there were people in Wrychester who were unkind enough to say—­behind her back —­that she was as meddlesome as she was most undoubtedly autocratic, but, as one of her staunchest clerical defenders once pointed out, these grumblers were what might be contemptuously dismissed as five-shilling subscribers.  Mrs. Folliot, in her way, was undoubtedly a power—­and for reasons of his own Pemberton Bryce, whenever he met her—­which was fairly often—­was invariably suave and polite.

“Most mysterious thing, this, Dr. Bryce,” remarked Mrs. Folliot in her deepest tones, encountering Bryce, the day after the funeral, at the corner of a back street down which she was about to sail on one of her charitable missions, to the terror of any of the women who happened to be caught gossiping.  “What, now, should make Dr. Ransford cause flowers to be laid on the grave of a total stranger?  A sentimental feeling?  Fiddle-de-dee!  There must be some reason.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mrs. Folliot,” answered Bryce, whose ears had already lengthened.  “Has Dr. Ransford been laying flowers on a grave?—­I didn’t know of it.  My engagement with Dr. Ransford terminated two days ago—­so I’ve seen nothing of him.”

“My son, Mr. Sackville Bonham,” said Mrs. Folliot, “tells me that yesterday Miss Bewery came into Gardales’ and spent a sovereign—­actually a sovereign!—­on a wreath, which, she told Sackville, she was about to carry, at her guardian’s desire, to this strange man’s grave.  Sackville, who is a warm-hearted boy, was touched—­he, too, bought flowers and accompanied Miss Bewery.  Most extraordinary!  A perfect stranger!  Dear me —­why, nobody knows who the man was!”

“Except his bank-manager,” remarked Bryce, “who says he’s holding ten thousand pounds of his.”

“That,” admitted Mrs. Folliot gravely, “is certainly a consideration.  But then, who knows?—­the money may have been stolen.  Now, really, did you ever hear of a quite respectable man who hadn’t even a visiting-card or a letter upon him?  And from Australia, too!—­where all the people that are wanted run away to!  I have actually been tempted to wonder, Dr. Bryce, if Dr. Ransford knew this man—­in years gone by?  He might have, you know, he might have—­certainly!  And that, of course, would explain the flowers.”

“There is a great deal in the matter that requires explanation, Mrs. Folliot,” said Bryce.  He was wondering if it would be wise to instil some minute drop of poison into the lady’s mind, there to increase in potency and in due course to spread.  “I—­of course, I may have been mistaken—­I certainly thought Dr. Ransford seemed unusually agitated by this affair —­it appeared to upset him greatly.”

“So I have heard—­from others who were at the inquest,” responded Mrs. Folliot.  “In my opinion our Coroner—­a worthy man otherwise—­is not sufficiently particular.  I said to Mr. Folliot this morning, on reading the newspaper, that in my view that inquest should have been adjourned for further particulars.  Now I know of one particular that was never mentioned at the inquest!”