The Paradise Mystery Part 5

"Who--flung him?" he asked suddenly. "You say you saw!"

"Aye, sir, but not as much as all that!" replied the mason. "I just saw a hand--and that was all. But," he added, turning to the police with a knowing look, "there's one thing I can swear to--it was a gentleman's hand! I saw the white s.h.i.+rt cuff and a bit of a black sleeve!"

Ransford turned away. But he just as suddenly turned back to the inspector.

"You'll have to let the Cathedral authorities know, Mitchington," he said. "Better get the body removed, though, first--do it now before the morning service is over. And--let me hear what you find out about his ident.i.ty, if you can discover anything in the city."

He went away then, without another word or a further glance at the dead man. But Bryce had already a.s.sured himself of what he was certain was a fact--that a look of unmistakable relief had swept across Ransford's face for the fraction of a second when he knew that there were no papers on the dead man. He himself waited after Ransford had gone; waited until the police had fetched a stretcher, when he personally superintended the removal of the body to the mortuary outside the Close. And there a constable who had come over from the police-station gave a faint hint as to further investigation.

"I saw that poor gentleman last night, sir," he said to the inspector.

"He was standing at the door of the Mitre, talking to another gentleman--a tallish man."

"Then I'll go across there," said Mitchington. "Come with me, if you like, Dr. Bryce."

This was precisely what Bryce desired--he was already anxious to acquire all the information he could get. And he walked over the way with the inspector, to the quaint old-world inn which filled almost one side of the little square known as Monday Market, and in at the courtyard, where, looking out of the bow window which had served as an outer bar in the coaching days, they found the landlady of the Mitre, Mrs.

Partingley. Bryce saw at once that she had heard the news.

"What's this, Mr. Mitchington?" she demanded as they drew near across the cobble-paved yard. "Somebody's been in to say there's been an accident to a gentleman, a stranger--I hope it isn't one of the two we've got in the house?"

"I should say it is, ma'am," answered the inspector. "He was seen outside here last night by one of our men, anyway."

The landlady uttered an expression of distress, and opening a side-door, motioned them to step into her parlour.

"Which of them is it?" she asked anxiously. "There's two--came together last night, they did--a tall one and a short one. Dear, dear me!--is it a bad accident, now, inspector?"

"The man's dead, ma'am," replied Mitchington grimly. "And we want to know who he is. Have you got his name--and the other gentleman's?"

Mrs. Partingley uttered another exclamation of distress and astonishment, lifting her plump hands in horror. But her business faculties remained alive, and she made haste to produce a big visitors'

book and to spread it open before her callers.

"There it is!" she said, pointing to the two last entries. "That's the short gentleman's name--Mr. John Braden, London. And that's the tall one's--Mr. Christopher Dellingham--also London. Tourists, of course--we've never seen either of them before."

"Came together, you say, Mrs. Partingley?" asked Mitchington. "When was that, now?"

"Just before dinner, last night," answered the landlady. "They'd evidently come in by the London train--that gets in at six-forty, as you know. They came here together, and they'd dinner together, and spent the evening together. Of course, we took them for friends. But they didn't go out together this morning, though they'd breakfast together. After breakfast, Mr. Dellingham asked me the way to the old Manor Mill, and he went off there, so I concluded. Mr. Braden, he hung about a bit, studying a local directory I'd lent him, and after a while he asked me if he could hire a trap to take him out to Saxonsteade this afternoon.

Of course, I said he could, and he arranged for it to be ready at two-thirty. Then he went out, and across the market towards the Cathedral. And that," concluded Mrs. Partingley, "is about all I know, gentlemen."

"Saxonsteade, eh?" remarked Mitchington. "Did he say anything about his reasons for going there?"

"Well, yes, he did," replied the landlady. "For he asked me if I thought he'd be likely to find the Duke at home at that time of day. I said I knew his Grace was at Saxonsteade just now, and that I should think the middle of the afternoon would be a good time."

"He didn't tell you his business with the Duke?" asked Mitchington.

"Not a word!" said the landlady. "Oh, no!--just that, and no more.

But--here's Mr. Dellingham."

Bryce turned to see a tall, broad-shouldered, bearded man pa.s.s the window--the door opened and he walked in, to glance inquisitively at the inspector. He turned at once to Mrs. Partingley.

"I hear there's been an accident to that gentleman I came in with last night?" he said. "Is it anything serious? Your ostler says--"

"These gentlemen have just come about it, sir," answered the landlady.

She glanced at Mitchington. "Perhaps you'll tell--" she began.

"Was he a friend of yours, sir?" asked Mitchington. "A personal friend?"

"Never saw him in my life before last night!" replied the tall man. "We just chanced to meet in the train coming down from London, got talking, and discovered we were both coming to the same place--Wrychester.

So--we came to this house together. No--no friend of mine--not even an acquaintance--previous, of course, to last night. Is--is it anything serious?"

"He's dead, sir," replied Mitchington. "And now we want to know who he is."

"G.o.d bless my soul! Dead? You don't say so!" exclaimed Mr. Dellingham.

"Dear, dear! Well, I can't help you--don't know him from Adam. Pleasant, well-informed man--seemed to have travelled a great deal in foreign countries. I can tell you this much, though," he went on, as if a sudden recollection had come to him; "I gathered that he'd only just arrived in England--in fact, now I come to think of it, he said as much. Made some remark in the train about the pleasantness of the English landscape, don't you know?--I got an idea that he'd recently come from some country where trees and hedges and green fields aren't much in evidence. But--if you want to know who he is, officer, why don't you search him? He's sure to have papers, cards, and so on about him."

"We have searched him," answered Mitchington. "There isn't a paper, a letter, or even a visiting card on him."

Mr. Dellingham looked at the landlady.

"Bless me!" he said. "Remarkable! But he'd a suit-case, or something of the sort--something light--which he carried up from the railway station himself. Perhaps in that--"

"I should like to see whatever he had," said Mitchington. "We'd better examine his room, Mrs. Partingley."

Bryce presently followed the landlady and the inspector upstairs--Mr.

Dellingham followed him. All four went into a bedroom which looked out on Monday Market. And there, on a side-table, lay a small leather suit-case, one which could easily be carried, with its upper half thrown open and back against the wall behind.

The landlady, Mr. Dellingham and Bryce stood silently by while the inspector examined the contents of this the only piece of luggage in the room. There was very little to see--what toilet articles the visitor brought were spread out on the dressing-table--brushes, combs, a case of razors, and the like. And Mitchington nodded side-wise at them as he began to take the articles out of the suit-case.

"There's one thing strikes me at once," he said. "I dare say you gentlemen notice it. All these things are new! This suit-case hasn't been in use very long--see, the leather's almost unworn--and those things on the dressing-table are new. And what there is here looks new, too. There's not much, you see--he evidently had no intention of a long stop. An extra pair of trousers--some s.h.i.+rts--socks--collars--neckties--slippers--handkerchiefs--that's about all. And the first thing to do is to see if the linen's marked with name or initials."

He deftly examined the various articles as he took them out, and in the end shook his head.

"No name--no initials," he said. "But look here--do you see, gentlemen, where these collars were bought? Half a dozen of them, in a box. Paris!

There you are--the seller's name, inside the collar, just as in England.

Aristide Pujol, 82, Rue des Capucines. And--judging by the look of 'em--I should say these s.h.i.+rts were bought there, too--and the handkerchiefs--and the neckwear--they all have a foreign look. There may be a clue in that--we might trace him in France if we can't in England.

Perhaps he is a Frenchman."

"I'll take my oath he isn't!" exclaimed Mr. Dellingham. "However long he'd been out of England he hadn't lost a North-Country accent! He was some sort of a North-Countryman--Yorks.h.i.+re or Lancas.h.i.+re, I'll go bail.

No Frenchman, officer--not he!"

"Well, there's no papers here, anyway," said Mitchington, who had now emptied the suit-case. "Nothing to show who he was. Nothing here, you see, in the way of paper but this old book--what is it--History of Barthorpe."

"He showed me that in the train," remarked Mr. Dellingham. "I'm interested in antiquities and archaeology, and anybody who's long in my society finds it out. We got talking of such things, and he pulled out that book, and told me with great pride, that he'd picked it up from a book-barrow in the street, somewhere in London, for one-and-six. I think," he added musingly, "that what attracted him in it was the old calf binding and the steel frontispiece--I'm sure he'd no great knowledge of antiquities."

Mitchington laid the book down, and Bryce picked it up, examined the t.i.tle-page, and made a mental note of the fact that Barthorpe was a market-town in the Midlands. And it was on the tip of his tongue to say that if the dead man had no particular interest in antiquities and archaeology, it was somewhat strange that he should have bought a book which was mainly antiquarian, and that it might be that he had so bought it because of a connection between Barthorpe and himself. But he remembered that it was his own policy to keep pertinent facts for his own private consideration, so he said nothing. And Mitchington presently remarking that there was no more to be done there, and ascertaining from Mr. Dellingham that it was his intention to remain in Wrychester for at any rate a few days, they went downstairs again, and Bryce and the inspector crossed over to the police-station.

The news had spread through the heart of the city, and at the police-station doors a crowd had gathered. Just inside two or three princ.i.p.al citizens were talking to the Superintendent--amongst them was Mr. Stephen Folliot, the stepfather of young Bonham--a big, heavy-faced man who had been a resident in the Close for some years, was known to be of great wealth, and had a reputation as a grower of rare roses. He was telling the Superintendent something--and the Superintendent beckoned to Mitchington.

"Mr. Folliot says he saw this gentleman in the Cathedral," he said.

"Can't have been so very long before the accident happened, Mr. Folliot, from what you say."