Page:The Paradise Mystery - Fletcher (1920).djvu/73

buried in Paradise in 1715, was still there, amongst the cypresses and yew trees, the name and inscription on it had vanished, worn away by time and weather, when that chart had been made, a hundred and thirty-five years later. And in that case, what did the memorandum mean which Bryce had found in the dead man's purse?

He turned away at last from the chart, at a loss—and Campany glanced at him.

"Found what you wanted?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!" replied Bryce, primed with a ready answer. "I just wanted to see where the Spelbanks were buried—quite a lot of them, I see."

"Southeast corner of Paradise," said Campany. "Several tombs. I could have spared you the trouble of looking."

"You're a regular encyclopaedia about the place," laughed Bryce. "I suppose you know every spout and gargoyle!"

"Ought to," answered the librarian. "I've been fed on it, man and boy, for five-and-forty years."

Bryce made some fitting remark and went out and home to his rooms—there to spend most of the ensuing evening in trying to puzzle out the various mysteries of the day. He got no more light on them then, and he was still exercising his brains on them when he went to the inquest next morning—to find the Coroner's court packed to the doors with an assemblage of townsfolk just as curious as he was. And as he sat there, listening to the preliminaries, and to the evidence of the first witnesses, his active and scheming mind figured to itself, not without much cynical amusement, how a word or two from his lips would