"Well, as a matter of fact, there were two," admitted Gla.s.sdale, "but there was one in particular. The other--the second--so Braden said, didn't matter; he was or had been, only a sort of cat's-paw of the man he especially wanted."

"I see," said Folliot. He pulled out a cigar case and offered a cigar to his visitor, afterwards lighting one himself. "And what did Braden want that man for?" he asked.

Gla.s.sdale waited until his cigar was in full going order before he answered this question. Then he replied in one word.

"Revenge!"

Folliot put his thumbs in the armholes of his buff waistcoat and leaning back, seemed to be admiring his roses.

"Ah!" he said at last. "Revenge, now? A sort of vindictive man, was he?

Wanted to get his knife into somebody, eh?"

"He wanted to get something of his own back from a man who'd done him,"

answered Gla.s.sdale, with a short laugh. "That's about it!"

For a minute or two both men smoked in silence. Then Folliot--still regarding his roses--put a leading question.

"Give you any details?" he asked.

"Enough," said Gla.s.sdale. "Braden had been done--over a money transaction--by these men--one especially, as head and front of the affair--and it had cost him--more than anybody would think! Naturally, he wanted--if he ever got the chance--his revenge. Who wouldn't?"

"And he'd tracked 'em down, eh?" asked Folliot.

"There are questions I can answer, and there are questions I can't answer," responded Gla.s.sdale. "That's one of the questions I've no reply to. For--I don't know! But--I can say this. He hadn't tracked 'em down the day before he came to Wrychester!"

"You're sure of that?" asked Folliot. "He--didn't come here on that account?"

"No, I'm sure he didn't!" answered Gla.s.sdale, readily. "If he had, I should have known. I was with him till noon the day he came here--in London--and when he took his ticket at Victoria for Wrychester, he'd no more idea than the man in the moon as to where those men had got to.

He mentioned it as we were having a bit of lunch together before he got into the train. No--he didn't come to Wrychester for any such purpose as that! But--"

He paused and gave Folliot a meaning glance out of the corner of his eyes.

"Aye--what?" asked Folliot.

"I think he met at least one of 'em here," said Gla.s.sdale, quietly.

"And--perhaps both."

"Leading to--misfortune for him?" suggested Folliot.

"If you like to put it that way--yes," a.s.sented Gla.s.sdale.

Folliot smoked a while in more reflective silence.

"Aye, well!" he said at last. "I suppose you haven't put these ideas of yours before anybody, now?"

"Present ideas?" asked Gla.s.sdale, sharply. "Not to a soul! I've not had 'em--very long."

"You're the sort of man that another man can do a deal with, I suppose?"

suggested Folliot. "That is, if it's made worth your while, of course?"

"I shouldn't wonder," replied Gla.s.sdale. "And--if it is made worth my while."

Folliot mused a little. Then he tapped Gla.s.sdale's elbow.

"You see," he said, confidentially, "it might be, you know, that I had a little purpose of my own in offering that reward. It might be that it was a very particular friend of mine that had the misfortune to have incurred this man Braden's hatred. And I might want to save him, d'ye see, from--well, from the consequence of what's happened, and to hear about it first if anybody came forward, eh?"

"As I've done," said Gla.s.sdale.

"As--you've done," a.s.sented Folliot. "Now, perhaps it would be in the interest of this particular friend of mine if he made it worth your while to--say no more to anybody, eh?"

"Very much worth his while, Mr. Folliot," declared Gla.s.sdale.

"Aye, well," continued Folliot. "This very particular friend would just want to know, you know, how much you really, truly know! Now, for instance, about these two men--and one in particular--that Braden was after? Did--did he name 'em?"

Gla.s.sdale leaned a little nearer to his companion on the rose-screened bench.

"He named them--to me!" he said in a whisper. "One was a man called Falkiner Wraye, and the other man was a man named Flood. Is that enough?"

"I think you'd better come and see me this evening," answered Folliot.

"Come just about dusk to that door--I'll meet you there. Fine roses these of mine, aren't they?" he continued, as they rose. "I occupy myself entirely with 'em."

He walked with Gla.s.sdale to the garden door, and stood there watching his visitor go away up the side of the high wall until he turned into the path across Paradise. And then, as Folliot was retreating to his roses, he saw Bryce coming over the Close--and Bryce beckoned to him.

CHAPTER XXV. THE OLD WELL HOUSE

When Bryce came hurrying up to him, Folliot was standing at his garden door with his hands thrust under his coat-tails--the very picture of a benevolent, leisured gentleman who has nothing to do and is disposed to give his time to anybody. He glanced at Bryce as he had glanced at Gla.s.sdale--over the tops of his spectacles, and the glance had no more than mild inquiry in it. But if Bryce had been less excited, he would have seen that Folliot, as he beckoned him inside the garden, swept a sharp look over the Close and ascertained that there was no one about, that Bryce's entrance was un.o.bserved. Save for a child or two, playing under the tall elms near one of the gates, and for a clerical figure that stalked a path in the far distance, the Close was empty of life.

And there was no one about, either, in that part of Folliot's big garden.

"I want a bit of talk with you," said Bryce as Folliot closed the door and turned down a side-path to a still more retired region. "Private talk. Let's go where it's quiet."

Without replying in words to this suggestion, Folliot led the way through his rose-trees to a far corner of his grounds, where an old building of grey stone, covered with ivy, stood amongst high trees. He turned the key of a doorway and motioned Bryce to enter.

"Quiet enough in here, doctor," he observed. "You've never seen this place--bit of a fancy of mine."

Bryce, absorbed as he was in the thoughts of the moment, glanced cursorily at the place into which Folliot had led him. It was a square building of old stone, its walls unlined, unplastered; its floor paved with much worn flags of limestone, evidently set down in a long dead age and now polished to marble-like smoothness. In its midst, set flush with the floor, was what was evidently a trap-door, furnished with a heavy iron ring. To this Folliot pointed, with a glance of significant interest.

"Deepest well in all Wrychester under that," he remarked. "You'd never think it--it's a hundred feet deep--and more! Dry now--water gave out some years ago. Some people would have pulled this old well-house down--but not me! I did better--I turned it to good account." He raised a hand and pointed upward to an obviously modern ceiling of strong oak timbers. "Had that put in," he continued, "and turned the top of the building into a little snuggery. Come up!"

He led the way to a flight of steps in one corner of the lower room, pushed open a door at their head, and showed his companion into a small apartment arranged and furnished in something closely approaching to luxury. The walls were hung with thick fabrics; the carpeting was equally thick; there were pictures, books, and curiosities; the two or three chairs were deep and big enough to lie down in; the two windows commanded pleasant views of the Cathedral towers on one side and of the Close on the other.

"Nice little place to be alone in, d'ye see?" said Folliot. "Cool in summer--warm in winter--modern fire-grate, you notice. Come here when I want to do a bit of quiet thinking, what?"

"Good place for that--certainly," agreed Bryce.