The Paradise Mystery

plain enough to see; his face was still pale, he was muttering to himself, one clenched fist was pounding the open palm of the other hand-altogether, he looked like a man who is suddenly confro

?" he demanded almost fiercely. "What

ed to have s

adise-man fallen from that door at the head of St. Wrytha's Stair. I

aimed Ransford. "Wh

It was improbable that any one but himself knew of the call; the side entrance to the surgery was screened from the Close by a shrubbery; it w

e answered. "Looks like a well-to-do tourist

ken aback. For he had condemned Ransford-and yet that glance was one of apparently genuine surprise, a glance which almost conv

slightly built?" said Ransfo

who was now considerably a

l, a while ago," answered Ransford. "A

was silent, too. He had studied Ransford a good deal during their two years' acquaintanceship, and he knew Ransford's power of repressing and commanding his feelings and concealing his thoughts. And now he decided that the look and star

n is?" asked Ransford, after a brief examination, as he turned to M

ockets myself: there isn't a scrap of paper-not even as much as an old letter. But he's evidently a tourist, or som

. You'd better have the body removed to the mortuary." He turned and looked up the broken stairway at the

on looked

Dr. Ransford how

with the constable and was standing by. "He didn't fall," he went on, watching Ra

e was unable to repress a sligh

!" he exclaimed. "Wh

h that doorway up there. Hadn't a chance to save himself, he hadn't! Just grabbed at-

ng Varner with a se

e asked suddenly.

all. But," he added, turning to the police with a knowing look, "there's one thing I can s

he just as suddenly turn

the body removed, though, first-do it now before the morning service is over. And-let m

ss 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, wh

to the inspector. "He was standing at the door of t

said Mitchington. "Come wit

he 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 wind

obble-paved yard. "Somebody's been in to say there's been an accident to a

he inspector. "He was seen outside here

distress, and opening a side-door, m

came together last night, they did-a tall one and a short

grimly. "And we want to know who he is. Hav

her plump hands in horror. But her business faculties remained alive, and she ma

leman's name-Mr. John Braden, London. And that's the tall one's-Mr. Christopher D

s. Partingley?" asked Mitch

go out together this morning, though they'd breakfast together. After breakfast, Mr. Dellingham asked me the way to the old Manor Mill, and he went off there, so I concluded. Mr. Braden, he hung about a bit, studying a local directory I'd lent him, and after a while he asked me if

hington. "Did he say anything ab

to find the Duke at home at that time of day. I said I knew his Grace was at Saxonstea

s business with the Du

. "Oh, no!-just that, and no mo

the window-the door opened and he walked in, to glance inquis

ntleman I came in with last night?" he said

r," answered the landlady. She glanced at Mi

s, sir?" asked Mitchingt

from London, got talking, and discovered we were both coming to the same place-Wrychester. So-we came to this house

Mitchington. "And now we

h," he went on, as if a sudden recollection had come to him; "I gathered that he'd only just arrived in England-in fact, now I come to think of it, he said as much. Made some remark in the train about the pleasantness of the English landscape, don't yo

chington. "There isn't a paper, a le

am looked at

or something of the sort-something light-which he carrie

ad," said Mitchington. "We'd better

nt into a bedroom which looked out on Monday Market. And there, on a side-table, lay a small leather suit

in the room. There was very little to see-what toilet articles the visitor brought were spread out on the dressing-table-brushes, c

most unworn-and those things on the dressing-table are new. And what there is here looks new, too. There's not much, you see-he evidently had no intention of a long stop. An ext

articles as he took them out,

ame, inside the collar, just as in England. Aristide Pujol, 82, Rue des Capucines. And-judging by the look of 'em-I should say these shirts were bought there, too-and the

out of England he hadn't lost a North-Country accent! He was some sort of a Nort

ptied the suit-case. "Nothing to show who he was. Nothing here, you see,

king of such things, and he pulled out that book, and told me with great pride, that he'd picked it up from a book-barrow in the street, somewhere in London, for one-an

somewhat strange that he should have bought a book which was mainly antiquarian, and that it might be that he had so bought it because of a connection between Barthorpe and himself. But he remembered that it was his own policy to keep pertinent facts for his own private consideration, so he sa

e Superintendent-amongst them was Mr. Stephen Folliot, the stepfather of young Bonham-a big, heavy-faced man who had been a resident in the Close for some years, was k

ral," he said. "Can't have been so very long before t

se I'd gone in for the morning service, which is at ten. I saw him go up the inside stair to the cleresto

west porch. There was a stairway from the gallery down to that west porch. What, then, was the inference? But for the moment he drew none-inst