once—as he evidently did. Death would probably have been delayed some little time until the pill had dissolved. But, according to the evidence you have had before you, he died quite suddenly while eating his dinner—or immediately after it. I am not legally represented here—I don’t consider it at all necessary—but I ask you to recall Dr. Coates and to put this question to him: Did he find one of those digestive pills in this man’s stomach?”
The Coroner turned, somewhat dubiously, to the two doctors who had performed the autopsy. But before he could speak, the superintendent of police rose and began to whisper to him, and after a conversation between them, he looked round at the jury, every member of which had evidently been much struck by Ransford’s suggestion.
“At this stage,” he said, “it will be necessary to adjourn. I shall adjourn the inquiry for a week, gentlemen. You will—” Ransford, still standing in the witness-box, suddenly lost control of himself. He uttered a sharp exclamation and smote the ledge before him smartly with his open hand.
“I protest against that!” he said vehemently. “Emphatically, I protest! You first of all make a suggestion which tells against me—then, when I demand that a question shall be put which is of immense importance to my interests, you close down the inquiry—even if only for the moment. That is grossly unfair and unjust!”
“You are mistaken,” said the Coroner. “At the adjourned inquiry, the two medical men can be recalled, and you will have the opportunity—or your solicitor will have—of asking any questions you like for the present—”
“For the present you have me under suspicion!” interrupted Ransford hotly. “You know it—I say this with due respect to your office—as well as I do. Suspicion is rife in the city against me. Rumour is being spread—secretly—and, I am certain—from the police, who ought to know better. And—I will not be silenced, Mr. Coroner!—I take this public opportunity, as I am on oath, of saying that I know nothing whatever of the causes of the deaths of either Collishaw or of Braden—upon my solemn oath!”
“The inquest is adjourned to this day week,” said the Coroner quietly.
Ransford suddenly stepped down from the witness-box and without word or glance at any one there, walked with set face and determined look out of the court, and the excited spectators, gathering into groups, immediately began to discuss his vigorous outburst and to take sides for and against him.
Bryce, judging it advisable to keep away from Mitchington just then, and, for similar reasons, keeping away from Harker also, went out of the crowded building alone—to be joined in the street outside by Sackville Bonham, whom he had noticed in court, in company with his stepfather, Mr. Folliot.
Folliot, Bryce had observed, had stopped behind, exchanging some conversation with the Coroner. Sackville came up to Bryce with a knowing shake of the hand. He was one of those very young men who have a habit of suggesting that their fund of knowledge is extensive and peculiar, and Bryce waited for a manifestation.
“Queer business, all that, Bryce!” observed Sackville confidentially. “Of course, Ransford is a perfect ass!”
“Think so?” remarked Bryce, with an inflection which suggested that Sackville’s opinion on anything was as valuable as the Attorney-General’s. “That’s how it strikes you, is it?”
“Impossible that it could strike one in any other way, you know,” answered Sackville with fine and lofty superiority. “Ransford should have taken immediate steps to clear himself of any suspicion. It’s ridiculous, considering his position—guardian to—to Miss Bewery, for instance—that he should allow such rumours to circulate. By God, sir, if it had been me, I’d have stopped ‘em!—before they left the parish pump!”
“Ah?” said Bryce. “And—how?”
“Made an example of somebody,” replied Sackville, with emphasis. “I believe there’s law in this country, isn’t there?—law against libel and slander, and that sort of thing, eh? Oh, yes!”
“Not been much time for that—yet,” remarked Bryce.
“Piles of time,” retorted Sackville, swinging his stick vigorously. “No, sir, Ransford is an ass! However, if a man won’t do things for himself, well, his friends must do something for him. Ransford, of course, must be pulled—dragged!—out of this infernal hole. Of course he’s suspected! But my stepfather—he’s going to take a hand. And my stepfather, Bryce, is a devilish cute old hand at a game of this sort!”
“Nobody doubts Mr. Folliot’s abilities, I’m sure,” said Bryce. “But—you don’t mind saying—how is he going to take a hand?”
“Stir things towards a clearing-up,” announced Sackville promptly. “Have the whole thing gone into—thoroughly. There are matters that haven’t been touched on, yet. You’ll see, my boy!”
“Glad to hear it,” said Bryce. “But—why should Mr. Folliot be so particular about clearing Ransford?”
Sackville swung his stick, and pulled up his collar, and jerked his nose a trifle higher.
“Oh, well,” he said. “Of course, it’s—it’s a pretty well understood thing, don’t you know—between myself and Miss Bewery, you know—and of course, we couldn’t have any suspicions attaching to her guardian, could we, now? Family interest, don’t you know—Caesar’s wife, and all that sort of thing, eh?”
“I see,” answered Bryce, quietly,—“sort of family arrangement. With Ransford’s consent and knowledge, of course?”
“Ransford won’t even be consulted,” said Sackville, airily. “My stepfather—sharp man, that, Bryce!—he’ll do things in his own fashion. You look out for sudden revelations!”
“I will,” replied Bryce. “By-bye!”
He turned off to his rooms, wondering how much of truth there was in the fatuous Sackville’s remarks. And—was there some mystery still undreamt of by himself and Harker? There might be—he was still under the influence of Ransford’s indignant and dramatic assertion of his innocence. Would Ransford have allowed himself an outburst of that sort if he had not been, as he said, utterly ignorant of the immediate cause of Braden’s death? Now Bryce, all through, was calculating, for his own purposes, on Ransford’s share, full or partial, in that death—if Ransford really knew nothing whatever about it, where did his, Bryce’s theory, come in—and how would his present machinations result? And, more—if Ransford’s assertion were true, and if Varner’s story of the hand, seen for an instant in the archway, were also true—and Varner was persisting in it—then, who was the man who flung Braden to his death that morning? He realized that, instead of straightening out, things were becoming more and more complicated.
But he realized something else. On the surface, there was a strong case of suspicion against Ransford. It had been suggested that very morning before a coroner and his jury; it would grow; the police were already permeated with suspicion and distrust. Would it not pay him, Bryce, to encourage, to help it? He had his own score to pay off against Ransford; he had his own schemes as regards Mary Bewery. Anyway, he was not going to share in any attempts to clear the man who had bundled him out of his house unceremoniously—he would bide his time. And in the meantime there were other things to be done—one of them that very night.
But before Bryce could engage in his secret task of excavating a small portion of Paradise in the rear of Richard Jenkins’s tomb, another strange development came. As the dark fell over the old city that night and he was thinking
