he said. "You
know what I mean--about me and Dick. Somehow--I don't quite know how or
why--I've an uneasy feeling that Bryce knows something, and that he's
mixing it all up with--this! Why not tell me--please!"

Ransford, who was still marching about the room, came to a halt, and
leaning his hands on the table between them, looked earnestly at her.

"Don't ask that--now!" he said. "I can't--yet. The fact is, I'm waiting
for something--some particulars. As soon as I get them, I'll speak to
you--and to Dick. In the meantime--don't ask me again--and don't be
afraid. And as to this affair, leave it to me--and if you meet Bryce
again, refuse to discuss any thing with him. Look here!--there's
only one reason why he professes friendliness and a desire to save me
annoyance. He thinks he can ingratiate himself with--you!"

"Mistaken!" murmured Mary, shaking her head. "I don't trust him.
And--less than ever because of yesterday. Would an honest man have done
what he did? Let that police inspector talk freely, as he did, with
people concealed behind a curtain? And--he laughed about it! I hated
myself for being there--yet could we help it?"

"I'm not going to hate myself on Pemberton Bryce's account," said
Ransford. "Let him play his game--that he has one, I'm certain."

Bryce had gone away to continue his game--or another line of it. The
Collishaw matter had not made him forget the Richard Jenkins tomb, and
now, after leaving Ransford's house, he crossed the Close to Paradise
with the object of doing a little more investigation. But at the archway
of the ancient enclosure he met old Simpson Harker, pottering about in
his usual apparently aimless fashion. Harker smiled at sight of Bryce.

"Ah, I was wanting to have a word with you, doctor!" he said. "Something
important. Have you got a minute or two to spare, sir? Come round to my
little place, then--we shall be quiet there."

Bryce had any amount of time to spare for an interesting person like
Harker, and he followed the old man to his house--a tiny place set in
a nest of similar old-world buildings behind the Close. Harker led
him into a little parlour, comfortable and snug, wherein were several
shelves of books of a curiously legal and professional-looking aspect,
some old pictures, and a cabinet of odds and ends, stowed away in of
dark corner. The old man motioned him to an easy chair, and going over
to a cupboard, produced a decanter of whisky and a box of cigars.

"We