"Yes!" replied Bryce. "A mystery that I want to solve, sir. And I dare
say that you can help me, if you'll be so good. I am convinced--in fact,
I know!--that this young lady is in ignorance of her parentage, that
Ransford is keeping some fact, some truth back from her--and I want to
find things out. By the merest chance--accident, in fact--I discovered
yesterday at Braden Medworth that some twenty-two years ago you married
one Mary Bewery, who, I learnt there, was your governess, to a John
Brake, and that Mark Ransford was John Brake's best man and a witness
of the marriage. Now, Mr. Gilwaters, the similarity in names is too
striking to be devoid of significance. So--it's of the utmost importance
to me!--can or will you tell me--who was the Mary Bewery you married to
John Brake? Who was John Brake? And what was Mark Ransford to either, or
to both?"

He was wondering, all the time during which he reeled off these
questions, if Mr. Gilwaters was wholly ignorant of the recent affair
at Wrychester. He might be--a glance round his book-filled room had
suggested to Bryce that he was much more likely to be a bookworm than a
newspaper reader, and it was quite possible that the events of the day
had small interest for him. And his first words in reply to Bryce's
questions convinced Bryce that his surmise was correct and that the
old man had read nothing of the Wrychester Paradise mystery, in which
Ransford's name had, of course, figured as a witness at the inquest.

"It is nearly twenty years since I heard any of their names," remarked
Mr. Gilwaters. "Nearly twenty years--a long time! But, of course, I can
answer you. Mary Bewery was our governess at Braden Medworth. She came
to us when she was nineteen--she was married four years later. She was a
girl who had no friends or relatives--she had been educated at a school
in the North--I engaged her from that school, where, I understood, she
had lived since infancy. Now then, as to Brake and Ransford. They were
two young men from London, who used to come fishing in Leicestershire.
Ransford was a few years the younger--he was either a medical student in
his last year, or he was an assistant somewhere in London. Brake--was a
bank manager in London--of a branch of one of the big banks. They
were pleasant young fellows, and I used to ask them to the vicarage.
Eventually, Mary Bewery and John Brake became engaged to be married. My
wife and I were a good deal surprised--we had believe