J. S. Fletcher

“ Mary said nothing for a moment, and Ransford moved restlessly about the room.
“I don't trust that fellow Bryce,” he said suddenly. “He's up to something. I don't forget what he said when I bundled him out that morning.”
“What?” she asked.
“That he would be a bad enemy,” answered Ransford. “He's posing now as a friend—but a man's never to be so much suspected as when he comes doing what you may call unnecessary acts of friendship. I'd rather that anybody was mixed up in my affairs—your affairs—than Pemberton Bryce!” ”

“ Outside the professional part of him, Bryce seemed to him to be undoubtedly deep, sly, cunning—he conveyed the impression of being one of those men whose ears are always on the stretch, who take everything in and give little out. There was a curious air of watchfulness and of secrecy about him in private matters which was as repellent—to Ransford's thinking—as it was hard to explain. Anyway, in private affairs, he did not like his assistant, and he liked him less than ever as he glanced at him on this particular occasion. ”

“ Ransford made an effort to calm himself. He was furiously angry—angry with Bryce, angry with Mitchington, angry with the cloud of foolishness and stupidity that seemed to be gathering.
“Why should I—supposing that I do know something, which I don't admit—why should I allow myself to be coerced and frightened by these fools?” he asked. “No man can prevent suspicion falling on him—it's my bad luck in this instance. Why should I rush to the police-station and say, 'Here—I'll blurt out all I know—everything!' Why?” ”

“ On one side of him and the dead man rose the grey walls of nave and transept; on the other, the cypresses and yews rising amongst the old tombs and monuments. Assuring himself that no one was near, no eye watching, he slipped his hand into the inner breast pocket of the dead man's smart morning coat. Such a man must carry papers—papers would reveal something. And Bryce wanted to know anything—anything that would give information and let him into whatever secret there might be between this unlucky stranger and Ransford. ”

“ And to begin with, I'll make a bold assertion—I know more of this Wrychester Paradise mystery—involving the deaths of both Braden and Collishaw, than any man living—because, though you don't know it, Mitchington, I've gone right into it. And I'll tell you in confidence why I went into it—I want to marry Dr. Ransford's ward, Miss Bewery!”
Bryce accompanied this candid admission with a look which seemed to say: Here we are, three men of the world, who know what things are—we understand each other! And while Jettison merely nodded comprehendingly, Mitchington put his thoughts into words. ”

“ If any remarkably keen and able observer of the odd characteristics of humanity had been present in Harker's little parlour at that moment, watching him and his visitor, he would have been struck by what happened when the old man put this sudden and point-blank question to the young one. For Harker put the question, though in a whisper, in no more than a casual, almost friendlily-confidential way, and Bryce never showed by the start of a finger or the flicker of an eyelash that he felt it to be what he really knew it to be—the most surprising and startling question he had ever had put to him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was easy to see that both boy and girl had a mighty veneration for Ransford; just as easy to see that Ransford took infinite pains to make life something more than happy and comfortable for both. And Bryce, who was one of those men who firmly believe that no man ever does anything for nothing and that self-interest is the mainspring of Life, asked himself over and over again the question which agitated the ladies of the Close: Who are these two, and what is the bond between them and this sort of fairy-godfather-guardian? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Bryce let the librarian go on talking and explaining, and heard all he had to say as a man hears things in a dream—what was really active in his own mind was joy at this unexpected stroke of luck: he himself might have searched for many a year and never found the last resting-place of Richard Jenkins. And when, soon after the great clock of the Cathedral had struck the hour of noon, he left Campany and quitted the Library, he walked over to Paradise and plunged in amongst its yews and cypresses, intent on seeing the Jenkins tomb for himself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But if you imagine that the choice and select coteries of a cathedral town, consisting mainly of the relicts of deceased deans, canons, prebendaries and the like, and of maiden aunts, elderly spinsters, and tea-table-haunting curates, are free from gossip—why, you're a singularly innocent person!”
“They'd better not begin gossiping about my affairs,” said Ransford. “Otherwise—”
“You can't stop them from gossiping about your affairs,” interrupted Bryce cheerfully. “Of course they gossip about your affairs; have gossiped about them; will continue to gossip about them. It's human nature!” ”

“ Ransford had something to do with that affair,” answered Bryce. “Unpleasant—unfortunate—but it's a fact.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Mary with a heightening colour. “What could he have to do with it? What could give rise to such foolish—wicked—rumours?”
“You know as well as I do how people talk, how they will talk,” said Bryce. “You can't stop them, in a place like Wrychester, where everybody knows everybody. There's a mystery around Braden's death—it's no use denying it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He thought of what he might get out of Ransford if he, Bryce, were Coroner, or solicitor, and had Ransford in that witness-box. He would ask him on his oath if he knew that dead man—if he had had dealings with him in times past—if he had met and spoken to him on that eventful morning—he would ask him, point-blank, if it was not his hand that had thrown him to his death. ”

“ Ransford,” he said. “When one thing seems to fit into another, what is one to think. If I were certain that that rumour which spread, about Collishaw's knowledge of something—you know, had got to Ransford's ears—why, I should say it looked very much as if Ransford wanted to stop Collishaw's tongue for good before it could say more—and next time, perhaps, something definite. If men once begin to hint that they know something, they don't stop at hinting. Collishaw might have spoken plainly before long—to us!”
Bryce asked a question about the holding of the inquest and went away. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ Naturally no man wishes to marry unless he knows as much as he can get to know about the woman he wants, her family, her antecedents—and all that. Now, pretty nearly everybody in Wrychester who knows them, knows that there's a mystery about Dr. Ransford and his two wards—it's been talked of, no end, amongst the old dowagers and gossips of the Close, particularly—you know what they are! Miss Bewery herself, and her brother, young Dick, in a lesser degree, know there's a mystery. And if there's one man in the world who knows the secret, it's Ransford. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Mrs. Folliot, left to herself, had the gift of creating an atmosphere, and if she once got it into her head that there was some mysterious connection between Dr. Ransford and the dead man, she would never rest until she had spread her suspicions. But as for Bryce himself, he wanted more than suspicions—he wanted facts, particulars, data. And once more he began to go over the sum of evidence which had accrued.
The question of the scrap of paper found in Braden's purse, and of the exact whereabouts of Richard Jenkins's grave in Paradise, he left for the time being. ”

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

“ Pressing my own claim, if you like, on you, the guardian. You might do much worse than support my claims, Dr. Ransford.”
“Claims, man!” retorted Ransford. “You've got no claims! What are you talking about? Claims!”
“My pretensions, then,” answered Bryce. “If there is a mystery—as Wrychester people say there is—about Miss Bewery, it would be safe with me. Whatever you may think, I'm a thoroughly dependable man—when it's in my own interest.” ”