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Updated: June 24, 2025
Anne had once suggested, timorously, that Braden's place was at the sufferer's bedside, but the smile that the old man bestowed upon her was so significant, so full of understanding, that she shrank within herself and said no more.
"I'm afraid you are given to flattery, Mr. Mr. " she replied hurriedly. "Whom have I the pleasure of speaking to?" "Job Braden's my name," he answered, "but you have the advantage of me." "How?" demanded the thoroughly bewildered Mrs. Pomfret. "I hain't heard your name," he said. "Oh, I'm Mrs. Pomfret a very old friend of Mr. Crewe's.
But you got this end of the ford. That makes a little difference." "Makes 'bout fifteen hunderd dollars' diff'rence." It was Braden's turn to laugh. "My friend, you'll hist to two thousand pretty soon," he warned; and arose. "Better take five hunderd and fifty when it's offered." He flung out his hands as if he were feeding hens. Lancaster got up with him, righteously angry.
"I've thought of two or three things," answered the detective. "One's this was the fifty pounds paid for information? If so, and Bryce has that information, why doesn't he show his hand more plainly? If he bribed Collishaw with fifty pounds: to tell him who Braden's assailant was, he now knows! so why doesn't he let it out, and have done with it?"
"Because I know that he had such a paper in his purse the night he came to the Mitre," answered Harker, "and was certain to have it there next morning, and because I also know that you were left alone with the body for some minutes after Varner fetched you to it, and that when Braden's clothing and effects were searched by Mitchington, the paper wasn't there. So, of course, you took it!
The tears rushed to Braden's eyes. "Poor old granddaddy," he murmured. Then, after a second's hesitation, he turned and swiftly mounted the stairs. Anne, watching him from below, was saying to herself, over and over again: "He will never forgive me, he will never forgive me."
"What," he asked in a whisper, "what have you done with that scrap of paper that you took out of Braden's purse?"
No matter what happened now she would know that she had not lost all of him. After a while she found herself actually enjoying the prospect of certain failure on Braden's part in the case of Marraville. Reviled and excoriated beyond endurance, he would take refuge in the haven that she alone could open to him.
He was not asking for mercy at the hands of a man who loved him and who could not deny him. He was demanding something for which he was willing to pay, not with love and gratitude, but with money. Would he look up into Braden's eyes and say, "God bless you," when the end was at hand? Moved by a sudden irresistible impulse she flung reserve aside and decided to make an appeal to Braden.
There was little that Bryce could say or could be asked to say at the inquest on the mason's labourer next morning. Public interest and excitement was as keen about Collishaw's mysterious death as about Braden's, for it was already rumoured through the town that if Braden had not met with his death when he came to Wrychester, Collishaw would still be alive.
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