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Page 19
There was not much to see. The scrap of paper itself was
evidently a quarter of a leaf of old-fashioned, stoutish
notepaper, somewhat yellow with age, and bearing evidence of
having been folded and kept flat in the dead man's purse for
some time--the creases were well-defined, the edges were worn
and slightly stained by long rubbing against the leather. And
in its centre were a few words, or, rather abbreviations of
words, in Latin, and some figures:
In Para. Wrycestr. juxt. tumb.
Ric. Jenk. ex cap. xxiii. xv.
Bryce at first sight took them to be a copy of some
inscription but his knowledge of Latin told him, a moment
later; that instead of being an inscription, it was a
direction. And a very plain direction, too!--he read it
easily. In Paradise, at Wrychester, next to, or near, the
tomb of Richard Jenkins, or, possibly, Jenkinson, from, or
behind, the head, twenty-three, fifteen--inches, most likely.
There was no doubt that there was the meaning of the words.
What, now, was it that lay behind the tomb of Richard Jenkins,
or Jenkinson, in Wrychester Paradise?--in all probability
twenty-three inches from the head-stone, and fifteen inches
beneath the surface. That was a question which Bryce
immediately resolved to find a satisfactory answer to; in the
meantime there were other questions which he set down in order
on his mental tablets. They were these:
1. Who, really, was the man who had registered at the
Mitre under the name of John Braden?
2. Why did he wish to make a personal call on the
Duke of Saxonsteade?
3. Was he some man who had known Ransford in time
past--and whom Ransford had no desire to meet again?
4. Did Ransford meet him--in the Cathedral?
5. Was it Ransford who flung him to his death down
St. Wrytha's Stair?
6. Was that the real reason of the agitation in which
he, Bryce, had found Ransford a few moments after
the discovery of the body?
There was plenty of time before him for the due solution of
these mysteries, reflected Bryce--and for solving another
problem which might possibly have some relationship to them
--that of the exact connection between Ransford and his two
wards. Bryce, in telling Ransford that morning of what was
being said amongst the tea-table circles of the old cathedral
city, had purposely only told him half a tale. He knew, and
had known for months, that the society of the Close was
greatly exercised over the position of the Ransford menage.
Ransford, a bachelor, a well-preserved, active, alert man who
was certainly of no more than middle age and did not look his
years, had come to Wrychester only a few years previously, and
had never shown any signs of forsaking his single state. No
one had ever heard him mention his family or relations; then,
suddenly, without warning, he had brought into his house Mary
Bewery, a handsome young woman of nineteen, who was said to
have only just left school, and her brother Richard, then a
boy of sixteen, who had certainly been at a public school of
repute and was entered at the famous Dean's School of
Wrychester as soon as he came to his new home. Dr. Ransford
spoke of these two as his wards, without further explanation;
the society of the Close was beginning to want much more
explanation. Who were they--these two young people? Was Dr.
Ransford their uncle, their cousin--what was he to them? In
any case, in the opinion of the elderly ladies who set the
tone of society in Wrychester, Miss Bewery was much too
young, and far too pretty, to be left without a chaperon.
But, up to then, no one had dared to say as much to Dr.
Ransford--instead, everybody said it freely behind his back.
Bryce had used eyes and ears in relation to the two young
people. He had been with Ransford a year when they arrived;
admitted freely to their company, he had soon discovered that
whatever relationship existed between them and Ransford, they
had none with anybody else--that they knew of. No letters
came for them from uncles, aunts, cousins, grandfathers,
grandmothers. They appeared to have no memories or
reminiscences of relatives, nor of father or mother; there was
a curious atmosphere of isolation about them. They had plenty
of talk about what might be called their present--their recent
schooldays, their youthful experiences, games, pursuits--but
none of what, under any circumstances, could have been a very
far-distant past. Bryce's quick and attentive ears discovered
things--for instance that for many years past Ransford had
been in the habit of spending his annual two months' holiday
with these two. Year after year--at any rate since the boy's
tenth year--he had taken them travelling; Bryce heard scraps
of reminiscences of tours in France, and in Switzerland, and
in Ireland, and in Scotland--even as far afield as the far
north of Norway. It was easy to see that both boy and girl
had a mighty veneration for Ransford; just as easy to see that
Ransford took infinite pains to make life something more than
happy and comfortable for both. And Bryce, who was one of
those men who firmly believe that no man ever does anything
for nothing and that self-interest is the mainspring of Life,
asked himself over and over again the question which agitated
the ladies of the Close: Who are these two, and what is the
bond between them and this sort of fairy-godfather-guardian?
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