“Wait a minute,” he said. “I've an abstract here--of what the foreman at the Cathedral mason's yard told me of what he knew as to where Collishaw was working that morning when the accident happened--I made a note of it when I questioned him after Collishaw's death. Here you are: 'Foreman says that on morning of Braden's accident, Collishaw was at work in the north gallery of the clerestory, clearing away some timber which the carpenters had left there. Collishaw was certainly thus engaged from nine o'clock until past eleven that morning. Mem. Have investigated this myself. From the exact spot where C. was clearing the timber, there is an uninterrupted view of the gallery on the south side of the nave, and of the arched doorway at the head of St. Wrytha's Stair.'” “'Well,” observed Jettison, “that proves what I'm saying. It wasn't hush-money. For whoever it was that Collishaw saw lay hands on Braden, it wasn't Bryce--Bryce, we know, was at that time coming across the Close or crossing that path through the part you call Paradise: Varner's evidence proves that. So--if the fifty pounds wasn't paid for hush-money, what was it paid for?” “Do you suggest anything?” asked Mitchington. “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?” “Part of his game--if that theory's right,” murmured Mitchington. “It mayn't be right,” said Jettison. “But it's one. And there's another--supposing he paid Collishaw that money on behalf of somebody else? I've thought this business out right and left, top-side and bottom-side, and hang me if I don't feel certain there is somebody else! What did Ransford tell us about Bryce and this old Harker--think of that! And yet, according to Bryce, Harker is one of our old Yard men!--and therefore ought to be above suspicion.” Mitchington suddenly started as if an idea had occurred to him. “I say, you know!” he exclaimed. “We've only Bryce's word for it that Harker is an ex-detective. I never heard that he was--if he is, he's kept it strangely quiet. You'd have thought that he'd have let us know, here, of his previous calling--I never heard of a policeman of any rank who didn't like to have a bit of talk with his own sort about professional matters.”