there's wheels within wheels! You understand! And things'll be coming out. Got to! We can't—as a family—let Ransford lie under that cloud, don't you know. We must clear him. That's precisely why Mr. Folliot offered his reward. Ransford, of course, you know, Bryce, is very much to blame—he ought to have done more himself. And, of course, as my mother and my stepfather say, if Ransford won't do things for himself, well, we must do 'em for him! We couldn't think of anything else.”
“Very good of you all, I'm sure,” assented Bryce. “Very thoughtful and kindly.”
“Oh, well!” said Sackville, who was incapable of perceiving a sneer or of knowing when older men were laughing at him. “It's one of those things that one's got to do—under the circumstances. Of course, Miss Bewery isn't Dr. Ransford's daughter, but she's his ward, and we can't allow suspicion to rest on her guardian. You leave it to me, my boy, and you'll see how things will be cleared!”
“Doing a bit underground, eh?” asked Bryce.
“Wait a bit!” answered Sackville with a knowing wink. “It's the least expected that happens—what?”
Bryce replied that Sackville was no doubt right, and began to talk of other matters. He hung about the club-house until past three o'clock, and then, being well acquainted with Mary Bewery's movements from long observation of them, set out to walk down towards Wrychester, leaving his bicycle behind him. If he did not meet Mary on the way, he meant to go to the house. Ransford would be out on his afternoon round of calls; Dick Bewery would be at school; he would find Mary alone. And it was necessary that he should see her alone, and at once, for since morning an entirely new view of affairs had come to him, based on added knowledge, and he now saw a chance which he had never seen before. True, he said to himself, as he walked across the links and over the country which lay between their edge and Wrychester, he had not, even now, the accurate knowledge as to the actual murderer of either Braden or Collishaw that he would have liked, but he knew something that would enable him to ask Mary Bewery point-blank whether he was to be friend or enemy. And he was still considering the best way of putting his case to her when, having failed to meet her on the way, he at last turned into the Close, and as he approached Ransford's house, saw Mrs. Folliot leaving it.
Mary Bewery, like Bryce, had been having a day of events. To begin with, Ransford had received a wire from London, first thing in the morning, which had made him run, breakfastless, to catch the next express. He had left Mary to make arrangements about his day's work, for he had not yet replaced Bryce, and she had been obliged to seek out another practitioner who could find time from his own duties to attend to Ransford's urgent patients. Then she had had to see callers who came to the surgery expecting to find Ransford there; and in the middle of a busy morning, Mr. Folliot had dropped in, to bring her a bunch of roses, and, once admitted, had shown unmistakable signs of a desire to gossip.
“Ransford out?” he asked as he sat down in the dining-room. “Suppose he is, this time of day.”
“He's away,” replied Mary. “He went to town by the first express, and I have had a lot of bother arranging about his patients.”
“Did he hear about this discovery of the Saxonsteade jewels before he went?” asked Folliot. “Suppose he wouldn't though—wasn't known until the weekly paper came out this morning. Queer business! You've heard, of course?”
“Dr. Short told me,” answered Mary. “I don't know any details.”
Folliot looked meditatively at her a moment.
“Got something to do with those other matters, you know,” he remarked. “I say! What's Ransford doing about all that?”
“About all what, Mr. Folliot?” asked Mary, at once on her guard. “I don't understand you.”
“You know—all that suspicion—and so on,” said Folliot. “Bad position for a professional man, you know—ought to clear himself. Anybody been applying for that reward Ransford offered?”
“I don't know anything about it,” replied Mary. “Dr. Ransford is very well able to take care of himself, I think. Has anybody applied for yours?”
Folliot rose from his chair again, as if he had changed his mind about lingering, and shook his head.
“Can't say what my solicitors may or may not have heard—or done,” he answered. “But—queer business, you know—and ought to be settled. Bad for Ransford to have any sort of a cloud over him. Sorry to see it.”
“Is that why you came forward with a reward?” asked Mary.
But to this direct question Folliot made no answer. He muttered something about the advisability of somebody doing something and went away, to Mary's relief. She had no desire to discuss the Paradise mysteries with anybody, especially after Ransford's assurance of the previous evening. But in the middle of the afternoon in walked Mrs. Folliot, a rare caller, and before she had been closeted with Mary five minutes brought up the subject again.
“I want to speak to you on a very serious matter, my dear Miss Bewery,” she said. “You must allow me to speak plainly on account of—of several things. My—my superiority in—in age, you know, and all that!”
“What's the matter, Mrs. Folliot?” asked Mary, steeling herself against what she felt sure was coming. “Is it—very serious? And—pardon me—is it about what Mr. Folliot mentioned to me this morning? Because if it is, I'm not going to discuss that with you or with anybody!”
“I had no idea that my husband had been here this morning,” answered Mrs. Folliot in genuine surprise. “What did he want to talk about?”
“In that case, what do you want to talk about?” asked Mary. “Though that doesn't mean that I'm going to talk about it with you.”
Mrs. Folliot made an effort to understand this remark, and after inspecting her hostess critically for a moment, proceeded in her most judicial manner.
“You must see, my dear Miss Bewery, that it is highly necessary that some one should use the utmost persuasion on Dr. Ransford,” she said. “He is placing all of you—himself, yourself, your young brother—in most invidious positions by his silence! In society such as—well, such as you get in a cathedral town, you know, no man of reputation can afford to keep silence when his—his character is affected.”
Mary picked up some needlework and began to be much occupied with it.
“Is Dr. Ransford's character affected?” she asked. “I wasn't aware of it, Mrs. Folliot.”
“Oh, my dear, you can't be quite so very—so very, shall we say ingenuous?—as all that!” exclaimed Mrs. Folliot. “These rumours!—of course, they are very wicked and cruel ones, but you know they have spread. Dear me!—why, they have been common talk!”
“I don't think my guardian cares twopence for common talk, Mrs. Folliot,” answered Mary. “And I am quite sure I don't.”
“None of us—especially people in our position—can afford to ignore rumours and common talk,” said Mrs. Folliot in her loftiest manner. “If we are, unfortunately, talked about, then it is our solemn, bounden duty to put ourselves right in the eyes of our friends—and of society. If I for instance, my dear, heard anything affecting my—let me say, moral-character, I should take steps, the most stringent, drastic, and forceful steps, to put matters to the test. I would not remain under a stigma—no, not for one minute!”
“I hope you will never have occasion to rehabilitate your moral character, Mrs. Folliot,” remarked Mary, bending closely over her work. “Such a necessity would indeed be dreadful.”
“And yet you do not insist—yes, insist!—on Dr. Ransford's taking strong steps to clear himself!” exclaimed Mrs. Folliot. “Now that, indeed, is a dreadful necessity!”
“Dr. Ransford,” answered Mary, “is quite able to defend and to take care of himself. It is not for me to tell him what to do, or even to advise him what to do. And—since you will talk of this matter, I tell you frankly, Mrs. Folliot, that I don't believe any decent person in Wrychester has the least suspicion or doubt of Dr. Ransford. His denial of any share or complicity in those sad affairs—the mere idea of it as ridiculous as it's wicked—was quite sufficient. You know very well that at that second inquest he said—on oath, too—that he knew nothing of these affairs. I repeat, there isn't a decent soul in the city doubts that!”
“Oh, but you're quite wrong!” said Mrs. Folliot, hurriedly. “Quite wrong, I assure you, my dear. Of course, everybody knows what Dr. Ransford said—very excitedly, poor man, I'm given to understand on the occasion you refer to, but then, what else could he have said in his own interest? What people want is the proof of his innocence. I could—but I won't—tell you of many of the very best people who are—well, very much exercised over the matter—I could indeed!”
“Do you count yourself among them?” asked Mary in a cold fashion which would have been a warning to any one but her visitor. “Am I to understand that, Mrs. Folliot?”
“Certainly not, my dear,” answered Mrs. Folliot promptly. “Otherwise I should not have done what I have done towards establishing the foolish man's innocence!”
Mary dropped her work and turned a pair of astonished eyes on Mrs. Folliot's large countenance.
“You!” she exclaimed. “To establish—Dr. Ransford's innocence? Why, Mrs. Folliot, what have you done?”
Mrs. Folliot toyed a little with the jewelled head of her sunshade. Her expression became almost coy.
“Oh, well!” she answered after a brief spell of indecision. “Perhaps it is as well that you should know, Miss Bewery. Of course, when all this sad trouble was made far worse by that second affair—the working-man's death, you know, I said to my husband that really one must do something, seeing that Dr. Ransford was so very, very obdurate and wouldn't speak. And as money is nothing—at least as things go—to me or to Mr. Folliot, I insisted that he should offer a thousand pounds reward to have the thing cleared up. He's a generous and open-handed man, and he agreed with me entirely, and put the thing in hand through his solicitors. And nothing would please us more, my dear, than to have that thousand pounds claimed! For of course, if there is to be—as I suppose there is—a union between our families, it would be utterly impossible that any cloud could rest on Dr. Ransford, even if he is only your guardian. My son's future wife cannot, of course—”
Mary laid down her work again and for a full minute stared Mrs. Folliot in the face.
“Mrs. Folliot!” she said at last. “Are you under the impression that I'm thinking of marrying your son?”
“I think I've every good reason for believing it!” replied Mrs. Folliot.
“You've none!” retorted Mary, gathering up her work and moving towards the door. “I've no more intention of marrying Mr. Sackville Bonham than of eloping with the Bishop! The idea's too absurd to—even be thought of!”
Five minutes later Mrs. Folliot, heightened in colour, had gone. And presently Mary, glancing after her across the Close, saw Bryce approaching the gate of the garden.
Mary's first instinct on seeing the approach of Pemberton Bryce, the one man she least desired to see, was to retreat to the back of the house and send the parlourmaid to the door to say her mistress was not at home. But she had lately become aware of Bryce's curiously dogged persistence in following up whatever he had in view, and she reflected that if he were sent away then he would be sure to come back and come back until he had got whatever it was that he wanted. And after a moment's further consideration, she walked out of the front door and confronted him resolutely in the garden.
“Dr. Ransford is away,” she said with almost unnecessary brusqueness. “He's away until evening.”
“I don't want him,” replied Bryce just as brusquely. “I came to see you.”
Mary hesitated. She continued to regard Bryce steadily, and Bryce did not like the way in which she was looking at him. He made haste to speak before she could either leave or dismiss him.
“You'd better give me a few minutes,” he said, with a note of warning. “I'm here in your interests—or in Ransford's. I may as well tell you, straight out, Ransford's in serious and imminent danger! That's a fact.”
“Danger of what?” she demanded.
“Arrest—instant arrest!” replied Bryce. “I'm telling you the truth. He'll probably be arrested tonight, on his return. There's no imagination in all this—I'm speaking of what I know. I've—curiously enough—got mixed up with these affairs, through no seeking of my own, and I know what's behind the scenes. If it were known that I'm letting out secrets to you, I should get into trouble. But, I want to warn you!”
Mary stood before him on the path, hesitating. She knew enough to know that Bryce was telling some sort of truth: it was plain that he had been mixed up in the recent mysteries, and there was a ring of conviction in his voice which impressed her. And suddenly she had visions of Ransford's arrest, of his being dragged off to prison to meet a cruel accusation, of the shame and disgrace, and she hesitated further.
“But if that's so,” she said at last, “what's the good of coming to me? I can't do anything!”
“I can!” said Bryce significantly. “I know more—much more—than the police know—more than anybody knows. I can save Ransford. Understand that!”
“What do you want now?” she asked.
“To talk to you—to tell you how things are,” answered Bryce. “What harm is there in that? To make you see how matters stand, and then to show you what I can do to put things right.”
Mary glanced at an open summer-house which stood beneath the beech trees on one side of the garden. She moved towards it and sat down there, and Bryce followed her and seated himself.
“Well—” she said.
Bryce realized that his moment had arrived. He paused, endeavouring to remember the careful preparations he had made for putting his case. Somehow, he was not so clear as to his line of attack as he had been ten minutes previously—he realized that he had to deal with a young woman who was not likely to be taken in nor easily deceived. And suddenly he plunged into what he felt to be the thick of things.
“Whether you, or whether Ransford—whether both or either of you, know it or not,” he said, “the police have been on to Ransford ever since that Collishaw affair! Underground work, you know. Mitchington has been digging into things ever since then, and lately he's had a London detective helping him.”
Mary, who had carried her work into the garden, had now resumed it, and as Bryce began to talk she bent over it steadily stitching.
“Well?” she said.
“Look here!” continued Bryce. “Has it never struck you—it must have done!—that there's considerable mystery about Ransford? But whether it has struck you or not, it's there, and it's struck the police forcibly. Mystery connected with him before—long before—he ever came here. And associated, in some way, with that man Braden. Not of late—in years past. And, naturally, the police have tried to find out what that was.”
“What have they found out?” asked Mary quietly.
“That I'm not at liberty to tell,” replied Bryce. “But I can tell you this—they know, Mitchington and the London man, that there were passages between Ransford and Braden years ago.”
“How many years ago?” interrupted Mary.
Bryce hesitated a moment. He had a suspicion that this self-possessed young woman who was taking everything more quietly than he had anticipated, might possibly know more than he gave her credit for knowing. He had been watching her fingers since they sat down in the summer-house, and his sharp eyes saw that they were as steady as the spire of the cathedral above the trees—he knew from that that she was neither frightened nor anxious.
“Oh, well—seventeen to twenty years ago,” he answered. “About that time. There were passages, I say, and they were of a nature which suggests that the re-appearance of Braden on Ransford's present stage of life would be, extremely unpleasant and unwelcome to Ransford.”
“Vague!” murmured Mary. “Extremely vague!”
“But quite enough,” retorted Bryce, “to give the police the suggestion of motive. I tell you the police know quite enough to know that Braden was, of all men in the world, the last man Ransford desired to see cross his path again. And—on that morning on which the Paradise affair occurred—Braden did cross his path. Therefore, in the conventional police way of thinking and looking at things, there's motive.”
“Motive for what?” asked Mary.
Bryce arrived here at one of his critical stages, and he paused a moment in order to choose his words.
“Don't get any false ideas or impressions,” he said at last. “I'm not accusing Ransford of anything. I'm only telling you what I know the police think and are on the very edge of accusing him of. To put it plainly—of murder. They say he'd a motive for murdering Braden—and with them motive is everything. It's the first thing they seem to think of; they first question they ask themselves. 'Why should this man have murdered that man?'—do you see! 'What motive had he?—that's the point. And they think—these chaps like Mitchington and the London man—that Ransford certainly had a motive for getting rid of Braden when they met.”
“What was the motive?” asked Mary.
“They've found out something—perhaps a good deal—about what happened between Braden and Ransford some years ago,” replied Bryce. “And their theory is—if you want to know the truth—that Ransford ran away with Braden's wife, and that Braden had been looking for him ever since.”
Bryce had kept his eyes on Mary's hands, and now at last he saw the girl's fingers tremble. But her voice was steady enough when she spoke.
“Is that mere conjecture on their part, or is it based on any fact?” she asked.
“I'm not in full knowledge of all their secrets,” answered Bryce, “but I've heard enough to know that there's a basis of undeniable fact on which they're going. I know for instance, beyond doubt, that Braden and Ransford were bosom friends, years ago, that Braden was married to a girl whom Ransford had wanted to marry, that Braden's wife suddenly left him, mysteriously, a few years later, and that, at the same time, Ransford made an equally mysterious disappearance. The police know all that. What is the inference to be drawn? What inference would any one—you yourself, for example—draw?”
“None, till I've heard what Dr. Ransford had to say,” replied Mary.
Bryce disliked that ready retort. He was beginning to feel that he was being met by some force stronger than his own.
“That's all very well,” he remarked. “I don't say that I wouldn't do the same. But I'm only explaining the police position, and showing you the danger likely to arise from it. The police theory is this, as far as I can make it out: Ransford, years ago, did Braden a wrong, and Braden certainly swore revenge when he could find him. Circumstances prevented Braden from seeking him closely for some time; at last they met here, by accident. Here the police aren't decided. One theory is that there was an altercation, blows, a struggle, in the course of which Braden met his death; the other is that Ransford deliberately took Braden up into the gallery and flung him through that open doorway—”
“That,” observed Mary, with something very like a sneer, “seems so likely that I should think it would never occur to anybody but the sort of people you're telling me of! No man of any real sense would believe it for a minute!”
“Some people of plain common sense do believe it for all that!” retorted Bryce. “For it's quite possible. But as I say, I'm only repeating. And of course, the rest of it follows on that. The police theory is that Collishaw witnessed Braden's death at Ransford's hands, that Ransford got to know that Collishaw knew of that, and that he therefore quietly removed Collishaw. And it is on all that that they're going, and will go. Don't ask me if I think they're right or wrong! I'm only telling you what I know so as to show you what danger Ransford is in.”
Mary made no immediate answer, and Bryce sat watching her. Somehow—he was at a loss to explain it to himself—things were not going as he had expected. He had confidently believed that the girl would be frightened, scared, upset, ready to do anything that he asked or suggested. But she was plainly not frightened. And the fingers which busied themselves with the fancy-work had become steady again, and her voice had been steady all along.
“Pray,” she asked suddenly, and with a little satirical inflection of voice which Brice was quick to notice, “pray, how is it that you—not a policeman, not a detective!—come to know so much of all this? Since when were you taken into the confidence of Mitchington and the mysterious person from London?”
“You know as well as I do that I have been dragged into the case against my wishes,” answered Bryce almost sullenly. “I was fetched to Braden—I saw him die. It was I who found Collishaw—dead. Of course, I've been mixed up, whether I would or not, and I've had to see a good deal of the police, and naturally I've learnt things.”
Mary suddenly turned on him with a flash of the eye which might have warned Bryce that he had signally failed in the main feature of his adventure.
“And what have you learnt that makes you come here and tell me all this?” she exclaimed. “Do you think I'm a simpleton, Dr. Bryce? You set out by saying that Dr. Ransford is in danger from the police, and that you know more—much more than the police! what does that mean? Shall I tell you? It means that you—you!—know that the police are wrong, and that if you like you can prove to them that they are wrong! Now, then isn't that so?”
“I am in possession of certain facts,” began Bryce. “I—”
Mary stopped him with a look.
“My turn!” she said. “You're in possession of certain facts. Now isn't it the truth that the facts you are in possession of are proof enough to you that Dr. Ransford is as innocent as I am? It's no use your trying to deceive me! Isn't that so?”
“I could certainly turn the police off his track,” admitted Bryce, who was growing highly uncomfortable. “I could divert—”
Mary gave him another look and dropping her needlework continued to watch him steadily.
“Do you call yourself a gentleman?” she asked quietly. “Or we'll leave the term out. Do you call yourself even decently honest? For, if you do, how can you have the sheer impudence—more, insolence!—to come here and tell me all this when you know that the police are wrong and that you could—to use your own term, which is your way of putting it—turn them off the wrong track? Whatever sort of man are you? Do you want to know my opinion of you in plain words?”
“You seem very anxious to give it, anyway,” retorted Bryce.
“I will give it, and it will perhaps put an end to this,” answered Mary. “If you are in possession of anything in the way of evidence which would prove Dr. Ransford's innocence and you are wilfully suppressing it, you are bad, wicked, base, cruel, unfit for any decent being's society! And,” she added, as she picked up her work and rose, “you're not going to have any more of mine!”
“A moment!” said Bryce. He was conscious that he had somehow played all his cards badly, and he wanted another opening. “You're misunderstanding me altogether! I never said—never inferred—that I wouldn't save Ransford.”
“Then, if there's need, which I don't admit, you acknowledge that you could save him?” she exclaimed sharply. “Just as I thought. Then, if you're an honest man, a man with any pretensions to honour, why don't you at once! Any man who had such feelings as those I've just mentioned wouldn't hesitate one second. But you—you!—you come and—talk about it! As if it were a game! Dr. Bryce, you make me feel sick, mentally, morally sick.”
Bryce had risen to his feet when Mary rose, and he now stood staring at her. Ever since his boyhood he had laughed and sneered at the mere idea of the finer feelings—he believed that every man has his price—and that honesty and honour are things useful as terms but of no real existence. And now he was wondering—really wondering—if this girl meant the things she said: if she really felt a mental loathing of such minds and purposes as he knew his own were, or if it were merely acting on her part. Before he could speak she turned on him again more fiercely than before.
“Shall I tell you something else in plain language?” she asked. “You evidently possess a very small and limited knowledge—if you have any at all!—of women, and you apparently don't rate their mental qualities at any high standard. Let me tell you that I am not quite such a fool as you seem to think me! You came here this afternoon to bargain with me! You happen to know how much I respect my guardian and what I owe him for the care he has taken of me and my brother. You thought to trade on that! You thought you could make a bargain with me; you were to save Dr. Ransford, and for reward you were to have me! You daren't deny it. Dr. Bryce—I can see through you!”
“I never said it, at any rate,” answered Bryce.
“Once more, I say, I'm not a fool!” exclaimed Mary. “I saw through you all along. And you've failed! I'm not in the least frightened by what you've said. If the police arrest Dr. Ransford, Dr. Ransford knows how to defend himself. And you're not afraid for him! You know you aren't. It wouldn't matter twopence to you if he were hanged tomorrow, for you hate him. But look to yourself! Men who cheat, and scheme, and plot, and plan as you do come to bad ends. Mind yours! Mind the wheel doesn't come full circle. And now, if you please, go away and don't dare to come near me again!”
Bryce made no answer. He had listened, with an attempt at a smile, to all this fiery indignation, but as Mary spoke the last words he was suddenly aware of something that drew his attention from her and them. Through an opening in Ransford's garden hedge he could see the garden door of the Folliots' house across the Close. And at that moment out of it emerge Folliot himself in conversation with Glassdale!
Without a word, Bryce snatched up his hat from the table of the summer-house, and went swiftly away—a new scheme, a new idea in his mind.