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Page 115
"Here's the doctor coming now," said Dick, turning to the
window. "He'll tell more."
Mary looked anxiously at Ransford as he came hastening in. He
looked like a man who has just gone through a crisis and yet
she was somehow conscious that there was a certain atmosphere
of relief about him, as though some great weight had suddenly
been lifted. He closed the door and looked straight at her.
"Dick has told you?" he asked.
"All that you told me," said Dick.
Ransford pulled off his gloves and flung them on the table
with something of a gesture of weariness. And at that Mary
hastened to speak.
"Don't tell any more--don't say anything--until you feel
able," she said. "You're tired."
"No!" answered Ransford. "I'd rather say what I have to say
now--just now! I've wanted to tell both of you what all this
was, what it meant, everything about it, and until today,
until within the last few hours, it was impossible, because I
didn't know everything. Now I do! I even know more than I
did an hour ago. Let me tell you now and have done with it.
Sit down there, both of you, and listen."
He pointed to a sofa near the hearth, and the brother and
sister sat down, looking at him wonderingly. Instead of
sitting down himself he leaned against the edge of the table,
looking down at them.
"I shall have to tell you some sad things," he said
diffidently. "The only consolation is that it's all over now,
and certain matters are, or can be, cleared and you'll have no
more secrets. Nor shall I! I've had to keep this one
jealously guarded for seventeen years! And I never thought it
could be released as it has been, in this miserable and
terrible fashion! But that's done now, and nothing can help
it. And now, to make everything plain, just prepare
yourselves to hear something that, at first, sounds very
trying. The man whom you've heard of as John Braden, who came
to his death--by accident, as I now firmly believe--there in
Paradise, was, in reality, John Brake--your father!"
Ransford looked at his two listeners anxiously as he told
this. But he met no sign of undue surprise or emotion. Dick
looked down at his toes with a little frown, as if he were
trying to puzzle something out; Mary continued to watch
Ransford with steady eyes.
"Your father--John Brake," repeated Ransford, breathing
more freely now that he had got the worst news out. "I
must go back to the beginning to make things clear to you
about him and your mother. He was a close friend of mine
when we were young men in London; he a bank manager; I, just
beginning my work. We used to spend our holidays together
in Leicestershire. There we met your mother, whose name was
Mary Bewery. He married her; I was his best man. They went
to live in London, and from that time I did not see so much of
them, only now and then. During those first years of his
married life Brake made the acquaintance of a man who came
from the same part of Leicestershire that we had met your
mother in--a man named Falkiner Wraye. I may as well tell
you that Falkiner Wraye and Stephen Folliot were one and the
same person."
Ransford paused, observing that Mary wished to ask a question.
"How long have you known that?" she asked.
"Not until today," replied Ransford promptly. "Never had the
ghost of a notion of it! If I only had known--but, I hadn't!
However, to go back--this man Wraye, who appears always to
have been a perfect master of plausibility, able to twist
people round his little finger, somehow got into close touch
with your father about financial matters. Wraye was at that
time a sort of financial agent in London, engaging in various
doings which, I should imagine, were in the nature of gambles.
He was assisted in these by a man who was either a partner
with him or a very confidential clerk or agent, one Flood, who
is identical with the man you have known lately as Fladgate,
the verger. Between them, these two appear to have cajoled or
persuaded your father at times to do very foolish and
injudicious things which were, to put it briefly and plainly,
the lendings of various sums of money as short loans for their
transactions. For some time they invariably kept their word
to him, and the advances were always repaid promptly. But
eventually, when they had borrowed from him a considerable
sum--some thousands of pounds--for a deal which was to be
carried through within a couple of days, they decamped with
the money, and completely disappeared, leaving your father to
bear the consequences. You may easily understand what
followed. The money which Brake had lent them was the bank's
money. The bank unexpectedly came down on him for his
balance, the whole thing was found out, and he was prosecuted.
He had no defence--he was, of course, technically guilty--and
he was sent to penal servitude."
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