Part 28 (1/2)

Therefore the man who paid Collishaw fifty pounds took care to provide himself with gold. Now then--how many men are there in a small place like this who are likely to carry fifty pounds in gold in their pockets, or to have it at hand?”

”Not many,” agreed Mitchington.

”Just so--and therefore I've been doing a bit of secret inquiry amongst the bankers, as to who supplied himself with gold about that date,”

continued Jettison. ”I'd to convince 'em of the absolute necessity of information, too, before I got any! But I got some--at the third attempt. On the day previous to that on which Collishaw handed that fifty pounds to Stebbing, a certain Wrychester man drew fifty pounds in gold at his bank. Who do you think he was?”

”Who--who?” demanded Mitchington.

Jettison leaned half-across the desk.

”Bryce!” he said in a whisper. ”Bryce!”

Mitchington sat up in his chair and opened his mouth in sheer astonishment.

”Good heavens!” he muttered after a moment's silence. ”You don't mean it?”

”Fact!” answered Jettison. ”Plain, incontestable fact, my lad. Dr. Bryce keeps an account at the Wrychester bank. On the day I'm speaking of he cashed a cheque to self for fifty pounds and took it all in gold.”

The two men looked at each other as if each were asking his companion a question.

”Well?” said Mitchington at last. ”You're a cut above me, Jettison. What do you make of it?”

”I said last night that the young man was playing a deep game,”

replied Jettison. ”But--what game? What's he building up? For mark you, Mitchington, if--I say if, mind!--if that fifty pounds which he drew in gold is the identical fifty paid to Collishaw, Bryce didn't pay it as hush-money!”

”Think not?” said Mitchington, evidently surprised. ”Now, that was my first impression. If it wasn't hush-money--”

”It wasn't hush-money, for this reason,” interrupted Jettison. ”We know that whatever else he knew, Bryce didn't know of the accident to Braden until Varner fetched him to Braden. That's established--on what you've put before me. Therefore, whatever Collishaw saw, before or at the time that accident happened, it wasn't Bryce who was mixed up in it.

Therefore, why should Bryce pay Collishaw hush-money?”

Mitchington, who had evidently been thinking, suddenly pulled out a drawer in his desk and took some papers from it which he began to turn over.

”Wait a minute,” he said. ”I've an abstract here--of what the foreman at the Cathedral mason's yard told me of what he knew as to where Collishaw was working that morning when the accident happened--I made a note of it when I questioned him after Collishaw's death. Here you are:

'Foreman says that on morning of Braden's accident, Collishaw was at work in the north gallery of the clerestory, clearing away some timber which the carpenters had left there. Collishaw was certainly thus engaged from nine o'clock until past eleven that morning. Mem. Have investigated this myself.

From the exact spot where C. was clearing the timber, there is an uninterrupted view of the gallery on the south side of the nave, and of the arched doorway at the head of St. Wrytha's Stair.'”

”'Well,” observed Jettison, ”that proves what I'm saying. It wasn't hush-money. For whoever it was that Collishaw saw lay hands on Braden, it wasn't Bryce--Bryce, we know, was at that time coming across the Close or crossing that path through the part you call Paradise: Varner's evidence proves that. So--if the fifty pounds wasn't paid for hush-money, what was it paid for?”

”Do you suggest anything?” asked Mitchington.

”I've thought of two or three things,” answered the detective. ”One's this--was the fifty pounds paid for information? If so, and Bryce has that information, why doesn't he show his hand more plainly? If he bribed Collishaw with fifty pounds: to tell him who Braden's a.s.sailant was, he now knows!--so why doesn't he let it out, and have done with it?”

”Part of his game--if that theory's right,” murmured Mitchington.

”It mayn't be right,” said Jettison. ”But it's one. And there's another--supposing he paid Collishaw that money on behalf of somebody else? I've thought this business out right and left, top-side and bottom-side, and hang me if I don't feel certain there is somebody else!

What did Ransford tell us about Bryce and this old Harker--think of that! And yet, according to Bryce, Harker is one of our old Yard men!--and therefore ought to be above suspicion.”