“There’ll be an inquest, of course,” remarked Ransford mechanically.  “Well—­we can do nothing, Mitchington.  You’d better have the body removed to the mortuary.”  He turned and looked up the broken stairway at the foot of which they were standing.  “You say he fell down that?” he asked.  “Whatever was he doing up there?”

Mitchington looked at Bryce.

“Haven’t you told Dr. Ransford how it was?” he asked.

“No,” answered Bryce.  He glanced at Ransford, indicating Varner, who had come back with the constable and was standing by.  “He didn’t fall,” he went on, watching Ransford narrowly.  “He was violently flung out of that doorway.  Varner here saw it.”

Ransford’s cheek flushed, and he was unable to repress a slight start.  He looked at the mason.

“You actually saw it!” he exclaimed.  “Why, what did you see?”

“Him!” answered Varner, nodding at the dead man.  “Flung, head and heels, clean through that doorway up there.  Hadn’t a chance to save himself, he hadn’t!  Just grabbed at —­nothing!—­and came down.  Give a year’s wages if I hadn’t seen it—­and heard him scream.”

Ransford was watching Varner with a set, concentrated look.

“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 shirt 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 identity, 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 assured 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.