LITMIR.BIZ

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Bryce!” observed Sackville confidentially. “Of course, Ransford is a perfect ass!”

      “Think so?” remarked Bryce, with an inflection which suggested that Sackville’s opinion on anything was as valuable as the Attorney-General’s. “That’s how it strikes you, is it?”

      “Impossible that it could strike one in any other way, you know,” answered Sackville with fine and lofty superiority. “Ransford should have taken immediate steps to clear himself of any suspicion. It’s ridiculous, considering his position—guardian to—to Miss Bewery, for instance—that he should allow such rumours to circulate. By God, sir, if it had been me, I’d have stopped ‘em!—before they left the parish pump!”

      “Ah?” said Bryce. “And—how?”

      “Made an example of somebody,” replied Sackville, with emphasis. “I believe there’s law in this country, isn’t there?—law against libel and slander, and that sort of thing, eh? Oh, yes!”

      “Not been much time for that—yet,” remarked Bryce.

      “Piles of time,” retorted Sackville, swinging his stick vigorously. “No, sir, Ransford is an ass! However, if a man won’t do things for himself, well, his friends must do something for him. Ransford, of course, must be pulled—dragged!—out of this infernal hole. Of course he’s suspected! But my stepfather—he’s going to take a hand. And my stepfather, Bryce, is a devilish cute old hand at a game of this sort!”

      “Nobody doubts Mr. Folliot’s abilities, I’m sure,” said Bryce. “But—you don’t mind saying—how is he going to take a hand?”

      “Stir things towards a clearing-up,” announced Sackville promptly. “Have the whole thing gone into—thoroughly. There are matters that haven’t been touched on, yet. You’ll see, my boy!”

      “Glad to hear it,” said Bryce. “But—why should Mr. Folliot be so particular about clearing Ransford?”

      Sackville swung his stick, and pulled up his collar, and jerked his nose a trifle higher.

      “Oh, well,” he said. “Of course, it’s—it’s a pretty well understood thing, don’t you know—between myself and Miss Bewery, you know—and of course, we couldn’t have any suspicions attaching to her guardian, could we, now? Family interest, don’t you know—Caesar’s wife, and all that sort of thing, eh?”

      “I see,” answered Bryce, quietly,—“sort of family arrangement. With Ransford’s consent and knowledge, of course?”

      “Ransford won’t even be consulted,” said Sackville, airily. “My stepfather—sharp man, that, Bryce!—he’ll do things in his own fashion. You look out for sudden revelations!”

      “I will,” replied Bryce. “By-bye!”

      He turned off to his rooms, wondering how much of truth there was in the fatuous Sackville’s remarks. And—was there some mystery still undreamt of by himself and Harker? There might be—he was still under the influence of Ransford’s indignant and dramatic assertion of his innocence. Would Ransford have allowed himself an outburst of that sort if he had not been, as he said, utterly ignorant of the immediate cause of Braden’s death? Now Bryce, all through, was calculating, for his own purposes, on Ransford’s share, full or partial, in that death—if Ransford really knew nothing whatever about it, where did his, Bryce’s theory, come in—and how would his present machinations result? And, more—if Ransford’s assertion were true, and if Varner’s story of the hand, seen for an instant in the archway, were also true—and Varner was persisting in it—then, who was the man who flung Braden to his death that morning? He realized that, instead of straightening out, things were becoming more and more complicated.

      But he realized something else. On the surface, there was a strong case of suspicion against Ransford. It had been suggested that very morning before a coroner and his jury; it would grow; the police were already permeated with suspicion and distrust. Would it not pay him, Bryce, to encourage, to help it? He had his own score to pay off against Ransford; he had his own schemes as regards Mary Bewery. Anyway, he was not going to share in any attempts to clear the man who had bundled him out of his house unceremoniously—he would bide his time. And in the meantime there were other things to be done—one of them that very night.

      But before Bryce could engage in his secret task of excavating a small portion of Paradise in the rear of Richard Jenkins’s tomb, another strange development came. As the dark fell over the old city that night and he was thinking of setting out on his mission, Mitchington came in, carrying two sheets of paper, obviously damp from the press, in his hand. He looked at Bryce with an expression of wonder.

      “Here’s a queer go!” he said. “I can’t make this out at all! Look at these big handbills—but perhaps you’ve seen ‘em? They’re being posted all over the city—we’ve had a bundle of ‘em thrown in on us.”

      “I haven’t been out since lunch,” remarked Bryce. “What are they?”

      Mitchington spread out the two papers on the table, pointing from one to the other.

      “You see?” he said. “Five Hundred Pounds Reward!—One Thousand Pounds Reward! And—both out at the same time, from different sources!”

      “What sources?” asked Bryce, bending over the bills. “Ah—I see. One signed by Phipps & Maynard, the other by Beachcroft. Odd, certainly!”

      “Odd?” exclaimed Mitchington. “I should think so! But, do you see, doctor? that one—five hundred reward—is offered for information of any nature relative to the deaths of John Braden and James Collishaw, both or either. That amount will be paid for satisfactory information by Phipps & Maynard. And Phipps & Maynard are Ransford’s solicitors! That bill, sir, comes from him! And now the other, the thousand pound one, that offers the reward to any one who can give definite information as to the circumstances attending the death of John Braden—to be paid by Mr. Beachcroft. And he’s Mr. Folliot’s solicitor! So—that comes from Mr. Folliot. What has he to do with it? And are these two putting their heads together—or are these bills quite independent of each other? Hang me if I understand it!”

      Bryce read and re-read the contents of the two bills. And then he thought for awhile before speaking.

      “Well,” he said at last, “there’s probably this in it—the Folliots are very wealthy people. Mrs. Folliot, it’s pretty well known, wants her son to marry Miss Bewery—Dr. Ransford’s ward. Probably she doesn’t wish any suspicion to hang over the family. That’s all I can suggest. In the other case, Ransford wants to clear himself. For don’t forget this, Mitchington!—somewhere, somebody may know something! Only something. But that something might clear Ransford of the suspicion that’s undoubtedly been cast upon him. If you’re thinking to get a strong case against Ransford, you’ve got your work set. He gave your theory a nasty knock this morning by his few words about that pill. Did Coates and Everest find a pill, now?”

      “Not at liberty to say, sir,” answered Mitchington. “At present, anyway. Um! I dislike these private offers of reward—it means that those who make ‘em get hold of information which is kept back from us, d’you see! They’re inconvenient.”

      Then he went away, and Bryce, after waiting awhile, until night had settled down, slipped quietly out of the house and set off for the gloom of Paradise.

Chapter XVI. Beforehand

       Table of Contents

      In accordance with his undeniable capacity for contriving and scheming, Bryce had made due and careful preparations for his visit to the tomb of Richard Jenkins. Even in the momentary confusion following upon his discovery of Collishaw’s dead body, he had been sufficiently alive to his own immediate purposes to notice that the tomb—a very ancient and dilapidated structure—stood in the midst of a small expanse of stone pavement between the yew-trees and the wall of the nave; he

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