The Paradise Mystery, J. S. Fletcher [books suggested by bill gates .txt] 📗

another man in with them, too—a man who was a sort of partner of the Barthorpe man's. Brake had evidently a belief in these men, and he trusted them—unfortunately for himself he sometimes trusted the bank's money to them. I know what happened—he used to let them have money for short financial transactions—to be refunded within a very brief space. But—he went to the fire too often, and got his fingers burned in the end. The two men did him—one of them in particular—and cleared out. He had to stand the racket. He stood it—to the tune of ten years' penal servitude. And, naturally, when he'd finished his time, he wanted to find those two men—and began a long search for them. Like to know the names of the men, Mr. Folliot?”

“You might mention 'em—if you know 'em,” answered Folliot.

“The name of the particular one was Wraye—Falkiner Wraye,” replied Bryce promptly. “Of the other—the man of lesser importance—Flood.”

The two men looked quietly at each other for a full moment's silence. And it was Bryce who first spoke with a ring of confidence in his tone which showed that he knew he had the whip hand.

“Shall I tell you something about Falkiner Wraye?” he asked. “I will!—it's deeply interesting. Mr. Falkiner Wraye, after cheating and deceiving Brake, and leaving him to pay the penalty of his over-trustfulness, cleared out of England and carried his money-making talents to foreign parts. He succeeded in doing well—he would!—and eventually he came back and married a rich widow and settled himself down in an out-of-the-world English town to grow roses. You're Falkiner Wraye, you know, Mr. Folliot!”

Bryce laughed as he made this direct accusation, and sitting forward in his chair, pointed first to Folliot's face and then to his left hand.

“Falkiner Wraye,” he said, “had an unfortunate gun accident in his youth which marked him for life. He lost the middle finger of his left hand, and he got a bad scar on his left jaw. There they are, those marks! Fortunate for you, Mr. Folliot, that the police don't know all that I know, for if they did, those marks would have done for you days ago!” For a minute or two Folliot sat joggling his leg—a bad sign in him of rising temper if Bryce had but known it. While he remained silent he watched Bryce narrowly, and when he spoke, his voice was calm as ever.

“And what use do you intend to put your knowledge to, if one may ask?” he inquired, half sneeringly. “You said just now that you'd no doubt that man Glassdale could be bought, and I'm inclining to think that you're one of those men that have their price. What is it?”

“We've not come to that,” retorted Bryce. “You're a bit mistaken. If I have my price, it's not in the same commodity that Glassdale would want. But before we do any talking about that sort of thing, I want to add to my stock of knowledge. Look here! We'll be candid. I don't care a snap of my fingers that Brake, or Braden's dead, or that Collishaw's dead, nor if one had his neck broken and the other was poisoned, but—whose hand was that which the mason, Varner, saw that morning, when Brake was flung out of that doorway? Come, now!—whose?”

“Not mine, my lad!” answered Folliot, confidently. “That's a fact?”

Bryce hesitated, giving Folliot a searching look. And Folliot nodded solemnly. “I tell you, not mine!” he repeated. “I'd naught to do with it!”

“Then who had?” demanded Bryce. “Was it the other man—Flood? And if so, who is Flood?”

Folliot got up from his chair and, cigar between his lips and hands under the tails of his old coat, walked silently about the quiet room for awhile. He was evidently thinking deeply, and Bryce made no attempt to disturb him. Some minutes went by before Folliot took the cigar from his lips and leaning against the chimneypiece looked fixedly at his visitor.

“Look here, my lad!” he said, earnestly. “You're no doubt, as you say, a good hand at finding things out, and you've doubtless done a good bit of ferreting, and done it well enough in your own opinion. But there's one thing you can't find out, and the police can't find out either, and that's the precise truth about Braden's death. I'd no hand in it—it couldn't be fastened on to me, anyhow.”

Bryce looked up and interjected one word.

“Collishaw?”

“Nor that, neither,” answered Folliot, hastily. “Maybe I know something about both, but neither you nor the police nor anybody could fasten me to either matter! Granting all you say to be true, where's the positive truth?”

“What about circumstantial evidence,” asked Bryce.

“You'd have a job to get it,” retorted Folliot. “Supposing that all you say is true about—about past matters? Nothing can prove—nothing!—that I ever met Braden that morning. On the other hand, I can prove, easily, that I never did meet him; I can account for every minute of my time that day. As to the other affair—not an ounce of direct evidence!”

“Then—it was the other man!” exclaimed Bryce. “Now then, who is he?”

Folliot replied with a shrewd glance.

“A man who by giving away another man gave himself away would be a damned fool!” he answered. “If there is another man—”

“As if there must be!” interrupted Bryce.

“Then he's safe!” concluded Folliot. “You'll get nothing from me about him!”

“And nobody can get at you except through him?” asked Bryce.

“That's about it,” assented Folliot laconically.

Bryce laughed cynically.

“A pretty coil!” he said with a sneer. “Here! You talked about my price. I'm quite content to hold my tongue if you'd tell me something about what happened seventeen years ago.”

“What?” asked Folliot.

“You knew Brake, you must have known his family affairs,” said Bryce. “What became of Brake's wife and children when he went to prison?”

Folliot shook his head, and it was plain to Bryce that his gesture of dissent was genuine.

“You're wrong,” he answered. “I never at any time knew anything of Brake's family affairs. So little indeed, that I never even knew he was married.”

Bryce rose to his feet and stood staring.

“What!” he exclaimed. “You mean to tell me that, even now, you don't know that Brake had two children, and that—that—oh, it's incredible!”

“What's incredible?” asked Folliot. “What are you talking about?”

Bryce in his eagerness and surprise grasped Folliot's arm and shook it.

“Good heavens, man!” he said. “Those two wards of Ransford's are Brake's girl and boy! Didn't you know that, didn't you?”

“Never!” answered Folliot. “Never! And who's Ransford, then? I never heard Brake speak of any Ransford! What game is all this? What—”

Before Bryce could reply, Folliot suddenly started, thrust his companion