Bewery!  A name so uncommon that here—­here, in this out-of-the-way Midland village!—­there must be some connection with the object of his search.  There the name stood out before him, to the exclusion of all others—­Bewery—­with just one entry of figures against it.  He turned to page 387 with a sense of sure discovery.

And there an entry caught his eye at once—­and he knew that he had discovered more than he had ever hoped for.  He read it again and again, gloating over his wonderful luck.

June 19th, 1891.  John Brake, bachelor, of the parish of St. Pancras, London, to Mary Bewery, spinster, of this parish, by the Vicar.  Witnesses, Charles Claybourne, Selina Womersley, Mark Ransford.

Twenty-two years ago!  The Mary Bewery whom Bryce knew in Wrychester was just about twenty—­this Mary Bewery, spinster, of Braden Medworth, was, then, in all probability, her mother.  But John Brake who married that Mary Bewery—­who was he?  Who indeed, laughed Bryce, but John Braden, who had just come by his death in Wrychester Paradise?  And there was the name of Mark Ransford as witness.  What was the further probability?  That Mark Ransford had been John Brake’s best man; that he was the Marco of the recent Times advertisement; that John Braden, or Brake, was the Sticker of the same advertisement.  Clear! —­clear as noonday!  And—­what did it all mean, and imply, and what bearing had it on Braden or Brake’s death?

Before he ate his cold beef, Bryce had copied the entry from the reprinted register, and had satisfied himself that Ransford was not a name known to that village—­Mark Ransford was the only person of the name mentioned in the register.  And his lunch done, he set off for the vicarage again, intent on getting further information, and before he reached the vicarage gates noticed, by accident, a place whereat he was more likely to get it than from the vicar—­who was a youngish man.  At the end of the few houses between the inn and the bridge he saw a little shop with the name Charles Claybourne painted roughly above its open window.  In that open window sat an old, cheery-faced man, mending shoes, who blinked at the stranger through his big spectacles.

Bryce saw his chance and turned in—­to open the book and point out the marriage entry.

“Are you the Charles Claybourne mentioned there?” he asked, without ceremony.

“That’s me, sir!” replied the old shoemaker briskly, after a glance.  “Yes—­right enough!”

“How came you to witness that marriage?” inquired Bryce.

The old man nodded at the church across the way.

“I’ve been sexton and parish clerk two-and-thirty years, sir,” he said.  “And I took it on from my father—­and he had the job from his father.”

“Do you remember this marriage?” asked Bryce, perching himself on the bench at which the shoemaker was working.  “Twenty-two years since, I see.”

“Aye, as if it was yesterday!” answered the old man with a smile.  “Miss Bewery’s marriage?—­why, of course!”