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Page 22
Dick, who knew nothing of the recent passages between his
guardian and the dismissed assistant, glanced at Bryce with
interest.
"You were on the spot first, weren't you?" he asked: "Do you
think it really was murder?"
"I don't know what it was," answered Bryce. "And I wasn't
first on the spot. That was Varner, the mason--he called me."
He turned from the lad to glance at the girl, who was peeping
curiously over the gate into the yews and cypresses. "Do you
think your father's at the Library just now?" he asked.
"Shall I find him there?"
"I should think he is," answered Betty Campany. "He generally
goes down about this time." She turned and pulled Dick
Bewery's sleeve. "Let's go up in the clerestory," she said.
"We can see that, anyway."
"Also closed, miss," said the policeman, shaking his head.
"No admittance there, neither. The public firmly warned
off--so to speak. 'I won't have the Cathedral turned into a
peepshow!' that's precisely what I heard the Dean say with my
own ears. So--closed!"
The boy and the girl turned away and went off across the
Close, and the policeman looked after them and laughed.
"Lively young couple, that, sir!" he said. "What they call
healthy curiosity, I suppose? Plenty o' that knocking around
in the city today."
Bryce, who had half-turned in the direction of the Library, at
the other side of the Close, turned round again.
"Do you know if your people are doing anything about
identifying the dead man?" he asked. "Did you hear anything
at noon?"
"Nothing but that there'll be inquiries through the
newspapers, sir," replied the policeman. "That's the surest
way of finding something out. And I did hear Inspector
Mitchington say that they'd have to ask the Duke if he knew
anything about the poor man--I suppose he'd let fall something
about wanting to go over to Saxonsteade."
Bryce went off in the direction of the Library thinking. The
newspapers?--yes, no better channel for spreading the news.
If Mr. John Braden had relations and friends, they would learn
of his sad death through the newspapers, and would come
forward. And in that case--
"But it wouldn't surprise me," mused Bryce, "if the name given
at the Mitre is an assumed name. I wonder if that theory of
Archdale's is a correct one?--however, there'll be more of
that at the inquest tomorrow. And in the meantime--let me
find out something about the tomb of Richard Jenkins, or
Jenkinson--whoever he was."
The famous Library of the Dean and Chapter of Wrychester was
housed in an ancient picturesque building in one corner of the
Close, wherein, day in and day out, amidst priceless volumes
and manuscripts, huge folios and weighty quartos, old prints,
and relics of the mediaeval ages, Ambrose Campany, the
librarian, was pretty nearly always to be found, ready to
show his treasures to the visitors and tourists who came
from all parts of the world to see a collection well known
to bibliophiles. And Ambrose Campany, a cheery-faced,
middle-aged man, with booklover and antiquary written all over
him, shockheaded, blue-spectacled, was there now, talking to
an old man whom Bryce knew as a neighbour of his in Friary
Lane--one Simpson Barker, a quiet, meditative old fellow,
believed to be a retired tradesman who spent his time in
gentle pottering about the city. Bryce, as he entered, caught
what Campany was just then saying.
"The most important thing I've heard about it," said Campany,
"is--that book they found in the man's suit-case at the Mitre.
I'm not a detective--but there's a clue!"
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