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Page 57
"But--if the man was really poisoned?" suggested Mary.
"Let the police find the poisoner!" said Ransford, with a grim
smile. "That's their job."
Mary said nothing for a moment, and Ransford moved restlessly
about the room.
"I don't trust that fellow Bryce," he said suddenly. "He's up
to something. I don't forget what he said when I bundled him
out that morning."
"What?" she asked.
"That he would be a bad enemy," answered Ransford. "He's
posing now as a friend--but a man's never to be so much
suspected as when he comes doing what you may call unnecessary
acts of friendship. I'd rather that anybody was mixed up in
my affairs--your affairs--than Pemberton Bryce!"
"So would I!" she said. "But--"
She paused there a moment and then looked appealingly at
Ransford.
"I do wish you'd tell me--what you promised to tell me," she
said. "You know what I mean--about me and Dick. Somehow--I
don't quite know how or why--I've an uneasy feeling that Bryce
knows something, and that he's mixing it all up with--this!
Why not tell me--please!"
Ransford, who was still marching about the room, came to a
halt, and leaning his hands on the table between them, looked
earnestly at her.
"Don't ask that--now!" he said. "I can't--yet. The fact is,
I'm waiting for something--some particulars. As soon as I get
them, I'll speak to you--and to Dick. In the meantime--don't
ask me again--and don't be afraid. And as to this affair,
leave it to me--and if you meet Bryce again, refuse to discuss
any thing with him. Look here!--there's only one reason why
he professes friendliness and a desire to save me annoyance.
He thinks he can ingratiate himself with--you!"
"Mistaken!" murmured Mary, shaking her head. "I don't trust
him. And--less than ever because of yesterday. Would an
honest man have done what he did? Let that police inspector
talk freely, as he did, with people concealed behind a
curtain? And--he laughed about it! I hated myself for being
there--yet could we help it?"
"I'm not going to hate myself on Pemberton Bryce's account,"
said Ransford. "Let him play his game--that he has one, I'm
certain."
Bryce had gone away to continue his game--or another line of
it. The Collishaw matter had not made him forget the Richard
Jenkins tomb, and now, after leaving Ransford's house, he
crossed the Close to Paradise with the object of doing a
little more investigation. But at the archway of the ancient
enclosure he met old Simpson Harker, pottering about in his
usual apparently aimless fashion. Harker smiled at sight of
Bryce.
"Ah, I was wanting to have a word with you, doctor!" he said.
"Something important. Have you got a minute or two to spare,
sir? Come round to my little place, then--we shall be quiet
there."
Bryce had any amount of time to spare for an interesting
person like Harker, and he followed the old man to his house
--a tiny place set in a nest of similar old-world buildings
behind the Close. Harker led him into a little parlour,
comfortable and snug, wherein were several shelves of books of
a curiously legal and professional-looking aspect, some old
pictures, and a cabinet of odds and ends, stowed away in of
dark corner. The old man motioned him to an easy chair, and
going over to a cupboard, produced a decanter of whisky and a
box of cigars.
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