Mary glanced at an open summer-house which stood beneath the beech trees on one side of the garden. She moved towards it and sat down there, and Bryce followed her and seated himself. “Well--” she said. Bryce realized that his moment had arrived. He paused, endeavouring to remember the careful preparations he had made for putting his case. Somehow, he was not so clear as to his line of attack as he had been ten minutes previously--he realized that he had to deal with a young woman who was not likely to be taken in nor easily deceived. And suddenly he plunged into what he felt to be the thick of things. “Whether you, or whether Ransford--whether both or either of you, know it or not,” he said, “the police have been on to Ransford ever since that Collishaw affair! Underground work, you know. Mitchington has been digging into things ever since then, and lately he's had a London detective helping him.” Mary, who had carried her work into the garden, had now resumed it, and as Bryce began to talk she bent over it steadily stitching. “Well?” she said. “Look here!” continued Bryce. “Has it never struck you--it must have done!--that there's considerable mystery about Ransford? But whether it has struck you or not, it's there, and it's struck the police forcibly. Mystery connected with him before--long before--he ever came here. And associated, in some way, with that man Braden. Not of late--in years past. And, naturally, the police have tried to find out what that was.” “What have they found out?” asked Mary quietly. “That I'm not at liberty to tell,” replied Bryce. “But I can tell you this--they know, Mitchington and the London man, that there were passages between Ransford and Braden years ago.” “How many years ago?” interrupted Mary. Bryce hesitated a moment. He had a suspicion that this self-possessed young woman who was taking everything more quietly than he had anticipated, might possibly know more than he gave her credit for knowing. He had been watching her fingers since they sat down in the summer-house, and his sharp eyes saw that they were as steady as the spire of the cathedral above the trees--he knew from that that she was neither frightened nor anxious. “Oh, well--seventeen to twenty years ago,” he answered. “About that time. There were passages, I say, and they were of a nature which suggests that the re-appearance of Braden on Ransford's present stage of life would be, extremely unpleasant and unwelcome to Ransford.” “Vague!” murmured Mary. “Extremely vague!” “But quite enough,” retorted Bryce, “to give the police the suggestion of motive. I tell you the police know quite enough to know that Braden was, of all men in the world, the last man Ransford desired to see cross his path again. And--on that morning on which the Paradise affair occurred--Braden did cross his path. Therefore, in the conventional police way of thinking and looking at things, there's motive.” “Motive for what?” asked Mary.