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Page 33
The man who had spent a very lazy day in keeping an eye on
Bryce, as he visited the various public places whereat he made
his researches, was also keeping an eye upon him next morning,
when Bryce, breakfasting earlier than usual, prepared for a
second day's labours. He followed his quarry away from the
little town: Bryce was walking out to Braden Medworth. In
Bryce's opinion, it was something of a wild-goose chase to go
there, but the similarity in the name of the village and of
the dead man at Wrychester might have its significance, and it
was but a two miles' stroll from Barthorpe. He found Braden
Medworth a very small, quiet, and picturesque place, with an
old church on the banks of a river which promised good sport
to anglers. And there he pursued his tactics of the day
before and went straight to the vicarage and its vicar, with a
request to be allowed to inspect the parish registers. The
vicar, having no objection to earning the resultant fees,
hastened to comply with Bryce's request, and inquired how far
back he wanted to search and for what particular entry.
"No particular entry," answered Bryce, "and as to period
--fairly recent. The fact is, I am interested in names.
I am thinking"--here he used one more of his easily found
inventions--"of writing a book on English surnames, and am
just now inspecting parish registers in the Midlands for that
purpose."
"Then I can considerably simplify your labours," said the
vicar, taking down a book from one of his shelves. "Our
parish registers have been copied and printed, and here is the
volume--everything is in there from 1570 to ten years ago, and
there is a very full index. Are you staying in the
neighbourhood--or the village?"
"In the neighbourhood, yes; in the village, no longer than the
time I shall spend in getting some lunch at the inn yonder,"
answered Bryce, nodding through an open window at an ancient
tavern which stood in the valley beneath, close to an old
stone bridge. "Perhaps you will kindly lend me this book for
an hour?--then, if I see anything very noteworthy in the
index, I can look at the actual registers when I bring it
back."
The vicar replied that that was precisely what he had been
about to suggest, and Bryce carried the book away. And while
he sat in the inn parlour awaiting his lunch, he turned to the
carefully-compiled index, glancing it through rapidly. On the
third page he saw the name Bewery.
If the man who had followed Bryce from Barthorpe to Braden
Medworth had been with him in the quiet inn parlour he would
have seen his quarry start, and heard him let a stifled
exclamation escape his lips. But the follower, knowing his
man was safe for an hour, was in the bar outside eating bread
and cheese and drinking ale, and Bryce's surprise was
witnessed by no one. Yet he had been so much surprised that
if all Wrychester had been there he could not, despite his
self-training in watchfulness, have kept back either start or
exclamation.
Bewery! A name so uncommon that here--here, in this
out-of-the-way Midland village!--there must be some connection
with the object of his search. There the name stood out
before him, to the exclusion of all others--Bewery--with just
one entry of figures against it. He turned to page 387 with a
sense of sure discovery.
And there an entry caught his eye at once--and he knew that he
had discovered more than he had ever hoped for. He read it
again and again, gloating over his wonderful luck.
June 19th, 1891. John Brake, bachelor, of the parish of St.
Pancras, London, to Mary Bewery, spinster, of this parish, by
the Vicar. Witnesses, Charles Claybourne, Selina Womersley,
Mark Ransford.
Twenty-two years ago! The Mary Bewery whom Bryce knew in
Wrychester was just about twenty--this Mary Bewery, spinster,
of Braden Medworth, was, then, in all probability, her mother.
But John Brake who married that Mary Bewery--who was he? Who
indeed, laughed Bryce, but John Braden, who had just come by
his death in Wrychester Paradise? And there was the name of
Mark Ransford as witness. What was the further probability?
That Mark Ransford had been John Brake's best man; that he was
the Marco of the recent Times advertisement; that John Braden,
or Brake, was the Sticker of the same advertisement. Clear!
--clear as noonday! And--what did it all mean, and imply, and
what bearing had it on Braden or Brake's death?
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