Bryce silently drew some papers from his pocket. From them he extracted the two handbills which Mitchington had given him and handed them over.
“Well, I must go,” he said. “I shall no doubt see you again in Wrychester, over this affair. For the present, all this is between ourselves, of course?”
“Oh, of course, doctor!” answered Glassdale. “Quite so!” Bryce went off and got his bicycle and rode away in the direction of Wrychester. Had he remained in that garden he would have seen Glassdale, after reading both the handbills, go into the house and have heard him ask the landlady at the bar to get him a trap and a good horse in it as soon as possible; he, too, now wanted to go to Wrychester and at once. But Bryce was riding down the road, muttering certain words to himself over and over again.
“The left jaw—and the left hand!” he repeated. “Left hand—left jaw! Unmistakable!”
XXII
Other People’s Notions
The great towers of Wrychester Cathedral had come within Bryce’s view before he had made up his mind as to the next step in this last stage of his campaign. He had ridden away from the Saxonsteade Arms feeling that he had got to do something at once, but he was not quite clear in his mind as to what that something exactly was. But now, as he topped a rise in the road, and saw Wrychester lying in its hollow beneath him, the summer sun shining on its red roofs and grey walls, he suddenly came to a decision, and instead of riding straight ahead into the old city he turned off at a byroad, made a line across the northern outskirts, and headed for the golf-links. He was almost certain to find Mary Bewery there at that hour, and he wanted to see her at once. The time for his great stroke had come.
But Mary Bewery was not there—had not been there that morning said the caddy-master. There were only a few players out. In one of them, coming towards the clubhouse, Bryce recognized Sackville Bonham. And at sight of Sackville, Bryce had an inspiration. Mary Bewery would not come up to the links now before afternoon; he, Bryce, would lunch there and then go towards Wrychester to meet her by the path across the fields on which he had waylaid her after his visit to Leicestershire. And meanwhile he would inveigle Sackville Bonham into conversation. Sackville fell readily into Bryce’s trap. He was the sort of youth who loves to talk, especially in a hinting and mysterious fashion. And when Bryce, after treating him to an appetizer in the bar of the clubhouse, had suggested that they should lunch together and got him into a quiet corner of the dining-room, he launched forth at once on the pertinent matter of the day.
“Heard all about this discovery of those missing Saxonsteade diamonds?” he asked as he and Bryce picked up their knives and forks. “Queer business that, isn’t it? Of course, it’s got to do with those murders!”
“Think so?” asked Bryce.
“Can anybody think anything else?” said Sackville in his best dogmatic manner. “Why, the thing’s plain. From what’s been let out—not much, certainly, but enough—it’s quite evident.”
“What’s your theory?” inquired Bryce.
“My stepfather—knowing old bird he is, too!—sums the whole thing up to a nicety,” answered Sackville. “That old chap, Braden, you know, is in possession of that secret. He comes to Wrychester about it. But somebody else knows. That somebody gets rid of Braden. Why? So that the secret’ll be known then only to one—the murderer! See! And why? Why?”
“Well, why?” repeated Bryce. “Don’t see, so far.”
“You must be dense, then,” said Sackville with the lofty superiority of youth. “Because of the reward, of course! Don’t you know that there’s been a standing offer—never withdrawn!—of five thousand pounds for news of those jewels?”
“No, I didn’t,” answered Bryce.
“Fact, sir—pure fact,” continued Sackville. “Now, five thousand, divided in two, is two thousand five hundred each. But five thousand, undivided, is—what?”
“Five thousand—apparently,” said Bryce.
“Just so! And,” remarked Sackville knowingly, “a man’ll do a lot for five thousand.”
“Or—according to your argument—for half of it,” said Bryce. “What you—or your stepfather’s—aiming at comes to this, that suspicion rests on Braden’s sharer in the secret. That it?”
“And why not?” asked Sackville. “Look at what we know—from the account in the paper this morning. This other chap, Glassdale, waits a bit until the first excitement about Braden is over, then he comes forward and tells the Duke where the Duchess’s diamonds are planted. Why? So that he can get the five thousand pound reward! Plain as a pikestaff! Only, the police are such fools.”
“And what about Collishaw?” asked Bryce, willing to absorb all his companion’s ideas.
“Part of the game,” declared Sackville. “Same man that got rid of Braden got rid of that chap! Probably Collishaw knew a bit and had to be silenced. But, whether that Glassdale did it all off his own bat or whether he’s somebody in with him, that’s where the guilt’ll be fastened in the end, my stepfather says. And—it’ll be so. Stands to reason!”
“Anybody come forward about that reward your stepfather offered?” asked Bryce.
“I’m not permitted to say,” answered Sackville. “But,” he added, leaning closer to his companion across the table, “I can tell you this—there’s wheels within wheels! You understand! And things’ll be coming out. Got to! We can’t—as a family—let Ransford lie under that cloud, don’t you know. We must clear him. That’s precisely why Mr. Folliot offered his reward. Ransford, of course, you know, Bryce, is very much to blame—he ought to have done more himself. And, of course, as my mother and my stepfather say, if Ransford won’t do things for himself, well, we must do ’em
