nsford--whether both or either of you, know
it or not," he said, "the police have been on to Ransford ever since
that Collishaw affair! Underground work, you know. Mitchington has
been digging into things ever since then, and lately he's had a London
detective helping him."

Mary, who had carried her work into the garden, had now resumed it, and
as Bryce began to talk she bent over it steadily stitching.

"Well?" she said.

"Look here!" continued Bryce. "Has it never struck you--it must have
done!--that there's considerable mystery about Ransford? But whether it
has struck you or not, it's there, and it's struck the police forcibly.
Mystery connected with him before--long before--he ever came here. And
associated, in some way, with that man Braden. Not of late--in years
past. And, naturally, the police have tried to find out what that was."

"What have they found out?" asked Mary quietly.

"That I'm not at liberty to tell," replied Bryce. "But I can tell
you this--they know, Mitchington and the London man, that there were
passages between Ransford and Braden years ago."

"How many years ago?" interrupted Mary.

Bryce hesitated a moment. He had a suspicion that this self-possessed
young woman who was taking everything more quietly than he had
anticipated, might possibly know more than he gave her credit for
knowing. He had been watching her fingers since they sat down in the
summer-house, and his sharp eyes saw that they were as steady as the
spire of the cathedral above the trees--he knew from that that she was
neither frightened nor anxious.

"Oh, well--seventeen to twenty years ago," he answered. "About that
time. There were passages, I say, and they were of a nature which
suggests that the re-appearance of Braden on Ransford's present stage of
life would be, extremely unpleasant and unwelcome to Ransford."

"Vague!" murmured Mary. "Extremely vague!"

"But quite enough," retorted Bryce, "to give the police the suggestion
of motive. I tell you the police know quite enough to know that Braden
was, of all men in the world, the last man Ransford desired to see
cross his path again. And--on that morning on which the Paradise affair
occurred--Braden did cross his path. Therefore, in the conventional
police way of thinking and looking at things, there's motive."

"Motive for what?" asked Mary.

Bryce arrived here at one of his critical stages, and he paused a moment
in order to choose his words.

"Don't get a