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Page 92
"That description, now?--what was it?" asked Bryce.
"Oh!" said Glassdale. "I can't remember it all, now--big man,
clean shaven, nothing very particular except one thing.
Wraye, according to Brake, had a bad scar on his left jaw and
had lost the middle finger of his left hand--all from a gun
accident. He--what's the matter, sir?"
Bryce had suddenly let his pipe fall from his lips. He took
some time in picking it up. When he raised himself again his
face was calm if a little flushed from stooping.
"Bit my pipe on a bad tooth!" he muttered. "I must have that
tooth seen to. So you never heard or saw anything of this
man?"
"Never!" answered Glassdale. "But I've wondered since this
Wrychester affair if Brake accidentally came across one or
other of those men, and if his death arose out of it. Now,
look here, doctor! I read the accounts of the inquest on
Brake--I'd have gone to it if I'd dared, but just then I
hadn't made up my mind about seeing the Duke; I didn't know
what to do, so I kept away, and there's a thing has struck me
that I don't believe the police have ever taken the slightest,
notice of."
"What's that?" demanded Bryce.
"Why, this!" answered Glassdale. "That man who called himself
Dellingham--who came with Brake to the Mitre Hotel at
Wrychester--who is he? Where did Brake meet him? Where did
he go? Seems to me the police have been strangely negligent
about that! According to the accounts I've read, everybody
just accepted this Dellingham's first statement, took his
word, and let him--vanish! No one, as far as I know, ever
verified his account of himself. A stranger!"
Bryce, who was already in one of his deep moods of reflection,
got up from his chair as if to go.
"Yes," he said. "There maybe something in your suggestion.
They certainly did take his word without inquiry. It's true
--he mightn't be what he said he was."
"Aye, and from what I read, they never followed his movements
that morning!" observed Glassdale. "Queer business
altogether! Isn't there some reward offered, doctor? I heard
of some placards or something, but I've never seen them; of
course, I've only been here since yesterday morning."
Bryce silently drew some papers from his pocket. From them he
extracted the two handbills which Mitchington had given him
and handed them over.
"Well, I must go," he said. "I shall no doubt see you again
in Wrychester, over this affair. For the present, all this is
between ourselves, of course?"
"Oh, of course, doctor!" answered Glassdale. "Quite so!"
Bryce went off and got his bicycle and rode away in the
direction of Wrychester. Had he remained in that garden he
would have seen Glassdale, after reading both the handbills,
go into the house and have heard him ask the landlady at the
bar to get him a trap and a good horse in it as soon as
possible; he, too, now wanted to go to Wrychester and at once.
But Bryce was riding down the road, muttering certain words to
himself over and over again.
"The left jaw--and the left hand!" he repeated. "Left hand
--left jaw! Unmistakable!"
CHAPTER XXII
OTHER PEOPLE'S NOTIONS
The great towers of Wrychester Cathedral had come within
Bryce's view before he had made up his mind as to the next
step in this last stage of his campaign. He had ridden away
from the Saxonsteade Arms feeling that he had got to do
something at once, but he was not quite clear in his mind as
to what that something exactly was. But now, as he topped a
rise in the road, and saw Wrychester lying in its hollow
beneath him, the summer sun shining on its red roofs and grey
walls, he suddenly came to a decision, and instead of riding
straight ahead into the old city he turned off at a by-road,
made a line across the northern outskirts, and headed for the
golf-links. He was almost certain to find Mary Bewery there
at that hour, and he wanted to see her at once. The time for
his great stroke had come.
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