Bryce nodded silently, and Ransford, picking up his hat and gloves, left the surgery by the side door. A moment later, Bryce saw him crossing the Close.

CHAPTER III. ST. WRYTHA'S STAIR

The summarily dismissed a.s.sistant, thus left alone, stood for a moment in evident deep thought before he moved towards Ransford's desk and picked up the cheque. He looked at it carefully, folded it neatly, and put it away in his pocket-book; after that he proceeded to collect a few possessions of his own, instruments, books from various drawers and shelves. He was placing these things in a small hand-bag when a gentle tap sounded on the door by which patients approached the surgery.

"Come in!" he called.

There was no response, although the door was slightly ajar; instead, the knock was repeated, and at that Bryce crossed the room and flung the door open.

A man stood outside--an elderly, slight-figured, quiet-looking man, who looked at Bryce with a half-deprecating, half-nervous air; the air of a man who was shy in manner and evidently fearful of seeming to intrude.

Bryce's quick, observant eyes took him in at a glance, noting a much worn and lined face, thin grey hair and tired eyes; this was a man, he said to himself, who had seen trouble. Nevertheless, not a poor man, if his general appearance was anything to go by--he was well and even expensively dressed, in the style generally affected by well-to-do merchants and city men; his clothes were fashionably cut, his silk hat was new, his linen and boots irreproachable; a fine diamond pin gleamed in his carefully arranged cravat. Why, then, this unmistakably furtive and half-frightened manner--which seemed to be somewhat relieved at the sight of Bryce?

"Is this--is Dr. Ransford within?" asked the stranger. "I was told this is his house."

"Dr. Ransford is out," replied Bryce. "Just gone out--not five minutes ago. This is his surgery. Can I be of use?"

The man hesitated, looking beyond Bryce into the room.

"No, thank you," he said at last. "I--no, I don't want professional services--I just called to see Dr. Ransford--I--the fact is, I once knew some one of that name. It's no matter--at present."

Bryce stepped outside and pointed across the Close.

"Dr. Ransford," he said, "went over there--I rather fancy he's gone to the Deanery--he has a case there. If you went through Paradise, you'd very likely meet him coming back--the Deanery is the big house in the far corner yonder."

The stranger followed Bryce's outstretched finger.

"Paradise?" he said, wonderingly. "What's that?"

Bryce pointed to a long stretch of grey wall which projected from the south wall of the Cathedral into the Close.

"It's an enclosure--between the south porch and the transept," he said.

"Full of old tombs and trees--a sort of wilderness--why called Paradise I don't know. There's a short cut across it to the Deanery and that part of the Close--through that archway you see over there. If you go across, you're almost sure to meet Dr. Ransford."

"I'm much obliged to you," said the stranger. "Thank you."

He turned away in the direction which Bryce had indicated, and Bryce went back--only to go out again and call after him.

"If you don't meet him, shall I say you'll call again?" he asked.

"And--what name?"

The stranger shook his head.

"It's immaterial," he answered. "I'll see him--somewhere--or later. Many thanks."

He went on his way towards Paradise, and Bryce returned to the surgery and completed his preparations for departure. And in the course of things, he more than once looked through the window into the garden and saw Mary Bewery still walking and talking with young Sackville Bonham.

"No," he muttered to himself. "I won't trouble to exchange any farewells--not because of Ransford's hint, but because there's no need.

If Ransford thinks he's going to drive me out of Wrychester before I choose to go he's badly mistaken--it'll be time enough to say farewell when I take my departure--and that won't be just yet. Now I wonder who that old chap was? Knew some one of Ransford's name once, did he?

Probably Ransford himself--in which case he knows more of Ransford than anybody in Wrychester knows--for n.o.body in Wrychester knows anything beyond a few years back. No, Dr. Ransford!--no farewells--to anybody! A mere departure--till I turn up again."

But Bryce was not to get away from the old house without something in the nature of a farewell. As he walked out of the surgery by the side entrance, Mary Bewery, who had just parted from young Bonham in the garden and was about to visit her dogs in the stable yard, came along: she and Bryce met, face to face. The girl flushed, not so much from embarra.s.sment as from vexation; Bryce, cool as ever, showed no sign of any embarra.s.sment. Instead, he laughed, tapping the hand-bag which he carried under one arm.

"Summarily turned out--as if I had been stealing the spoons," he remarked. "I go--with my small belongings. This is my first reward--for devotion."

"I have nothing to say to you," answered Mary, sweeping by him with a highly displeased glance. "Except that you have brought it on yourself."

"A very feminine retort!" observed Bryce. "But--there is no malice in it? Your anger won't last more than--shall we say a day?"

"You may say what you like," she replied. "As I just said, I have nothing to say--now or at any time."

"That remains to be proved," remarked Bryce. "The phrase is one of much elasticity. But for the present--I go!"

He walked out into the Close, and without as much as a backward look struck off across the sward in the direction in which, ten minutes before, he had sent the strange man. He had rooms in a quiet lane on the farther side of the Cathedral precinct, and his present intention was to go to them to leave his bag and make some further arrangements. He had no idea of leaving Wrychester--he knew of another doctor in the city who was badly in need of help: he would go to him--would tell him, if need be, why he had left Ransford. He had a multiplicity of schemes and ideas in his head, and he began to consider some of them as he stepped out of the Close into the ancient enclosure which all Wrychester folk knew by its time-honoured name of Paradise. This was really an outer court of the old cloisters; its high walls, half-ruinous, almost wholly covered with ivy, shut in an expanse of turf, liberally furnished with yew and cypress and studded with tombs and gravestones. In one corner rose a gigantic elm; in another a broken stairway of stone led to a doorway set high in the walls of the nave; across the enclosure itself was a pathway which led towards the houses in the south-east corner of the Close. It was a curious, gloomy spot, little frequented save by people who went across it rather than follow the gravelled paths outside, and it was untenanted when Bryce stepped into it. But just as he walked through the archway he saw Ransford. Ransford was emerging hastily from a postern door in the west porch--so hastily that Bryce checked himself to look at him. And though they were twenty yards apart, Bryce saw that Ransford's face was very pale, almost to whiteness, and that he was unmistakably agitated. Instantly he connected that agitation with the man who had come to the surgery door.

"They've met!" mused Bryce, and stopped, staring after Ransford's retreating figure. "Now what is it in that man's mere presence that's upset Ransford? He looks like a man who's had a nasty, unexpected shock--a bad 'un!"

He remained standing in the archway, gazing after the retreating figure, until Ransford had disappeared within his own garden; still wondering and speculating, but not about his own affairs, he turned across Paradise at last and made his way towards the farther corner. There was a little wicket-gate there, set in the ivied wall; as Bryce opened it, a man in the working dress of a stone-mason, whom he recognized as being one of the master-mason's staff, came running out of the bushes.

His face, too, was white, and his eyes were big with excitement. And recognizing Bryce, he halted, panting.

"What is it, Varner?" asked Bryce calmly. "Something happened?"

The man swept his hand across his forehead as if he were dazed, and then jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

"A man!" he gasped. "Foot of St. Wrytha's Stair there, doctor. Dead--or if not dead, near it. I saw it!"

Bryce seized Varner's arm and gave it a shake.

"You saw--what?" he demanded.

"Saw him--fall. Or rather--flung!" panted Varner. "Somebody--couldn't see who, nohow--flung him right through yon doorway, up there. He fell right over the steps--crash!" Bryce looked over the tops of the yews and cypresses at the doorway in the clerestory to which Varner pointed--a low, open archway gained by the half-ruinous stair. It was forty feet at least from the ground.

"You saw him--thrown!" he exclaimed. "Thrown--down there? Impossible, man!"

"Tell you I saw it!" a.s.serted Varner doggedly. "I was looking at one of those old tombs yonder--somebody wants some repairs doing--and the jackdaws were making such a to-do up there by the roof I glanced up at them. And I saw this man thrown through that door--fairly flung through it! G.o.d!--do you think I could mistake my own eyes?"

"Did you see who flung him?" asked Bryce.

"No; I saw a hand--just for one second, as it might be--by the edge of the doorway," answered Varner. "I was more for watching him! He sort of tottered for a second on the step outside the door, turned over and screamed--I can hear it now!--and crashed down on the flags beneath."

"How long since?" demanded Bryce.

"Five or six minutes," said Varner. "I rushed to him--I've been doing what I could. But I saw it was no good, so I was running for help--"

Bryce pushed him towards the bushes by which they were standing.