Glassdale, journeying into Wrychester half an hour after Bryce had left him at the Saxonsteade Arms, occupied himself during his ride across country in considering the merits of the two handbills which Bryce had given him. One announced an offer of five hundred pounds reward for information in the Braden-Collishaw matter; the other, of a thousand pounds. It struck him as a curious thing that two offers should be made—it suggested, at once, that more than one person was deeply interested in this affair. But who were they?—no answer to that question appeared on the handbills, which were, in each case, signed by Wrychester solicitors. To one of these Glassdale, on arriving in the old city, promptly proceeded—selecting the offerer of the larger reward. He presently found himself in the presence of an astute-looking man who, having had his visitor's name sent in to him, regarded Glassdale with very obvious curiosity.
“Mr. Glassdale?” he said inquiringly, as the caller took an offered chair. “Are you, by any chance, the Mr. Glassdale whose name is mentioned in connection with last night's remarkable affair?”
He pointed to a copy of the weekly newspaper, lying on his desk, and to a formal account of the discovery of the Saxonsteade jewels which had been furnished to the press, at the Duke's request, by Mitchington. Glassdale glanced at it—unconcernedly.
“The same,” he answered. “But I didn't call here on that matter—though what I did call about is certainly relative to it. You've offered a reward for any information that would lead to the solution of that mystery about Braden—and the other man, Collishaw.”
“Of a thousand pounds—yes!” replied the solicitor, looking at his visitor with still more curiosity, mingled with expectancy. “Can you give any?”
Glassdale pulled out the two handbills which he had obtained from Bryce.
“There are two rewards offered,” he remarked. “Are they entirely independent of each other?”
“We know nothing of the other,” answered the solicitor. “Except, of course, that it exists. They're quite independent.”
“Who's offering the five hundred pound one?” asked Glassdale.
The solicitor paused, looking his man over. He saw at once that Glassdale had, or believed he had, something to tell—and was disposed to be unusually cautious about telling it.
“Well,” he replied, after a pause. “I believe—in fact, it's an open secret—that the offer of five hundred pounds is made by Dr. Ransford.”
“And—yours?” inquired Glassdale. “Who's at the back of yours—a thousand?”
The solicitor smiled.
“You haven't answered my question, Mr. Glassdale,” he observed. “Can you give any information?”
Glassdale threw his questioner a significant glance.
“Whatever information I might give,” he said, “I'd only give to a principal—the principal. From what I've seen and known of all this, there's more in it than is on the surface. I can tell something. I knew John Braden—who, of course, was John Brake—very well, for some years. Naturally, I was in his confidence.”
“About more than the Saxonsteade jewels, you mean?” asked the solicitor.
“About more than that,” assented Glassdale. “Private matters. I've no doubt I can throw some light—some!—on this Wrychester Paradise affair. But, as I said just now, I'll only deal with the principal. I wouldn't tell you, for instance—as your principal's solicitor.”
The solicitor smiled again.
“Your ideas, Mr. Glassdale, appear to fit in with our principal's,” he remarked. “His instructions—strict instructions—to us are that if anybody turns up who can give any information, it's not to be given to us, but to—himself!”
“Wise man!” observed Glassdale. “That's just what I feel about it. It's a mistake to share secrets with more than one person.”
“There is a secret, then!” asked the solicitor, half slyly.
“Might be,” replied Glassdale. “Who's your client?”
The solicitor pulled a scrap of paper towards him and wrote a few words on it. He pushed it towards his caller, and Glassdale picked it up and read what had been written—Mr. Stephen Folliot, The Close.
“You'd better go and see him,” said the solicitor, suggestively. “You'll find him reserved enough.”
Glassdale read and re-read the name—as if he were endeavouring to recollect it, or connect it with something.
“What particular reason has this man for wishing to find this out?” he inquired.
“Can't say, my good sir!” replied the solicitor, with a smile. “Perhaps he'll tell you. He hasn't told me.”
Glassdale rose to take his leave. But with his hand on the door he turned.
“Is this gentleman a resident in the place?” he asked.
“A well-known townsman,” replied the solicitor. “You'll easily find his house in the Close—everybody knows it.”
Glassdale went away then—and walked slowly towards the Cathedral precincts. On his way he passed two places at which he was half inclined to call—one was the police-station; the other, the office of the solicitors who were acting on behalf of the offerer of five hundred pounds. He half glanced at the solicitor's door—but on reflection went forward. A man who was walking across the Close pointed out the Folliot residence—Glassdale entered by the garden door, and in another minute came face to face with Folliot himself, busied, as usual, amongst his rose-trees.
Glassdale saw Folliot and took stock of him before Folliot knew that a stranger was within his gates. Folliot, in an old jacket which he kept for his horticultural labours, was taking slips from a standard; he looked as harmless and peaceful as his occupation. A quiet, inoffensive, somewhat benevolent elderly man, engaged in work, which suggested leisure and peace.
But Glassdale, after a first quick, searching glance, took another and longer one—and went nearer with a discreet laugh.
Folliot turned quietly, and seeing the stranger, showed no surprise. He had a habit of looking over the top rims of his spectacles at people, and he looked in this way at Glassdale, glancing him up and down calmly. Glassdale lifted his slouch hat and advanced.
“Mr. Folliot, I believe, sir?” he said. “Mr. Stephen Folliot?”
“Aye, just so!” responded Folliot. “But I don't know you. Who may you be, now?”
“My name, sir, is Glassdale,” answered the other. “I've just come from your solicitor's. I called to see him this afternoon—and he told me that the business I called about could only be dealt with—or discussed—with you. So—I came here.”
Folliot, who had been cutting slips off a rose-tree, closed his knife and put it away in his old jacket. He turned and quietly inspected his visitor once more.
“Aye!” he said quietly. “So you're after that thousand pound reward, eh?”
“I should have no objection to it, Mr. Folliot,” replied Glassdale.
“I dare say not,” remarked Folliot, dryly. “I dare say not! And which are you, now?—one of those who think they can tell something, or one that really can tell? Eh?”
“You'll know that better when we've had a bit of talk, Mr. Folliot,” answered Glassdale, accompanying his reply with a direct glance.
“Oh, well, now then, I've no objection to a bit of talk—none whatever!” said Folliot. “Here!—we'll sit down on that bench, amongst the roses. Quite private here—nobody about. And now,” he continued, as Glassdale accompanied him to a rustic bench set beneath a pergola of rambler roses, “who are you, like? I read a queer account in this morning's local paper of what happened in the Cathedral grounds yonder last night, and there was a person of your name mentioned. Are you that Glassdale?”
“The same, Mr. Folliot,” answered the visitor, promptly.
“Then you knew Braden—the man who lost his life here?” asked Folliot.
“Very well indeed,” replied Glassdale.
“For how long?” demanded Folliot.
“Some years—as a mere acquaintance, seen now and then,” said Glassdale. “A few years, recently, as what you might call a close friend.”
“Tell you any of his secrets?” asked Folliot.
“Yes, he did!” answered Glassdale.
“Anything that seems to relate to his death—and the mystery about it?” inquired Folliot.
“I think so,” said Glassdale. “Upon consideration, I think so!”
“Ah—and what might it be, now?” continued Folliot. He gave Glassdale a look which seemed to denote and imply several things. “It might be to your advantage to explain a bit, you know,” he added. “One has to be a little—vague, eh?”
“There was a certain man that Braden was very anxious to find,” said Glassdale. “He'd been looking for him for a good many years.”
“A man?” asked Folliot. “One?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, there were two,” admitted Glassdale, “but there was one in particular. The other—the second—so Braden said, didn't matter; he was or had been, only a sort of cat's-paw of the man he especially wanted.”
“I see,” said Folliot. He pulled out a cigar case and offered a cigar to his visitor, afterwards lighting one himself. “And what did Braden want that man for?” he asked.
Glassdale waited until his cigar was in full going order before he answered this question. Then he replied in one word.
“Revenge!”
Folliot put his thumbs in the armholes of his buff waistcoat and leaning back, seemed to be admiring his roses.
“Ah!” he said at last. “Revenge, now? A sort of vindictive man, was he? Wanted to get his knife into somebody, eh?”
“He wanted to get something of his own back from a man who'd done him,” answered Glassdale, with a short laugh. “That's about it!”
For a minute or two both men smoked in silence. Then Folliot—still regarding his roses—put a leading question.
“Give you any details?” he asked.
“Enough,” said Glassdale. “Braden had been done—over a money transaction—by these men—one especially, as head and front of the affair—and it had cost him—more than anybody would think! Naturally, he wanted—if he ever got the chance—his revenge. Who wouldn't?”
“And he'd tracked 'em down, eh?” asked Folliot.
“There are questions I can answer, and there are questions I can't answer,” responded Glassdale. “That's one of the questions I've no reply to. For—I don't know! But—I can say this. He hadn't tracked 'em down the day before he came to Wrychester!”
“You're sure of that?” asked Folliot. “He—didn't come here on that account?”
“No, I'm sure he didn't!” answered Glassdale, readily. “If he had, I should have known. I was with him till noon the day he came here—in London—and when he took his ticket at Victoria for Wrychester, he'd no more idea than the man in the moon as to where those men had got to. He mentioned it as we were having a bit of lunch together before he got into the train. No—he didn't come to Wrychester for any such purpose as that! But—”
He paused and gave Folliot a meaning glance out of the corner of his eyes.
“Aye—what?” asked Folliot.
“I think he met at least one of 'em here,” said Glassdale, quietly. “And—perhaps both.”
“Leading to—misfortune for him?” suggested Folliot.
“If you like to put it that way—yes,” assented Glassdale.
Folliot smoked a while in more reflective silence.
“Aye, well!” he said at last. “I suppose you haven't put these ideas of yours before anybody, now?”
“Present ideas?” asked Glassdale, sharply. “Not to a soul! I've not had 'em—very long.”
“You're the sort of man that another man can do a deal with, I suppose?” suggested Folliot. “That is, if it's made worth your while, of course?”
“I shouldn't wonder,” replied Glassdale. “And—if it is made worth my while.”
Folliot mused a little. Then he tapped Glassdale's elbow.
“You see,” he said, confidentially, “it might be, you know, that I had a little purpose of my own in offering that reward. It might be that it was a very particular friend of mine that had the misfortune to have incurred this man Braden's hatred. And I might want to save him, d'ye see, from—well, from the consequence of what's happened, and to hear about it first if anybody came forward, eh?”
“As I've done,” said Glassdale.
“As—you've done,” assented Folliot. “Now, perhaps it would be in the interest of this particular friend of mine if he made it worth your while to—say no more to anybody, eh?”
“Very much worth his while, Mr. Folliot,” declared Glassdale.
“Aye, well,” continued Folliot. “This very particular friend would just want to know, you know, how much you really, truly know! Now, for instance, about these two men—and one in particular—that Braden was after? Did—did he name 'em?”
Glassdale leaned a little nearer to his companion on the rose-screened bench.
“He named them—to me!” he said in a whisper. “One was a man called Falkiner Wraye, and the other man was a man named Flood. Is that enough?”
“I think you'd better come and see me this evening,” answered Folliot. “Come just about dusk to that door—I'll meet you there. Fine roses these of mine, aren't they?” he continued, as they rose. “I occupy myself entirely with 'em.”
He walked with Glassdale to the garden door, and stood there watching his visitor go away up the side of the high wall until he turned into the path across Paradise. And then, as Folliot was retreating to his roses, he saw Bryce coming over the Close—and Bryce beckoned to him.
When Bryce came hurrying up to him, Folliot was standing at his garden door with his hands thrust under his coat-tails—the very picture of a benevolent, leisured gentleman who has nothing to do and is disposed to give his time to anybody. He glanced at Bryce as he had glanced at Glassdale—over the tops of his spectacles, and the glance had no more than mild inquiry in it. But if Bryce had been less excited, he would have seen that Folliot, as he beckoned him inside the garden, swept a sharp look over the Close and ascertained that there was no one about, that Bryce's entrance was unobserved. Save for a child or two, playing under the tall elms near one of the gates, and for a clerical figure that stalked a path in the far distance, the Close was empty of life. And there was no one about, either, in that part of Folliot's big garden.
“I want a bit of talk with you,” said Bryce as Folliot closed the door and turned down a side-path to a still more retired region. “Private talk. Let's go where it's quiet.”
Without replying in words to this suggestion, Folliot led the way through his rose-trees to a far corner of his grounds, where an old building of grey stone, covered with ivy, stood amongst high trees. He turned the key of a doorway and motioned Bryce to enter.
“Quiet enough in here, doctor,” he observed. “You've never seen this place—bit of a fancy of mine.”
Bryce, absorbed as he was in the thoughts of the moment, glanced cursorily at the place into which Folliot had led him. It was a square building of old stone, its walls unlined, unplastered; its floor paved with much worn flags of limestone, evidently set down in a long dead age and now polished to marble-like smoothness. In its midst, set flush with the floor, was what was evidently a trap-door, furnished with a heavy iron ring. To this Folliot pointed, with a glance of significant interest.
“Deepest well in all Wrychester under that,” he remarked. “You'd never think it—it's a hundred feet deep—and more! Dry now—water gave out some years ago. Some people would have pulled this old well-house down—but not me! I did better—I turned it to good account.” He raised a hand and pointed upward to an obviously modern ceiling of strong oak timbers. “Had that put in,” he continued, “and turned the top of the building into a little snuggery. Come up!”
He led the way to a flight of steps in one corner of the lower room, pushed open a door at their head, and showed his companion into a small apartment arranged and furnished in something closely approaching to luxury. The walls were hung with thick fabrics; the carpeting was equally thick; there were pictures, books, and curiosities; the two or three chairs were deep and big enough to lie down in; the two windows commanded pleasant views of the Cathedral towers on one side and of the Close on the other.
“Nice little place to be alone in, d'ye see?” said Folliot. “Cool in summer—warm in winter—modern fire-grate, you notice. Come here when I want to do a bit of quiet thinking, what?”
“Good place for that—certainly,” agreed Bryce.
Folliot pointed his visitor to one of the big chairs and turning to a cabinet brought out some glasses, a syphon of soda-water, and a heavy cut-glass decanter. He nodded at a box of cigars which lay open on a table at Bryce's elbow as he began to mix a couple of drinks.
“Help yourself,” he said. “Good stuff, those.”
Not until he had given Bryce a drink, and had carried his own glass to another easy chair did Folliot refer to any reason for Bryce's visit. But once settled down, he looked at him speculatively.
“What did you want to see me about?” he asked.
Bryce, who had lighted a cigar, looked across its smoke at the imperturbable face opposite.
“You've just had Glassdale here,” he observed quietly. “I saw him leave you.”
Folliot nodded—without any change of expression.
“Aye, doctor,” he said. “And—what do you know about Glassdale, now?”
Bryce, who would have cheerfully hobnobbed with a man whom he was about to conduct to the scaffold, lifted his glass and drank.
“A good deal,” he answered as he set the glass down. “The fact is—I came here to tell you so!—I know a good deal about everything.”
“A wide term!” remarked Folliot. “You've got some limitation to it, I should think. What do you mean by—everything?”
“I mean about recent matters,” replied Bryce. “I've interested myself in them—for reasons of my own. Ever since Braden was found at the foot of those stairs in Paradise, and I was fetched to him, I've interested myself. And—I've discovered a great deal—more, much more than's known to anybody.”
Folliot threw one leg over the other and began to jog his foot.
“Oh!” he said after a pause. “Dear me! And—what might you know, now, doctor? Aught you can tell me eh?”
“Lots!” answered Bryce. “I came to tell you—on seeing that Glassdale had been with you. Because—I was with Glassdale this morning.”
Folliot made no answer. But Bryce saw that his cool, almost indifferent manner was changing—he was beginning, under the surface, to get anxious.
“When I left Glassdale—at noon,” continued Bryce, “I'd no idea—and I don't think he had—that he was coming to see you. But I know what put the notion into his head. I gave him copies of those two reward bills. He no doubt thought he might make a bit—and so he came in to town, and—to you.”
“Well?” asked Folliot.
“I shouldn't wonder,” remarked Bryce, reflectively, and almost as if speaking to himself, “I shouldn't at all wonder if Glassdale's the sort of man who can be bought. He, no doubt, has his price. But all that Glassdale knows is nothing—to what I know.”
Folliot had allowed his cigar to go out. He threw it away, took a fresh one from the box, and slowly struck a match and lighted it.
“What might you know, now?” he asked after another pause.
“I've a bit of a faculty for finding things out,” answered Bryce boldly. “And I've developed it. I wanted to know all about Braden—and about who killed him—and why. There's only one way of doing all that sort of thing, you know. You've got to go back—a long way back—to the very beginnings. I went back—to the time when Braden was married. Not as Braden, of course—but as who he really was—John Brake. That was at a place called Braden Medworth, near Barthorpe, in Leicestershire.”
He paused there, watching Folliot. But Folliot showed no more than close attention, and Bryce went on.
“Not much in that—for the really important part of the story,” he continued. “But Brake had other associations with Barthorpe—a bit later. He got to know—got into close touch with a Barthorpe man who, about the time of Brake's marriage, left Barthorpe and settled in London. Brake and this man began to have some secret dealings together. There was another man in with them, too—a man who was a sort of partner of the Barthorpe man's. Brake had evidently a belief in these men, and he trusted them—unfortunately for himself he sometimes trusted the bank's money to them. I know what happened—he used to let them have money for short financial transactions—to be refunded within a very brief space. But—he went to the fire too often, and got his fingers burned in the end. The two men did him—one of them in particular—and cleared out. He had to stand the racket. He stood it—to the tune of ten years' penal servitude. And, naturally, when he'd finished his time, he wanted to find those two men—and began a long search for them. Like to know the names of the men, Mr. Folliot?”
“You might mention 'em—if you know 'em,” answered Folliot.
“The name of the particular one was Wraye—Falkiner Wraye,” replied Bryce promptly. “Of the other—the man of lesser importance—Flood.”
The two men looked quietly at each other for a full moment's silence. And it was Bryce who first spoke with a ring of confidence in his tone which showed that he knew he had the whip hand.
“Shall I tell you something about Falkiner Wraye?” he asked. “I will!—it's deeply interesting. Mr. Falkiner Wraye, after cheating and deceiving Brake, and leaving him to pay the penalty of his over-trustfulness, cleared out of England and carried his money-making talents to foreign parts. He succeeded in doing well—he would!—and eventually he came back and married a rich widow and settled himself down in an out-of-the-world English town to grow roses. You're Falkiner Wraye, you know, Mr. Folliot!”
Bryce laughed as he made this direct accusation, and sitting forward in his chair, pointed first to Folliot's face and then to his left hand.
“Falkiner Wraye,” he said, “had an unfortunate gun accident in his youth which marked him for life. He lost the middle finger of his left hand, and he got a bad scar on his left jaw. There they are, those marks! Fortunate for you, Mr. Folliot, that the police don't know all that I know, for if they did, those marks would have done for you days ago!” For a minute or two Folliot sat joggling his leg—a bad sign in him of rising temper if Bryce had but known it. While he remained silent he watched Bryce narrowly, and when he spoke, his voice was calm as ever.
“And what use do you intend to put your knowledge to, if one may ask?” he inquired, half sneeringly. “You said just now that you'd no doubt that man Glassdale could be bought, and I'm inclining to think that you're one of those men that have their price. What is it?”
“We've not come to that,” retorted Bryce. “You're a bit mistaken. If I have my price, it's not in the same commodity that Glassdale would want. But before we do any talking about that sort of thing, I want to add to my stock of knowledge. Look here! We'll be candid. I don't care a snap of my fingers that Brake, or Braden's dead, or that Collishaw's dead, nor if one had his neck broken and the other was poisoned, but—whose hand was that which the mason, Varner, saw that morning, when Brake was flung out of that doorway? Come, now!—whose?”
“Not mine, my lad!” answered Folliot, confidently. “That's a fact?”
Bryce hesitated, giving Folliot a searching look. And Folliot nodded solemnly. “I tell you, not mine!” he repeated. “I'd naught to do with it!”
“Then who had?” demanded Bryce. “Was it the other man—Flood? And if so, who is Flood?”
Folliot got up from his chair and, cigar between his lips and hands under the tails of his old coat, walked silently about the quiet room for awhile. He was evidently thinking deeply, and Bryce made no attempt to disturb him. Some minutes went by before Folliot took the cigar from his lips and leaning against the chimneypiece looked fixedly at his visitor.
“Look here, my lad!” he said, earnestly. “You're no doubt, as you say, a good hand at finding things out, and you've doubtless done a good bit of ferreting, and done it well enough in your own opinion. But there's one thing you can't find out, and the police can't find out either, and that's the precise truth about Braden's death. I'd no hand in it—it couldn't be fastened on to me, anyhow.”
Bryce looked up and interjected one word.
“Collishaw?”
“Nor that, neither,” answered Folliot, hastily. “Maybe I know something about both, but neither you nor the police nor anybody could fasten me to either matter! Granting all you say to be true, where's the positive truth?”
“What about circumstantial evidence,” asked Bryce.
“You'd have a job to get it,” retorted Folliot. “Supposing that all you say is true about—about past matters? Nothing can prove—nothing!—that I ever met Braden that morning. On the other hand, I can prove, easily, that I never did meet him; I can account for every minute of my time that day. As to the other affair—not an ounce of direct evidence!”
“Then—it was the other man!” exclaimed Bryce. “Now then, who is he?”
Folliot replied with a shrewd glance.
“A man who by giving away another man gave himself away would be a damned fool!” he answered. “If there is another man—”
“As if there must be!” interrupted Bryce.
“Then he's safe!” concluded Folliot. “You'll get nothing from me about him!”
“And nobody can get at you except through him?” asked Bryce.
“That's about it,” assented Folliot laconically.
Bryce laughed cynically.
“A pretty coil!” he said with a sneer. “Here! You talked about my price. I'm quite content to hold my tongue if you'd tell me something about what happened seventeen years ago.”
“What?” asked Folliot.
“You knew Brake, you must have known his family affairs,” said Bryce. “What became of Brake's wife and children when he went to prison?”
Folliot shook his head, and it was plain to Bryce that his gesture of dissent was genuine.
“You're wrong,” he answered. “I never at any time knew anything of Brake's family affairs. So little indeed, that I never even knew he was married.”
Bryce rose to his feet and stood staring.
“What!” he exclaimed. “You mean to tell me that, even now, you don't know that Brake had two children, and that—that—oh, it's incredible!”
“What's incredible?” asked Folliot. “What are you talking about?”
Bryce in his eagerness and surprise grasped Folliot's arm and shook it.
“Good heavens, man!” he said. “Those two wards of Ransford's are Brake's girl and boy! Didn't you know that, didn't you?”
“Never!” answered Folliot. “Never! And who's Ransford, then? I never heard Brake speak of any Ransford! What game is all this? What—”
Before Bryce could reply, Folliot suddenly started, thrust his companion aside and went to one of the windows. A sharp exclamation from him took Bryce to his side. Folliot lifted a shaking hand and pointed into the garden.
“There!” he whispered. “Hell and—What's this mean?”
Bryce looked in the direction pointed out. Behind the pergola of rambler roses the figures of men were coming towards the old well-house led by one of Folliot's gardeners. Suddenly they emerged into full view, and in front of the rest was Mitchington and close behind him the detective, and behind him—Glassdale!
It was close on five o'clock when Glassdale, leaving Folliot at his garden door, turned the corner into the quietness of the Precincts. He walked about there a while, staring at the queer old houses with eyes which saw neither fantastic gables nor twisted chimneys. Glassdale was thinking. And the result of his reflections was that he suddenly exchanged his idle sauntering for brisker steps and walked sharply round to the police-station, where he asked to see Mitchington.
Mitchington and the detective were just about to walk down to the railway-station to meet Ransford, in accordance with his telegram. At sight of Glassdale they went back into the inspector's office. Glassdale closed the door and favoured them with a knowing smile.
“Something else for you, inspector!” he said. “Mixed up a bit with last night's affair, too. About these mysteries—Braden and Collishaw—I can tell you one man who's in them.”
“Who, then?” demanded Mitchington.
Glassdale went a step nearer to the two officials and lowered his voice.
“The man who's known here as Stephen Folliot,” he answered. “That's a fact!”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mitchington. Then he laughed incredulously. “Can't believe it!” he continued. “Mr. Folliot! Must be some mistake!”
“No mistake,” replied Glassdale. “Besides, Folliot's only an assumed name. That man is really one Falkiner Wraye, the man Braden, or Brake, was seeking for many a year, the man who cheated Brake and got him into trouble. I tell you it's a fact! He's admitted it, or as good as done so, to me just now.”
“To you? And—let you come away and spread it?” exclaimed Mitchington. “That's incredible! more astonishing than the other!”
Glassdale laughed.
“Ah, but I let him think I could be squared, do you see?” he said. “Hush-money, you know. He's under the impression that I'm to go back to him this evening to settle matters. I knew so much—identified him, as a matter of fact—that he'd no option. I tell you he's been in at both these affairs—certain! But—there's another man.”
“Who's he?” demanded Mitchington.
“Can't say, for I don't know, though I've an idea he'll be a fellow that Brake was also wanting to find,” replied Glassdale. “But anyhow, I know what I'm talking about when I tell you of Folliot. You'd better do something before he suspects me.”
Mitchington glanced at the clock.
“Come with us down to the station,” he said. “Dr. Ransford's coming in on this express from town; he's got news for us. We'd better hear that first. Folliot!—good Lord!—who'd have believed or even dreamed it!”
“You'll see,” said Glassdale as they went out.
“Maybe Dr. Ransford's got the same information.” Ransford was out of the train as soon as it ran in, and hurried to where Mitchington and his companions were standing. And behind him, to Mitchington's surprise, came old Simpson Harker, who had evidently travelled with him. With a silent gesture Mitchington beckoned the whole party into an empty waiting-room and closed its door on them.
“Now then, inspector,” said Ransford without preface or ceremony, “you've got to act quickly! You got my wire—a few words will explain it. I went up to town this morning in answer to a message from the bank where Braden lodged his money when he returned to England. To tell you the truth, the managers there and myself have, since Braden's death, been carrying to a conclusion an investigation which I began on Braden's behalf—though he never knew of it—years ago. At the bank I met Mr. Harker here, who had called to find something out for himself. Now I'll sum things up in a nutshell: for years Braden, or Brake, had been wanting to find two men who cheated him. The name of one is Wraye, of the other, Flood. I've been trying to trace them, too. At last we've got them. They're in this town, and without doubt the deaths of both Braden and Collishaw are at their door! You know both well enough. Wraye is-”
“Mr. Folliot!” interrupted Mitchington, pointing to Glassdale. “So he's just told us; he's identified him as Wraye. But the other—who's he, doctor?”
Ransford glanced at Glassdale as if he wished to question him, but instead he answered Mitchington's question.
“The other man,” he said, “the man Flood, is also a well-known man to you. Fladgate!”
Mitchington started, evidently more astonished than by the first news.
“What!” he exclaimed. “The verger! You don't say!”
“Do you remember,” continued Ransford, “that Folliot got Fladgate his appointment as verger not so very long after he himself came here? He did, anyway, and Fladgate is Flood. We've traced everything through Flood. Wraye has been a difficult man to trace, because of his residence abroad for a long time and his change of name, and so on, and it was only recently that my agents struck on a line through Flood. But there's the fact. And the probability is that when Braden came here he recognized and was recognized by these two, and that one or other of them is responsible for his death and for Collishaw's too. Circumstantial evidence, all of it, no doubt, but irresistible! Now, what do you propose to do?”
Mitchington considered matters for a moment.
“Fladgate first, certainly,” he said. “He lives close by here; we'll go round to his cottage. If he sees he's in a tight place he may let things out. Let's go there at once.”
He led the whole party out of the station and down the High Street until they came to a narrow lane of little houses which ran towards the Close. At its entrance a policeman was walking his beat. Mitchington stopped to exchange a few words with him.
“This man Fladgate,” he said, rejoining the others, “lives alone—fifth cottage down here. He'll be about having his tea; we shall take him by surprise.” Presently the group stood around a door at which Mitchington knocked gently, and it was on their grave and watchful faces that a tall, clean-shaven, very solemn-looking man gazed in astonishment as he opened the door, and started back. He went white to the lips and his hand fell trembling from the latch as Mitchington strode in and the rest crowded behind.
“Now then, Fladgate!” said Mitchington, going straight to the point and watching his man narrowly, while the detective approached him closely on the other side. “I want you and a word with you at once. Your real name is Flood! What have you to say to that? And—it's no use beating about the bush—what have you to say about this Braden affair, and your share with Folliot in it, whose real name is Wraye. It's all come out about the two of you. If you've anything to say, you'd better say it.”
The verger, whose black gown lay thrown across the back of a chair, looked from one face to another with frightened eyes. It was very evident that the suddenness of the descent had completely unnerved him. Ransford's practised eyes saw that he was on the verge of a collapse.
“Give him time, Mitchington,” he said. “Pull yourself together,” he added, turning to the man. “Don't be frightened; answer these questions!”
“For God's sake, gentlemen!” grasped the verger. “What—what is it? What am I to answer? Before God, I'm as innocent as—as any of you—about Mr. Brake's death! Upon my soul and honour I am!”
“You know all about it;” insisted Mitchington.
“Come, now, isn't it true that you're Flood, and that Folliot's Wraye, the two men whose trick on him got Brake convicted years ago? Answer that!”
Flood looked from one side to the other. He was leaning against his tea-table, set in the middle of his tidy living room. From the hearth his kettle sent out a pleasant singing that sounded strangely in contrast with the grim situation.
“Yes, that's true,” he said at last. “But in that affair I—I wasn't the principal. I was only—only Wraye's agent, as it were: I wasn't responsible. And when Mr. Brake came here, when I met him that morning—”
He paused, still looking from one to another of his audience as if entreating their belief.
“As sure as I'm a living man, gentlemen!” he suddenly burst out, “I'd no willing hand in Mr. Brake's death! I'll tell you the exact truth; I'll take my oath of it whenever you like. I'd have been thankful to tell, many a time, but for—for Wraye. He wouldn't let me at first, and afterwards it got complicated. It was this way. That morning—when Mr. Brake was found dead—I had occasion to go up into that gallery under the clerestory. I suddenly came on him face to face. He recognized me. And—I'm telling you the solemn, absolute truth, gentlemen!—he'd no sooner recognized me than he attacked me, seizing me by the arm. I hadn't recognized him at first, I did when he laid hold of me. I tried to shake him off, tried to quiet him; he struggled—I don't know what he wanted to do—he began to cry out—it was a wonder he wasn't heard in the church below, and he would have been only the organ was being played rather loudly. And in the struggle he slipped—it was just by that open doorway—and before I could do more than grasp at him, he shot through the opening and fell! It was sheer, pure accident, gentlemen! Upon my soul, I hadn't the least intention of harming him.”
“And after that?” asked Mitchington, at the end of a brief silence.
“I saw Mr. Folliot—Wraye,” continued Flood. “Just afterwards, that was. I told him; he bade me keep silence until we saw how things went. Later he forced me to be silent. What could I do? As things were, Wraye could have disclaimed me—I shouldn't have had a chance. So I held my tongue.”
“Now, then, Collishaw?” demanded Mitchington. “Give us the truth about that. Whatever the other was, that was murder!”
Flood lifted his hand and wiped away the perspiration that had gathered on his face.
“Before God, gentlemen!” he answered. “I know no more—at least, little more—about that than you do! I'll tell you all I do know. Wraye and I, of course, met now and then and talked about this. It got to our ears at last that Collishaw knew something. My own impression is that he saw what occurred between me and Mr. Brake—he was working somewhere up there. I wanted to speak to Collishaw. Wraye wouldn't let me, he bade me leave it to him. A bit later, he told me he'd squared Collishaw with fifty pounds—”
Mitchington and the detective exchanged looks.
“Wraye—that's Folliot—paid Collishaw fifty pounds, did he?” asked the detective.
“He told me so,” replied Flood. “To hold his tongue. But I'd scarcely heard that when I heard of Collishaw's sudden death. And as to how that happened, or who—who brought it about—upon my soul, gentlemen, I know nothing! Whatever I may have thought, I never mentioned it to Wraye—never! I—I daren't! You don't know what a man Wraye is! I've been under his thumb most of my life and—and what are you going to do with me, gentlemen?”
Mitchington exchanged a word or two with the detective, and then, putting his head out of the door beckoned to the policeman to whom he had spoken at the end of the lane and who now appeared in company with a fellow-constable. He brought both into the cottage.
“Get your tea,” he said sharply to the verger. “These men will stop with you—you're not to leave this room.” He gave some instructions to the two policemen in an undertone and motioned Ransford and the others to follow him. “It strikes me,” he said, when they were outside in the narrow lane, “that what we've just heard is somewhere about the truth. And now we'll go on to Folliot's—there's a way to his house round here.”
Mrs. Folliot was out, Sackville Bonham was still where Bryce had left him, at the golf-links, when the pursuers reached Folliot's. A parlourmaid directed them to the garden; a gardener volunteered the suggestion that his master might be in the old well-house and showed the way. And Folliot and Bryce saw them coming and looked at each other.
“Glassdale!” exclaimed Bryce. “By heaven, man!—he's told on you!”
Folliot was still staring through the window. He saw Ransford and Harker following the leading figures. And suddenly he turned to Bryce.
“You've no hand in this?” he demanded.
“I?” exclaimed Bryce. “I never knew till just now!”
Folliot pointed to the door.
“Go down!” he said. “Let 'em in, bid 'em come up! I'll—I'll settle with 'em. Go!”
Bryce hurried down to the lower apartment. He was filled with excitement—an unusual thing for him—but in the midst of it, as he made for the outer door, it suddenly struck him that all his schemings and plottings were going for nothing. The truth was at hand, and it was not going to benefit him in the slightest degree. He was beaten.
But that was no time for philosophic reflection; already those outside were beating at the door. He flung it open, and the foremost men started in surprise at the sight of him. But Bryce bent forward to Mitchington—anxious to play a part to the last.
“He's upstairs!” he whispered. “Up there! He'll bluff it out if he can, but he's just admitted to me—”
Mitchington thrust Bryce aside, almost roughly.
“We know all about that!” he said. “I shall have a word or two for you later! Come on, now—”
The men crowded up the stairway into Folliot's snuggery, Bryce, wondering at the inspector's words and manner, following closely behind him and the detective and Glassdale, who led the way. Folliot was standing in the middle of the room, one hand behind his back, the other in his pocket. And as the leading three entered the place he brought his concealed hand sharply round and presenting a revolver at Glassdale fired point-blank at him.
But it was not Glassdale who fell. He, wary and watching, started aside as he saw Folliot's movement, and the bullet, passing between his arm and body, found its billet in Bryce, who fell, with little more than a groan, shot through the heart. And as he fell, Folliot, scarcely looking at what he had done, drew his other hand from his pocket, slipped something into his mouth and sat down in the big chair behind him ... and within a moment the other men in the room were looking with horrified faces from one dead face to another.