Collected works of j s f.., p.477
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 477
guilty of was a foolish and serious error of judgment.
He himself, concluded the learned counsel, would go so
far as to say that, knowing what he did, knowing what
had been told him by his client in strict confidence,
the prisoner, though technically guilty, was morally
innocent.
His Lordship, merely remarking that no excuse of any
sort could be offered in a case of this sort, sentenced
the prisoner to ten years’ penal servitude.
Bryce read this over twice before handing back the book.
“Very strange and mysterious, Mr. Gilwaters,” he remarked. “You say that you saw Brake after the case was over. Did you learn anything?”
“Nothing whatever!” answered the old clergyman. “I got permission to see him before he was taken away. He did not seem particularly pleased or disposed to see me. I begged him to tell me what the real truth was. He was, I think, somewhat dazed by the sentence — but he was also sullen and morose. I asked him where his wife and two children — one, a mere infant — were. For I had already been to his private address and had found that Mrs. Brake had sold all the furniture and disappeared — completely. No one — thereabouts, at any rate — knew where she was, or would tell me anything. On my asking this, he refused to answer. I pressed him — he said finally that he was only speaking the truth when he replied that he did not know where his wife was. I said I must find her. He forbade me to make any attempt. Then I begged him to tell me if she was with friends. I remember very well what he replied.— ‘I’m not going to say one word more to any man living, Mr. Gilwaters,’ he answered determinedly. ‘I shall be dead to the world — only because I’ve been a trusting fool! — for ten years or thereabouts, but, when I come back to it, I’ll let the world see what revenge means! Go away!’ he concluded. ‘I won’t say one word more.’ And — I left him.”
“And — you made no more inquiries? — about the wife?” asked Bryce.
“I did what I could,” replied Mr. Gilwaters. “I made some inquiry in the neighbourhood in which they had lived. All I could discover was that Mrs. Brake had disappeared under extraordinarily mysterious circumstances. There was no trace whatever of her. And I speedily found that things were being said — the usual cruel suspicions, you know.”
“Such as — what?” asked Bryce.
“That the amount of the defalcations was much larger than had been allowed to appear,” replied Mr. Gilwaters. “That Brake was a very clever rogue who had got the money safely planted somewhere abroad, and that his wife had gone off somewhere — Australia, or Canada, or some other far-off region — to await his release. Of course, I didn’t believe one word of all that. But there was the fact — she had vanished! And eventually, I thought of Ransford, as having been Brake’s great friend, so I tried to find him. And then I found that he, too, who up to that time had been practising in a London suburb — Streatham — had also disappeared. Just after Brake’s arrest, Ransford had suddenly sold his practice and gone — no one knew where, but it was believed — abroad. I couldn’t trace him, anyway. And soon after that I had a long illness, and for two or three years was an invalid, and — well, the thing was over and done with, and, as I said just now, I have never heard anything of any of them for all these years. And now! — now you tell me that there is a Mary Bewery who is a ward of a Dr. Mark Ransford at — where did you say?”
“At Wrychester,” answered Bryce. “She is a young woman of twenty, and she has a brother, Richard, who is between seventeen and eighteen.”
“Without a doubt those are Brake’s children!” exclaimed the old man. “The infant I spoke of was a boy. Bless me! — how extraordinary. How long have they been at Wrychester?”
“Ransford has been in practice there some years — a few years,” replied Bryce. “These two young people joined him there definitely two years ago. But from what I have learnt, he has acted as their guardian ever since they were mere children.”
“And — their mother?” asked Mr. Gilwaters.
“Said to be dead — long since,” answered Bryce. “And their father, too. They know nothing. Ransford won’t tell them anything. But, as you say — I’ve no doubt of it myself now — they must be the children of John Brake.”
“And have taken the name of their mother!” remarked the old man.
“Had it given to them,” said Bryce. “They don’t know that it isn’t their real name. Of course, Ransford has given it to them! But now — the mother?”
“Ah, yes, the mother!” said Mr. Gilwaters. “Our old governess! Dear me!”
“I’m going to put a question to you,” continued Bryce, leaning nearer and speaking in a low, confidential tone. “You must have seen much of the world, Mr. Gilwaters — men of your profession know the world, and human nature, too. Call to mind all the mysterious circumstances, the veiled hints, of that trial. Do you think — have you ever thought — that the false friend whom the counsel referred to was — Ransford? Come, now!”
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 a mystery around Braden’s death — it’s no use denying it. Nobody knows who he was, where he came from, why he came. And it’s being hinted — I’m only telling you what I’ve gathered — that Dr. Ransford knows more than he’s ever told. There are, I’m afraid, grounds.”
“What grounds?” demanded Mary. While Bryce had been speaking, in his usual slow, careful fashion, she had been reflecting — and remembering Ransford’s evident agitation at the time of the Paradise affair — and his relief when the inquest was over — and his sending her with flowers to the dead man’s grave and she began to experience a sense of uneasiness and even of fear. “What grounds can there be?” she added. “Dr. Ransford didn’t know that man — had never seen him!”
“That’s not certain,” replied Bryce. “It’s said — remember, I’m only repeating things — it’s said that just before the body was discovered, Dr. Ransford was seen — seen, mind you! — leaving the west porch of the Cathedral, looking as if he had just been very much upset. Two persons saw this.”
“Who are they?” asked Mary.
“That I’m not allowed to tell you,” said Bryce, who had no intention of informing her that one person was himself and the other imaginary. “But I can assure you that I am certain — absolutely certain! — that their story is true. The fact is — I can corroborate it.”
“You!” she exclaimed.
“I!” replied Bryce. “I will tell you something that I have never told anybody — up to now. I shan’t ask you to respect my confidence — I’ve sufficient trust in you to know that you will, without any asking. Listen! — on that morning, Dr. Ransford went out of the surgery in the direction of the Deanery, leaving me alone there. A few minutes later, a tap came at the door. I opened it — and found — a man standing outside!”
“Not — that man?” asked Mary fearfully.
“That man — Braden,” replied Bryce. “He asked for Dr. Ransford. I said he was out — would the caller leave his name? He said no — he had called because he had once known a Dr. Ransford, years before. He added something about calling again, and he went away — across the Close towards the Cathedral. I saw him again — not very long afterwards — lying in the corner of Paradise — dead!”
Mary Bewery was by this time pale and trembling — and Bryce continued to watch her steadily. She stole a furtive look at him.
“Why didn’t you tell all this at the inquest?” she asked in a whisper.
“Because I knew how damning it would be to — Ransford,” replied Bryce promptly. “It would have excited suspicion. I was certain that no one but myself knew that Braden had been to the surgery door — therefore, I thought that if I kept silence, his calling there would never be known. But — I have since found that I was mistaken. Braden was seen — going away from Dr. Ransford’s.”
“By — whom?” asked Mary.
“Mrs. Deramore — at the next house,” answered Bryce. “She happened to be looking out of an upstairs window. She saw him go away and cross the Close.”
“Did she tell you that?” demanded Mary, who knew Mrs. Deramore for a gossip.
“Between ourselves,” said Bryce, “she did not! She told Mrs. Folliot — Mrs. Folliot told me.”
“So — it is talked about!” exclaimed Mary.
“I said so,” assented Bryce. “You know what Mrs. Folliot’s tongue is.”
“Then Dr. Ransford will get to hear of it,” said Mary.
“He will be the last person to get to hear of it,” affirmed Bryce. “These things are talked of, hole-and-corner fashion, a long time before they reach the ears of the person chiefly concerned.”
Mary hesitated a moment before she asked her next question.
“Why have you told me all this?” she demanded at last.
“Because I didn’t want you to be suddenly surprised,” answered Bryce. “This — whatever it is — may come to a sudden head — of an unpleasant sort. These rumours spread — and the police are still keen about finding out things concerning this dead man. If they once get it into their heads that Dr. Ransford knew him—”
Mary laid her hand on the gate between them — and Bryce, who had done all he wished to do at that time, instantly opened it, and she passed through.
“I am much obliged to you,” she said. “I don’t know what it all means — but it is Dr. Ransford’s affair — if there is any affair, which I doubt. Will you let me go now, please?”
Bryce stood aside and lifted his hat, and Mary, with no more than a nod, walked on towards the golf club-house across the Common, while Bryce turned off to the town, highly elated with his morning’s work. He had sown the seeds of uneasiness and suspicion broadcast — some of them, he knew, would mature.
Mary Bewery played no golf that morning. In fact, she only went on to the club-house to rid herself of Bryce, and presently she returned home, thinking. And indeed, she said to herself, she had abundant food for thought. Naturally candid and honest, she did not at that moment doubt Bryce’s good faith; much as she disliked him in most ways she knew that he had certain commendable qualities, and she was inclined to believe him when he said that he had kept silence in order to ward off consequences which might indirectly be unpleasant for her. But of him and his news she thought little — what occupied her mind was the possible connection between the stranger who had come so suddenly and disappeared so suddenly — and for ever! — and Mark Ransford. Was it possible — really possible — that there had been some meeting between them in or about the Cathedral precincts that morning? She knew, after a moment’s reflection, that it was very possible — why not? And from that her thoughts followed a natural trend — was the mystery surrounding this man connected in any way with the mystery about herself and her brother? — that mystery of which (as it seemed to her) Ransford was so shy of speaking. And again — and for the hundredth time — she asked herself why he was so reticent, so evidently full of dislike of the subject, why he could not tell her and Dick whatever there was to tell, once for all?
