CHAPTER XV. THE DOUBLE OFFER

Bryce, who was deriving a considerable and peculiar pleasure from his secret interview with the old detective, smiled at Harker's last remark.

"That's a bit of a plat.i.tude, isn't it?" he suggested. "Of course we shall know a lot more--when we do know a lot more!"

"I set store by plat.i.tudes, sir," retorted Harker. "You can't repeat an established plat.i.tude too often--it's got the hallmark of good use on it. But now, till we do know more--you've no doubt been thinking a lot about this matter, Dr. Bryce--hasn't it struck you that there's one feature in connection with Brake, or Braden's visit to Wrychester to which n.o.body's given any particular attention up to now--so far as we know, at any rate?"

"What?" demanded Bryce.

"This," replied Harker. "Why did he wish to see the Duke of Saxonsteade?

He certainly did want to see him--and as soon as possible. You'll remember that his Grace was questioned about that at the inquest and could give no explanation--he knew nothing of Brake, and couldn't suggest any reason why Brake should wish to have an interview with him.

But--I can!"

"You?" exclaimed Bryce.

"I," answered Harker. "And it's this--I spoke just now of that man Gla.s.sdale. Now you, of course; have no knowledge of him, and as you don't keep yourself posted in criminal history, you don't know what his offence was?"

"You said--forgery?" replied Bryce.

"Just so--forgery," a.s.sented Harker. "And the signature that he forged was--the Duke of Saxonsteade's! As a matter of fact, he was the Duke's London estate agent. He got wrong, somehow, and he forged the Duke's name to a cheque. Now, then, considering who Gla.s.sdale is, and that he was certainly a fellow-convict of Brake's, and that I myself saw him here in Wrychester on the day of Brake's death--what's the conclusion to be drawn? That Brake wanted to see the Duke on some business of Gla.s.sdale's! Without a doubt! It may have been that he and Gla.s.sdale wanted to visit the Duke, together."

Bryce silently considered this suggestion for awhile.

"You said, just now, that Gla.s.sdale could be traced?" he remarked at last.

"Traced--yes," replied Harker. "So long as he's in England."

"Why not set about it?" suggested Bryce.

"Not yet," said Harker. "There's things to do before that. And the first thing is--let's get to know what the mystery of that sc.r.a.p of paper is.

You say you've found Richard Jenkins's tomb? Very well--then the thing to do is to find out if anything is hidden there. Try it tomorrow night.

Better go by yourself--after dark. If you find anything, let me know.

And then--then we can decide on a next step. But between now and then, there'll be the inquest on this man Collishaw. And, about that--a word in your ear! Say as little as ever you can!--after all, you know nothing beyond what you saw. And--we mustn't meet and talk in public--after you've done that bit of exploring in Paradise tomorrow night, come round here and we'll consider matters."

There was little that Bryce could say or could be asked to say at the inquest on the mason's labourer next morning. Public interest and excitement was as keen about Collishaw's mysterious death as about Braden's, for it was already rumoured through the town that if Braden had not met with his death when he came to Wrychester, Collishaw would still be alive. The Coroner's court was once more packed; once more there was the same atmosphere of mystery. But the proceedings were of a very different nature to those which had attended the inquest on Braden. The foreman under whose orders Collishaw had been working gave particulars of the dead man's work on the morning of his death. He had been instructed to clear away an acc.u.mulation of rubbish which had gathered at the foot of the south wall of the nave in consequence of some recent repairs to the masonry--there was a full day's work before him. All day he would be in and out of Paradise with his barrow, wheeling away the rubbish he gathered up. The foreman had looked in on him once or twice; he had seen him just before noon, when he appeared to be in his usual health--he had made no complaint, at any rate. Asked if he had happened to notice where Collishaw had set down his dinner basket and his tin bottle while he worked, he replied that it so happened that he had--he remembered seeing both bottle and basket and the man's jacket deposited on one of the box-tombs under a certain yew-tree--which he could point out, if necessary.

Bryce's account of his finding of Collishaw amounted to no more than a bare recital of facts. Nor was much time spent in questioning the two doctors who had conducted the post-mortem examination. Their evidence, terse and particular, referred solely to the cause of death. The man had been poisoned by a dose of hydrocyanic acid, which, in their opinion, had been taken only a few minutes before his body was discovered by Dr. Bryce. It had probably been a dose which would cause instantaneous death. There were no traces of the poison in the remains of his dinner, nor in the liquid in his tin bottle, which was old tea. But of the cause of his sudden death there was no more doubt than of the effects.

Ransford had been in the court from the outset of the proceedings, and when the medical evidence had been given he was called. Bryce, watching him narrowly, saw that he was suffering from repressed excitement--and that that excitement was as much due to anger as to anything else. His face was set and stern, and he looked at the Coroner with an expression which portended something not precisely clear at that moment. Bryce, trying to a.n.a.lyse it, said to himself that he shouldn't be surprised if a scene followed--Ransford looked like a man who is bursting to say something in no unmistakable fashion. But at first he answered the questions put to him calmly and decisively.

"When this man's clothing was searched," observed the Coroner, "a box of pills was found, Dr. Ransford, on which your writing appears. Had you been attending him--professionally?"

"Yes," replied Ransford. "Both Collishaw and his wife. Or, rather, to be exact, I had been in attendance on the wife, for some weeks. A day or two before his death, Collishaw complained to me of indigestion, following on his meals. I gave him some digestive pills--the pills you speak of, no doubt."

"These?" asked the Coroner, pa.s.sing over the box which Mitchington had found.

"Precisely!" agreed Ransford. "That, at any rate, is the box, and I suppose those to be the pills."

"You made them up yourself?" inquired the Coroner.

"I did--I dispense all my own medicines."

"Is it possible that the poison we have beard of, just now, could get into one of those pills--by accident?"

"Utterly impossible!--under my hands, at any rate," answered Ransford.

"Still, I suppose, it could have been administered in a pill?" suggested the Coroner.

"It might," agreed Ransford. "But," he added, with a significant glance at the medical men who had just given evidence. "It was not so administered in this case, as the previous witnesses very well know!"

The Coroner looked round him, and waited a moment.

"You are at liberty to explain--that last remark," he said at last.

"That is--if you wish to do so." "Certainly!" answered Ransford, with alacrity. "Those pills are, as you will observe, coated, and the man would swallow them whole--immediately after his food. Now, it would take some little time for a pill to dissolve, to disintegrate, to be digested. If Collishaw took one of my pills as soon as he had eaten his dinner, according to instructions, and if poison had been in that pill, he would not have died at 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 a.s.s!"

"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 G.o.d, sir, if it had been me, I'd have stopped 'em!--before they left the parish pump!"

"Ah?" said Bryce. "And--how?"