Then he went away, and Bryce, after waiting awhile, until night had settled down, slipped quietly out of the house and set off for the gloom of Paradise.
XVI
Beforehand
In accordance with his undeniable capacity for contriving and scheming, Bryce had made due and careful preparations for his visit to the tomb of Richard Jenkins. Even in the momentary confusion following upon his discovery of Collishaw’s dead body, he had been sufficiently alive to his own immediate purposes to notice that the tomb—a very ancient and dilapidated structure—stood in the midst of a small expanse of stone pavement between the yew-trees and the wall of the nave; he had noticed also that the pavement consisted of small squares of stone, some of which bore initials and dates. A sharp glance at the presumed whereabouts of the particular spot which he wanted, as indicated in the scrap of paper taken from Braden’s purse, showed him that he would have to raise one of those small squares—possibly two or three of them. And so he had furnished himself with a short crowbar of tempered steel, specially purchased at the ironmonger’s, and with a small bull’s-eye lantern. Had he been arrested and searched as he made his way towards the cathedral precincts he might reasonably have been suspected of a design to break into the treasury and appropriate the various ornaments for which Wrychester was famous. But Bryce feared neither arrest nor observation. During his residence in Wrychester he had done a good deal of prowling about the old city at night, and he knew that Paradise, at any time after dark, was a deserted place. Folk might cross from the close archway to the wicket-gate by the outer path, but no one would penetrate within the thick screen of yew and cypress when night had fallen. And now, in early summer, the screen of trees and bushes was so thick in leaf, that once within it, foliage on one side, the great walls of the nave on the other, there was little likelihood of any person overlooking his doings while he made his investigation. He anticipated a swift and quiet job, to be done in a few minutes.
But there was another individual in Wrychester who knew just as much of the geography of Paradise as Pemberton Bryce knew. Dick Bewery and Betty Campany had of late progressed out of the schoolboy and schoolgirl hail-fellow-well-met stage to the first dawnings of love, and in spite of their frequent meetings had begun a romantic correspondence between each other, the joy and mystery of which was increased a hundredfold by a secret method of exchange of these missives. Just within the wicket-gate entrance of Paradise there was an old monument wherein was a convenient cavity—Dick Bewery’s ready wits transformed this into love’s post-office. In it he regularly placed letters for Betty: Betty stuffed into it letters for him. And on this particular evening Dick had gone to Paradise to collect a possible mail, and as Bryce walked leisurely up the narrow path, enclosed by trees and old masonry which led from Friary Lane to the ancient enclosure, Dick turned a corner and ran full into him. In the light of the single lamp which illumined the path, the two recovered themselves and looked at each other.
“Hullo!” said Bryce. “What’s your hurry, young Bewery?”
Dick, who was panting for breath, more from excitement than haste, drew back and looked at Bryce. Up to then he knew nothing much against Bryce, whom he had rather liked in the fashion in which boys sometimes like their seniors, and he was not indisposed to confide in him.
“Hullo!” he replied. “I say! Where are you off to?”
“Nowhere!—strolling round,” answered Bryce. “No particular purpose, why?”
“You weren’t going in—there?” asked Dick, jerking a thumb towards Paradise.
“In—there!” exclaimed Bryce. “Good Lord, no!—dreary enough in the daytime! What should I be going in there for?”
Dick seized Bryce’s coat-sleeve and dragged him aside.
“I say!” he whispered. “There’s something up in there—a search of some sort!”
Bryce started in spite of an effort to keep unconcerned.
“A search? In there?” he said. “What do you mean?”
Dick pointed amongst the trees, and Bryce saw the faint glimmer of a light.
“I was in there—just now,” said Dick. “And some men—three or four—came along. They’re in there, close up by the nave, just where you found that chap Collishaw. They’re—digging—or something of that sort!”
“Digging!” muttered Bryce. “Digging?”
“Something like it, anyhow,” replied Dick. “Listen.”
Bryce heard the ring of metal on stone. And an unpleasant conviction stole over him that he was being forestalled, that somebody was beforehand with him, and he cursed himself for not having done the previous night what he had left undone till this night.
“Who are they?” he asked. “Did you see them—their faces?”
“Not their faces,” answered Dick. “Only their figures in the gloom. But I heard Mitchington’s voice.”
“Police, then!” said Bryce. “What on earth are they after?”
“Look here!” whispered Dick, pulling at Bryce’s arm again. “Come on! I know how to get in there without their seeing us. You follow me.”
Bryce followed readily, and Dick stepping through the wicket-gate, seized his companion’s wrist and led him amongst the bushes in the direction of the spot from whence came the metallic sounds. He walked with the step of a cat, and Bryce took pains to follow his example. And presently from behind a screen of cypresses they looked out on the expanse of flagging in the midst of which stood the tomb of Richard Jenkins.
Round about that tomb were five men whose faces were visible enough in the light thrown by a couple of strong lamps, one of which stood on the tomb itself, while the other was set on the ground. Four out of the five the two watchers recognized at once. One, kneeling on the flags, and busy with a small crowbar similar to that which Bryce carried inside his overcoat, was the master-mason of the
