“Danger of what?” she demanded.
“Arrest—instant arrest!” replied Bryce. “I’m telling you the truth. He’ll probably be arrested tonight, on his return. There’s no imagination in all this—I’m speaking of what I know. I’ve—curiously enough—got mixed up with these affairs, through no seeking of my own, and I know what’s behind the scenes. If it were known that I’m letting out secrets to you, I should get into trouble. But, I want to warn you!”
Mary stood before him on the path, hesitating. She knew enough to know that Bryce was telling some sort of truth: it was plain that he had been mixed up in the recent mysteries, and there was a ring of conviction in his voice which impressed her. And suddenly she had visions of Ransford’s arrest, of his being dragged off to prison to meet a cruel accusation, of the shame and disgrace, and she hesitated further.
“But if that’s so,” she said at last, “what’s the good of coming to me? I can’t do anything!”
“I can!” said Bryce significantly. “I know more—much more—than the police know—more than anybody knows. I can save Ransford. Understand that!”
“What do you want now?” she asked.
“To talk to you—to tell you how things are,” answered Bryce. “What harm is there in that? To make you see how matters stand, and then to show you what I can do to put things right.”
Mary glanced at an open summerhouse which stood beneath the beech trees on one side of the garden. She moved towards it and sat down there, and Bryce followed her and seated himself.
“Well—” she said.
Bryce realized that his moment had arrived. He paused, endeavouring to remember the careful preparations he had made for putting his case. Somehow, he was not so clear as to his line of attack as he had been ten minutes previously—he realized that he had to deal with a young woman who was not likely to be taken in nor easily deceived. And suddenly he plunged into what he felt to be the thick of things.
“Whether you, or whether Ransford—whether both or either of you, know it or not,” he said, “the police have been on to Ransford ever since that Collishaw affair! Underground work, you know. Mitchington has been digging into things ever since then, and lately he’s had a London detective helping him.”
Mary, who had carried her work into the garden, had now resumed it, and as Bryce began to talk she bent over it steadily stitching.
“Well?” she said.
“Look here!” continued Bryce. “Has it never struck you—it must have done!—that there’s considerable mystery about Ransford? But whether it has struck you or not, it’s there, and it’s struck the police forcibly. Mystery connected with him before—long before—he ever came here. And associated, in some way, with that man Braden. Not of late—in years past. And, naturally, the police have tried to find out what that was.”
“What have they found out?” asked Mary quietly.
“That I’m not at liberty to tell,” replied Bryce. “But I can tell you this—they know, Mitchington and the London man, that there were passages between Ransford and Braden years ago.”
“How many years ago?” interrupted Mary.
Bryce hesitated a moment. He had a suspicion that this self-possessed young woman who was taking everything more quietly than he had anticipated, might possibly know more than he gave her credit for knowing. He had been watching her fingers since they sat down in the summerhouse, and his sharp eyes saw that they were as steady as the spire of the cathedral above the trees—he knew from that that she was neither frightened nor anxious.
“Oh, well—seventeen to twenty years ago,” he answered. “About that time. There were passages, I say, and they were of a nature which suggests that the reappearance of Braden on Ransford’s present stage of life would be, extremely unpleasant and unwelcome to Ransford.”
“Vague!” murmured Mary. “Extremely vague!”
“But quite enough,” retorted Bryce, “to give the police the suggestion of motive. I tell you the police know quite enough to know that Braden was, of all men in the world, the last man Ransford desired to see cross his path again. And—on that morning on which the Paradise affair occurred—Braden did cross his path. Therefore, in the conventional police way of thinking and looking at things, there’s motive.”
“Motive for what?” asked Mary.
Bryce arrived here at one of his critical stages, and he paused a moment in order to choose his words.
“Don’t get any false ideas or impressions,” he said at last. “I’m not accusing Ransford of anything. I’m only telling you what I know the police think and are on the very edge of accusing him of. To put it plainly—of murder. They say he’d a motive for murdering Braden—and with them motive is everything. It’s the first thing they seem to think of; they first question they ask themselves. ‘Why should this man have murdered that man?’—do you see! ‘What motive had he?—that’s the point. And they think—these chaps like Mitchington and the London man—that Ransford certainly had a motive for getting rid of Braden when they met.”
“What was the motive?” asked Mary.
“They’ve found out something—perhaps a good deal—about what happened between Braden and Ransford some years ago,” replied Bryce. “And their theory is—if you want to know the truth—that Ransford ran away with Braden’s wife, and that Braden had been looking for him ever since.”
Bryce had kept his eyes on Mary’s hands, and now at last he saw the girl’s fingers tremble. But her voice was steady enough when she spoke.
“Is that mere conjecture on their part, or is it based on any fact?” she asked.
“I’m not in full knowledge of all their secrets,” answered Bryce, “but I’ve heard enough to know that there’s a basis of undeniable fact on which they’re going. I know for instance, beyond doubt, that Braden and Ransford were bosom friends, years ago, that Braden was married to a girl whom Ransford had wanted to marry, that Braden’s wife suddenly left him,
