The Paradise Mystery Part 7

"I don't know what it was," answered Bryce. "And I wasn't first on the spot. That was Varner, the mason--he called me." He turned from the lad to glance at the girl, who was peeping curiously over the gate into the yews and cypresses. "Do you think your father's at the Library just now?" he asked. "Shall I find him there?"

"I should think he is," answered Betty Campany. "He generally goes down about this time." She turned and pulled d.i.c.k Bewery's sleeve. "Let's go up in the clerestory," she said. "We can see that, anyway."

"Also closed, miss," said the policeman, shaking his head. "No admittance there, neither. The public firmly warned off--so to speak. 'I won't have the Cathedral turned into a peepshow!' that's precisely what I heard the Dean say with my own ears. So--closed!"

The boy and the girl turned away and went off across the Close, and the policeman looked after them and laughed.

"Lively young couple, that, sir!" he said. "What they call healthy curiosity, I suppose? Plenty o' that knocking around in the city today."

Bryce, who had half-turned in the direction of the Library, at the other side of the Close, turned round again.

"Do you know if your people are doing anything about identifying the dead man?" he asked. "Did you hear anything at noon?"

"Nothing but that there'll be inquiries through the newspapers, sir,"

replied the policeman. "That's the surest way of finding something out.

And I did hear Inspector Mitchington say that they'd have to ask the Duke if he knew anything about the poor man--I suppose he'd let fall something about wanting to go over to Saxonsteade."

Bryce went off in the direction of the Library thinking. The newspapers?--yes, no better channel for spreading the news. If Mr. John Braden had relations and friends, they would learn of his sad death through the newspapers, and would come forward. And in that case--

"But it wouldn't surprise me," mused Bryce, "if the name given at the Mitre is an a.s.sumed name. I wonder if that theory of Archdale's is a correct one?--however, there'll be more of that at the inquest tomorrow.

And in the meantime--let me find out something about the tomb of Richard Jenkins, or Jenkinson--whoever he was."

The famous Library of the Dean and Chapter of Wrychester was housed in an ancient picturesque building in one corner of the Close, wherein, day in and day out, amidst priceless volumes and ma.n.u.scripts, huge folios and weighty quartos, old prints, and relics of the mediaeval ages, Ambrose Campany, the librarian, was pretty nearly always to be found, ready to show his treasures to the visitors and tourists who came from all parts of the world to see a collection well known to bibliophiles.

And Ambrose Campany, a cheery-faced, middle-aged man, with booklover and antiquary written all over him, shockheaded, blue-spectacled, was there now, talking to an old man whom Bryce knew as a neighbour of his in Friary Lane--one Simpson Barker, a quiet, meditative old fellow, believed to be a retired tradesman who spent his time in gentle pottering about the city. Bryce, as he entered, caught what Campany was just then saying.

"The most important thing I've heard about it," said Campany, "is--that book they found in the man's suit-case at the Mitre. I'm not a detective--but there's a clue!"

CHAPTER VI. BY MISADVENTURE

Old Simpson Harker, who sat near the librarian's table, his hands folded on the crook of his stout walking stick, glanced out of a pair of unusually shrewd and bright eyes at Bryce as he crossed the room and approached the pair of gossipers.

"I think the doctor was there when that book you're speaking of was found," he remarked. "So I understood from Mitchington."

"Yes, I was there," said Bryce, who was not unwilling to join in the talk. He turned to Campany. "What makes you think there's a clue--in that?" he asked.

"Why this," answered the librarian. "Here's a man in possession of an old history of Barthorpe. Barthorpe is a small market-town in the Midlands--Leicesters.h.i.+re, I believe, of no particular importance that I know of, but doubtless with a story of its own. Why should any one but a Barthorpe man, past or present, be interested in that story so far as to carry an old account of it with him? Therefore, I conclude this stranger was a Barthorpe man. And it's at Barthorpe that I should make inquiries about him."

Simpson Harker made no remark, and Bryce remembered what Mr. Dellingham had said when the book was found.

"Oh, I don't know!" he replied carelessly. "I don't see that that follows. I saw the book--a curious old binding and queer old copper-plates. The man may have picked it up for that reason--I've bought old books myself for less."

"All the same," retorted Campany, "I should make inquiry at Barthorpe.

You've got to go on probabilities. The probabilities in this case are that the man was interested in the book because it dealt with his own town."

Bryce turned away towards a wall on which hung a number of charts and plans of Wrychester Cathedral and its precincts--it was to inspect one of these that he had come to the Library. But suddenly remembering that there was a question which he could ask without exciting any suspicion or surmise, he faced round again on the librarian.

"Isn't there a register of burials within the Cathedral?" he inquired.

"Some book in which they're put down? I was looking in the Memorials of Wrychester the other day, and I saw some names I want to trace."

Campany lifted his quill pen and pointed to a case of big leather-bound volumes in a far corner of the room.

"Third shelf from the bottom, doctor," he replied. "You'll see two books there--one's the register of all burials within the Cathedral itself up to date: the other's the register of those in Paradise and the cloisters. What names are you wanting to trace?"

But Bryce affected not to hear the last question; he walked over to the place which Campany had indicated, and taking down the second book carried it to an adjacent table. Campany called across the room to him.

"You'll find useful indexes at the end," he said. "They're all brought up to the present time--from four hundred years ago, nearly."

Bryce turned to the index at the end of his book--an index written out in various styles of handwriting. And within a minute he found the name he wanted--there it was plainly before him--Richard Jenkins, died March 8th, 1715: buried, in Paradise, March 10th. He nearly laughed aloud at the ease with which he was tracing out what at first had seemed a difficult matter to investigate. But lest his task should seem too easy, he continued to turn over the leaves of the big folio, and in order to have an excuse if the librarian should ask him any further questions, he memorized some of the names which he saw. And after a while he took the book back to its shelf, and turned to the wall on which the charts and maps were hung. There was one there of Paradise, whereon was marked the site and names of all the tombs and graves in that ancient enclosure; from it he hoped to ascertain the exact position and whereabouts of Richard Jenkins's grave.

But here Bryce met his first check. Down each side of the old chart--dated 1850--there was a tabulated list of the tombs in Paradise.

The names of families and persons were given in this list--against each name was a number corresponding with the same number, marked on the various divisions of the chart. And there was no Richard Jenkins on that list--he went over it carefully twice, thrice. It was not there.

Obviously, if the tomb of Richard Jenkins, who was buried in Paradise in 1715, was still there, amongst the cypresses and yew trees, the name and inscription on it had vanished, worn away by time and weather, when that chart had been made, a hundred and thirty-five years later. And in that case, what did the memorandum mean which Bryce had found in the dead man's purse?

He turned away at last from the chart, at a loss--and Campany glanced at him.

"Found what you wanted?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!" replied Bryce, primed with a ready answer. "I just wanted to see where the Spelbanks were buried--quite a lot of them, I see."

"Southeast corner of Paradise," said Campany. "Several tombs. I could have spared you the trouble of looking."

"You're a regular encyclopaedia about the place," laughed Bryce. "I suppose you know every spout and gargoyle!"

"Ought to," answered the librarian. "I've been fed on it, man and boy, for five-and-forty years."

Bryce made some fitting remark and went out and home to his rooms--there to spend most of the ensuing evening in trying to puzzle out the various mysteries of the day. He got no more light on them then, and he was still exercising his brains on them when he went to the inquest next morning--to find the Coroner's court packed to the doors with an a.s.semblage of townsfolk just as curious as he was. And as he sat there, listening to the preliminaries, and to the evidence of the first witnesses, his active and scheming mind figured to itself, not without much cynical amus.e.m.e.nt, how a word or two from his lips would go far to solve matters. He thought of what he might tell--if he told all the truth. He thought of what he might get out of Ransford if he, Bryce, were Coroner, or solicitor, and had Ransford in that witness-box.

He would ask him on his oath if he knew that dead man--if he had had dealings with him in times past--if he had met and spoken to him on that eventful morning--he would ask him, point-blank, if it was not his hand that had thrown him to his death. But Bryce had no intention of making any revelations just then--as for himself he was going to tell just as much as he pleased and no more. And so he sat and heard--and knew from what he heard that everybody there was in a hopeless fog, and that in all that crowd there was but one man who had any real suspicion of the truth, and that that man was himself.

The evidence given in the first stages of the inquiry was all known to Bryce, and to most people in the court, already. Mr. Dellingham told how he had met the dead man in the train, journeying from London to Wrychester. Mrs. Partingley told how he had arrived at the Mitre, registered in her book as Mr. John Braden, and had next morning asked if he could get a conveyance for Saxonsteade in the afternoon, as he wished to see the Duke. Mr. Folliot testified to having seen him in the Cathedral, going towards one of the stairways leading to the gallery.

Varner--most important witness of all up to that point--told of what he had seen. Bryce himself, followed by Ransford, gave medical evidence; Mitchington told of his examination of the dead man's clothing and effects in his room at the Mitre. And Mitchington added the first information which was new to Bryce.

"In consequence of finding the book about Barthorpe in the suit-case,"

said Mitchington, "we sent a long telegram yesterday to the police there, telling them what had happened, and asking them to make the most careful inquiries at once about any townsman of theirs of the name of John Braden, and to wire us the result of such inquiries this morning.

This is their reply, received by us an hour ago. Nothing whatever is known at Barthorpe--which is a very small town--of any person of that name."

So much for that, thought Bryce. He turned with more interest to the next witness--the Duke of Saxonsteade, the great local magnate, a big, bluff man who had been present in court since the beginning of the proceedings, in which he was manifestly highly interested. It was possible that he might be able to tell something of moment--he might, after all, know something of this apparently mysterious stranger, who, for anything that Mrs. Partingley or anybody else could say to the contrary, might have had an appointment and business with him.

But his Grace knew nothing. He had never heard the name of John Braden in his life--so far as he remembered. He had just seen the body of the unfortunate man and had looked carefully at the features. He was not a man of whom he had any knowledge whatever--he could not recollect ever having seen him anywhere at any time. He knew literally nothing of him--could not think of any reason at all why this Mr. John Braden should wish to see him.

"Your Grace has, no doubt, had business dealings with a good many people at one time or another," suggested the Coroner. "Some of them, perhaps, with men whom your Grace only saw for a brief s.p.a.ce of time--a few minutes, possibly. You don't remember ever seeing this man in that way?"

"I'm credited with having an unusually good memory for faces," answered the Duke. "And--if I may say so--rightly. But I don't remember this man at all--in fact, I'd go as far as to say that I'm positive I've never--knowingly--set eyes on him in my life."

"Can your Grace suggest any reason at all why he should wish to call on you?" asked the Coroner.