It was close on five o'clock when Glassdale, leaving Folliot at his
garden door, turned the corner into the quietness of the Precincts. He
walked about there a while, staring at the queer old houses with eyes
which saw neither fantastic gables nor twisted chimneys. Glassdale
was thinking. And the result of his reflections was that he suddenly
exchanged his idle sauntering for brisker steps and walked sharply round
to the police-station, where he asked to see Mitchington.
Mitchington and the detective were just about to walk down to the
railway-station to meet Ransford, in accordance with his telegram. At
sight of Glassdale they went back into the inspector's office. Glassdale
closed the door and favoured them with a knowing smile.
“Something else for you, inspector!” he said. “Mixed up a bit with last
night's affair, too. About these mysteries--Braden and Collishaw--I can
tell you one man who's in them.”
“Who, then?” demanded Mitchington.
Glassdale went a step nearer to the two officials and lowered his voice.
“The man who's known here as Stephen Folliot,” he answered. “That's a
fact!”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mitchington. Then he laughed incredulously. “Can't
believe it!” he continued. “Mr. Folliot! Must be some mistake!”
“No mistake,” replied Glassdale. “Besides, Folliot's only an assumed
name. That man is really one Falkiner Wraye, the man Braden, or Brake,
was seeking for many a year, the man who cheated Brake and got him into
trouble. I tell you it's a fact! He's admitted it, or as good as done
so, to me just now.”
“To you? And--let you come away and spread it?” exclaimed Mitchington.
“That's incredible! more astonishing than the other!”
Glassdale laughed.
“Ah, but I let him think I could be squared, do you see?” he said.
“Hush-money, you know. He's under the impression that I'm to go back to
him this evening to settle matters. I knew so much--identified him, as
a matter of fact--that he'd no option. I tell you he's been in at both
these affairs--certain! But--there's another man.”
“Who's he?” demanded Mitchington.
“Can't say, for I don't know, though I've an idea he'll be a fellow that
Brake was also wanting to find,” replied Glassdale. “But anyhow, I
know what I'm talking about when I tell you of Folliot. You'd better do
something before he suspects me.”
Mitchington glanced at the clock.
“Come with us down to the station,” he said. “Dr. Ransford's coming in
on this express from town; he's got news for us. We'd better hear that
first. Folliot!--good Lord!--who'd have believed or even dreamed it!”
“You'll see,” said Glassdale as they went out.
“Maybe Dr. Ransford's got the same information.” Ransford was out of
the train as soon as it ran in, and hurried to where Mitchington and
his companions were standing. And behind him, to Mitchington's surprise,
came old Simpson Harker, who had evidently travelled with him. With
a silent gesture Mitchington beckoned the whole party into an empty
waiting-room and closed its door on them.
“Now then, inspector,” said Ransford without preface or ceremony,
“you've got to act quickly! You got my wire--a few words will explain
it. I went up to town this morning in answer to a message from the bank
where Braden lodged his money when he returned to England. To tell you
the truth, the managers there and myself have, since Braden's death,
been carrying to a conclusion an investigation which I began on Braden's
behalf--though he never knew of it--years ago. At the bank I met Mr.
Harker here, who had called to find something out for himself. Now
I'll sum things up in a nutshell: for years Braden, or Brake, had been
wanting to find two men who cheated him. The name of one is Wraye, of
the other, Flood. I've been trying to trace them, too. At last we've got
them. They're in this town, and without doubt the deaths of both Braden
and Collishaw are at their door! You know both well enough. Wraye is-”
“Mr. Folliot!” interrupted Mitchington, pointing to Glassdale. “So he's
just told us; he's identified him as Wraye. But the other--who's he,
doctor?”
Ransford glanced at Glassdale as if he wished to question him, but
instead he answered Mitchington's question.
“The other man,” he said, “the man Flood, is also a well-known man to
you. Fladgate!”
Mitchington started, evidently more astonished than by the first news.
“What!” he exclaimed. “The verger! You don't say!”
“Do you remember,” continued Ransford, “that Folliot got Fladgate his
appointment as verger not so very long after he himself came here? He
did, anyway, and Fladgate is Flood. We've traced everything through
Flood. Wraye has been a difficult man to trace, because of his residence
abroad for a long time and his change of name, and so on, and it was
only recently that my agents struck on a line through Flood. But
there's the fact. And the probability is that when Braden came here he
recognized and was recognized by these two, and that one or other
of them is responsible for his death and for Collishaw's too.
Circumstantial evidence, all of it, no doubt, but irresistible! Now,
what do you propose to do?”
Mitchington considered matters for a moment.
“Fladgate first, certainly,” he said. “He lives close by here; we'll go
round to his cottage. If he sees he's in a tight place he may let things
out. Let's go there at once.”
He led the whole party out of the station and down the High Street until
they came to a narrow lane of little houses which ran towards the Close.
At its entrance a policeman was walking his beat. Mitchington stopped to
exchange a few words with him.
“This man Fladgate,” he said, rejoining the others, “lives alone--fifth
cottage down here. He'll be about having his tea; we shall take him by
surprise.” Presently the group stood around a door at which Mitchington
knocked gently, and it was on their grave and watchful faces that a
tall, clean-shaven, very solemn-looking man gazed in astonishment as
he opened the door, and started back. He went white to the lips and his
hand fell trembling from the latch as Mitchington strode in and the rest
crowded behind.
“Now then, Fladgate!” said Mitchington, going straight to the point and
watching his man narrowly, while the detective approached him closely on
the other side. “I want you and a word with you at once. Your real name
is Flood! What have you to say to that? And--it's no use beating about
the bush--what have you to say about this Braden affair, and your share
with Folliot in it, whose real name is Wraye. It's all come out about
the two of you. If you've anything to say, you'd better say it.”
The verger, whose black gown lay thrown across the back of a chair,
looked from one face to another with frightened eyes. It was very
evident that the suddenness of the descent had completely unnerved him.
Ransford's practised eyes saw that he was on the verge of a collapse.
“Give him time, Mitchington,” he said. “Pull yourself together,”
he added, turning to the man. “Don't be frightened; answer these
questions!”
“For God's sake, gentlemen!” grasped the verger. “What--what is it? What
am I to answer? Before God, I'm as innocent as--as any of you--about Mr.
Brake's death! Upon my soul and honour I am!”
“You know all about it;” insisted Mitchington.
“Come, now, isn't it true that you're Flood, and that Folliot's Wraye,
the two men whose trick on him got Brake convicted years ago? Answer
that!”
Flood looked from one side to the other. He was leaning against his
tea-table, set in the middle of his tidy living room. From the hearth
his kettle sent out a pleasant singing that sounded strangely in
contrast with the grim situation.
“Yes, that's true,” he said at last. “But in that affair I--I wasn't
the principal. I was only--only Wraye's agent, as it were: I wasn't
responsible. And when Mr. Brake came here, when I met him that
morning--”
He paused, still looking from one to another of his audience as if
entreating their belief.
“As sure as I'm a living man, gentlemen!” he suddenly burst out, “I'd no
willing hand in Mr. Brake's death! I'll tell you the exact truth; I'll
take my oath of it whenever you like. I'd have been thankful to tell,
many a time, but for--for Wraye. He wouldn't let me at first, and
afterwards it got complicated. It was this way. That morning--when Mr.
Brake was found dead--I had occasion to go up into that gallery under
the clerestory. I suddenly came on him face to face. He recognized me.
And--I'm telling you the solemn, absolute truth, gentlemen!--he'd no
sooner recognized me than he attacked me, seizing me by the arm. I
hadn't recognized him at first, I did when he laid hold of me. I tried
to shake him off, tried to quiet him; he struggled--I don't know what
he wanted to do--he began to cry out--it was a wonder he wasn't heard in
the church below, and he would have been only the organ was being played
rather loudly. And in the struggle he slipped--it was just by that open
doorway--and before I could do more than grasp at him, he shot through
the opening and fell! It was sheer, pure accident, gentlemen! Upon my
soul, I hadn't the least intention of harming him.”
“And after that?” asked Mitchington, at the end of a brief silence.
“I saw Mr. Folliot--Wraye,” continued Flood. “Just afterwards, that was.
I told him; he bade me keep silence until we saw how things went. Later
he forced me to be silent. What could I do? As things were, Wraye could
have disclaimed me--I shouldn't have had a chance. So I held my tongue.”
“Now, then, Collishaw?” demanded Mitchington. “Give us the truth about
that. Whatever the other was, that was murder!”
Flood lifted his hand and wiped away the perspiration that had gathered
on his face.
“Before God, gentlemen!” he answered. “I know no more--at least, little
more--about that than you do! I'll tell you all I do know. Wraye and I,
of course, met now and then and talked about this. It got to our ears
at last that Collishaw knew something. My own impression is that he
saw what occurred between me and Mr. Brake--he was working somewhere up
there. I wanted to speak to Collishaw. Wraye wouldn't let me, he bade
me leave it to him. A bit later, he told me he'd squared Collishaw with
fifty pounds--”
Mitchington and the detective exchanged looks.
“Wraye--that's Folliot--paid Collishaw fifty pounds, did he?” asked the
detective.
“He told me so,” replied Flood. “To hold his tongue. But I'd scarcely
heard that when I heard of Collishaw's sudden death. And as to how that
happened, or who--who brought it about--upon my soul, gentlemen, I
know nothing! Whatever I may have thought, I never mentioned it to
Wraye--never! I--I daren't! You don't know what a man Wraye is! I've
been under his thumb most of my life and--and what are you going to do
with me, gentlemen?”
Mitchington exchanged a word or two with the detective, and then,
putting his head out of the door beckoned to the policeman to whom he
had spoken at the end of the lane and who now appeared in company with a
fellow-constable. He brought both into the cottage.
“Get your tea,” he said sharply to the verger. “These men will stop with
you--you're not to leave this room.” He gave some instructions to the
two policemen in an undertone and motioned Ransford and the others to
follow him. “It strikes me,” he said, when they were outside in the
narrow lane, “that what we've just heard is somewhere about the truth.
And now we'll go on to Folliot's--there's a way to his house round
here.”
Mrs. Folliot was out, Sackville Bonham was still where Bryce had
left him, at the golf-links, when the pursuers reached Folliot's. A
parlourmaid directed them to the garden; a gardener volunteered the
suggestion that his master might be in the old well-house and showed the
way. And Folliot and Bryce saw them coming and looked at each other.
“Glassdale!” exclaimed Bryce. “By heaven, man!--he's told on you!”
Folliot was still staring through the window. He saw Ransford and Harker
following the leading figures. And suddenly he turned to Bryce.
“You've no hand in this?” he demanded.
“I?” exclaimed Bryce. “I never knew till just now!”
Folliot pointed to the door.
“Go down!” he said. “Let 'em in, bid 'em come up! I'll--I'll settle with
'em. Go!”
Bryce hurried down to the lower apartment. He was filled with
excitement--an unusual thing for him--but in the midst of it, as he made
for the outer door, it suddenly struck him that all his schemings and
plottings were going for nothing. The truth was at hand, and it was not
going to benefit him in the slightest degree. He was beaten.
But that was no time for philosophic reflection; already those outside
were beating at the door. He flung it open, and the foremost men
started in surprise at the sight of him. But Bryce bent forward to
Mitchington--anxious to play a part to the last.
“He's upstairs!” he whispered. “Up there! He'll bluff it out if he can,
but he's just admitted to me--”
Mitchington thrust Bryce aside, almost roughly.
“We know all about that!” he said. “I shall have a word or two for you
later! Come on, now--”
The men crowded up the stairway into Folliot's snuggery, Bryce,
wondering at the inspector's words and manner, following closely behind
him and the detective and Glassdale, who led the way. Folliot was
standing in the middle of the room, one hand behind his back, the other
in his pocket. And as the leading three entered the place he brought
his concealed hand sharply round and presenting a revolver at Glassdale
fired point-blank at him.
But it was not Glassdale who fell. He, wary and watching, started aside
as he saw Folliot's movement, and the bullet, passing between his arm
and body, found its billet in Bryce, who fell, with little more than a
groan, shot through the heart. And as he fell, Folliot, scarcely looking
at what he had done, drew his other hand from his pocket, slipped
something into his mouth and sat down in the big chair behind him
... and within a moment the other men in the room were looking with
horrified faces from one dead face to another.