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Page 40
"You will regard this interview as having been of a strictly
private nature, Mr. Gilwaters?" he said.
"Certainly!" responded the old man. "But--you mentioned that
you wished to marry the daughter? Now that you know about her
father's past--for I am sure she must be John Brake's child
--you won't allow that to--eh?"
"Not for a moment!" answered Bryce, with a fair show of
magnanimity. "I am not a man of that complexion, sir. No!--I
only wished to clear up certain things, you understand."
"And--since she is apparently--from what you say--in ignorance
of her real father's past--what then?" asked Mr. Gilwaters
anxiously. "Shall you--"
"I shall do nothing whatever in any haste," replied Bryce.
"Rely upon me to consider her feelings in everything. As you
have been so kind, I will let you know, later, how matters
go."
This was one of Pemberton Bryce's ready inventions. He had
not the least intention of ever seeing or communicating with
the late vicar of Braden Medworth again; Mr. Gilwaters had
served his purpose for the time being. He went away from
Bayswater, and, an hour later, from London, highly satisfied.
In his opinion, Mark Ransford, seventeen years before, had
taken advantage of his friend's misfortunes to run away with
his wife, and when Brake, alias Braden, had unexpectedly
turned up at Wrychester, he had added to his former wrong by
the commission of a far greater one.
CHAPTER X
DIPLOMACY
Bryce went back to Wrychester firmly convinced that Mark
Ransford had killed John Braden. He reckoned things up in his
own fashion. Some years must have elapsed since Braden, or
rather Brake's release. He had probably heard, on his
release, that Ransford and his, Brake's, wife had gone abroad
--in that case he would certainly follow them. He might have
lost all trace of them; he might have lost his original
interest in his first schemes of revenge; he might have begun
a new life for himself in Australia, whence he had undoubtedly
come to England recently. But he had come, at last, and he
had evidently tracked Ransford to Wrychester--why, otherwise,
had he presented himself at Ransford's door on that eventful
morning which was to witness his death? Nothing, in Bryce's
opinion, could be clearer. Brake had turned up. He and
Ransford had met--most likely in the precincts of the
Cathedral. Ransford, who knew all the quiet corners of the
old place, had in all probability induced Brake to walk up
into the gallery with him, had noticed the open doorway, had
thrown Brake through it. All the facts pointed to that
conclusion--it was a theory which, so far as Bryce could see,
was perfect. It ought to be enough--proved--to put Ransford
in a criminal dock. Bryce resolved it in his own mind over
and over again as he sped home to Wrychester--he pictured the
police listening greedily to all that he could tell them if he
liked. There was only one factor in the whole sum of the
affair which seemed against him--the advertisement in the
Times. If Brake desired to find Ransford in order to be
revenged on him, why did he insert that advertisement, as if
he were longing to meet a cherished friend again? But Bryce
gaily surmounted that obstacle--full of shifts and subtleties
himself, he was ever ready to credit others with trading in
them, and he put the advertisement down as a clever ruse to
attract, not Ransford, but some person who could give
information about Ransford. Whatever its exact meaning might
have been, its existence made no difference to Bryce's firm
opinion that it was Mark Ransford who flung John Brake down
St. Wrytha's Stair and killed him. He was as sure of that as
he was certain that Braden was Brake. And he was not going to
tell the police of his discoveries--he was not going to tell
anybody. The one thing that concerned him was--how best to
make use of his knowledge with a view to bringing about a
marriage between himself and Mark Ransford's ward. He had set
his mind on that for twelve months past, and he was not a man
to be baulked of his purpose. By fair means, or foul--he
himself ignored the last word and would have substituted the
term skilful for it--Pemberton Bryce meant to have Mary
Bewery.
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