“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 one single word about them.  Harker asked if he could do anything —­Brake’s answer was that no one was to concern himself.  He preserved an obstinate silence on that point.  The clergyman in whose family Mrs. Brake had been governess saw Brake, after his conviction—­Brake would say nothing to him.  Of Mrs. Brake, nothing more is known—­to me at any rate.  What was known at the time is this—­Brake communicated to all who came in contact with him, just then, the idea of a man who has been cruelly wronged and deceived, who takes refuge in sullen silence, and who is already planning and cherishing—­revenge!”

“Aye, aye!” muttered Mitchington.  “Revenge?—­just So!”