“No particular entry,” answered Bryce, “and as to period—fairly recent. The fact is, I am interested in names. I am thinking”—here he used one more of his easily found inventions—“of writing a book on English surnames, and am just now inspecting parish registers in the Midlands for that purpose.”
“Then I can considerably simplify your labours,” said the vicar, taking down a book from one of his shelves. “Our parish registers have been copied and printed, and here is the volume—everything is in there from 1570 to ten years ago, and there is a very full index. Are you staying in the neighbourhood—or the village?”
“In the neighbourhood, yes; in the village, no longer than the time I shall spend in getting some lunch at the inn yonder,” answered Bryce, nodding through an open window at an ancient tavern which stood in the valley beneath, close to an old stone bridge. “Perhaps you will kindly lend me this book for an hour?—then, if I see anything very noteworthy in the index, I can look at the actual registers when I bring it back.”
The vicar replied that that was precisely what he had been about to suggest, and Bryce carried the book away. And while he sat in the inn parlour awaiting his lunch, he turned to the carefully-compiled index, glancing it through rapidly. On the third page he saw the name Bewery.
If the man who had followed Bryce from Barthorpe to Braden Medworth had been with him in the quiet inn parlour he would have seen his quarry start, and heard him let a stifled exclamation escape his lips. But the follower, knowing his man was safe for an hour, was in the bar outside eating bread and cheese and drinking ale, and Bryce’s surprise was witnessed by no one. Yet he had been so much surprised that if all Wrychester had been there he could not, despite his self-training in watchfulness, have kept back either start or exclamation.
Bewery! A name so uncommon that here—here, in this out-of-the-way Midland village!—there must be some connection with the object of his search. There the name stood out before him, to the exclusion of all others—Bewery—with just one entry of figures against it. He turned to page 387 with a sense of sure discovery.
And there an entry caught his eye at once—and he knew that he had discovered more than he had ever hoped for. He read it again and again, gloating over his wonderful luck.
June 19th, 1891. John Brake, bachelor, of the parish of St. Pancras, London, to Mary Bewery, spinster, of this parish, by the Vicar. Witnesses, Charles Claybourne, Selina Womersley, Mark Ransford.
Twenty-two years ago! The Mary Bewery whom Bryce knew in Wrychester was just about twenty—this Mary Bewery, spinster, of Braden Medworth, was, then, in all probability, her mother. But John Brake who married that Mary Bewery—who was he? Who indeed, laughed Bryce, but John Braden, who had just come by his death in Wrychester Paradise? And there was the name of Mark Ransford as witness. What was the further probability? That Mark Ransford had been John Brake’s best man; that he was the Marco of the recent Times advertisement; that John Braden, or Brake, was the Sticker of the same advertisement. Clear!—clear as noonday! And—what did it all mean, and imply, and what bearing had it on Braden or Brake’s death?
Before he ate his cold beef, Bryce had copied the entry from the reprinted register, and had satisfied himself that Ransford was not a name known to that village—Mark Ransford was the only person of the name mentioned in the register. And his lunch done, he set off for the vicarage again, intent on getting further information, and before he reached the vicarage gates noticed, by accident, a place whereat he was more likely to get it than from the vicar—who was a youngish man. At the end of the few houses between the inn and the bridge he saw a little shop with the name Charles Claybourne painted roughly above its open window. In that open window sat an old, cheery-faced man, mending shoes, who blinked at the stranger through his big spectacles.
Bryce saw his chance and turned in—to open the book and point out the marriage entry.
“Are you the Charles Claybourne mentioned there?” he asked, without ceremony.
“That’s me, sir!” replied the old shoemaker briskly, after a glance. “Yes—right enough!”
“How came you to witness that marriage?” inquired Bryce.
The old man nodded at the church across the way.
“I’ve been sexton and parish clerk two-and-thirty years, sir,” he said. “And I took it on from my father—and he had the job from his father.”
“Do you remember this marriage?” asked Bryce, perching himself on the bench at which the shoemaker was working. “Twenty-two years since, I see.”
“Aye, as if it was yesterday!” answered the old man with a smile. “Miss Bewery’s marriage?—why, of course!”
“Who was she?” demanded Bryce.
“Governess at the vicarage,” replied Claybourne. “Nice, sweet young lady.”
“And the man she married?—Mr. Brake,” continued Bryce. “Who was he?”
“A young gentleman that used to come here for the fishing, now and then,” answered Claybourne, pointing at the river. “Famous for our trout we are here, you know, sir. And Brake had come here for three years before they were married—him and his friend Mr. Ransford.”
“You remember him, too?” asked Bryce.
“Remember both of ‘em very well indeed,” said Claybourne, “though I never set eyes on either after Miss Mary was wed to Mr. Brake. But I saw plenty of ‘em both before that. They used to put up at the inn there—that I saw you come out of just now. They came two or three times a year—and they were a bit thick with our parson of that time—not this one: his predecessor—and they used to go up to the vicarage and smoke their pipes and cigars with him—and of course, Mr. Brake and the governess fixed it up. Though, you know, at one time it was considered it was going to be her and the other young gentleman, Mr. Ransford—yes! But, in the end, it was Brake—and Ransford stood best man for him.”
Bruce assimilated all this information greedily—and asked for more.
“I’m interested in that entry,” he said, tapping the open book. “I know some people of the name of Bewery—they may be relatives.”
The shoemaker shook his head as if doubtful.
“I remember hearing it said,” he remarked, “that Miss Mary had no relations. She’d been with the old vicar some time, and I don’t remember any relations ever coming to see her, nor her going away to see any.”
“Do you know what Brake was?” asked Bryce. “As you say he came here for a good many times before the marriage, I suppose you’d hear something about his profession, or trade, or whatever it was?”
“He was a banker, that one,” replied Claybourne. “A banker—that was his trade, sir. T’other gentleman, Mr. Ransford, he was a doctor—I mind that well enough, because once when him and Mr. Brake were fishing here, Thomas Joynt’s wife fell downstairs and broke her leg, and they fetched him to her—he’d got it set before they’d got the reg’lar doctor out from Barthorpe yonder.”
Bryce had now got all the information he wanted, and he made the old parish clerk a small present and turned to go. But another question presented itself to his mind and he reentered the little shop.
“Your late vicar?” he said. “The one in whose family Miss Bewery was governess—where is he now? Dead?”
“Can’t say whether he’s dead or alive, sir,” replied