"

"You'll not wonder that I didn't," said Bryce, laughing lightly, "when I
tell you what the man wanted."

"What did he want, then?" asked Mitchington.

"Merely to be told where the Cathedral Library was," answered Bryce.

Ransford, watching Mary Bewery, saw her cheeks flush, and knew that
Bryce was cheerfully telling lies. But Mitchington evidently had no
suspicion.

"That all?" he asked. "Just a question?"

"Just a question--that question," replied Bryce. "I pointed out the
Library--and he walked away. I never saw him again until I was fetched
to him--dead. And I thought so little of the matter that--well, it never
even occurred to me to mention it."

"Then--though he did call--he never saw Ransford?" asked the inspector.

"I tell you Ransford was already gone out," answered Bryce. "He saw no
one but myself. Where Mrs. Deramore made her mistake--I happen to know,
Mitchington, that she started this rumour--was in trying to make two
and two into five. She saw this man crossing the Close, as if from
Ransford's house and she at once imagined he'd seen and been talking
with Ransford."

"Old fool!" said Mitchington. "Of course, that's how these tales get
about. However, there's more than that in the air."

The two listeners behind the curtains glanced at each other. Ransford's
glance showed that he was already chafing at the unpleasantness of his
position--but Mary's only betokened apprehension. And suddenly, as if
she feared that Ransford would throw the curtains aside and walk into
the front room, she laid a hand on his arm and motioned him to be
patient--and silent.

"Oh?" said Bryce. "More in the air? About that business?"

"Just so," assented Mitchington. "To start with, that man Varner, the
mason, has never ceased talking. They say he's always at it--to the
effect that the verdict of the jury at the inquest was all wrong, and
that his evidence was put clean aside. He persists that he did see--what
he swore he saw."

"He'll persist in that to his dying day," said Bryce carelessly. "If
that's all there is--"

"It isn't," interrupted the inspector. "Not by a long chalk! But
Varner's is a direct affirmation--the other matter's a sort of ugly
hint. There's a man named Collishaw, a townsman, who's been employed
as a mason's labourer about the Cathedral of late. This Collishaw,
it seems, was at work somewhere up in the galleries, ambulatories,
or whatever they call those upper regions, on the very morning