British Murder Mysteries: J. S. Fletcher Edition (40+ Titles in One Volume). J. S. Fletcher

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СКАЧАТЬ man!” he gasped. “Foot of St. Wrytha’s Stair there, doctor. Dead—or if not dead, near it. I saw it!”

      Bryce seized Varner’s arm and gave it a shake.

      “You saw—what?” he demanded.

      “Saw him—fall. Or rather—flung!” panted Varner. “Somebody—couldn’t see who, nohow—flung him right through yon doorway, up there. He fell right over the steps—crash!” Bryce looked over the tops of the yews and cypresses at the doorway in the clerestory to which Varner pointed—a low, open archway gained by the half-ruinous stair. It was forty feet at least from the ground.

      “You saw him—thrown!” he exclaimed. “Thrown—down there? Impossible, man!”

      “Tell you I saw it!” asserted Varner doggedly. “I was looking at one of those old tombs yonder—somebody wants some repairs doing—and the jackdaws were making such a to-do up there by the roof I glanced up at them. And I saw this man thrown through that door—fairly flung through it! God!—do you think I could mistake my own eyes?”

      “Did you see who flung him?” asked Bryce.

      “No; I saw a hand—just for one second, as it might be—by the edge of the doorway,” answered Varner. “I was more for watching him! He sort of tottered for a second on the step outside the door, turned over and screamed—I can hear it now!—and crashed down on the flags beneath.”

      “How long since?” demanded Bryce.

      “Five or six minutes,” said Varner. “I rushed to him—I’ve been doing what I could. But I saw it was no good, so I was running for help—”

      Bryce pushed him towards the bushes by which they were standing.

      “Take me to him,” he said. “Come on!”

      Varner turned back, making a way through the cypresses. He led Bryce to the foot of the great wall of the nave. There in the corner formed by the angle of nave and transept, on a broad pavement of flagstones, lay the body of a man crumpled up in a curiously twisted position. And with one glance, even before he reached it, Bryce knew what body it was—that of the man who had come, shyly and furtively, to Ransford’s door.

      “Look!” exclaimed Varner, suddenly pointing. “He’s stirring!”

      Bryce, whose gaze was fastened on the twisted figure, saw a slight movement which relaxed as suddenly as it had occurred. Then came stillness. “That’s the end!” he muttered. “The man’s dead! I’ll guarantee that before I put a hand on him. Dead enough!” he went on, as he reached the body and dropped on one knee by it. “His neck’s broken.”

      The mason bent down and looked, half-curiously, half-fearfully, at the dead man. Then he glanced upward—at the open door high above them in the walls.

      “It’s a fearful drop, that, sir,” he said. “And he came down with such violence. You’re sure it’s over with him?”

      “He died just as we came up,” answered Bryce. “That movement we saw was the last effort—involuntary, of course. Look here, Varner!—you’ll have to get help. You’d better fetch some of the cathedral people—some of the vergers. No!” he broke off suddenly, as the low strains of an organ came from within the great building. “They’re just beginning the morning service—of course, it’s ten o’clock. Never mind them—go straight to the police. Bring them back—I’ll stay here.”

      The mason turned off towards the gateway of the Close, and while the strains of the organ grew louder, Bryce bent over the dead man, wondering what had really happened. Thrown from an open doorway in the clerestory over St. Wrytha’s Stair?—it seemed almost impossible! But a sudden thought struck him: supposing two men, wishing to talk in privacy unobserved, had gone up into the clerestory of the Cathedral—as they easily could, by more than one door, by more than one stair—and supposing they had quarrelled, and one of them had flung or pushed the other through the door above—what then? And on the heels of that thought hurried another—this man, now lying dead, had come to the surgery, seeking Ransford, and had subsequently gone away, presumably in search of him, and Bryce himself had just seen Ransford, obviously agitated and pale of cheek, leaving the west porch; what did it all mean? what was the apparently obvious inference to be drawn? Here was the stranger dead—and Varner was ready to swear that he had seen him thrown, flung violently, through the door forty feet above. That was—murder! Then—who was the murderer?

      Bryce looked carefully and narrowly around him. Now that Varner had gone away, there was not a human being in sight, nor anywhere near, so far as he knew. On one side of him and the dead man rose the grey walls of nave and transept; on the other, the cypresses and yews rising amongst the old tombs and monuments. Assuring himself that no one was near, no eye watching, he slipped his hand into the inner breast pocket of the dead man’s smart morning coat. Such a man must carry papers—papers would reveal something. And Bryce wanted to know anything—anything that would give information and let him into whatever secret there might be between this unlucky stranger and Ransford.

      But the breast pocket was empty; there was no pocket-book there; there were no papers there. Nor were there any papers elsewhere in the other pockets which he hastily searched: there was not even a card with a name on it. But he found a purse, full of money—banknotes, gold, silver—and in one of its compartments a scrap of paper folded curiously, after the fashion of the cocked-hat missives of another age in which envelopes had not been invented. Bryce hurriedly unfolded this, and after one glance at its contents, made haste to secrete it in his own pocket. He had only just done this and put back the purse when he heard Varner’s voice, and a second later the voice of Inspector Mitchington, a well-known police official. And at that Bryce sprang to his feet, and when the mason and his companions emerged from the bushes was standing looking thoughtfully at the dead man. He turned to Mitchington with a shake of the head.

      “Dead!” he said in a hushed voice. “Died as we got to him. Broken—all to pieces, I should say—neck and spine certainly. I suppose Varner’s told you what he saw.”

      Mitchington, a sharp-eyed, dark-complexioned man, quick of movement, nodded, and after one glance at the body, looked up at the open doorway high above them.

      “That the door?” he asked, turning to Varner. “And—it was open?”

      “It’s always open,” answered Varner. “Least-ways, it’s been open, like that, all this spring, to my knowledge.”

      “What is there behind it?” inquired Mitchington.

      “Sort of gallery, that runs all round the nave,” replied Varner. “Clerestory gallery—that’s what it is. People can go up there and walk around—lots of ‘em do—tourists, you know. There’s two or three ways up to it—staircases in the turrets.”

      Mitchington turned to one of the two constables who had followed him.

      “Let Varner show you the way up there,” he said. “Go quietly—don’t make any fuss—the morning service is just beginning. Say nothing to anybody—just take a quiet look around, along that gallery, especially near the door there—and come back here.” He looked down at the dead man again as the mason and the constable went away. “A stranger, I should think, doctor—tourist, most likely. But—thrown down! That man Varner is positive. That looks like foul play.”

      “Oh, there’s no doubt of that!” asserted Bryce. “You’ll have СКАЧАТЬ