“Wise man!” observed Glassdale. “That’s just what I feel about it. It’s a mistake to share secrets with more than one person.”
“There is a secret, then!” asked the solicitor, half slyly.
“Might be,” replied Glassdale. “Who’s your client?”
The solicitor pulled a scrap of paper towards him and wrote a few words on it. He pushed it towards his caller, and Glassdale picked it up and read what had been written—Mr. Stephen Folliot, The Close.
“You’d better go and see him,” said the solicitor, suggestively. “You’ll find him reserved enough.”
Glassdale read and reread the name—as if he were endeavouring to recollect it, or connect it with something.
“What particular reason has this man for wishing to find this out?” he inquired.
“Can’t say, my good sir!” replied the solicitor, with a smile. “Perhaps he’ll tell you. He hasn’t told me.”
Glassdale rose to take his leave. But with his hand on the door he turned.
“Is this gentleman a resident in the place?” he asked.
“A well-known townsman,” replied the solicitor. “You’ll easily find his house in the Close—everybody knows it.”
Glassdale went away then—and walked slowly towards the Cathedral precincts. On his way he passed two places at which he was half inclined to call—one was the police-station; the other, the office of the solicitors who were acting on behalf of the offerer of five hundred pounds. He half glanced at the solicitor’s door—but on reflection went forward. A man who was walking across the Close pointed out the Folliot residence—Glassdale entered by the garden door, and in another minute came face to face with Folliot himself, busied, as usual, amongst his rose-trees.
Glassdale saw Folliot and took stock of him before Folliot knew that a stranger was within his gates. Folliot, in an old jacket which he kept for his horticultural labours, was taking slips from a standard; he looked as harmless and peaceful as his occupation. A quiet, inoffensive, somewhat benevolent elderly man, engaged in work, which suggested leisure and peace.
But Glassdale, after a first quick, searching glance, took another and longer one—and went nearer with a discreet laugh.
Folliot turned quietly, and seeing the stranger, showed no surprise. He had a habit of looking over the top rims of his spectacles at people, and he looked in this way at Glassdale, glancing him up and down calmly. Glassdale lifted his slouch hat and advanced.
“Mr. Folliot, I believe, sir?” he said. “Mr. Stephen Folliot?”
“Aye, just so!” responded Folliot. “But I don’t know you. Who may you be, now?”
“My name, sir, is Glassdale,” answered the other. “I’ve just come from your solicitor’s. I called to see him this afternoon—and he told me that the business I called about could only be dealt with—or discussed—with you. So—I came here.”
Folliot, who had been cutting slips off a rose-tree, closed his knife and put it away in his old jacket. He turned and quietly inspected his visitor once more.
“Aye!” he said quietly. “So you’re after that thousand pound reward, eh?”
“I should have no objection to it, Mr. Folliot,” replied Glassdale.
“I dare say not,” remarked Folliot, dryly. “I dare say not! And which are you, now?—one of those who think they can tell something, or one that really can tell? Eh?”
“You’ll know that better when we’ve had a bit of talk, Mr. Folliot,” answered Glassdale, accompanying his reply with a direct glance.
“Oh, well, now then, I’ve no objection to a bit of talk—none whatever!” said Folliot. “Here!—we’ll sit down on that bench, amongst the roses. Quite private here—nobody about. And now,” he continued, as Glassdale accompanied him to a rustic bench set beneath a pergola of rambler roses, “who are you, like? I read a queer account in this morning’s local paper of what happened in the Cathedral grounds yonder last night, and there was a person of your name mentioned. Are you that Glassdale?”
“The same, Mr. Folliot,” answered the visitor, promptly.
“Then you knew Braden—the man who lost his life here?” asked Folliot.
“Very well indeed,” replied Glassdale.
“For how long?” demanded Folliot.
“Some years—as a mere acquaintance, seen now and then,” said Glassdale. “A few years, recently, as what you might call a close friend.”
“Tell you any of his secrets?” asked Folliot.
“Yes, he did!” answered Glassdale.
“Anything that seems to relate to his death—and the mystery about it?” inquired Folliot.
“I think so,” said Glassdale. “Upon consideration, I think so!”
“Ah—and what might it be, now?” continued Folliot. He gave Glassdale a look which seemed to denote and imply several things. “It might be to your advantage to explain a bit, you know,” he added. “One has to be a little—vague, eh?”
“There was a certain man that Braden was very anxious to find,” said Glassdale. “He’d been looking for him for a good many years.”
“A man?” asked Folliot. “One?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, there were two,” admitted Glassdale, “but there was one in particular. The other—the second—so Braden said, didn’t matter; he was or had been, only a sort of cat’s-paw of the man he especially wanted.”
“I see,” said Folliot. He pulled out a cigar case and offered a cigar to his visitor, afterwards lighting one himself. “And what did Braden want that man for?” he asked.
Glassdale waited until his cigar was in full going order before he answered this question. Then he replied in one word.
“Revenge!”
Folliot put his thumbs in the armholes of his buff waistcoat and leaning back, seemed to be admiring his roses.
“Ah!” he said at last. “Revenge, now? A sort of vindictive man, was he? Wanted to get his knife into somebody, eh?”
“He wanted to get something of his own back from a man who’d done him,” answered Glassdale, with a short laugh. “That’s about it!”
For a minute or two both men smoked in silence. Then Folliot—still regarding his roses—put a leading question.
“Give you any details?” he asked.
“Enough,” said Glassdale. “Braden had been done—over a money transaction—by these men—one especially, as head and front of the affair—and it had cost him—more than anybody would think! Naturally, he wanted—if he ever got the
