The Paradise Mystery | Page 2

undeniable air of content and
prosperity --as he turned over a pile of letters which stood by his plate,
or glanced at the morning newspaper which lay at his elbow, it was
easy to see that he had no cares beyond those of the day, and that
they--so far as he knew then--were not likely to affect him greatly.
Seeing him in these pleasant domestic circumstances, at the head of his

table, with abundant evidences of comfort and refinement and modest
luxury about him, any one would have said, without hesitation, that Dr.
Mark Ransford was undeniably one of the fortunate folk of this world.
The second person of the three was a boy of apparently seventeen--a
well-built, handsome lad of the senior schoolboy type, who was
devoting himself in business-like fashion to two widely-differing
pursuits--one, the consumption of eggs and bacon and dry toast; the
other, the study of a Latin textbook, which he had propped up in front
of him against the old-fashioned silver cruet. His quick eyes wandered
alternately between his book and his plate; now and then he muttered a
line or two to himself. His companions took no notice of these
combinations of eating and learning: they knew from experience that it
was his way to make up at breakfast-time for the moments he had
stolen from his studies the night before.
It was not difficult to see that the third member of the party, a girl of
nineteen or twenty, was the boy's sister. Each had a wealth of brown
hair, inclining, in the girl's case to a shade that had tints of gold in it;
each had grey eyes, in which there was a mixture of blue; each had a
bright, vivid colour; each was undeniably good-looking and eminently
healthy. No one would hive doubted that both had lived a good deal of
an open-air existence: the boy was already muscular and sinewy: the
girl looked as if she was well acquainted with the tennis racket and the
golf-stick. Nor would any one have made the mistake of thinking that
these two were blood relations of the man at the head of the
table--between them and him there was not the least resemblance of
feature, of colour, or of manner.
While the boy learnt the last lines of his Latin, and the doctor turned
over the newspaper, the girl read a letter --evidently, from the large
sprawling handwriting, the missive of some girlish correspondent. She
was deep in it when, from one of the turrets of the Cathedral, a bell
began to ring. At that, she glanced at her brother.
"There's Martin, Dick!" she said. "You'll have to hurry."
Many a long year before that, in one of the bygone centuries, a worthy

citizen of Wrychester, Martin by name, had left a sum of money to the
Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral on condition that as long as ever the
Cathedral stood, they should cause to be rung a bell from its smaller
bell-tower for three minutes before nine o'clock every morning, all the
year round. What Martin's object had been no one now knew--but this
bell served to remind young gentlemen going to offices, and boys going
to school, that the hour of their servitude was near. And Dick Bewery,
without a word, bolted half his coffee, snatched up his book, grabbed at
a cap which lay with more books on a chair close by, and vanished
through the open window. The doctor laughed, laid aside his newspaper,
and handed his cup across the table.
"I don't think you need bother yourself about Dick's ever being late,
Mary," he said. "You are not quite aware of the power of legs that are
only seventeen years old. Dick could get to any given point in just
about one-fourth of the time that I could, for instance--moreover, he has
a cunning knowledge of every short cut in the city."
Mary Bewery took the empty cup and began to refill it.
"I don't like him to be late," she remarked. "It's the beginning of bad
habits."
"Oh, well!" said Ransford indulgently. "He's pretty free from anything
of that sort, you know. I haven't even suspected him of smoking, yet."
"That's because he thinks smoking would stop his growth and interfere
with his cricket," answered Mary. "He would smoke if it weren't for
that."
"That's giving him high praise, then," said Ransford. "You couldn't give
him higher! Know how to repress his inclinations. An excellent
thing--and most unusual, I fancy. Most people--don't!"
He took his refilled cup, rose from the table, and opened a box of
cigarettes which stood on the mantelpiece. And the girl, instead of
picking up her letter again, glanced at him a little doubtfully.

"That reminds me of--of something I wanted to say to