"Dr. Ransford," answered Mary, "is quite able to defend and to take care of himself. It is not for me to tell him what to do, or even to advise him what to do. And--since you will talk of this matter, I tell you frankly, Mrs. Folliot, that I don't believe any decent person in Wrychester has the least suspicion or doubt of Dr. Ransford. His denial of any share or complicity in those sad affairs--the mere idea of it as ridiculous as it's wicked--was quite sufficient. You know very well that at that second inquest he said--on oath, too--that he knew nothing of these affairs. I repeat, there isn't a decent soul in the city doubts that!"

"Oh, but you're quite wrong!" said Mrs. Folliot, hurriedly. "Quite wrong, I a.s.sure you, my dear. Of course, everybody knows what Dr.

Ransford said--very excitedly, poor man, I'm given to understand on the occasion you refer to, but then, what else could he have said in his own interest? What people want is the proof of his innocence. I could--but I won't--tell you of many of the very best people who are--well, very much exercised over the matter--I could indeed!"

"Do you count yourself among them?" asked Mary in a cold fashion which would have been a warning to any one but her visitor. "Am I to understand that, Mrs. Folliot?"

"Certainly not, my dear," answered Mrs. Folliot promptly. "Otherwise I should not have done what I have done towards establishing the foolish man's innocence!"

Mary dropped her work and turned a pair of astonished eyes on Mrs.

Folliot's large countenance.

"You!" she exclaimed. "To establish--Dr. Ransford's innocence? Why, Mrs.

Folliot, what have you done?"

Mrs. Folliot toyed a little with the jewelled head of her sunshade. Her expression became almost coy.

"Oh, well!" she answered after a brief spell of indecision. "Perhaps it is as well that you should know, Miss Bewery. Of course, when all this sad trouble was made far worse by that second affair--the working-man's death, you know, I said to my husband that really one must do something, seeing that Dr. Ransford was so very, very obdurate and wouldn't speak.

And as money is nothing--at least as things go--to me or to Mr. Folliot, I insisted that he should offer a thousand pounds reward to have the thing cleared up. He's a generous and open-handed man, and he agreed with me entirely, and put the thing in hand through his solicitors. And nothing would please us more, my dear, than to have that thousand pounds claimed! For of course, if there is to be--as I suppose there is--a union between our families, it would be utterly impossible that any cloud could rest on Dr. Ransford, even if he is only your guardian. My son's future wife cannot, of course--"

Mary laid down her work again and for a full minute stared Mrs. Folliot in the face.

"Mrs. Folliot!" she said at last. "Are you under the impression that I'm thinking of marrying your son?"

"I think I've every good reason for believing it!" replied Mrs. Folliot.

"You've none!" retorted Mary, gathering up her work and moving towards the door. "I've no more intention of marrying Mr. Sackville Bonham than of eloping with the Bishop! The idea's too absurd to--even be thought of!"

Five minutes later Mrs. Folliot, heightened in colour, had gone.

And presently Mary, glancing after her across the Close, saw Bryce approaching the gate of the garden.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE UNEXPECTED

Mary's first instinct on seeing the approach of Pemberton Bryce, the one man she least desired to see, was to retreat to the back of the house and send the parlourmaid to the door to say her mistress was not at home. But she had lately become aware of Bryce's curiously dogged persistence in following up whatever he had in view, and she reflected that if he were sent away then he would be sure to come back and come back until he had got whatever it was that he wanted. And after a moment's further consideration, she walked out of the front door and confronted him resolutely in the garden.

"Dr. Ransford is away," she said with almost unnecessary brusqueness.

"He's away until evening."

"I don't want him," replied Bryce just as brusquely. "I came to see you."

Mary hesitated. She continued to regard Bryce steadily, and Bryce did not like the way in which she was looking at him. He made haste to speak before she could either leave or dismiss him.

"You'd better give me a few minutes," he said, with a note of warning.

"I'm here in your interests--or in Ransford's. I may as well tell you, straight out, Ransford's in serious and imminent danger! That's a fact."

"Danger of what?" she demanded.

"Arrest--instant arrest!" replied Bryce. "I'm telling you the truth. He'll probably be arrested tonight, on his return. There's no imagination in all this--I'm speaking of what I know. I've--curiously enough--got mixed up with these affairs, through no seeking of my own, and I know what's behind the scenes. If it were known that I'm letting out secrets to you, I should get into trouble. But, I want to warn you!"

Mary stood before him on the path, hesitating. She knew enough to know that Bryce was telling some sort of truth: it was plain that he had been mixed up in the recent mysteries, and there was a ring of conviction in his voice which impressed her. And suddenly she had visions of Ransford's arrest, of his being dragged off to prison to meet a cruel accusation, of the shame and disgrace, and she hesitated further.

"But if that's so," she said at last, "what's the good of coming to me?

I can't do anything!"

"I can!" said Bryce significantly. "I know more--much more--than the police know--more than anybody knows. I can save Ransford. Understand that!"

"What do you want now?" she asked.

"To talk to you--to tell you how things are," answered Bryce. "What harm is there in that? To make you see how matters stand, and then to show you what I can do to put things right."

Mary glanced at an open summer-house which stood beneath the beech trees on one side of the garden. She moved towards it and sat down there, and Bryce followed her and seated himself.

"Well--" she said.

Bryce realized that his moment had arrived. He paused, endeavouring to remember the careful preparations he had made for putting his case.

Somehow, he was not so clear as to his line of attack as he had been ten minutes previously--he realized that he had to deal with a young woman who was not likely to be taken in nor easily deceived. And suddenly he plunged into what he felt to be the thick of things.

"Whether you, or whether Ransford--whether both or either of you, know it or not," he said, "the police have been on to Ransford ever since that Collishaw affair! Underground work, you know. Mitchington has been digging into things ever since then, and lately he's had a London detective helping him."

Mary, who had carried her work into the garden, had now resumed it, and as Bryce began to talk she bent over it steadily st.i.tching.

"Well?" she said.

"Look here!" continued Bryce. "Has it never struck you--it must have done!--that there's considerable mystery about Ransford? But whether it has struck you or not, it's there, and it's struck the police forcibly.

Mystery connected with him before--long before--he ever came here. And a.s.sociated, in some way, with that man Braden. Not of late--in years past. And, naturally, the police have tried to find out what that was."

"What have they found out?" asked Mary quietly.

"That I'm not at liberty to tell," replied Bryce. "But I can tell you this--they know, Mitchington and the London man, that there were pa.s.sages between Ransford and Braden years ago."

"How many years ago?" interrupted Mary.

Bryce hesitated a moment. He had a suspicion that this self-possessed young woman who was taking everything more quietly than he had antic.i.p.ated, might possibly know more than he gave her credit for knowing. He had been watching her fingers since they sat down in the summer-house, and his sharp eyes saw that they were as steady as the spire of the cathedral above the trees--he knew from that that she was neither frightened nor anxious.

"Oh, well--seventeen to twenty years ago," he answered. "About that time. There were pa.s.sages, I say, and they were of a nature which suggests that the re-appearance of Braden on Ransford's present stage of life would be, extremely unpleasant and unwelcome to Ransford."

"Vague!" murmured Mary. "Extremely vague!"

"But quite enough," retorted Bryce, "to give the police the suggestion of motive. I tell you the police know quite enough to know that Braden was, of all men in the world, the last man Ransford desired to see cross his path again. And--on that morning on which the Paradise affair occurred--Braden did cross his path. Therefore, in the conventional police way of thinking and looking at things, there's motive."

"Motive for what?" asked Mary.

Bryce arrived here at one of his critical stages, and he paused a moment in order to choose his words.

"Don't get any false ideas or impressions," he said at last. "I'm not accusing Ransford of anything. I'm only telling you what I know the police think and are on the very edge of accusing him of. To put it plainly--of murder. They say he'd a motive for murdering Braden--and with them motive is everything. It's the first thing they seem to think of; they first question they ask themselves. 'Why should this man have murdered that man?'--do you see! 'What motive had he?--that's the point.