The Paradise Mystery by J. S. Fletcher (simple e reader TXT) 📗

old man. “I saw John Brake again just once. In a prison cell!”

“A prison cell!” exclaimed Bryce. “And he—a prisoner?”

“He had just been sentenced to ten years' penal servitude,” replied Mr. Gilwaters. “I had heard the sentence—I was present. I got leave to see him. Ten years' penal servitude!—a terrible punishment. He must have been released long ago—but I never heard more.”

Bryce reflected in silence for a moment—reckoning and calculating.

“When was this—the trial?” he asked.

“It was five years after the marriage—seventeen years ago,” replied Mr. Gilwaters.

“And—what had he been doing?” inquired Bryce.

“Stealing the bank's money,” answered the old man. “I forget what the technical offence was—embezzlement, or something of that sort. There was not much evidence came out, for it was impossible to offer any defence, and he pleaded guilty. But I gathered from what I heard that something of this sort occurred. Brake was a branch manager. He was, as it were, pounced upon one morning by an inspector, who found that his cash was short by two or three thousand pounds. The bank people seemed to have been unusually strict and even severe—Brake, it was said, had some explanation, but it was swept aside and he was given in charge. And the sentence was as I said just now—a very savage one, I thought. But there had recently been some bad cases of that sort in the banking world, and I suppose the judge felt that he must make an example. Yes—a most trying affair!—I have a report of the case somewhere, which I cut out of a London newspaper at the time.”

Mr. Gilwaters rose and turned to an old desk in the corner of his room, and after some rummaging of papers in a drawer, produced a newspaper-cutting book and traced an insertion in its pages. He handed the book to his visitor.

“There is the account,” he said. “You can read it for yourself. You will notice that in what Brake's counsel said on his behalf there are one or two curious and mysterious hints as to what might have been said if it had been of any use or advantage to say it. A strange case!”

Bryce turned eagerly to the faded scrap of newspaper.

BANK MANAGER'S DEFALCATION. At the Central Criminal Court yesterday, John Brake, thirty-three, formerly manager of the Upper Tooting branch of the London & Home Counties Bank, Ltd., pleaded guilty to embezzling certain sums, the property of his employers. Mr. Walkinshaw, Q.C., addressing the court on behalf of the prisoner, said that while it was impossible for his client to offer any defence, there were circumstances in the case which, if it had been worth while to put them in evidence, would have shown that the prisoner was a wronged and deceived man. To use a Scriptural phrase, Brake had been wounded in the house of his friend. The man who was really guilty in this affair had cleverly escaped all consequences, nor would it be of the least use to enter into any details respecting him. Not one penny of the money in question had been used by the prisoner for his own purposes. It was doubtless a wrong and improper thing that his client had done, and he had pleaded guilty and would submit to the consequences. But if everything in connection with the case could have been told, if it would have served any useful purpose to tell it, it would have been seen that what the prisoner really was guilty of was a foolish and serious error of judgment. He himself, concluded the learned counsel, would go so far as to say that, knowing what he did, knowing what had been told him by his client in strict confidence, the prisoner, though technically guilty, was morally innocent. His Lordship, merely remarking that no excuse of any sort could be offered in a case of this sort, sentenced the prisoner to ten years' penal servitude.

Bryce read this over twice before handing back the book.

“Very strange and mysterious, Mr. Gilwaters,” he remarked. “You say that you saw Brake after the case was over. Did you learn anything?”

“Nothing whatever!” answered the old clergyman. “I got permission to see him before he was taken away. He did not seem particularly pleased or disposed to see me. I begged him to tell me what the real truth was. He was, I think, somewhat dazed by the sentence—but he was also sullen and morose. I asked him where his wife and two children—one, a mere infant—were. For I had already been to his private address and had found that Mrs. Brake had sold all the furniture and disappeared—completely. No one—thereabouts, at any rate—knew where she was, or would tell me anything. On my asking this, he refused to answer. I pressed him—he said finally that he was only speaking the truth when he replied that he did not know where his wife was. I said I must find her. He forbade me to make any attempt. Then I begged him to tell me if she was with friends. I remember very well what he replied.—'I'm not going to say one word more to any man living, Mr. Gilwaters,' he answered determinedly. 'I shall be dead to the world—only because I've been a trusting fool!—for ten years or thereabouts, but, when I come back to it, I'll let the world see what revenge means! Go away!' he concluded. 'I won't say one word more.' And—I left him.”

“And—you made no more inquiries?—about the wife?” asked Bryce.

“I did what I could,” replied Mr. Gilwaters. “I made some inquiry in the neighbourhood in which they had lived. All I could discover was that Mrs. Brake had disappeared under extraordinarily mysterious circumstances. There was no trace whatever of her. And I speedily found that things were being said—the usual cruel suspicions, you know.”

“Such as—what?” asked Bryce.

“That the amount of the defalcations was much larger than had been allowed to appear,” replied Mr. Gilwaters. “That Brake was a very clever rogue who had got the money safely planted somewhere abroad, and that his wife had gone off somewhere—Australia, or Canada, or some other far-off region—to await his release. Of course, I didn't believe one word of all that. But there was the fact—she had vanished! And eventually, I thought of Ransford, as having been Brake's great friend, so I tried to find him. And then I found that he, too, who up to that time had been practising in a London suburb—Streatham—had also disappeared. Just after Brake's arrest, Ransford had suddenly sold his practice and gone—no one knew where, but it was believed—abroad. I couldn't trace him, anyway. And soon after that I had a long illness, and for two or three years was an invalid, and—well, the thing was over and done with, and, as I said just now, I have never heard anything of any of them for all these years. And now!—now you tell me that there is a Mary Bewery who is a ward of a Dr. Mark Ransford at—where did you say?”

“At Wrychester,” answered Bryce. “She is a young woman of twenty, and she has a brother, Richard, who is between seventeen and eighteen.”

“Without a doubt those are Brake's children!” exclaimed the old man. “The infant I spoke of was a boy. Bless me!—how extraordinary. How long have they been at Wrychester?”

“Ransford has been in practice there some years—a few years,” replied Bryce. “These two young people joined him there definitely two years ago. But from what I have learnt, he has acted as their guardian ever since they were mere children.”

“And—their mother?” asked Mr. Gilwaters.

“Said to be dead—long since,” answered Bryce. “And their father, too. They know nothing. Ransford won't tell them anything. But, as you