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Page 37
"It is nearly twenty years since I heard any of their names,"
remarked Mr. Gilwaters. "Nearly twenty years--a long time!
But, of course, I can answer you. Mary Bewery was our
governess at Braden Medworth. She came to us when she was
nineteen--she was married four years later. She was a girl
who had no friends or relatives--she had been educated at a
school in the North--I engaged her from that school, where, I
understood, she had lived since infancy. Now then, as to
Brake and Ransford. They were two young men from London, who
used to come fishing in Leicestershire. Ransford was a few
years the younger--he was either a medical student in his last
year, or he was an assistant somewhere in London. Brake--was
a bank manager in London--of a branch of one of the big banks.
They were pleasant young fellows, and I used to ask them to
the vicarage. Eventually, Mary Bewery and John Brake became
engaged to be married. My wife and I were a good deal
surprised--we had believed, somehow, that the favoured man
would be Ransford. However, it was Brake--and Brake she
married, and, as you say, Ransford was best man. Of course,
Brake took his wife off to London--and from the day of her
wedding, I never saw her again."
"Did you ever see Brake again?" asked Bryce. The old
clergyman shook his head.
"Yes!" he said sadly. "I did see Brake again--under grievous,
grievous circumstances!"
"You won't mind telling me what circumstances?" suggested
Bryce. "I will keep your confidence, Mr. Gilwaters."
"There is really no secret in it--if it comes to that,"
answered the old man. "I saw John Brake again just once. In
a prison cell!"
"A prison cell!" exclaimed Bryce. "And he--a prisoner?"
"He had just been sentenced to ten years' penal servitude,"
replied Mr. Gilwaters. "I had heard the sentence--I was
present. I got leave to see him. Ten years' penal servitude!
--a terrible punishment. He must have been released long ago
--but I never heard more."
Bryce reflected in silence for a moment--reckoning and
calculating.
"When was this--the trial?" he asked.
"It was five years after the marriage--seventeen years ago,"
replied Mr. Gilwaters.
"And--what had he been doing?" inquired Bryce.
"Stealing the bank's money," answered the old man. "I forget
what the technical offence was--embezzlement, or something of
that sort. There was not much evidence came out, for it was
impossible to offer any defence, and he pleaded guilty. But I
gathered from what I heard that something of this sort
occurred. Brake was a branch manager. He was, as it were,
pounced upon one morning by an inspector, who found that his
cash was short by two or three thousand pounds. The bank
people seemed to have been unusually strict and even severe
--Brake, it was said, had some explanation, but it was swept
aside and he was given in charge. And the sentence was as I
said just now--a very savage one, I thought. But there had
recently been some bad cases of that sort in the banking
world, and I suppose the judge felt that he must make an
example. Yes--a most trying affair!--I have a report of the
case somewhere, which I cut out of a London newspaper at the
time."
Mr. Gilwaters rose and turned to an old desk in the corner of
his room, and after some rummaging of papers in a drawer,
produced a newspaper-cutting book and traced an insertion in
its pages. He handed the book to his visitor.
"There is the account," he said. "You can read it for
yourself. You will notice that in what Brake's counsel said
on his behalf there are one or two curious and mysterious
hints as to what might have been said if it had been of any
use or advantage to say it. A strange case!"
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