“Southeast corner of Paradise,” said Campany.  “Several tombs.  I could have spared you the trouble of looking.”

“You’re a regular encyclopaedia about the place,” laughed Bryce.  “I suppose you know every spout and gargoyle!”

“Ought to,” answered the librarian.  “I’ve been fed on it, man and boy, for five-and-forty years.”

Bryce made some fitting remark and went out and home to his rooms—­there to spend most of the ensuing evening in trying to puzzle out the various mysteries of the day.  He got no more light on them then, and he was still exercising his brains on them when he went to the inquest next morning—­to find the Coroner’s court packed to the doors with an assemblage of townsfolk just as curious as he was.  And as he sat there, listening to the preliminaries, and to the evidence of the first witnesses, his active and scheming mind figured to itself, not without much cynical amusement, how a word or two from his lips would go far to solve matters.  He thought of what he might tell—­if he told all the truth.  He thought of what he might get out of Ransford if he, Bryce, were Coroner, or solicitor, and had Ransford in that witness-box.  He would ask him on his oath if he knew that dead man—­if he had had dealings with him in times past—­if he had met and spoken to him on that eventful morning—­he would ask him, point-blank, if it was not his hand that had thrown him to his death.  But Bryce had no intention of making any revelations just then—­as for himself he was going to tell just as much as he pleased and no more.  And so he sat and heard—­and knew from what he heard that everybody there was in a hopeless fog, and that in all that crowd there was but one man who had any real suspicion of the truth, and that that man was himself.

The evidence given in the first stages of the inquiry was all known to Bryce, and to most people in the court, already.  Mr. Dellingham told how he had met the dead man in the train, journeying from London to Wrychester.  Mrs. Partingley told how he had arrived at the Mitre, registered in her book as Mr. John Braden, and had next morning asked if he could get a conveyance for Saxonsteade in the afternoon, as he wished to see the Duke.  Mr. Folliot testified to having seen him in the Cathedral, going towards one of the stairways leading to the gallery.  Varner—­most important witness of all up to that point—­told of what he had seen.  Bryce himself, followed by Ransford, gave medical evidence; Mitchington told of his examination of the dead man’s clothing and effects in his room at the Mitre.  And Mitchington added the first information which was new to Bryce.

“In consequence of finding the book about Barthorpe in the suit-case,” said Mitchington, “we sent a long telegram yesterday to the police there, telling them what had happened, and asking them to make the most careful inquiries at once about any townsman of theirs of the name of John Braden, and to wire us the result of such inquiries this morning.  This is their reply, received by us an hour ago.  Nothing whatever is known at Barthorpe—­which is a very small town—­of any person of that name.”