Bryce found himself at eleven o'clock next morning in a small book-lined
parlour in a little house which stood in a quiet street in the
neighbourhood of Westbourne Grove. Over the mantelpiece, amongst other
odds and ends of pictures and photographs, hung a water-colour drawing
of Braden Medworth--and to him presently entered an old, silver-haired
clergyman whom he at once took to be Braden Medworth's former vicar,
and who glanced inquisitively at his visitor and then at the card which
Bryce had sent in with a request for an interview.
“Dr. Bryce?” he said inquiringly. “Dr. Pemberton Bryce?”
Bryce made his best bow and assumed his suavest and most ingratiating
manner.
“I hope I am not intruding on your time, Mr. Gilwaters?” he said. “The
fact is, I was referred to you, yesterday, by the present vicar of
Braden Medworth--both he, and the sexton there, Claybourne, whom you, of
course, remember, thought you would be able to give me some information
on a subject which is of great importance--to me.”
“I don't know the present vicar,” remarked Mr. Gilwaters, motioning
Bryce to a chair, and taking another close by. “Clayborne, of course,
I remember very well indeed--he must be getting an old man now--like
myself! What is it you want to know, now?”
“I shall have to take you into my confidence,” replied Bryce, who had
carefully laid his plans and prepared his story, “and you, I am sure,
Mr. Gilwaters, will respect mine. I have for two years been in practice
at Wrychester, and have there made the acquaintance of a young lady whom
I earnestly desire to marry. She is the ward of the man to whom I have
been assistant. And I think you will begin to see why I have come to you
when I say that this young lady's name is--Mary Bewery.”
The old clergyman started, and looked at his visitor with unusual
interest. He grasped the arm of his elbow chair and leaned forward.
“Mary Bewery!” he said in a low whisper. “What--what is the name of the
man who is her--guardian?”
“Dr. Mark Ransford,” answered Bryce promptly.
The old man sat upright again, with a little toss of his head.
“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “Mark Ransford! Then--it must have been
as I feared--and suspected!”
Bryce made no remark. He knew at once that he had struck on something,
and it was his method to let people take their own time. Mr. Gilwaters
had already fallen into something closely resembling a reverie: Bryce
sat silently waiting and expectant. And at last the old man leaned
forward again, almost eagerly.
“What is it you want to know?” he asked, repeating his first question.
“Is--is there some--some mystery?”
“Yes!” replied Bryce. “A mystery that I want to solve, sir. And I dare
say that you can help me, if you'll be so good. I am convinced--in fact,
I know!--that this young lady is in ignorance of her parentage, that
Ransford is keeping some fact, some truth back from her--and I want to
find things out. By the merest chance--accident, in fact--I discovered
yesterday at Braden Medworth that some twenty-two years ago you married
one Mary Bewery, who, I learnt there, was your governess, to a John
Brake, and that Mark Ransford was John Brake's best man and a witness
of the marriage. Now, Mr. Gilwaters, the similarity in names is too
striking to be devoid of significance. So--it's of the utmost importance
to me!--can or will you tell me--who was the Mary Bewery you married to
John Brake? Who was John Brake? And what was Mark Ransford to either, or
to both?”
He was wondering, all the time during which he reeled off these
questions, if Mr. Gilwaters was wholly ignorant of the recent affair
at Wrychester. He might be--a glance round his book-filled room had
suggested to Bryce that he was much more likely to be a bookworm than a
newspaper reader, and it was quite possible that the events of the day
had small interest for him. And his first words in reply to Bryce's
questions convinced Bryce that his surmise was correct and that the
old man had read nothing of the Wrychester Paradise mystery, in which
Ransford's name had, of course, figured as a witness at the inquest.
“It is nearly twenty years since I heard any of their names,” remarked
Mr. Gilwaters. “Nearly twenty years--a long time! But, of course, I can
answer you. Mary Bewery was our governess at Braden Medworth. She came
to us when she was nineteen--she was married four years later. She was a
girl who had no friends or relatives--she had been educated at a school
in the North--I engaged her from that school, where, I understood, she
had lived since infancy. Now then, as to Brake and Ransford. They were
two young men from London, who used to come fishing in Leicestershire.
Ransford was a few years the younger--he was either a medical student in
his last year, or he was an assistant somewhere in London. Brake--was a
bank manager in London--of a branch of one of the big banks. They
were pleasant young fellows, and I used to ask them to the vicarage.
Eventually, Mary Bewery and John Brake became engaged to be married. My
wife and I were a good deal surprised--we had believed, somehow, that
the favoured man would be Ransford. However, it was Brake--and Brake she
married, and, as you say, Ransford was best man. Of course, Brake took
his wife off to London--and from the day of her wedding, I never saw her
again.”
“Did you ever see Brake again?” asked Bryce. The old clergyman shook his
head.
“Yes!” he said sadly. “I did see Brake again--under grievous, grievous
circumstances!”
“You won't mind telling me what circumstances?” suggested Bryce. “I will
keep your confidence, Mr. Gilwaters.”
“There is really no secret in it--if it comes to that,” answered the old
man. “I saw John Brake again just once. In a prison cell!”
“A prison cell!” exclaimed Bryce. “And he--a prisoner?”
“He had just been sentenced to ten years' penal servitude,” replied Mr.
Gilwaters. “I had heard the sentence--I was present. I got leave to see
him. Ten years' penal servitude!--a terrible punishment. He must have
been released long ago--but I never heard more.”
Bryce reflected in silence for a moment--reckoning and calculating.
“When was this--the trial?” he asked.
“It was five years after the marriage--seventeen years ago,” replied Mr.
Gilwaters.
“And--what had he been doing?” inquired Bryce.
“Stealing the bank's money,” answered the old man. “I forget what the
technical offence was--embezzlement, or something of that sort. There
was not much evidence came out, for it was impossible to offer any
defence, and he pleaded guilty. But I gathered from what I heard that
something of this sort occurred. Brake was a branch manager. He was, as
it were, pounced upon one morning by an inspector, who found that his
cash was short by two or three thousand pounds. The bank people seemed
to have been unusually strict and even severe--Brake, it was said, had
some explanation, but it was swept aside and he was given in charge. And
the sentence was as I said just now--a very savage one, I thought.
But there had recently been some bad cases of that sort in the banking
world, and I suppose the judge felt that he must make an example. Yes--a
most trying affair!--I have a report of the case somewhere, which I cut
out of a London newspaper at the time.”
Mr. Gilwaters rose and turned to an old desk in the corner of his
room, and after some rummaging of papers in a drawer, produced a
newspaper-cutting book and traced an insertion in its pages. He handed
the book to his visitor.
“There is the account,” he said. “You can read it for yourself. You will
notice that in what Brake's counsel said on his behalf there are one or
two curious and mysterious hints as to what might have been said if it
had been of any use or advantage to say it. A strange case!”
Bryce turned eagerly to the faded scrap of newspaper.
BANK MANAGER'S DEFALCATION.
At the Central Criminal Court yesterday, John Brake,
thirty-three, formerly manager of the Upper Tooting
branch of the London & Home Counties Bank, Ltd.,
pleaded guilty to embezzling certain sums, the
property of his employers.
Mr. Walkinshaw, Q.C., addressing the court on behalf
of the prisoner, said that while it was impossible
for his client to offer any defence, there were
circumstances in the case which, if it had been worth
while to put them in evidence, would have shown that
the prisoner was a wronged and deceived man. To use
a Scriptural phrase, Brake had been wounded in the
house of his friend. The man who was really guilty
in this affair had cleverly escaped all consequences,
nor would it be of the least use to enter into any
details respecting him. Not one penny of the money
in question had been used by the prisoner for his own
purposes. It was doubtless a wrong and improper thing
that his client had done, and he had pleaded guilty and
would submit to the consequences. But if everything in
connection with the case could have been told, if it
would have served any useful purpose to tell it, it
would have been seen that what the prisoner really was
guilty of was a foolish and serious error of judgment.
He himself, concluded the learned counsel, would go so
far as to say that, knowing what he did, knowing what
had been told him by his client in strict confidence,
the prisoner, though technically guilty, was morally
innocent.
His Lordship, merely remarking that no excuse of any
sort could be offered in a case of this sort, sentenced
the prisoner to ten years' penal servitude.
Bryce read this over twice before handing back the book.
“Very strange and mysterious, Mr. Gilwaters,” he remarked. “You say that
you saw Brake after the case was over. Did you learn anything?”
“Nothing whatever!” answered the old clergyman. “I got permission to see
him before he was taken away. He did not seem particularly pleased or
disposed to see me. I begged him to tell me what the real truth was. He
was, I think, somewhat dazed by the sentence--but he was also sullen
and morose. I asked him where his wife and two children--one, a mere
infant--were. For I had already been to his private address and
had found that Mrs. Brake had sold all the furniture and
disappeared--completely. No one--thereabouts, at any rate--knew where
she was, or would tell me anything. On my asking this, he refused to
answer. I pressed him--he said finally that he was only speaking the
truth when he replied that he did not know where his wife was. I said I
must find her. He forbade me to make any attempt. Then I begged him
to tell me if she was with friends. I remember very well what he
replied.--'I'm not going to say one word more to any man living,
Mr. Gilwaters,' he answered determinedly. 'I shall be dead to the
world--only because I've been a trusting fool!--for ten years or
thereabouts, but, when I come back to it, I'll let the world see what
revenge means! Go away!' he concluded. 'I won't say one word more.'
And--I left him.”
“And--you made no more inquiries?--about the wife?” asked Bryce.
“I did what I could,” replied Mr. Gilwaters. “I made some inquiry in
the neighbourhood in which they had lived. All I could discover was
that Mrs. Brake had disappeared under extraordinarily mysterious
circumstances. There was no trace whatever of her. And I speedily found
that things were being said--the usual cruel suspicions, you know.”
“Such as--what?” asked Bryce.
“That the amount of the defalcations was much larger than had been
allowed to appear,” replied Mr. Gilwaters. “That Brake was a very clever
rogue who had got the money safely planted somewhere abroad, and that
his wife had gone off somewhere--Australia, or Canada, or some other
far-off region--to await his release. Of course, I didn't believe
one word of all that. But there was the fact--she had vanished! And
eventually, I thought of Ransford, as having been Brake's great friend,
so I tried to find him. And then I found that he, too, who up to
that time had been practising in a London suburb--Streatham--had also
disappeared. Just after Brake's arrest, Ransford had suddenly sold his
practice and gone--no one knew where, but it was believed--abroad. I
couldn't trace him, anyway. And soon after that I had a long illness,
and for two or three years was an invalid, and--well, the thing was over
and done with, and, as I said just now, I have never heard anything of
any of them for all these years. And now!--now you tell me that there
is a Mary Bewery who is a ward of a Dr. Mark Ransford at--where did you
say?”
“At Wrychester,” answered Bryce. “She is a young woman of twenty, and
she has a brother, Richard, who is between seventeen and eighteen.”
“Without a doubt those are Brake's children!” exclaimed the old man.
“The infant I spoke of was a boy. Bless me!--how extraordinary. How long
have they been at Wrychester?”
“Ransford has been in practice there some years--a few years,” replied
Bryce. “These two young people joined him there definitely two years
ago. But from what I have learnt, he has acted as their guardian ever
since they were mere children.”
“And--their mother?” asked Mr. Gilwaters.
“Said to be dead--long since,” answered Bryce. “And their father,
too. They know nothing. Ransford won't tell them anything. But, as you
say--I've no doubt of it myself now--they must be the children of John
Brake.”
“And have taken the name of their mother!” remarked the old man.
“Had it given to them,” said Bryce. “They don't know that it isn't
their real name. Of course, Ransford has given it to them! But now--the
mother?”
“Ah, yes, the mother!” said Mr. Gilwaters. “Our old governess! Dear me!”
“I'm going to put a question to you,” continued Bryce, leaning nearer
and speaking in a low, confidential tone. “You must have seen much of
the world, Mr. Gilwaters--men of your profession know the world, and
human nature, too. Call to mind all the mysterious circumstances, the
veiled hints, of that trial. Do you think--have you ever thought--that
the false friend whom the counsel referred to was--Ransford? Come, now!”
The old clergyman lifted his hands and let them fall on his knees.
“I do not know what to say!” he exclaimed. “To tell you the truth, I
have often wondered if--if that was what really did happen. There is the
fact that Brake's wife disappeared mysteriously--that Ransford made a
similar mysterious disappearance about the same time--that Brake was
obviously suffering from intense and bitter hatred when I saw him after
the trial--hatred of some person on whom he meant to be revenged--and
that his counsel hinted that he had been deceived and betrayed by
a friend. Now, to my knowledge, he and Ransford were the closest of
friends--in the old days, before Brake married our governess. And I
suppose the friendship continued--certainly Ransford acted as best man
at the wedding! But how account for that strange double disappearance?”
Bryce had already accounted for that, in his own secret mind. And now,
having got all that he wanted out of the old clergyman, he rose to take
his leave.
“You will regard this interview as having been of a strictly private
nature, Mr. Gilwaters?” he said.
“Certainly!” responded the old man. “But--you mentioned that you wished
to marry the daughter? Now that you know about her father's past--for I
am sure she must be John Brake's child--you won't allow that to--eh?”
“Not for a moment!” answered Bryce, with a fair show of magnanimity.
“I am not a man of that complexion, sir. No!--I only wished to clear up
certain things, you understand.”
“And--since she is apparently--from what you say--in ignorance of her
real father's past--what then?” asked Mr. Gilwaters anxiously. “Shall
you--”
“I shall do nothing whatever in any haste,” replied Bryce. “Rely upon me
to consider her feelings in everything. As you have been so kind, I will
let you know, later, how matters go.”
This was one of Pemberton Bryce's ready inventions. He had not the least
intention of ever seeing or communicating with the late vicar of Braden
Medworth again; Mr. Gilwaters had served his purpose for the time being.
He went away from Bayswater, and, an hour later, from London, highly
satisfied. In his opinion, Mark Ransford, seventeen years before, had
taken advantage of his friend's misfortunes to run away with his wife,
and when Brake, alias Braden, had unexpectedly turned up at Wrychester,
he had added to his former wrong by the commission of a far greater one.