you call this manly conduct, Dr. Bryce?” she demanded, turning an indignant and flushed face on him. “To waylay me here, when you know that I don’t want to have anything more to do with you. Let me through, please—and go away!”
But Bryce kept a hand on the little gate, and when he spoke there was that in his voice which made the girl listen in spite of herself.
“I’m not here on my own behalf,” he said quickly. “I give you my word I won’t say a thing that need offend you. It’s true I waited here for you—it’s the only place in which I thought I could meet you, alone. I want to speak to you. It’s this—do you know your guardian is in danger?”
Bryce had the gift of plausibility—he could convince people, against their instincts, even against their wills, that he was telling the truth. And Mary, after a swift glance, believed him.
“What danger?” she asked. “And if he is, and if you know he is—why don’t you go direct to him?”
“The most fatal thing in the world to do!” exclaimed Bryce. “You know him—he can be nasty. That would bring matters to a crisis. And that, in his interest, is just what mustn’t happen.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Mary.
Bryce leaned nearer to her—across the gate.
“You know what happened last week,” he said in a low voice. “The strange death of that man—Braden.”
“Well?” she asked, with a sudden look of uneasiness. “What of it?”
“It’s being rumoured—whispered—in the town that Dr. Ransford had something to do with that affair,” answered Bryce. “Unpleasant—unfortunate—but it’s a fact.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Mary with a heightening colour. “What could he have to do with it? What could give rise to such foolish—wicked—rumours?”
“You know as well as I do how people talk, how they will talk,” said Bryce. “You can’t stop them, in a place like Wrychester, where everybody knows everybody. There’s a mystery around Braden’s death—it’s no use denying it. Nobody knows who he was, where he came from, why he came. And it’s being hinted—I’m only telling you what I’ve gathered—that Dr. Ransford knows more than he’s ever told. There are, I’m afraid, grounds.”
“What grounds?” demanded Mary. While Bryce had been speaking, in his usual slow, careful fashion, she had been reflecting—and remembering Ransford’s evident agitation at the time of the Paradise affair—and his relief when the inquest was over—and his sending her with flowers to the dead man’s grave and she began to experience a sense of uneasiness and even of fear. “What grounds can there be?” she added. “Dr. Ransford didn’t know that man—had never seen him!”
“That’s not certain,” replied Bryce. “It’s said—remember, I’m only repeating things—it’s said that just before the body was discovered, Dr. Ransford was seen—seen, mind you!—leaving the west porch of the Cathedral, looking as if he had just been very much upset. Two persons saw this.”
“Who are they?” asked Mary.
“That I’m not allowed to tell you,” said Bryce, who had no intention of informing her that one person was himself and the other imaginary. “But I can assure you that I am certain—absolutely certain!—that their story is true. The fact is—I can corroborate it.”
“You!” she exclaimed.
“I!” replied Bryce. “I will tell you something that I have never told anybody—up to now. I shan’t ask you to respect my confidence—I’ve sufficient trust in you to know that you will, without any asking. Listen!—on that morning, Dr. Ransford went out of the surgery in the direction of the Deanery, leaving me alone there. A few minutes later, a tap came at the door. I opened it—and found—a man standing outside!”
“Not—that man?” asked Mary fearfully.
“That man—Braden,” replied Bryce. “He asked for Dr. Ransford. I said he was out—would the caller leave his name? He said no—he had called because he had once known a Dr. Ransford, years before. He added something about calling again, and he went away—across the Close towards the Cathedral. I saw him again—not very long afterwards—lying in the corner of Paradise—dead!”
Mary Bewery was by this time pale and trembling—and Bryce continued to watch her steadily. She stole a furtive look at him.
“Why didn’t you tell all this at the inquest?” she asked in a whisper.
“Because I knew how damning it would be to—Ransford,” replied Bryce promptly. “It would have excited suspicion. I was certain that no one but myself knew that Braden had been to the surgery door—therefore, I thought that if I kept silence, his calling there would never be known. But—I have since found that I was mistaken. Braden was seen—going away from Dr. Ransford’s.”
“By—whom?” asked Mary.
“Mrs. Deramore—at the next house,” answered Bryce. “She happened to be looking out of an upstairs window. She saw him go away and cross the Close.”
“Did she tell you that?” demanded Mary, who knew Mrs. Deramore for a gossip.
“Between ourselves,” said Bryce, “she did not! She told Mrs. Folliot—Mrs. Folliot told me.”
“So—it is talked about!” exclaimed Mary.
“I said so,” assented Bryce. “You know what Mrs. Folliot’s tongue is.”
“Then Dr. Ransford will get to hear of it,” said Mary.
“He will be the last person to get to hear of it,” affirmed Bryce. “These things are talked of, hole-and-corner fashion, a long time before they reach the ears of the person chiefly concerned.”
Mary hesitated a moment before she asked her next question.
“Why have you told me all this?” she demanded at last.
“Because I didn’t want you to be suddenly surprised,” answered Bryce. “This—whatever it is—may come to a sudden head—of an unpleasant sort. These rumours spread—and the police are still keen about finding out things concerning this dead man. If they once get it into their heads that Dr. Ransford knew him—”
Mary laid her hand on the gate between them—and Bryce, who had done all he wished to do at that time, instantly opened it, and she passed through.
“I am much obliged to you,” she said. “I don’t know what it all means—but it is Dr. Ransford’s affair—if there is any affair, which I doubt. Will you let me go now, please?”
Bryce stood aside and lifted his hat, and Mary, with no more than a nod, walked on towards the golf club-house across the Common, while Bryce turned off to the town, highly elated with his morning’s work. He had sown the seeds of uneasiness and suspicion broadcast—some of them, he knew, would mature.
Mary Bewery played no golf that morning. In fact, she only went on to the club-house to rid herself of Bryce, and presently she returned home, thinking. And indeed, she said to herself, she had
