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Page 20
And now, as he put away the scrap of paper in a safely-locked
desk, Bryce asked himself another question: Had the events of
that morning anything to do with the mystery which hung around
Dr. Ransford's wards? If it had, then all the more reason why
he should solve it. For Bryce had made up his mind that, by
hook or by crook, he would marry Mary Bewery, and he was only
too eager to lay hands on anything that would help him to
achieve that ambition. If he could only get Ransford into
his power--if he could get Mary Bewery herself into his
power--well and good. Once he had got her, he would be good
enough to her--in his way.
Having nothing to do, Bryce went out after a while and
strolled round to the Wrychester Club--an exclusive
institution, the members of which were drawn from the
leisured, the professional, the clerical, and the military
circles of the old city. And there, as he expected, he found
small groups discussing the morning's tragedy, and he joined
one of them, in which was Sackville Bonham, his presumptive
rival, who was busily telling three or four other young men
what his stepfather, Mr. Folliot, had to say about the event.
"My stepfather says--and I tell you he saw the man," said
Sackville, who was noted in Wrychester circles as a loquacious
and forward youth; "he says that whatever happened must have
happened as soon as ever the old chap got up into that
clerestory gallery. Look here!--it's like this. My
stepfather had gone in there for the morning service--strict
old church-goer he is, you know--and he saw this stranger
going up the stairway. He's positive, Mr. Folliot, that it
was then five minutes to ten. Now, then, I ask you--isn't he
right, my stepfather, when he says that it must have happened
at once--immediately?
"Because that man, Varner, the mason, says he saw the man fall
before ten. What?"
One of the group nodded at Bryce.
"I should think Bryce knows what time it happened as well as
anybody," he said. "You were first on the spot, Bryce,
weren't you?"
"After Varner," answered Bryce laconically. "As to the time
--I could fix it in this way--the organist was just beginning
a voluntary or something of the sort."
"That means ten o'clock--to the minute--when he was found!"
exclaimed Sackville triumphantly. "Of course, he'd fallen a
minute or two before that--which proves Mr. Folliot to be
right. Now what does that prove? Why, that the old chap's
assailant, whoever he was, dogged him along that gallery as
soon as he entered, seized him when he got to the open
doorway, and flung him through! Clear as--as noonday!"
One of the group, a rather older man than the rest, who was
leaning back in a tilted chair, hands in pockets, watching
Sackville Bonham smilingly, shook his head and laughed a
little.
"You're taking something for granted, Sackie, my son!" he
said. "You're adopting the mason's tale as true. But I don't
believe the poor man was thrown through that doorway at all
--not I!"
Bryce turned sharply on this speaker--young Archdale, a member
of a well-known firm of architects.
"You don't?" he exclaimed. "But Varner says he saw him
thrown!"
"Very likely," answered Archdale. "But it would all happen
so quickly that Varner might easily be mistaken. I'm
speaking of something I know. I know every inch of the
Cathedral fabric--ought to, as we're always going over it,
professionally. Just at that doorway, at the head of St.
Wrytha's Stair, the flooring of the clerestory gallery is worn
so smooth that it's like a piece of glass--and it slopes!
Slopes at a very steep angle, too, to the doorway itself. A
stranger walking along there might easily slip, and if the
door was open, as it was, he'd be shot out and into space
before he knew what was happening."
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