“Ah, I was wanting to have a word with you, doctor!” he said. “Something important. Have you got a minute or two to spare, sir? Come round to my little place, then—we shall be quiet there.”
Bryce had any amount of time to spare for an interesting person like Harker, and he followed the old man to his house—a tiny place set in a nest of similar old-world buildings behind the Close. Harker led him into a little parlour, comfortable and snug, wherein were several shelves of books of a curiously legal and professional-looking aspect, some old pictures, and a cabinet of odds and ends, stowed away in of dark corner. The old man motioned him to an easy chair, and going over to a cupboard, produced a decanter of whisky and a box of cigars.
“We can have a peaceful and comfortable talk here, doctor,” he remarked, as he sat down near Bryce, after fetching glasses and soda-water. “I live all alone, like a hermit—my bit of work’s done by a woman who only looks in of a morning. So we’re all by ourselves. Light your cigar!—same as that I gave you at Barthorpe. Um—well, now,” he continued, as Bryce settled down to listen. “There’s a question I want to put to you—strictly between ourselves—strictest of confidence, you know. It was you who was called to Braden by Varner, and you were left alone with Braden’s body?”
“Well?” admitted Bryce, suddenly growing suspicious. “What of it?”
Harker edged his chair a little closer to his guest’s, and leaned towards him.
“What,” he asked in a whisper, “what have you done with that scrap of paper that you took out of Braden’s purse?”
Chapter XIV. From the Past
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. Instead, he looked his questioner calmly in the eyes, and put a question in his turn.
“Who are you, Mr. Harker?” asked Bryce quietly.
Harker laughed—almost gleefully.
“Yes, you’ve a right to ask that!” he said. “Of course!—glad you take it that way. You’ll do!”
“I’ll qualify it, then,” added Bryce. “It’s not who—it’s what are you!”
Harker waved his cigar at the book-shelves in front of which his visitor sat.
“Take a look at my collection of literature, doctor,” he said. “What d’ye think of it?”
Bryce turned and leisurely inspected one shelf after another.
“Seems to consist of little else but criminal cases and legal handbooks,” he remarked quietly. “I begin to suspect you, Mr. Harker. They say here in Wrychester that you’re a retired tradesman. I think you’re a retired policeman—of the detective branch.”
Harker laughed again.
“No Wrychester man has ever crossed my threshold since I came to settle down here,” he said. “You’re the first person I’ve ever asked in—with one notable exception. I’ve never even had Campany, the librarian, here. I’m a hermit.”
“But—you were a detective?” suggested Bryce.
“Aye, for a good five-and-twenty years!” replied Harker. “And pretty well known, too, sir. But—my question, doctor. All between ourselves!”
“I’ll ask you one, then,” said Bryce. “How do you know I took a scrap of paper from Braden’s purse?”
“Because I know that he had such a paper in his purse the night he came to the Mitre,” answered Harker, “and was certain to have it there next morning, and because I also know that you were left alone with the body for some minutes after Varner fetched you to it, and that when Braden’s clothing and effects were searched by Mitchington, the paper wasn’t there. So, of course, you took it! Doesn’t matter to me that ye did—except that I know, from knowing that, that you’re on a similar game to my own—which is why you went down to Leicestershire.”
“You knew Braden?” asked Bryce.
“I knew him!” answered Harker.
“You saw him—spoke with him—here in Wrychester?” suggested Bryce.
“He was here—in this room—in that chair—from five minutes past nine to close on ten o’clock the night before his death,” replied Harker.
Bryce, who was quietly appreciating the Havana cigar which the old man had given him, picked up his glass, took a drink, and settled himself in his easy chair as if he meant to stay there awhile.
“I think we’d better talk confidentially, Mr. Harker,” he said.
“Precisely what we are doing, Dr. Bryce,” replied Harker.
“All right, my friend,” said Bryce, laconically. “Now we understand each other. So—do you know who John Braden really was?”
“Yes!” replied Harker, promptly. “He was in reality John Brake, ex-bank manager, ex-convict.”
“Do you know if he’s any relatives here in Wrychester?” inquired Bryce.
“Yes,” said Harker. “The boy and girl who live with Ransford—they’re Brake’s son and daughter.”
“Did Brake know that—when he came here?” continued Bryce.
“No, he didn’t—he hadn’t the least idea of it,” responded Harker.
“Had you—then?” asked Bryce.
“No—not until later—a little later,” replied Harker.
“You found it out at Barthorpe?” suggested Bryce.
“Not a bit of it; I worked it out here—after Brake was dead,” said Harker. “I went to Barthorpe on quite different business—Brake’s business.”
“Ah!” said Bryce. He looked the old detective quietly in the eyes. “You’d better tell me all about it,” he added.
“If we’re both going to tell each other—all about it,” stipulated Harker.
“That’s settled,” assented Bryce.
Harker smoked thoughtfully for a moment and seemed to be thinking.
“I’d better go back to the beginning,” he said. “But, first—what do you know about Brake? I know you went down to Barthorpe to find out what you could—how far did your searches take you?”
“I know that Brake married a girl from Braden Medworth, that he took her to London, where he was manager of a branch bank, that he got into trouble, and was sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude,” answered Bryce, “together with some small details into which we needn’t go at present.”
“Well, as long as you know all that, there’s a common basis and a common starting-point,” remarked Harker, “so I’ll begin at Brake’s trial. It was I who arrested Brake. There was no trouble, no bother. He’d