The old clergyman lifted his hands and let them fall on his knees.
“I do not know what to say!” he exclaimed. “To tell you the truth, I have often wondered if—if that was what really did happen. There is the fact that Brake’s wife disappeared mysteriously—that Ransford made a similar mysterious disappearance about the same time—that Brake was obviously suffering from intense and bitter hatred when I saw him after the trial—hatred of some person on whom he meant to be revenged—and that his counsel hinted that he had been deceived and betrayed by a friend. Now, to my knowledge, he and Ransford were the closest of friends—in the old days, before Brake married our governess. And I suppose the friendship continued—certainly Ransford acted as best man at the wedding! But how account for that strange double disappearance?”
Bryce had already accounted for that, in his own secret mind. And now, having got all that he wanted out of the old clergyman, he rose to take his leave.
“You will regard this interview as having been of a strictly private nature, Mr. Gilwaters?” he said.
“Certainly!” responded the old man. “But—you mentioned that you wished to marry the daughter? Now that you know about her father’s past—for I am sure she must be John Brake’s child—you won’t allow that to—eh?”
“Not for a moment!” answered Bryce, with a fair show of magnanimity. “I am not a man of that complexion, sir. No!—I only wished to clear up certain things, you understand.”
“And—since she is apparently—from what you say—in ignorance of her real father’s past—what then?” asked Mr. Gilwaters anxiously. “Shall you—”
“I shall do nothing whatever in any haste,” replied Bryce. “Rely upon me to consider her feelings in everything. As you have been so kind, I will let you know, later, how matters go.”
This was one of Pemberton Bryce’s ready inventions. He had not the least intention of ever seeing or communicating with the late vicar of Braden Medworth again; Mr. Gilwaters had served his purpose for the time being. He went away from Bayswater, and, an hour later, from London, highly satisfied. In his opinion, Mark Ransford, seventeen years before, had taken advantage of his friend’s misfortunes to run away with his wife, and when Brake, alias Braden, had unexpectedly turned up at Wrychester, he had added to his former wrong by the commission of a far greater one.
Chapter X. Diplomacy
Bryce went back to Wrychester firmly convinced that Mark Ransford had killed John Braden. He reckoned things up in his own fashion. Some years must have elapsed since Braden, or rather Brake’s release. He had probably heard, on his release, that Ransford and his, Brake’s, wife had gone abroad—in that case he would certainly follow them. He might have lost all trace of them; he might have lost his original interest in his first schemes of revenge; he might have begun a new life for himself in Australia, whence he had undoubtedly come to England recently. But he had come, at last, and he had evidently tracked Ransford to Wrychester—why, otherwise, had he presented himself at Ransford’s door on that eventful morning which was to witness his death? Nothing, in Bryce’s opinion, could be clearer. Brake had turned up. He and Ransford had met—most likely in the precincts of the Cathedral. Ransford, who knew all the quiet corners of the old place, had in all probability induced Brake to walk up into the gallery with him, had noticed the open doorway, had thrown Brake through it. All the facts pointed to that conclusion—it was a theory which, so far as Bryce could see, was perfect. It ought to be enough—proved—to put Ransford in a criminal dock. Bryce resolved it in his own mind over and over again as he sped home to Wrychester—he pictured the police listening greedily to all that he could tell them if he liked. There was only one factor in the whole sum of the affair which seemed against him—the advertisement in the Times. If Brake desired to find Ransford in order to be revenged on him, why did he insert that advertisement, as if he were longing to meet a cherished friend again? But Bryce gaily surmounted that obstacle—full of shifts and subtleties himself, he was ever ready to credit others with trading in them, and he put the advertisement down as a clever ruse to attract, not Ransford, but some person who could give information about Ransford. Whatever its exact meaning might have been, its existence made no difference to Bryce’s firm opinion that it was Mark Ransford who flung John Brake down St. Wrytha’s Stair and killed him. He was as sure of that as he was certain that Braden was Brake. And he was not going to tell the police of his discoveries—he was not going to tell anybody. The one thing that concerned him was—how best to make use of his knowledge with a view to bringing about a marriage between himself and Mark Ransford’s ward. He had set his mind on that for twelve months past, and he was not a man to be baulked of his purpose. By fair means, or foul—he himself ignored the last word and would have substituted the term skilful for it—Pemberton Bryce meant to have Mary Bewery.
Mary Bewery herself had no thought of Bryce in her head when, the morning after that worthy’s return to Wrychester, she set out, alone, for the Wrychester Golf Club. It was her habit to go there almost every day, and Bryce was well acquainted with her movements and knew precisely where to waylay her. And empty of Bryce though her mind was, she was not surprised when, at a lonely place on Wrychester Common, Bryce turned the corner of a spinny and met her face to face.
Mary would have passed on with no more than a silent recognition—she had made up her mind to have no further speech with her guardian’s dismissed assistant. But she had to pass through a wicket gate at that point, and Bryce barred the way, with unmistakable purpose. It was plain to the girl that he had laid in wait for her. She was not without a temper of her own, and she suddenly let it out on the offender.
“Do you call this manly conduct, Dr. Bryce?” she demanded, turning an indignant and flushed face on him. “To waylay me here, when you know that I don’t want to have anything more to do with you. Let me through, please—and go away!”
But Bryce kept a hand on the little gate, and when he spoke there was that in his voice which made the girl listen in spite of herself.
“I’m not here on my own behalf,” he said quickly. “I give you my word I won’t say a thing that need offend you. It’s true I waited here for you—it’s the only place in which I thought I could meet you, alone. I want to speak to you. It’s this—do you know your guardian is in danger?”
Bryce had the gift of plausibility—he could convince people, against their instincts, even against their wills, that he was telling the truth. And Mary, after a swift glance, believed him.
“What danger?” she asked. “And if he is, and if you know he is—why don’t you go direct to him?”
“The most fatal thing in the world to do!” exclaimed Bryce. “You know him—he can be nasty. That would bring matters to a crisis. And that, in his interest, is just what mustn’t happen.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Mary.
Bryce leaned nearer to her—across the gate.
“You know what happened last week,” he said in a low voice. “The strange death of that man—Braden.”
“Well?” she asked, with a sudden look of uneasiness. “What of it?”
“It’s being rumoured—whispered—in the town that Dr. 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