“Very likely,” said Jettison.  They had crossed the Close by that time and come to a gas-lamp which stood at the entrance, and the detective pulled out his watch and glanced at it.  “Ten past eleven,” he said.  “You say you know this Bryce pretty well?  Now, would it be too late—­if he’s up still—­to take a look at him!  If you and he are on good terms, you could make an excuse.  After what I’ve heard, I’d like to get at close quarters with this gentleman.”

“Easy enough,” assented Mitchington.  “I’ve been there as late as this—­he’s one of the sort that never goes to bed before midnight.  Come on!—­it’s close by.  But—­not a word of where we’ve been.  I’ll say I’ve dropped in to give him a bit of news.  We’ll tell him about the jewel business—­and see how he takes it.  And while we’re there—­size him up!”

Mitchington was right in his description of Bryce’s habits —­Bryce rarely went to bed before one o’clock in the morning.  He liked to sit up, reading.  His favourite mental food was found in the lives of statesmen and diplomatists, most of them of the sort famous for trickery and chicanery—­he not only made a close study of the ways of these gentry but wrote down notes and abstracts of passages which particularly appealed to him.  His lamp was burning when Mitchington and Jettison came in view of his windows—­but that night Bryce was doing no thinking about statecraft:  his mind was fixed on his own affairs.  He had lighted his fire on going home and for an hour had sat with his legs stretched out on the fender, carefully weighing things up.  The event of the night had convinced him that he was at a critical phase of his present adventure, and it behoved him, as a good general, to review his forces.

The forestalling of his plans about the hiding-place in Paradise had upset Bryce’s schemes—­he had figured on being able to turn that secret, whatever it was, to his own advantage.  It struck him now, as he meditated, that he had never known exactly what he expected to get out of that secret—­but he had hoped that it would have been something which would make a few more considerable and tightly-strung meshes in the net which he was endeavouring to weave around Ransford.  Now he was faced by the fact that it was not going to yield anything in the way of help—­it was a secret no longer, and it had yielded nothing beyond the mere knowledge that John Braden, who was in reality John Brake, had carried the secret to Warchester—­to reveal it in the proper quarter.  That helped Bryce in no way—­so far as he could see.  And therefore it was necessary to re-state his case to himself; to take stock; to see where he stood—­and more than all, to put plainly before his own mind exactly what he wanted.