my facts
are doubtless known to you already. First of all--the man who came
here as John Braden was, in reality, one John Brake. He was at one
time manager of a branch of a well-known London banking company. He
appropriated money from them under apparently mysterious circumstances
of which I, as yet, knew nothing; he was prosecuted, convicted,
and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. And those two wards
of Ransford's, Mary and Richard Bewery, as they are called, are, in
reality, Mary and Richard Brake--his children."

"You've established that as a fact?" asked Jettison, who was listening
with close attention. "It's not a surmise on your part?"

Bryce hesitated before replying to this question. After all, he
reflected, it was a surmise. He could not positively prove his
assertion.

"Well," he answered after a moment's thought, "I'll qualify that by
saying that from the evidence I have, and from what I know, I believe it
to be an indisputable fact. What I do know of fact, hard, positive
fact, is this:--John Brake married a Mary Bewery at the parish church of
Braden Medworth, near Barthorpe, in Leicestershire: I've seen the entry
in the register with my own eyes. His best man, who signed the register
as a witness, was Mark Ransford. Brake and Ransford, as young men, had
been in the habit of going to Braden Medworth to fish; Mary Bewery was
governess at the vicarage there. It was always supposed she would marry
Ransford; instead, she married Brake, who, of course, took her off to
London. Of their married life, I know nothing. But within a few
years, Brake was in trouble, for the reason I have told you. He was
arrested--and Harker was the man who arrested him."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mitchington. "Now, if I'd only known--"

"You'll know a lot before I'm through," said Bryce. "Now, Harker, of
course, can tell a lot--yet it's unsatisfying. Brake could make no
defence--but his counsel threw out strange hints and suggestions--all to
the effect that Brake had been cruelly and wickedly deceived--in fact,
as it were, trapped into doing what he did. And--by a man whom he'd
trusted as a close friend. So much came to Harker's ears--but no more,
and on that particular point I've no light. Go on from that to Brake's
private affairs. At the time of his arrest he had a wife and two very
young children. Either just before, or at, or immediately after his
arrest they completely disappeared--and Brake himself utterly refused
to say