The Paradise Mystery

by J. S. Fletcher

  CHAPTER XXVII. THE GUARDED SECRET

  When Bryce had left her, Mary Bewery had gone into the house to awaitRansford's return from town. She meant to tell him of all that Bryce hadsaid and to beg him to take immediate steps to set matters right, notonly that he himself might be cleared of suspicion but that Bryce'sintrigues might be brought to an end. She had some hope that Ransfordwould bring back satisfactory news; she knew that his hurried visit toLondon had some connection with these affairs; and she also rememberedwhat he had said on the previous night. And so, controlling her anger atBryce and her impatience of the whole situation she waited as patientlyas she could until the time drew near when Ransford might be expected tobe seen coming across the Close. She knew from which direction he wouldcome, and she remained near the dining-room window looking out for him.But six o'clock came and she had seen no sign of him; then, as she wasbeginning to think that he had missed the afternoon train she sawhim, at the opposite side of the Close, talking earnestly to Dick,who presently came towards the house while Ransford turned back intoFolliot's garden.

  Dick Bewery came hurriedly in. His sister saw at once that he had justheard news which had had a sobering effect on his usually effervescentspirits. He looked at her as if he wondered exactly how to give her hismessage.

  "I saw you with the doctor just now," she said, using the term by whichshe and her brother always spoke of their guardian. "Why hasn't he comehome?"

  Dick came close to her, touching her arm.

  "I say!" he said, almost whispering. "Don't be frightened--the doctor'sall right--but there's something awful just happened. At Folliot's."

  "What" she demanded. "Speak out, Dick! I'm not frightened. What is it?"

  Dick shook his head as if he still scarcely realized the fullsignificance of his news.

  "It's all a licker to me yet!" he answered. "I don't understand it--Ionly know what the doctor told me--to come and tell you. Look here, it'spretty bad. Folliot and Bryce are both dead!"

  In spite of herself Mary started back as from a great shock and clutchedat the table by which they were standing.

  "Dead!" she exclaimed. "Why--Bryce was here, speaking to me, not an hourago!"

  "Maybe," said Dick. "But he's dead now. The fact is, Folliot shot himwith a revolver--killed him on the spot. And then Folliot poisonedhimself--took the same stuff, the doctor said, that finished that chapCollishaw, and died instantly. It was in Folliot's old well-house. Thedoctor was there and the police."

  "What does it all mean?" asked Mary.

  "Don't know. Except this," added Dick; "they've found out about thoseother affairs--the Braden and the Collishaw affairs. Folliot wasconcerned in them; and who do you think the other was? You'd neverguess! That man Fladgate, the verger. Only that isn't his proper nameat all. He and Folliot finished Braden and Collishaw, anyway. The policehave got Fladgate, and Folliot shot Bryce and killed himself just whenthey were going to take him."

  "The doctor told you all this?" asked Mary.

  "Yes," replied Dick. "Just that and no more. He called me in as I waspassing Folliot's door. He's coming over as soon as he can. Whew! I say,won't there be some fine talk in the town! Anyway, things'll be clearedup now. What did Bryce want here?"

  "Never mind; I can't talk of it, now," answered Mary. She was alreadythinking of how Bryce had stood before her, active and alive, only anhour earlier; she was thinking, too, of her warning to him. "It's alltoo dreadful! too awful to understand!"

  "Here's the doctor coming now," said Dick, turning to the window. "He'lltell more."

  Mary looked anxiously at Ransford as he came hastening in. He lookedlike a man who has just gone through a crisis and yet she was somehowconscious that there was a certain atmosphere of relief about him, asthough some great weight had suddenly been lifted. He closed the doorand looked straight at her.

  "Dick has told you?" he asked.

  "All that you told me," said Dick.

  Ransford pulled off his gloves and flung them on the table withsomething of a gesture of weariness. And at that Mary hastened to speak.

  "Don't tell any more--don't say anything--until you feel able," shesaid. "You're tired."

  "No!" answered Ransford. "I'd rather say what I have to say now--justnow! I've wanted to tell both of you what all this was, what it meant,everything about it, and until today, until within the last few hours,it was impossible, because I didn't know everything. Now I do! I evenknow more than I did an hour ago. Let me tell you now and have done withit. Sit down there, both of you, and listen."

  He pointed to a sofa near the hearth, and the brother and sister satdown, looking at him wonderingly. Instead of sitting down himself heleaned against the edge of the table, looking down at them.

  "I shall have to tell you some sad things," he said diffidently. "Theonly consolation is that it's all over now, and certain matters are, orcan be, cleared and you'll have no more secrets. Nor shall I! I've hadto keep this one jealously guarded for seventeen years! And I neverthought it could be released as it has been, in this miserable andterrible fashion! But that's done now, and nothing can help it. Andnow, to make everything plain, just prepare yourselves to hear somethingthat, at first, sounds very trying. The man whom you've heard of asJohn Braden, who came to his death--by accident, as I now firmlybelieve--there in Paradise, was, in reality, John Brake--your father!"

  Ransford looked at his two listeners anxiously as he told this. But hemet no sign of undue surprise or emotion. Dick looked down at his toeswith a little frown, as if he were trying to puzzle something out; Marycontinued to watch Ransford with steady eyes.

  "Your father--John Brake," repeated Ransford, breathing more freely nowthat he had got the worst news out. "I must go back to the beginningto make things clear to you about him and your mother. He was a closefriend of mine when we were young men in London; he a bank manager;I, just beginning my work. We used to spend our holidays together inLeicestershire. There we met your mother, whose name was Mary Bewery. Hemarried her; I was his best man. They went to live in London, and fromthat time I did not see so much of them, only now and then. During thosefirst years of his married life Brake made the acquaintance of a man whocame from the same part of Leicestershire that we had met your motherin--a man named Falkiner Wraye. I may as well tell you that FalkinerWraye and Stephen Folliot were one and the same person."

  Ransford paused, observing that Mary wished to ask a question.

  "How long have you known that?" she asked.

  "Not until today," replied Ransford promptly. "Never had the ghost ofa notion of it! If I only had known--but, I hadn't! However, to goback--this man Wraye, who appears always to have been a perfect masterof plausibility, able to twist people round his little finger, somehowgot into close touch with your father about financial matters. Wraye wasat that time a sort of financial agent in London, engaging in variousdoings which, I should imagine, were in the nature of gambles. He wasassisted in these by a man who was either a partner with him or a veryconfidential clerk or agent, one Flood, who is identical with the manyou have known lately as Fladgate, the verger. Between them, these twoappear to have cajoled or persuaded your father at times to do veryfoolish and injudicious things which were, to put it briefly andplainly, the lendings of various sums of money as short loans for theirtransactions. For some time they invariably kept their word to him, andthe advances were always repaid promptly. But eventually, when they hadborrowed from him a considerable sum--some thousands of pounds--fora deal which was to be carried through within a couple of days, theydecamped with the money, and completely disappeared, leaving your fatherto bear the consequences. You may easily understand what followed.The money which Brake had lent them was the bank's money. The bankunexpectedly came down on him for his balance, the whole thing wasfound out, and he was prosecuted. He had no defence--he was, of course,technically guilty--and he was sent to penal servitude."

  Ransford had dreaded the telling of this but Mary made no sign, and Dickonly rapped out a sharp questio
n.

  "He hadn't meant to rob the bank for himself, anyway, had he?" he asked.

  "No, no! not at all!" replied Ransford hastily. "It was a bad errorof judgment on his part, Dick, but he--he'd relied on these men, moreparticularly on Wraye, who'd been the leading spirit. Well, that wasyour father's sad fate. Now we come to what happened to your mother andyourselves. Just before your father's arrest, when he knew that all waslost, and that he was helpless, he sent hurriedly for me and told meeverything in your mother's presence. He begged me to get her and youtwo children right away at once. She was against it; he insisted. I tookyou all to a quiet place in the country, where your mother assumed hermaiden name. There, within a year, she died. She wasn't a strong womanat any time. After that--well, you both know pretty well what has beenthe run of things since you began to know anything. We'll leave that,it's nothing to do with the story. I want to go back to your father. Isaw him after his conviction. When I had satisfied him that you and yourmother were safe, he begged me to do my best to find the two men who hadruined him. I began that search at once. But there was not a trace ofthem--they had disappeared as completely as if they were dead. I usedall sorts of means to trace them--without effect. And when at last yourfather's term of imprisonment was over and I went to see him on hisrelease, I had to tell him that up to that point all my efforts had beenuseless. I urged him to let the thing drop, and to start life afresh.But he was determined. Find both men, but particularly Wraye, he would!He refused point-blank to even see his children until he had found thesemen and had forced them to acknowledge their misdeeds as regards him,for that, of course, would have cleared him to a certain extent. And inspite of everything I could say, he there and then went off abroad insearch of them--he had got some clue, faint and indefinite, but stillthere, as to Wraye's presence in America, and he went after him. Fromthat time until the morning of his death here in Wrychester I never sawhim again!"

  "You did see him that morning?" asked Mary.

  "I saw him, of course, unexpectedly," answered Ransford. "I had beenacross the Close--I came back through the south aisle of the Cathedral.Just before I left the west porch I saw Brake going up the stairs tothe galleries. I knew him at once. He did not see me, and I hurried homemuch upset. Unfortunately, I think, Bryce came in upon me in that stateof agitation. I have reason to believe that he began to suspect and toplot from that moment. And immediately on hearing of Brake's death, andits circumstances, I was placed in a terrible dilemma. For I had made upmy mind never to tell you two of your father's history until I had beenable to trace these two men and wring out of them a confession whichwould have cleared him of all but the technical commission of the crimeof which he was convicted. Now I had not the least idea that the two menwere close at hand, nor that they had had any hand in his death, and soI kept silence, and let him be buried under the name he had taken--JohnBraden."

  Ransford paused and looked at his two listeners as if inviting questionor comment. But neither spoke, and he went on.

  "You know what happened after that," he continued. "It soon becameevident to me that sinister and secret things were going on. There wasthe death of the labourer--Collishaw. There were other matters. But eventhen I had no suspicion of the real truth--the fact is, I began to havesome strange suspicions about Bryce and that old man Harker--based uponcertain evidence which I got by chance. But, all this time, I hadnever ceased my investigations about Wraye and Flood, and when thebank-manager on whom Brake had called in London was here at the inquest,I privately told him the whole story and invited his co-operation ina certain line which I was then following. That line suddenly ran upagainst the man Flood--otherwise Fladgate. It was not until this veryweek, however, that my agents definitely discovered Fladgate to beFlood, and that--through the investigations about Flood--Folliot wasfound to be Wraye. Today, in London, where I met old Harker at the bankat which Brake had lodged the money he had brought from Australia, thewhole thing was made clear by the last agent of mine who has had thesearching in hand. And it shows how men may easily disappear from acertain round of life, and turn up in another years after! When thosetwo men cheated your father out of that money, they disappeared andseparated--each, no doubt, with his share. Flood went off to someobscure place in the North of England; Wraye went over to America. Heevidently made a fortune there; knocked about the world for awhile;changed his name to Folliot, and under that name married a wealthywidow, and settled down here in Wrychester to grow roses! How and wherehe came across Flood again is not exactly clear, but we knew that afew years ago Flood was in London, in very poor circumstances, and theprobability is that it was then when the two men met again. What we doknow is that Folliot, as an influential man here, got Flood the postwhich he has held, and that things have resulted as they have. Andthat's all!--all that I need tell you at present. There are details, butthey're of no importance."

  Mary remained silent, but Dick got up with his hands in his pockets.

  "There's one thing I want to know," he said. "Which of those two chapskilled my father? You said it was accident--but was it? I want to knowabout that! Are you saying it was accident just to let things down abit? Don't! I want to know the truth."

  "I believe it was accident," answered Ransford. "I listened mostcarefully just now to Fladgate's account of what happened. I firmlybelieve the man was telling the truth. But I haven't the least doubtthat Folliot poisoned Collishaw--not the least. Folliot knew that ifthe least thing came out about Fladgate, everything would come out abouthimself."

  Dick turned away to leave the room.

  "Well, Folliot's done for!" he remarked. "I don't care about him, but Iwanted to know for certain about the other."

  * * * * *

  When Dick had gone, and Ransford and Mary were left alone, a deepsilence fell on the room. Mary was apparently deep in thought, andRansford, after a glance at her, turned away and looked out of thewindow at the sunlit Close, thinking of the tragedy he had justwitnessed. And he had become so absorbed in his thoughts of it thathe started at feeling a touch on his arm and looking round saw Marystanding at his side.

  "I don't want to say anything now," she said, "about what you have justtold us. Some of it I had half-guessed, some of it I had conjectured.But why didn't you tell me! Before! It wasn't that you hadn'tconfidence?"

  "Confidence!" he exclaimed. "There was only one reason--I wanted to getyour father's memory cleared--as far as possible--before ever tellingyou anything. I've been wanting to tell you! Hadn't you seen that Ihated to keep silent?"

  "Hadn't you seen that I wanted to share all your trouble about it?" sheasked. "That was what hurt me--because I couldn't!"

  Ransford drew a long breath and looked at her. Then he put his hands onher shoulders.

  "Mary!" he said. "You--you don't mean to say--be plain!--you don't meanthat you can care for an old fellow like me?"

  He was holding her away from him, but she suddenly smiled and camecloser to him.

  "You must have been very blind not to have seen that for a long time!"she answered.