The Paradise Mystery

his own policy to keep pertinent facts for his own private consideration, so he said nothing. And Mitchington presently remarking that there was no more to be done there, and ascertaining from Mr. Dellingham that it was his intention to remain in Wrychester for at any rate a few days, they went downstairs again, and Bryce and the inspector crossed over to the police-station.

The news had spread through the heart of the city, and at the police-station doors a crowd had gathered. Just inside two or three principal citizens were talking to the Superintendent⁠—amongst them was Mr. Stephen Folliot, the stepfather of young Bonham⁠—a big, heavy-faced man who had been a resident in the Close for some years, was known to be of great wealth, and had a reputation as a grower of rare roses. He was telling the Superintendent something⁠—and the Superintendent beckoned to Mitchington.

“Mr. Folliot says he saw this gentleman in the Cathedral,” he said. “Can’t have been so very long before the accident happened, Mr. Folliot, from what you say.”

“As near as I can reckon, it would be five minutes to ten,” answered Mr. Folliot. “I put it at that because I’d gone in for the morning service, which is at ten. I saw him go up the inside stair to the clerestory gallery⁠—he was looking about him. Five minutes to ten⁠—and it must have happened immediately afterwards.”

Bryce heard this and turned away, making a calculation for himself. It had been on the stroke of ten when he saw Ransford hurrying out of the west porch. There was a stairway from the gallery down to that west porch. What, then, was the inference? But for the moment he drew none⁠—instead, he went home to his rooms in Friary Lane, and shutting himself up, drew from his pocket the scrap of paper he had taken from the dead man.

V

The Scrap of Paper

When Bryce, in his locked room, drew that bit of paper from his pocket, it was with the conviction that in it he held a clue to the secret of the morning’s adventure. He had only taken a mere glance at it as he withdrew it from the dead man’s purse, but he had seen enough of what was written on it to make him certain that it was a document⁠—if such a mere fragment could be called a document⁠—of no ordinary importance. And now he unfolded and laid it flat on his table and looked at it carefully, asking himself what was the real meaning of what he saw.

There was not much to see. The scrap of paper itself was evidently a quarter of a leaf of old-fashioned, stoutish notepaper, somewhat yellow with age, and bearing evidence of having been folded and kept flat in the dead man’s purse for some time⁠—the creases were well-defined, the edges were worn and slightly stained by long rubbing against the leather. And in its centre were a few words, or, rather abbreviations of words, in Latin, and some figures:

In Para. Wrycestr. juxt. tumb.
Ric. Jenk. ex cap. xxiii. xv.

Bryce at first sight took them to be a copy of some inscription but his knowledge of Latin told him, a moment later, that instead of being an inscription, it was a direction. And a very plain direction, too!⁠—he read it easily. “In Paradise, at Wrychester, next to, or near, the tomb of Richard Jenkins,” or, possibly, Jenkinson, “from, or behind, the head, twenty-three, fifteen”⁠—inches, most likely. There was no doubt that there was the meaning of the words. What, now, was it that lay behind the tomb of Richard Jenkins, or Jenkinson, in Wrychester Paradise?⁠—in all probability twenty-three inches from the headstone, and fifteen inches beneath the surface. That was a question which Bryce immediately resolved to find a satisfactory answer to; in the meantime there were other questions which he set down in order on his mental tablets. They were these:

1. Who, really, was the man who had registered at the Mitre under the name of John Braden?

2. Why did he wish to make a personal call on the Duke of Saxonsteade?

3. Was he some man who had known Ransford in time past⁠—and whom Ransford had no desire to meet again?

4. Did Ransford meet him⁠—in the Cathedral?

5. Was it Ransford who flung him to his death down St. Wrytha’s Stair?

6. Was that the real reason of the agitation in which he, Bryce, had found Ransford a few moments after the discovery of the body?

There was plenty of time before him for the due solution of these mysteries, reflected Bryce⁠—and for solving another problem which might possibly have some relationship to them⁠—that of the exact connection between Ransford and his two wards. Bryce, in telling Ransford that morning of what was being said amongst the tea-table circles of the old cathedral city, had purposely only told him half a tale. He knew, and had known for months, that the society of the Close was greatly exercised over the position of the Ransford ménage. Ransford, a bachelor, a well-preserved, active, alert man who was certainly of no more than middle age and did not look his years, had come to Wrychester only a few years previously, and had never shown any signs of forsaking his single state. No one had ever heard him mention his family or relations; then, suddenly, without warning, he had brought into his house Mary Bewery, a handsome young woman of nineteen, who was said to have only just left school, and her brother Richard, then a boy of sixteen, who had certainly been at a public school of repute and was entered at the famous Dean’s School of Wrychester as soon as he came to his new home. Dr. Ransford spoke of these two as his wards, without further explanation; the society of the Close was beginning to want much more explanation. Who were they⁠—these two young people? Was Dr. Ransford their uncle, their cousin⁠—what was he to them? In any