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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.
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.
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.”