“Brake, then,” continued Bryce, “goes off to his term of penal servitude, and so disappears—­until he reappears here in Wrychester.  Leave him for a moment, and go back.  And—­it’s a going back, no doubt, to supposition and to theory—­but there’s reason in what I shall advance.  We know—­beyond doubt—­that Brake had been tricked and deceived, in some money matter, by some man—­some mysterious man—­whom he referred to as having been his closest friend.  We know, too, that there was extraordinary mystery in the disappearance of his wife and children.  Now, from all that has been found out, who was Brake’s closest friend?  Ransford!  And of Ransford, at that time, there’s no trace.  He, too, disappeared—­that’s a fact which I’ve established.  Years later, he reappears—­here at Wrychester, where he’s bought a practice.  Eventually he has two young people, who are represented as his wards, come to live with him.  Their name is Bewery.  The name of the young woman whom John Brake married was Bewery.  What’s the inference?  That their mother’s dead—­that they’re known under her maiden name:  that they, without a shadow of doubt, are John Brake’s children.  And that leads up to my theory—­which I’ll now tell you in confidence—­if you wish for it.”

“It’s what I particularly wish for,” observed Jettison quietly.  “The very thing!”

“Then, it’s this,” said Bryce.  “Ransford was the close friend who tricked and deceived Brake: 

“He probably tricked him in some money affair, and deceived him in his domestic affairs.  I take it that Ransford ran away with Brake’s wife, and that Brake, sooner than air all his grievance to the world, took it silently and began to concoct his ideas of revenge.  I put the whole thing this way.  Ransford ran away with Mrs. Brake and the two children—­mere infants—­and disappeared.  Brake, when he came out of prison, went abroad—­possibly with the idea of tracking them.  Meanwhile, as is quite evident, he engaged in business and did well.  He came back to England as John Braden, and, for the reason of which you’re aware, he paid a visit to Wrychester, utterly unaware that any one known to him lived here.  Now, try to reconstruct what happened.  He looks round the Close that morning.  He sees the name of Dr. Mark Ransford on the brass plate of a surgery door.  He goes to the surgery, asks a question, makes a remark, goes away.  What is the probable sequence of events?  He meets Ransford near the Cathedral —­where Ransford certainly was.  They recognize each other —­most likely they turn aside, go up to that gallery as a quiet place, to talk—­there is an altercation—­blows—­somehow or other, probably from accident, Braden is thrown through that open doorway, to his death.  And—­Collishaw saw what happened!”

Bryce was watching his listeners, turning alternately from one to the other.  But it needed little attention on his part to see that theirs was already closely strained; each man was eagerly taking in all that he said and suggested.  And he went on emphasizing every point as he made it.