"Look here," interrupted Brent, "you're very candid. I like that—it suits me. Now, frankly you don't like that old uncle of yours? And just why?"

Queenie looked round. There was no one near them, no one indeed in sight, except a nursemaid who wheeled a perambulator along one of the paths, but she sunk her voice to something near a whisper.

"Mr. Brent," she said, "Simon Crood's the biggest hypocrite in this town—and that's implying a good deal more than you'd ever think. He and those friends of his, Mallett and Coppinger, who are always there with him—ah, they think I know nothing, and understand nothing, but I hear their schemings and their talk, veiled as it is. They're deep and subtle, those three—and dangerous. Didn't you see last night that if you'd sat there till midnight or till morning you'd never have had a word out of them—a word, that is, that you wanted? You wouldn't!—they knew better!"

"I got nothing out of them," admitted Brent. He sat thinking in silence for a time. "Look here," he said at last, "you know what I want to find out—who killed my cousin. Help me! Keep your eyes and ears open to anything you see and hear—understand?"

"I will!" answered Queenie. "But you've got a big task before you! You can be certain of this—if the Mayor was murdered for what you called political reasons——"

"Well?" asked Brent, as she paused. "Well?"

"It would all be arranged so cleverly that there's small chance of discovery," she went on. "I know this town—rotten to the core! But I'll help you all I can, and——"

A policeman suddenly came round the corner of the wall, and at sight of Brent touched his peaked cap.

"Looking for you, Mr. Brent," he said. "I heard you'd been seen coming up here. The superintendent would be obliged if you'd step round, sir; he wants to see you at once, particularly."

"Follow you in a moment," answered Brent. He turned to Queenie as the man went away. "When shall I see you again?" he asked.

"I always come here every afternoon," she answered. "It's the only change I get. I come here to read."

"Till to-morrow—or the next day, then," said Brent. He nodded and laughed. "Keep smiling! You'll maybe play Juliet, or some other of those old games, yet."

The girl smiled gratefully, and Brent strode away after the policeman. In a few minutes he was in Hawthwaite's office. The superintendent closed the door, gave him a mysterious glance, and going over to a cupboard produced a long, narrow parcel, done up in brown paper.

"A discovery!" he whispered. "It occurred to me this afternoon to have all the heavy furniture in the Mayor's Parlour examined. No light job, Mr. Brent—but we found this."

And with a jerk of his wrist he drew from the brown paper a long, thin, highly polished rapier, the highly burnished steel of which was dulled along half its length, as if it had been first dimmed and then hastily rubbed.

"I make no doubt that this was what it was done with," continued Hawthwaite. "We found it thrust away between the wainscoting and a heavy bookcase which it took six men to move. And our deputy Town Clerk says that a few days ago he saw this lying on a side table in the Mayor's Parlour—his late Worship observed to him that it was an old Spanish rapier that he'd picked up at some old curiosity shop cheap."

"You'll go into that, and bring it in evidence?" suggested Brent.

"You bet!" replied Hawthwaite grimly. "Oh, we're not going to sleep, Mr. Brent—we'll get at something yet! Slow and sure, sir, slow but sure."

Brent went away presently, and calling on Tansley, the solicitor, walked with him to Wallingford's rooms. During the next two hours they carefully examined all the dead man's private papers. They found nothing that threw any light whatever on his murder. But they came upon his will. Wallingford had left all he possessed to his cousin, Richard Brent, and by the tragedy of the previous night Brent found that he had benefited to the extent of some fifteen thousand pounds.



CHAPTER VI

THE ANCIENT OFFICE OF CORONER

The discovery of Wallingford's will, which lay uppermost amongst a small collection of private papers in a drawer of the dead man's desk, led Brent and Tansley into a new train of thought. Tansley, with the ready perception and acumen of a man trained in the law, was quick to point out two or three matters which in view of Wallingford's murder seemed to be of high importance, perhaps of deep significance. Appended to the will was a schedule of the testator's properties and possessions, with the total value of the estate estimated and given in precise figures—that was how Brent suddenly became aware that he had come into a small fortune. Then the will itself was in holograph, written out in Wallingford's own hand on a single sheet of paper, in the briefest possible fashion, and witnessed by his two clerks. And, most important and significant of all, it had been executed only a week previously.

"Do you know how that strikes me?" observed Tansley in a low voice, as if he feared to be overheard. "It just looks to me as if Wallingford had anticipated that something was about to happen. Had he ever given you any idea in his letters that he was going to do this?"

"Never!" replied Brent. "Still—I'm the only very near relative that he had."

"Well," said Tansley, "it may be mere coincidence, but it's a bit odd that he should be murdered within a week of that will's being made. I'd just like to know if he'd been threatened—openly, anonymously, any way. Looks like it."

"I suppose we shall get into things at the inquest?" asked Brent.

Tansley shrugged his shoulders.

"Maybe," he answered. "I've no great faith in inquests myself. But sometimes things do come out. And our coroner, Seagrave, is a painstaking and thorough-going sort of old chap—the leading solicitor in the town too. But it all depends on what evidence can be brought forward. I've always an uneasy feeling, as regards a coroner's inquiry, that the very people who really could tell something never come forward."

"Doesn't that look as if such people were keeping something back that would incriminate themselves?" suggested Brent.

"Not necessarily," replied Tansley. "But it often means that it might incriminate others. And in an old town like this, where the folk are very clannish and closely connected one with another by, literally, centuries of intermarriage between families, you're not going to get one man to give another away."

"You think that even if the murderer is known, or if some one suspected, he would be shielded?" asked Brent.

"In certain eventualities, yes," answered Tansley. "We all know that rumours about your cousin's murder are afloat in the town now—and spreading. Well, the more they spread, the closer and more secretive will those people become who are in the know; that is, of course, if anybody is in the know. That's a fact!"

"What do you think yourself?" said Brent suddenly. "Come now?"

"I think the Mayor was got rid of—and very cleverly," replied Tansley. "So cleverly that I'm doubtful if to-morrow's inquest will reveal anything. However, it's got to be held."

"Well, you'll watch it for me?" said Brent. "I'm going to spare no expense and no pains to get at the truth."

He sat at Tansley's side when the inquest was opened next morning in the principal court of the old Moot Hall. It struck him as rather a curious fact that, although he had followed the profession of journalist for several years, he had never until then been present at the holding of this—one of the most ancient forms of inquiry known to English law. But he was familiar with the history of the thing—he knew that ever since the days of Edward IV the Coroner had held his sitting, super visum corporis, with the aid of at least twelve jurymen, probi et legales homines, there was scarcely in all the range of English legal economy an office more ancient. He inspected the Coroner and his jury with curious interest—Seagrave, Coroner of the Honour of Hathelsborough, was a keen-faced old lawyer, whose astute looks were relieved by a kindly expression; his twelve good men and true were tradesmen of the town, whose exterior promised a variety of character and temperament, from the sharply alert to the dully unimaginative.

There were other people there in whom Brent was speedily interested, and at whom he gazed with speculative attention in the opening stages of the proceedings. The court was crowded: by the time Seagrave, as Coroner, took his seat, there was not a square foot of even standing space. Brent recognized a good many folk. There was Peppermore, with his sharp-eyed boy assistant; there, ranged alongside of them, were many other reporters, from the various county newspapers, and at least one man whom Brent recognized as being from the Press Association in London. And there was a big array of police, with Hawthwaite at its head, and there were doctors, and officials of the Moot Hall, and, amongst the general public, many men whom Brent remembered seeing the previous day in Bull's Snug. Krevin Crood was among these; in a privileged seat, not far away, sat his brother, the Alderman, with Queenie half-hidden at his side, and his satellites, Mallett and Coppinger, in close attendance. And near them, in another privileged place, sat a very pretty woman, of a distinct and superior type, attired in semi-mourning, and accompanied by her elderly female companion. Brent was looking at these two when Tansley nudged his elbow.

"You see that handsome woman over there—next to the older one?" he whispered. "That's the Mrs. Saumarez you've heard of—that your unfortunate cousin was very friendly with. Rich young widow, she is, and deuced pretty and attractive—Wallingford used to dine with her a good deal. I wonder if she's any ideas about this mystery? However, I guess we shall hear many things before the day's out; of course I haven't the slightest notion what evidence is going to be given. But I've a pretty good idea that Seagrave means to say some pretty straight things to the jury!"

Here Tansley proved to be right. The Coroner, in opening the proceedings, made some forcible remarks on their unusual gravity and importance. Here was a case in which the chief magistrate of one of the most ancient boroughs in England had been found dead in his official room under circumstances which clearly seemed to point to murder. Already there were rumours in the town and neighbourhood of the darkest and most disgraceful sort—that the Mayor of Hathelsborough had been done to death, in a peculiarly brutal fashion, by a man or men who disagreed with the municipal reforms which he was intent on carrying out. It would be a lasting, an indelible blot on the old town's fair fame, never tarnished before in this way, if this inquiry came to naught, if no definite verdict was given, he earnestly hoped that by the time it concluded they would be in possession of facts which would, so to speak, clear the town, and any political party in the town. He begged them to give the closest attention to all that would be put before them, and to keep open minds until they heard all the available evidence.

"A fairly easy matter in this particular case!" muttered Tansley, as the jurymen went out to discharge their distasteful, preliminary task of viewing the body of the murdered man. "I don't suppose there's a single man there who has the ghost of a theory, and I'm doubtful if he'll know much more to-night than he knows now—unless something startling is sprung upon us."

Brent was the first witness called into the box when the court settled down to its business. He formally identified the body of the deceased as that of his cousin, John Wallingford: at the time of his death, Mayor of Hathelsborough, and forty-one years of age. He detailed the particulars of his own coming to the town on the evening of the murder, and told how he and Bunning, going upstairs to the Mayor's Parlour, had found Wallingford lying across his desk, dead. All this every man and woman in the court knew already—but the Coroner desired to know more.

"I believe, Mr. Brent," he said, when the witness had given these particulars, "that you are the deceased's nearest blood-relative?"

"I am," replied Brent.

"Then you can give us some information which may be of use. Although the Mayor had lived in Hathelsborough some twelve years or so, he was neither a native of the town nor of these parts. Now, can you give us some particulars about him—about his family and his life before he came to this borough?"

"Yes," said Brent. "My cousin was the only son—only child, in fact—of the Reverend Septimus Wallingford, who was sometime Vicar of Market Meadow, in Berkshire. He is dead—many years ago—so is his wife. My cousin was educated at Reading Grammar School, and on leaving it he was articled to a firm of solicitors in that town. After qualifying as a solicitor, he remained with that firm for some time. About twelve years ago he came to this place as managing clerk to a Hathelsborough firm; its partners eventually retired, and he bought their practice."

"Was he ever married?"

"Never!"

"You knew him well?"

"He was some twelve years my senior," answered Brent, "so I was a mere boy when he was a young man. But of late years we have seen a good deal of each other—he has frequently visited me in London, and this would have been my third visit to him here. We corresponded regularly."

"You were on good terms?"

"We were on very good terms."

"And confidential terms?"

"As far as I know—yes. He took great interest in my work as a journalist, and I took great interest in his career in this town."

"And I understand that he has marked his sense of—shall we say, kinship for you by leaving you all his property?"

"He has!"

"Now, did he ever say anything to you, by word of mouth or letter, about any private troubles?"

"No, never!"

"Or about any public ones?"

"Well, some months ago, soon after he became Mayor of Hathelsborough, he made a sort of joking reference, in a letter, to something that might come under that head."

"Yes? What, now?"

"He said that he had started on his task of cleaning out the Augean stable of Hathelsborough, and that the old task of Hercules was child's play compared to his."

"I believe, Mr. Brent, that you visited your cousin here in the town about Christmas last? Did he say anything to you about Hathelsborough at that time? I mean, as regards what he called his Augean stables task?"

Brent hesitated. He glanced at the eagerly-listening spectators, and he smiled a little.

"Well," he replied half-hesitatingly, "he did! He said that in his opinion Hathelsborough was the rottenest and most corrupt little town in all England!"

"Did you take that as a seriously meant statement, Mr. Brent?"

"Oh, well—he laughed as he made it. I took it as a specimen of his rather heightened way of putting things."

"Did he say anything that led you to think that he believed himself to have bitter enemies in the town?"

"No," said Brent, "he did not."

"Neither then nor at any other time?"

"Neither then nor at any other time."

The Coroner asked no further questions, and Brent sat down again by Tansley, and settled himself to consider whatever evidence might follow. He tried to imagine himself a Coroner or juryman, and to estimate and weigh the testimony of each succeeding witness in its relation to the matter into which the court was inquiring. Some of it, he thought, was relevant; some had little in it that carried affairs any further. Yet he began to see that even the apparently irrelevant evidence was not without its importance. They were links, these statements, these answers; links that went to the making of a chain.

He was already familiar with most of the evidence: he knew what each witness was likely to tell before one or other entered the box. Bunning came next after himself; Bunning had nothing new to tell. Nor was there anything new in the medical evidence given by Dr. Wellesley and Dr. Barber—all the town knew how the Mayor had been murdered, and the purely scientific explanations as to the cause of death were merely details. More interest came when Hawthwaite produced the fragment of handkerchief picked up on the hearth of the Mayor's Parlour, half-burnt; and when he brought forward the rapier which had been discovered behind the bookcase; still more when a man who kept an old curiosity shop in a back street of the town proved that he had sold the rapier to Wallingford only a few days before the murder. But interest died down again while the Borough Surveyor produced elaborate plans and diagrams, illustrating the various corridors, passages, entrances and exits of the Moot Hall, with a view to showing the difficulty of access to the Mayor's Parlour. It revived once more when the policeman who had been on duty at the office in the basement stepped into the box and was questioned as to the possibilities of entrance to the Moot Hall through the door near which his desk was posted. For on pressure by the Coroner he admitted that between six and eight o'clock on the fateful evening he had twice been absent from the neighbourhood of that door for intervals of five or six minutes—it was therefore possible that the murderer had slipped in and slipped out without attracting attention.

This admission produced the first element of distinct sensation which had so far materialized. As almost every person present was already fairly well acquainted with the details of what had transpired on the evening of the murder—Peppermore having published every scrap of information he could rake up, in successive editions of his Monitor—the constable's belated revelation came as a surprise. Hawthwaite turned on the witness with an irate, astonished look; the Coroner glanced at Hawthwaite as if he were puzzled; then looked down at certain memoranda lying before him. He turned from this to the witness, a somewhat raw, youthful policeman.

"I understood that you were never away from that door between six and eight o'clock on the evening in question?" he said. "Now you admit that you were twice away from it?"

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir, I clean forgot that when—when the superintendent asked me at first. I—I was a bit flustered like."

"Now let us get a clear statement about this," said the Coroner, after a pause. "We know quite well from the plans, and from our own knowledge, that anyone could get up to the Mayor's Parlour through the police office in the basement at the rear of the Moot Hall. What time did you go on duty at the door that opens into the office, from St. Laurence Lane?"

"Six o'clock, sir."

"And you were about the door—at a desk there, eh?—until when?"

"Till after eight, sir."

"But you say you were absent for a short time, twice?"

"Yes, sir, I remember now that I was."

"What were the times of those two absences?"

"Well, sir, about ten minutes to seven I went along to the charge office for a few minutes—five or six minutes. Then at about a quarter to eight I went downstairs into the cellar to get some paraffin for a lamp—I might be away as long, then, sir."

"And, of course, during your absence anybody could have left or entered—unnoticed?"

"Well, they could, sir, but I don't think anybody did."

"Why, now?"

"Because, sir, the door opening into St. Laurence Lane is a very heavy one, and I never heard it either open or close. The latch is a heavy one, too, sir, and uncommon stiff."

"Still, anybody might," observed the Coroner. "Now, what is the length of the passage between that door, the door at the foot of the stairs leading to this court—by which anybody would have to come to get that way to the Mayor's Parlour?"

The witness reflected for a moment.

"Well, about ten yards, sir," he answered.

The Coroner looked at the plan which the Borough Surveyor had placed before him and the jury a few minutes previously. Before he could say anything further, Hawthwaite rose from his seat and making his way to him exchanged a few whispered remarks with him. Presently the Coroner nodded, as if in assent to some suggestions.

"Oh, very well," he said. "Then perhaps we'd better have her at once. Call—what's her name, did you say? Oh, yes—Sarah Jane Spizey!"

From amidst a heterogeneous collection of folk, men and women, congregated at the rear of the witness-box, a woman came forward—one of the most extraordinary looking creatures that he had ever seen, thought Brent. She was nearly six feet in height; she was correspondingly built; her arms appeared to be as brawny as a navvy's; her face was of the shape and roundness of a full moon; her mouth was a wide slit, her nose a button; her eyes were as shrewd and hard as they were small and close-set. A very Grenadier of a woman!—and apparently quite unmoved by the knowledge that everybody was staring at her.

Sarah Jane Spizey—yes. Wife of the Town Bellman. Resident in St. Laurence Lane. Went out charing sometimes; sometimes worked at Marriner's Laundry. Odd-job woman, in fact.

"Mrs. Spizey," said the Coroner, "I understand that on the evening of Mr. Wallingford's death you were engaged in some work in the Moot Hall. Is that so?"

"Yes, sir. Which I was a-washing the floor of this very court."

"What time was that, Mrs. Spizey?"

"Which I was at it, your Worshipful, from six o'clock to eight."

"Did you leave this place at all during that time?"

"Not once, sir; not for a minute."

"Now during the whole of that time, Mrs. Spizey, did you see anybody come up those stairs, cross the court, and go towards the Mayor's Parlour?"

"Which I never did, sir! I never see a soul of any sort. Which the place was empty, sir, for all but me and my work, sir."

The Coroner motioned Mrs. Spizey to stand down, and glanced at Hawthwaite.

"I think this would be a convenient point at which to adjourn," he said. "I——"

But Hawthwaite's eyes were turned elsewhere. In the body of the court an elderly man had risen.



CHAPTER VII

THE VOLUNTARY WITNESS

Everybody present, not excluding Brent, knew the man at whom the Superintendent of Police was staring, and who evidently wished to address the Coroner. He was Mr. Samuel John Epplewhite, an elderly, highly respectable tradesman of the town, and closely associated with that Forward Party in the Town Council of which the late Mayor had become the acknowledged leader; a man of substance and repute, who would not break in without serious reason upon proceedings of the sort then going on. The Coroner, following Hawthwaite's glance, nodded to him.

"You wish to make some observation, Mr. Epplewhite?" he inquired.

"Before you adjourn, sir, if you please," replied Epplewhite, "I should like to make a statement—evidence, in fact, sir. I think, after what we've heard, that it's highly necessary that I should."

"Certainly," answered the Coroner. "Anything you can tell, of course. Then, perhaps you'll step into the witness-box?"

The folk who crowded the court to its very doors looked on impatiently while Epplewhite went through the legal formalities. Laying down the Testament on which he had taken the oath, he turned to the Coroner. But the Coroner again nodded to him.

"You had better tell us what is in your mind in your own way, Mr. Epplewhite," he said. "We are, of course, in utter ignorance of what it is you can tell. Put it in your own fashion."

Epplewhite folded his hands on the ledge of the witness-box and looked around the court before finally settling his eyes on the Coroner: it seemed to Brent as if he were carefully considering the composition, severally and collectively, of his audience.

"Well, sir," he began, in slow, measured accents, "what I have to say, as briefly as I can, is this: everybody here, I believe, is aware that our late Mayor and myself were on particularly friendly terms. We'd always been more or less of friends since his first coming to the town: we'd similar tastes and interests. But our friendship had been on an even more intimate basis during the last year or two, and especially of recent months, owing, no doubt, to the fact that we belonged to the same party on the Town Council, and were both equally anxious to bring about a thorough reform in the municipal administration of the borough. When Mr. Wallingford was elected Mayor last November, he and I, and our supporters on the Council, resolved that during his year of office we would do our best to sweep away certain crying abuses and generally get the affairs of Hathelsborough placed on a more modern and a better footing. We were all——"

The Coroner held up his hand.

"Let us have a clear understanding," he said. "I am gathering—officially, of course—from what you are saying that in Hathelsborough Town Council there are two parties, opposed to each other: a party pledged to Reform, and another that is opposed to Reform. Is that so, Mr. Epplewhite?"

"Precisely so," answered the witness. "And of the Reform party, the late Mayor was the leader. This is well known in the town—it's a matter of common gossip. It is also well known to members of the Town Council that Mr. Wallingford's proposals for reform were of a very serious and drastic nature, that we of his party were going to support them through thick and thin, and that they were bitterly opposed by the other party, whose members were resolved to fight them tooth and nail."

"It may be as well to know what these abuses were which you proposed to reform?" suggested the Coroner. "I want to get a thorough clearing-up of everything."

"Well," responded the witness, with another glance around the court, "the late Mayor had a rooted and particular objection to the system of payments and pensions in force at present, which, without doubt, owes its existence to favouritism and jobbery. There are numerous people in the town drawing money from the borough funds who have no right to it on any ground whatever. There are others who draw salaries for what are really sinecures. A great deal of the ratepayers' money has gone in this way—men in high places in the Corporation have used their power to benefit relations and favourites: I question if there's another town in the country in which such a state of things would be permitted. But there is a more serious matter than that, one which Mr. Wallingford was absolutely determined, with the help of his party, and backed by public opinion, if he could win it over—no easy thing, for we had centuries of usage and tradition against us!—to bring to an end. That is, the fact that the financial affairs of this town are entirely controlled by what is virtually a self-constituted body, called the Town Trustees. They are three in number. If one dies, the surviving two select his successor—needless to say, they take good care that they choose a man who is in thorough sympathy with their own ideas. Now the late Mayor was convinced that this system led to nothing but—well, to put it mildly, to nothing but highly undesirable results, and he claimed that the Corporation had the right to deprive the existing Town Trustees of their power, and to take into its own hands the full administration of the borough finances. And of course there was much bitter animosity aroused by this proposal, because the Town Trustees have had a free hand and done what they liked with the town's money for a couple of centuries!"

The Coroner, who was making elaborate notes, lifted his pen.

"Who are the Town Trustees at present, Mr. Epplewhite?" he inquired.

Epplewhite smiled, as a man might smile who knows that a question is only asked as a mere formality.

"The Town Trustees at present, sir," he answered quietly, "are Mr. Alderman Crood, Deputy Mayor; Mr. Councillor Mallett, Borough Auditor; and Mr. Councillor Coppinger, Borough Treasurer."

Amidst a curious silence, broken only by the scratching of the Coroner's pen, Alderman Crood rose heavily in his place amongst the spectators.

"Mr. Coroner," he said, with some show of injured feeling, "I object, sir, to my name being mentioned in connection with this here matter. You're inquiring, sir——"

"I'm inquiring, Mr. Crood, into the circumstances surrounding the death of John Wallingford," said the Coroner. "If you can throw any light on them, I shall be glad to take your evidence. At present I am taking the evidence of another witness. Yes, Mr. Epplewhite?"

"Well, sir, I come to recent events," continued Epplewhite, smiling grimly as the Deputy-Mayor, flushed and indignant, resumed his seat. "The late Mayor was very well aware that his proposals were regarded, not merely with great dislike, but with positive enmity. He, and those of us who agreed with him, were constantly asked in the Council Chamber what right we had to be endeavouring to interfere with a system that had suited our fathers and grandfathers? We were warned too, in the Council Chamber, that we should get ourselves into trouble——"

"Do you refer to actual threats?" asked the Coroner.

"Scarcely that, sir—hints, and so on," replied the witness. "But of late, in the case of the late Mayor, actual threats have been used. And to bring my evidence to a point, Mr. Coroner, I now wish to make a certain statement, on my oath, and to produce a certain piece of evidence, to show that Mr. Wallingford's personal safety was threatened only a few days before his murder!"

Thus saying, Epplewhite thrust a hand into the inner pocket of his coat, and, producing a letter, held it out at arm's length, so that every one could see it. So holding it, he turned to the Coroner.

"It is just a week ago, sir," he proceeded, "that Mr. Wallingford came to supper at my house. After supper, he and I, being alone, began talking about the subject which was uppermost in our minds—municipal reform. That day I had had considerable talk with two or three fellow-members of the Council who belonged to the opposite party, and as a result I showed to Wallingford that opposition to our plans was growing more concentrated, determined and bitter. He laughed a little satirically. 'It's gone beyond even that stage with me, personally, Epplewhite,' he said. 'Don't you ever be surprised, my friend, if you hear of my being found with a bullet through my head or a knife between my ribs!' 'What do you mean?' said I. 'Nonsense!' He laughed again, and pulled out this envelope. 'All right,' he answered. 'You read that!' I read what was in the envelope, sir—and I now pass it to you!"

The Coroner silently took the letter which was passed across to him from the witness, withdrew a sheet of paper from it, and read the contents with an inscrutable face and amidst a dead silence. It seemed a long time before he turned to the jury. Then, he held up the sheet of paper and the envelope which had contained it.

"Gentlemen!" he said. "I shall have to draw your particular attention to this matter. This is an anonymous letter. From the date on the postmark, it was received by the late Mayor about a week before he showed it to Mr. Epplewhite. It is a typewritten communication. The address on the envelope is typewritten; the letter itself is typewritten. I will now read the letter to you. It is as follows:

"'MR. MAYOR,

"'You are a young man in an old town, but you are old enough and sharp enough to take a hint. Take one now, and mind your own business. What business is it of yours to interfere with good old customs in a place to which you don't belong and where you're still a comparative stranger? You only got elected to the Mayoral chair by one vote, and if you are fool enough to think that you and those behind you are strong enough to upset things you'll find yourself wrong, for you won't be allowed. There's something a deal stronger in this town than what you and them are, and that you'll see proved—or happen you won't see it, for if you go on as you are doing, putting your nose in where you've no right, you'll be made so that you'll never see nor hear again. Things is not going to be upset here for want of putting upsetters out of the way; there's been better men than you quietly sided for less. So take a quiet warning, leave things alone. It would become you a deal better if you'd be a bit more hospitable to the Council and give them a glass of decent wine instead of the teetotal stuff you disgraced the table with when you gave your Mayoral banquet—first time any Mayor of this good old borough ever did such a thing. There's them that's had quite enough of such goings-on, and doesn't mind how soon you're shifted. So mend your ways before somebody makes them as they'll never need mending any more.'

"Now, gentlemen," continued the Coroner, as he laid down the letter, "there are one or two things about that communication to which I wish to draw your attention. First of all, it is the composition of a vulgar and illiterate, or, at any rate, semi-illiterate person. I don't think its phrasing and illiteracy are affected; I think it has been written in its present colloquial form without art or design, by whoever wrote it; it is written, phrased, expressed, precisely as a vulgar, coarse sort of person would speak. That is the first point. The second is—it is typewritten. Now, in these days, there are a great many typewriting machines in use in the town; small as the town is, we know there are a great many, in offices, shops, institutions, banks, even private houses. It is not at all likely that the sender of this letter would employ a professional typist to write it, not even a clerk, nor any employe—therefore he typed it himself. I will invite your attention to the letter, which I now hand to you, and then I will place it in the custody of the police, who will, of course, use their best endeavours to trace it."

He passed the letter over to the foreman of the jury, and turned to the witness-box.

"I conclude, Mr. Epplewhite, that the late Mayor left that letter in your possession?" he asked.

"He did, sir," replied Epplewhite. "He said, half jokingly, 'You can keep that, Epplewhite! If they sacrifice me on the altar of vested interests, it'll be a bit of evidence.' So I locked up the letter in my safe there and then, and it has remained there until this morning."

"You, of course, have no idea as to the identity of the sender?"

"None, sir!"

"Had Mr. Wallingford?"

"Neither of us, sir, formed any conclusion. But we both thought that the letter emanated from some member of the opposition."

"Did Mr. Wallingford take it as a serious threat?"

Epplewhite looked doubtful.

"I scarcely know," he said. "He seemed half-minded about it. To regard it, you know, as half a joke and half serious. But I feel certain that he knew he had enemies who might become—well, deadly. That's my distinct impression, Mr. Coroner."

The typewritten letter went its round of the jury and presently came back to the Coroner. He replaced it in its envelope and handed the envelope to Hawthwaite.

"You must leave no stone unturned in your effort to trace that letter to its source," he said. "That's of the highest importance. And now I think we had better adjourn for——"

But Tansley rose from his seat at Brent's elbow.

"I should like to draw attention to a somewhat pertinent fact, Mr. Coroner," he said. "It seems to have a distinct bearing on what has just transpired. During a search of the deceased's private papers, made by Mr. Brent and myself, yesterday afternoon, we found Mr. Wallingford's will. It was drawn up by himself, in very concise terms, and duly executed, only a few days before his death. It suggests itself to me that he was impelled to this by the threat which is distinctly made in the letter you have just read."

"I think we may take it that the late Mayor felt that he was in some personal danger," answered the Coroner. "What you say, Mr. Tansley, appears to corroborate that."

Then with a few words of counsel to the jury, he adjourned the inquest for ten days, and presently the folk who had listened to the proceedings streamed out into the market-place, excited and voluble. Instead of going away, the greater number of those who had been present lingered around the entrance, and Brent, leaving in Tansley's company a few minutes later, found high words being spoken between Alderman Crood and Epplewhite, who, prominent on the pavement, were haranguing each other amidst a ring of open-mouthed bystanders.

"You were at that game all through what you called your evidence!" vociferated Alderman Crood, who was obviously excited and angry far beyond his wont. "Nice evidence, indeed! Naught is it but trying to fasten blame on to innocent folk!"

"Suggesting!" sneered Mallett, close on his leader's right elbow. "Insinuating!"

"Hinting at things!" said Coppinger, close on the left. "Implying!"

"Dirty work!" shouted Alderman Crood. "Such as nobody but the likes o' you—Radicals and teetotallers and chapel folk!—'ud ever think o' doing. You say straight out before the town what's in your mind, Sam Epplewhite, and I'll see what the law has to say to you! I'm none going to have my character taken away by a fellow o' your sort. Say your say, here in public——"

"I'll say my say at the right time and place, Alderman Crood!" retorted Epplewhite. "This thing's going through! We'll find out who murdered John Wallingford yet—there's no need to go far away to find the murderer!"

Crood's big face grew livid with anger, and his long upper lip began to quiver. He raised his hand, as if to command the attention of the crowd, but just then Hawthwaite and a couple of policemen appeared in the open doorway behind, and Mallett and Coppinger, nudging the big man from either side, led him away along the market-place. And suddenly, from amongst the dispersing crowd, distinct murmurs of disapproval and dislike arose, crystallized in a sharp cry from some man on its outer edge.

"Down wi' the Town Trustees!—they're at t' bottom o' this! Down wi' 'em!"

The Town Trustees retreated before a suddenly awakened chorus of hooting. They disappeared into Mallett's private door at the Bank. Brent, watching and listening with speculative curiosity, felt Tansley touch his arm. He turned, to find the solicitor shaking his head, and with a grave countenance.

"Bad, bad!" muttered Tansley. "Very bad!—once get public opinion set on like that, and——"

"And what?" demanded Brent. He was already so convinced that his cousin had fallen a victim to political hatred that he was rather welcoming the revengeful outburst of feeling. "What, now?"

"There'll be an end of all sensible and practical proceedings in connection with the affair," answered Tansley. "There's a big following of the Reform party in the town amongst the working folk, and if they once get it into their heads that the Conservative lot put your cousin away—well, there'll be hell to pay!"

"Personally," said Brent, with a hardening of his square jaw, "I don't care if there is! If we can only put our hands on the murderers, I don't care if the people hang 'em to those lamp-posts! I shouldn't be sorry to see a little lynch law!"

"Then we shall never get at the truth," retorted Tansley. "We may—only may, mind you!—have got a bit towards it this morning, but not far. If at all—perhaps!"

"That threatening letter?" suggested Brent.

"I attach very little importance to it," said Tansley, "though I wasn't going to say so much in court. In my experience in this town, if I've seen one anonymous letter I've seen a hundred. Hathelsborough folk are given to that sort of thing. No, sir—there's a tremendous lot to come out yet. Don't you be surprised if all sorts of extraordinary developments materialize—perhaps when you're least expecting 'em!"

Brent made no answer. He was not easily surprised, and from the moment of his discovery of the crime he had realized that this was a mystery in the unravelling of which time and trouble would have to be expended freely. But he had a moment of genuine surprise that evening, when, as he sat in his private sitting-room at the Chancellor, he received a note, written in a delicate feminine hand on crested and scented paper, wherein he was requested, in somewhat guarded and mysterious fashion, to step round to the private residence of Mrs. Saumarez.



CHAPTER VIII

MRS. SAUMAREZ

Brent, at that moment, was in a state of mind which made every fibre of his being particularly sensitive to suspicions and speculative ideas—he had no sooner slipped Mrs. Saumarez's note into his pocket than he began to wonder why she had sent for him? Of course, it had something to do with Wallingford's murder, but what? If Mrs. Saumarez knew anything, why did she not speak at the inquest? She had been present all through the proceedings. Brent had frequently turned his eyes on her; always he had seen her in the same watchful, keen-eyed attitude, apparently deeply absorbed in the evidence, and, it seemed to him, showing signs of a certain amount of anxiety. Anxiety—yes, that was it, anxiety. The other spectators were curious, morbidly curious, most of them, but Mrs. Saumarez he felt sure was anxious. And about what? He wondered, but wondering was no good. He must go and see her of course; and presently he made himself ready and set out. But as he crossed the hall of the hotel he encountered Tansley, who was just emerging from the smoking-room. A thought occurred to him, and he motioned Tansley back into the room he had just quitted, and led him to a quiet corner.

"I say," said Brent, "between ourselves, I've just had a note from that Mrs. Saumarez we saw this morning in the Coroner's Court. She wants me to go round to her house at once."

Tansley showed his interest.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "Then, she's something to tell."

"Why to me?" demanded Brent.

"You're Wallingford's next of kin," said the solicitor laconically. "That's why."

"Wonder what it is?" muttered Brent. "Some feminine fancy maybe."

"Go and find out, man!" laughed Tansley.

"Just so," replied Brent. "I'm going now. But look here—who and what is this Mrs. Saumarez? Post me up."

Tansley waved his cigar in the air, as if implying that you could draw a circle around his field of knowledge.

"Oh, well," he said, "you saw her to-day. So you're already aware that she's young and pretty and charming—and all that. As for the rest, she's a widow, and a wealthy one. Relict, as we say in the law, of a naval officer of high rank, who, I fancy, was some years older than herself. She came here about two years ago and rents a picturesque old place that was built, long since, out of the ruins of the old Benedictine Abbey that used to stand at the rear of what's now called Abbey Gate—some of the ruins, as you know, are still there. Clever woman—reads a lot and all that sort of thing. Not at all a society woman, in spite of her prettiness—bit of a blue-stocking, I fancy. Scarcely know her myself."

"I think you said my cousin knew her?" suggested Brent.

"Your cousin and she, latterly, were very thick," asserted Tansley. "He spent a lot of time at her house. During nearly all last autumn and winter, though, she was away in the South of France. Oh, yes, Wallingford often went to dine with her. She has a companion who lives with her—that elderly woman we saw this morning. Yes, I suppose Wallingford went there, oh, two or three evenings a week. In fact, there were people—gossipers—who firmly believed that he and Mrs. Saumarez were going to make a match of it. Might be so; but up to about the end of last summer the same people used to say that she was going to marry the doctor—Wellesley."

Brent pricked his ears—he scarcely knew why.

"Wellesley?" he said. "What? Was he a—a suitor?"

"Oh, well," answered Tansley, "I think the lady's one of the sort that's much fonder of men's society than of women's, you know. Anyway, after she came here, she and Wellesley seemed to take to each other, and she used to be in his company a good deal—used to go out driving with him, a lot, and so on. And he used to go to the Abbey House at that time just as much as your cousin did of late. But about the end of last summer Mrs. Saumarez seemed to cool off with Wellesley and take on with Wallingford—fact! The doctor got his nose put out by the lawyer! There's no doubt about it; and there's no doubt, either, that the result was a distinct coolness, not to say dislike, between Wellesley and Wallingford, for up to then those two had been rather close friends. But they certainly weren't after Mrs. Saumarez plainly showed a preference for Wallingford. Yet, in spite of that," continued Tansley, as if some after-thought struck him, "I'll say this for Wellesley: he's never allowed his undoubted jealousy of Wallingford to prevent him from supporting Wallingford on the Town Council. Wellesley, indeed, has always been one of his staunchest and most consistent supporters."

"Oh, Dr. Wellesley's on the Town Council, is he?" asked Brent. "And a Reform man?"

"He's Councillor for the Riverside Ward," answered Tansley, "and a regular Radical. In fact he, Wallingford, and that chap Epplewhite, were the three recognized leaders of the Reform party. Yes, Wellesley stuck to Wallingford as leader even when it became pretty evident that Wallingford had ousted him in Mrs. Saumarez's affections—fact!"

"Affections, eh?" surmised Brent. "You think it had come to as much as that?"

"I do!" affirmed Tansley. "Lord bless you, she and Wallingford were as thick as thieves, as our local saying goes. Oh, yes, I'm sure she threw Wellesley over for Wallingford."

Brent heard all this in silence, and remained for a time in further silence.

"Um!" he remarked at last. "Odd! Mrs. Saumarez is an unusually pretty woman. Dr. Wellesley is a very handsome man. Now, my cousin was about as plain and insignificant a chap to look at as ever I came across—poor fellow!"

"Your cousin was a damned clever chap!" said Tansley incisively. "He'd got brains, my dear sir, and where women—cleverish women, anyhow—are concerned, brains are going to win all the way and come in winners by as many lengths as you please! Mrs. Saumarez, I understand, is a woman who dabbles in politics, and your cousin interested her. And when a woman gets deeply interested in a man——?"

"I guess you're right," assented Brent. "Well, I'll step along and see her."

He left Tansley in the hotel and went away along the market-place, wondering a good deal about the information just given to him. So there was a coolness between his cousin and Wellesley, was there, a coolness that amounted, said Tansley, to something stronger? Did it amount to jealousy? Did the jealousy lead to——? But at that point Brent gave up speculating. If there was anything in this new suggestion, Mrs. Saumarez would hold the key. Once more he was face to face with the fact that had steadily obtruded itself upon him during the last two days: that here in this time-worn old place there were folks who had secrets and did things in a curiously secret fashion.

Mrs. Saumarez's house stood a little way back from the street called Abbey Gate, an old, apparently Early Jacobean mansion, set amidst the elms for which Hathelsborough was famous, so profusely and to such a height did they grow all over the town. A smart parlour-maid, who looked inquisitively at him, and was evidently expecting his arrival, admitted Brent, and led him at once along a half-lighted hall into a little room, where the light of a shaded lamp shone on a snug and comfortable interior and on rows of more books than young and pretty women generally possess. Left alone for a few minutes, Brent glanced round the well-filled shelves, and formed the opinion that Mrs. Saumarez went in for very solid reading, chiefly in the way of social and political economy. He began to see now why she and the murdered Mayor had been such close friends—the subjects that apparently interested her had been those in which Wallingford had always been deeply absorbed. Maybe, then, Mrs. Saumarez had been behind the Reform party in Hathelsborough?—there was a woman wire-puller at the back of these matters as a rule, he believed—that sort of thing, perhaps, was Mrs. Saumarez's little hobby. He turned from these speculations to find her at his elbow.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Brent," she said softly.

Brent looked attentively at her as he took the hand which she held out to him. Seen at closer quarters he saw that she was a much prettier woman than he had fancied; he saw too that, whatever her tastes might be in the way of politics and sociology, she was wholly feminine, and not above enhancing her charms by punctilious attention to her general appearance and setting. She had been very quietly and even sombrely dressed at the inquest that morning, but she was now in evening dress, and her smart gown, her wealth of fair hair, her violet eyes, and the rose tint of her delicate cheek somewhat dazzled Brent, who was not greatly used to women's society. He felt a little shy and a little awkward.

"Yes, yes, I came at once," he said. "I—of course, I gathered that you wanted me."

Mrs. Saumarez smiled, and pointing to an easy chair in front of the bright fire dropped into another close by it.

"Sit down, Mr. Brent," she said. "Yes, I wanted you. And I couldn't very well go to the Chancellor, could I? So thank you again for coming so promptly. Perhaps"—she turned and looked at him steadily—"you're already aware that your cousin and I were great friends?"

"I've heard it," answered Brent. He nodded at one of the book-cases at which she had found him looking. "Similar tastes, I suppose? He was a great hand at that sort of thing."

"Yes," she said. "We had a good deal in common; I was much interested in all his plans, and so on. He was a very clever man, a deeply interesting man, and I have felt—this—more than I'm going to say. And—but I think I'd better tell you why I sent for you."

"Yes," assented Brent.

"I gathered from what was said at the inquest this morning that you are your cousin's sole executor?" she asked.

"I am," replied Brent. "Sole everything."

"Then, of course, you have entire charge and custody of his papers?" she suggested.

"That's so," answered Brent. "Everything's in my possession."

Mrs. Saumarez sighed gently; it seemed to Brent that there was something of relief in the sigh.

"Last autumn and winter," she continued presently, "I was away from home a long time; I was in the South of France. Mr. Wallingford and I kept up a regular, and frequent, correspondence: it was just then, you know, that he became Mayor, and began to formulate his schemes for the regeneration of this rotten little town——"

"You think it's that, eh?" interrupted Brent, emphasizing the personal pronoun. "That's your conviction?"

Mrs. Saumarez's violet eyes flashed, and a queer little smile played for a second round the corner of her pretty lips.

"Rotten to the core!" she said quietly. "Ripe rotten! He knew it!—knew more than he ever let anyone know!"

"More than he ever let you know?" asked Brent.

"I knew a good deal," she replied evasively. "But this correspondence. We wrote to each other twice a week all the time I was away. I have all his letters—there, in that safe."

"Yes?" said Brent.

Mrs. Saumarez looked down at the slim fingers which lay in her lap.

"He kept all mine," she continued.

"Yes?" repeated Brent.

"I want them," she murmured, with a sudden lifting of her eyelids in her visitor's direction. "I, naturally, I don't want them to—to fall into anybody else's hands. You understand, Mr. Brent?"

"You want me to find them?" suggested Brent.

"Not to find them, that is, not to search for them," she replied quickly. "I know where they are. I want you, if you please, to give them back to me."

"Where are they?" asked Brent.

"He told me where he kept them," answered Mrs. Saumarez. "They are in a cedar-wood cabinet, in a drawer in his bedroom."

"All right," said Brent. "I'll get them."

Was he mistaken in thinking that it was an unmistakable sigh of relief that left Mrs. Saumarez's delicate red lips and that an additional little flush of colour came into her cheeks? But her voice was calm and even enough.

"Thank you," she said. "So good of you. Of course, they aren't of the faintest interest to anybody. I can have them, then—when?"

Brent rose to his feet.

"When I was taught my business," he said, with a dry smile, "I'd a motto drummed into my head day in and day out. DO IT NOW! So I guess I'll just go round to my cousin's old rooms and get you that cabinet at once."

Mrs. Saumarez smiled. It was a smile that would have thrilled most men. But Brent merely got a deepened impression of her prettiness.

"I like your way of doing things," she said. "That's business. You ought to stop here, Mr. Brent, and take up your cousin's work."

"It would be a fitting tribute to his memory, wouldn't it?" answered Brent. "Well, I don't know. But this letter business is the thing to do now. I'll be back in ten minutes, Mrs. Saumarez."

"Let yourself in, and come straight here," she said. "I'll wait for you."

Wallingford's old rooms were close at hand—only round the corner, in fact—and Brent went straight to them and into the bedroom. He found the cedar cabinet at once; he had, in fact, seen it the day before, but finding it locked had made no attempt to open it. He carried it back to Mrs. Saumarez, set it on her desk, and laid beside it a bunch of keys.

"I suppose you'll find this key amongst those," he said. "They're all the private keys of his that I have anyway."

"Perhaps you will find it?" she suggested. "I'm a bad hand at that sort of thing."

Brent had little difficulty in finding the right key. Unthinkingly, he raised the lid of the cabinet—and quickly closed it again. In that momentary glimpse of the contents it seemed to him that he had unearthed a dead man's secret. For in addition to a pile of letters he had seen a woman's glove; a knot of ribbon; some faded flowers.

"That's it," he said hurriedly, shutting down the lid and affecting to have seen nothing. "I'll take the key off the bunch."

Mrs. Saumarez took the key from him in silence, relocked the cabinet, and carried it over to a safe let in to the wall of the room.

"Thank you, Mr. Brent," she said. "I'm glad to have those letters."

Brent made as if to leave. But he suddenly turned on her.

"You know a lot," he remarked brusquely. "What's your opinion about my cousin's murder?"

Mrs. Saumarez remained silent so long that he spoke again.

"Do you think, from what you've seen of things in this town, that it was what we may call political?" he asked. "A—removal?"

He was watching her closely, and he saw the violet eyes grow sombre, and a certain hardness settle about the lines of the well-shaped mouth and chin.

"It's this!" she said suddenly. "I told you just now that this town is rotten—rotten and corrupt, as so many of these little old-world English boroughs are! He knew it, poor fellow; he's steadily been finding it out ever since he came here. I dare say you, coming from London, a great city, wouldn't understand, but it's this way: this town is run by a gang, the members of which manoeuvre everything for their own and their friends' benefit, their friends and their hangers-on, their associates, their toadies. They——"

"Do you mean the Town Trustees?" asked Brent.

"Not wholly," replied Mrs. Saumarez. "But all that Epplewhite said to-day about the Town Trustees is true. The three men control the financial affairs of the borough. Wallingford, by long and patient investigation, had come to know how they controlled them, and how utterly corrupt and rotten the whole financial administration is. If you could see some of the letters of his which I have in that safe——"

"Wouldn't it be well to produce them?" suggested Brent.

"Not yet anyway," she said. "I'll consider that—much of it's general statement, not particular accusation. But the Town Trustees question is not all. Until very recently, when a Reform party gradually got into being and increased steadily—though it's still in a minority—the whole representation and administration of the borough was hopelessly bad and unprincipled. For what do you suppose men went into the Town Council? To represent the ratepayer, the townspeople? No, but to look after their own interests; to safeguard themselves; to get what they could out of it: the whole policy of the old councils was one of—there's only one word for it, Mr. Brent, and that's only just becoming Anglicized—Graft! Now, the Corporation of a town is supposed to exist for the good, the welfare, the protection of a town, but the whole idea of these Hathelsborough men, in the past, has been to use their power and privileges as administrators, for their own ends. So here you've had, on the one hand, the unfortunate ratepayer and, on the other, a close Corporation, a privileged band of pirates, battening on them. In plain words, there are about a hundred men in Hathelsborough who have used the seven or eight thousand other folk as a means to their own ends. The town has been a helpless, defenceless thing, from which these harpies have picked whatever they could lay their talons on!"

"That's the conclusion he'd come to?" asked Brent.

"He couldn't come to any other after many years of patient investigation," declared Mrs. Saumarez. "And he was the sort of man who had an inborn hatred of abuses and shams and hypocrisy! And now put it to yourself—when a man stands up against vested interests, such as exist here, and says plainly that he's never going to rest, nor leave a stone unturned, until he's made a radical and thorough reformation, do you think he's going to have a primrose path of it? Bah! But he knew! He knew his danger."

"But—murder?" said Brent. "Murder!"

Mrs. Saumarez shook her head.

"Yes," she answered. "But there are men in this place who wouldn't stick at even that! You don't know. If Wallingford had done all the things he'd vowed to do, there would have been such an exposure of affairs here as would have made the whole country agape. And some men would have been ruined—literally. I know! And things will come out and be tracked down, if no red herrings are drawn across the trail. You're going to get at the truth?"

"By God, yes!" exclaimed Brent, with sudden fervour. "I am so!"

"Look for his murderers amongst the men he intended to show up, then!" she said, with a certain fierce intensity. "And look closely—and secretly! There's no other way!"

Brent presently left her and went off wondering about the contents of the little cabinet. He would have wondered still more if he had been able to look back into the cosy room which he had just left. For when he had gone, Mrs. Saumarez took the cabinet from the safe and carefully emptied the whole of its contents into the glowing heart of the fire. She stood watching as the flames licked round them, and until there was nothing left there but black ash.



CHAPTER IX

THE RIGHT TO INTERVENE

Brent went back to his hotel to find the Town Clerk of Hathelsborough waiting for him in his private sitting-room. His visitor, a sharp-eyed man whose profession was suggested in every look and movement, greeted him with a suavity of manner which set Brent on his guard.

"I am here, Mr. Brent," he said, with an almost deprecating smile, "as—well, as a sort of informal deputation—informal."

"Deputations represent somebody or something," retorted Brent, in his brusquest fashion. "Whom do you represent?"

"The borough authorities," replied the Town Clerk, with another smile. "That is to say——"

"You'll excuse me for interrupting," said Brent. "I'm a man of plain speech. I take it that by borough authorities you mean, say, Mr. Simon Crood and his fellow Town Trustees? That so?"

"Well, perhaps so," admitted the Town Clerk. "Mr. Alderman Crood, to be sure, is Deputy-Mayor. And he and his brother Town Trustees are certainly men of authority."

"What do you want?" demanded Brent.

The Town Clerk lowered his voice—quite unnecessarily in Brent's opinion. His suave tones became dulcet and mollifying.

"My dear sir," he said, leaning forward, "to-morrow you—you have the sad task of interring your cousin, our late greatly respected Mayor."

"Going to bury him to-morrow," responded Brent. "Just so—well?"

"There is a rumour in the town that you intend the—er—ceremony to be absolutely private," continued the Town Clerk.

"I do," assented Brent. "And it will be!"

The Town Clerk made a little expostulatory sound.

"My dear sir," he said soothingly, "the late Mr. Wallingford was Mayor of Hathelsborough! The four hundred and eighty-first Mayor of Hathelsborough, Mr. Brent!"

Brent, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, looked fixedly at his visitor.

"Supposing he was the nine hundred and ninety-ninth Mayor of Hathelsborough," he asked quietly, "what then?"

"He should have a public funeral," declared the Town Clerk promptly. "My dear sir, to inter a Mayor of Hathelsborough—and the four hundred and eighty-first holder of the ancient and most dignified office—privately, as if he were a—a mere nobody, a common townsman, is—oh, really, it's unheard of!"

"That the notion of the men who sent you here?" asked Brent grimly.

"The notion, as you call it, of the gentlemen who sent me here, Mr. Brent, is that your cousin's funeral obsequies should be of a public nature," answered the Town Clerk. "According to precedent, of course. During my term of office as Town Clerk two Mayors have died during their year of Mayoralty. On such occasions the Corporation has been present in state."

"In state?" said Brent. "What's that amount to? Sort of procession?"

"A duly marshalled one," answered the Town Clerk. "The beadle with his mace; the Deputy-Mayor; the Recorder—the Recorder and Town Clerk, of course, in wigs and gowns—the Aldermen in their furred robes; the Councillors in their violet gowns—a very stately procession, Mr. Brent, preceding the funeral cortege to St. Hathelswide's Church, where the Vicar, as Mayor's Chaplain, would deliver a funeral oration. The procession would return subsequently to the Moot Hall, for wine and cake."

Brent rubbed his square chin, staring hard at his visitor.

"Um!" he said at last. "Well, there isn't going to be anything of that sort to-morrow. I'm just going to bury my cousin quietly and privately, without maces and furred robes and violet gowns. So you can just tell 'em politely—nothing doing!"

"But my dear sir, my good Mr. Brent!" expostulated the visitor. "The Mayor of Hathelsborough! The oldest borough in the country! Why, our charter of incorporation dates from——"

"I'm not particularly interested in archaeology, just now anyway," interrupted Brent. "And it's nothing to me in connection with this matter if your old charter was signed by William the Conqueror or Edward the Confessor. I say—nothing doing!"

"But your reasons, my dear sir, your reasons!" exclaimed the Town Clerk. "Such a breaking with established custom and precedent! I really don't know what the neighbouring boroughs will say of us!"

"Let 'em say!" retorted Brent. He laughed contemptuously. But suddenly his mood changed, and he turned on his visitor with what the Town Clerk afterwards described as a very ugly look. "But if you want to know," he added, "I'll tell you why I won't have any Corporation processing after my cousin's dead body! It's because I believe that his murderer's one of 'em! See?"

The Town Clerk, a rosy-cheeked man, turned pale. His gloves lay on the table at his elbow, and his fingers trembled a little as he picked them up and began fitting them on with meticulous precision.

"My dear sir!" he said, in a tone that suggested his profession more strongly than ever. "That's very grave language. As a solicitor, I should advise you——"

"When I say murderer," continued Brent, "I'm perhaps wrong. I might—and no doubt ought to—use the plural. Murderers! I believe that more than one of your rascally Corporation conspired to murder my cousin! And I'm going to have no blood-stained hypocrites processing after his coffin! You tell 'em to keep away!"

"I had better withdraw," said the Town Clerk.

"No hurry," observed Brent, changing to geniality. He laid his hand on the bell. "Have a whisky-and-soda and a cigar? We've finished our business, and I guess you're a man as well as a lawyer?"

But the visitor was unable to disassociate his personal identity from his office, and he bowed himself out. Brent laughed when he had gone.

"Got the weight of four hundred and eighty-one years of incorporation on him!" he said. "Lord! it's like living with generation after generation of your grandfathers slung round you! Four hundred and eighty-one years! Must have been in the bad old days when this mouldy town got its charter!"

Next morning Brent buried the dead Mayor in St. Hathelswide's Churchyard, privately and quietly. He stayed by the grave until the sexton and his assistants had laid the green turf over it; that done, he went round to the Abbey House and sought out Mrs. Saumarez. After his characteristic fashion he spoke out what was in his mind.

"I've pretty well fixed up, in myself, to do what you suggested last night," he said, giving her one of his direct glances. "You know what I mean—to go on with his work."

Mrs. Saumarez's eyes sparkled.

"That would be splendid!" she exclaimed. "But, if he had opposition, you'll have it a hundred-fold! You're not afraid?"

"Afraid of nothing," said Brent carelessly. "But I just don't know how I'd get any right to do it. I'm not a townsman—I've no locus standi. But, then he wasn't, to begin with."

"I'd forgotten that," said Mrs. Saumarez. "And you'd have to give up your work in London—journalism, isn't it?"

"I've thought of that," said Brent. "Well, I've had a pretty good spell at it, and I'm not so keen about keeping on it any longer. There's other work—literary work—I'd prefer. And I'm not dependent on it any way—I've got means of my own, and now Wallingford's left me a good lot of money. No; I guess I wouldn't mind coming here and going on with the job he'd set himself to; I'd like to do it But, then, how to get a footing in the place?"

Mrs. Saumarez considered for a while. Suddenly her face lighted up.

"You've got money," she said. "Why don't you buy a bit of property in the town—a piece of real estate? Then——"

Brent picked up his hat.

"That's a good notion," he said. "I'll step round and see Tansley about it."

Tansley had been one of the very few men whom Brent had invited to be present at his cousin's interment. He had just changed his mourning garments for those of everyday life and was settling down to his professional business when Brent was shown into his private office.

"Busy?" demanded Brent in his usual laconic fashion.

"Give you whatever time you want," answered the solicitor, who knew his man by that time. "What is it now?"

"I've concluded to take up my abode in this old town," said Brent, with something of a sheepish smile. "Seems queer, no doubt, but my mind's fixed. And so, look here, you don't know anybody that's got a bit of real estate to sell—nice little house, or something of that sort? If so——"

Tansley thrust his letters and papers aside, pushed an open box of cigars in his visitor's direction, and lighting one himself became inquisitively attentive.

"What's the game?" he asked.

Brent lighted a cigar and took two or three meditative puffs at it before answering this direct question.

"Well," he said at last, "I don't think that I'm a particularly sentimental sort of person, but all the same I'm not storm-proof against sentiment. And I've just got the conviction that it's up to me to go on with my cousin's job in this place."

Tansley took his cigar from his lips and whistled.

"Tall order, Brent!" he remarked.

"So I reckon," assented Brent. "But I've served an apprenticeship to that sort of thing. And I've always gone through with whatever came in my way."

"Let's be plain," said Tansley. "You mean that you want to settle here in the town, and go on with Wallingford's reform policy?"

"That's just it," replied Brent. "You've got it."

"All I can say is, then, that you're rendering yourself up to—well, not envy, but certainly to hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, as it's phrased in the Prayer Book," declared Tansley. "You'll have a hot old time!"

"Used to 'em!" retorted Brent. "You forget I've been a press-man for some years."

"But you didn't get that sort of thing?" suggested Tansley, half incredulous.

Brent flicked the ash from his cigar and smiled.

"Don't go in for tall talk," he said lazily. "But it was I who tracked down the defaulting directors of the Great Combined Amalgamation affair, and ran to earth that chap who murdered his ward away up in Northumberland, and found the Pembury absconding bank-manager who'd scooted off so cleverly that the detectives couldn't trace even a smile of him! Pretty stiff propositions, all those! And I reckon I can do my bit here in this place, on Wallingford's lines, if I get the right to intervene, as a townsman. That's what I want—locus standi."

"And when you've got it?" asked Tansley.

Brent worked his cigar into the corner of his firm lips and folding his arms stared straight in front of him.

"Well," he said slowly, "I think I've fixed that in my own mind, fixed it all out while the parson was putting him away in that old churchyard this morning—I was thinking hard while he was reading his book. I understand that by my cousin's death there's a vacancy in the Town Council—he sat for some ward or other?"

"He sat for the Castle Ward, as Town Councillor," assented Tansley. "So of course there's a vacancy."

"Well," continued Brent, "I reckon I'll put up for that vacancy. I'll be Mr. Councillor Richard Brent!"

"You're a stranger, man!" laughed Tansley.

"I'll not be in a week's time," retorted Brent. "I'll be known to every householder in that ward! But—this locus standi? If I bought real estate in the town, I'd be a townsman, wouldn't I? A burgess, I reckon. And then—why legally I'd be as much a Hathelsborough man as, say, Simon Crood?"

Tansley took his hands out of his pockets and began to search amongst his papers.

"Well, you're a go-ahead chap, Brent!" he said. "Evidently not the sort to let grass grow under your feet. And if you want to buy a bit of nice property I've the very goods for you. There's a client of mine, John Chillingham, a retired tradesman, who wants to sell his house—he's desirous of quitting this part of the country and going to live on the South Coast. It's a delightful bit of property, just at the back of the Castle, and it's therefore in the Castle Ward. Acacia Lodge, it's called—nice, roomy, old-fashioned house, in splendid condition, modernized, set in a beautiful old garden, with a magnificent cedar tree on the lawn, and a fine view from its front windows. And, for a quick sale, cheap."

"What's the figure?" asked Brent.

"Two thousand guineas," answered Tansley.

Brent reached for his hat.

"Let's go and look at it," he said.

Within a few hours Brent had settled his purchase of Acacia Lodge from the retired tradesman and Tansley was busy with the legal necessities of the conveyance. That done, and in his new character of townsman and property owner, Brent sought out Peppermore, and into that worthy's itching and astonished ears poured out a confession which the editor of the Monitor was to keep secret until next day; after which, retiring to his sitting-room at the Chancellor, he took up pen and paper, and proceeded to write a document which occasioned him more thought than he usually gave to his literary productions. It was not a lengthy document, but it had been rewritten and interlineated and corrected several times before Brent carried it to the Monitor office and the printing-press. Peppermore, reading it over, grinned with malicious satisfaction.

"That'll make 'em open their mouths and their eyes to-morrow morning, Mr. Brent!" he exclaimed. "We'll have it posted all over the town by ten o'clock, sir. And all that the Monitor—powerful organ, Mr. Brent, very powerful organ!—can do on your behalf and in your interest shall be done, sir, it shall be done—con amore, as I believe they say in Italy."

"Thank 'ee!" said Brent. "You're the right stuff."

"Don't mention it, sir," replied Peppermore. "Only too pleased. Egad! I wish I could see Mr. Alderman Crood's face when he reads this poster!"

At five minutes past ten next morning, as he, Mallett and Coppinger came together out of the side-door of the bank, where they had been in close conference since half-past nine, on affairs of their own, Mr. Alderman Crood saw the poster on which was set out Brent's election address to the voters of the Castle Ward. The bill-posting people had pasted a copy of it on a blank wall opposite; the three men, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, gathered round and read. Crood grew purple with anger.

"Impudence!" he exclaimed at last. "Sheer brazen impudence! Him—a stranger! Take up his cousin's work, will he? And what's he mean by saying that he's now a Hathelsborough man?"

"I heard about that last night," answered Coppinger. "Tansley told two or three of us at the club. This fellow Brent has bought that property of old Chillingham's—Acacia Lodge. Freehold, you know; bought it right out. He's a Hathelsborough man now, right enough."

Then they both turned and glanced at Mallett, who was re-reading Brent's election address with brooding eyes and lowering brow.

"Well?" demanded Coppinger. "What do you make of it, Mallett?"

Mallett removed his glasses and sniffed.

"Don't let's deceive ourselves," he said, with a hasty glance round. "This chap's out to make trouble. He's no fool, either. If he gets into the Council we shall have an implacable enemy. And he's every chance. So it's all the more necessary than ever that we should bring off to-morrow what we've been talking over this morning."

"We ought to do that," said Coppinger. "We can count on fourteen sure votes."

"Ay!" said Mallett. "But so can they! The thing is—the three votes neither party can count on. We must get at those three men to-day. If we don't carry our point to-morrow, we shall have Sam Epplewhite or Dr. Wellesley as Mayor, and things'll be as bad as they were under Wallingford."

This conversation referred to an extraordinary meeting of the Town Council which had been convened for the next day, in order to elect a new Mayor of Hathelsborough in succession to John Wallingford, deceased. Brent heard of it that afternoon, from Queenie Crood, in the Castle grounds. He had met Queenie there more than once since their first encountering in those sheltered nooks: already he was not quite sure that he was not looking forward with increasing pleasure to these meetings. For with each Queenie came further out of her shell, the more they met, the more she let him see of herself—and he found her interesting. And they had given up talking of Queenie's stage ambitions—not that she had thrown them over, but that she and Brent had begun to find the discussion of their own personalities more to the immediate point than the canvassing of remote possibilities: each, in fact, was in the stage of finding each other a mine worth exploring. Brent began to see a lot in Queenie and her dark eyes; Queenie was beginning to consider Brent, with his grim jaw, his brusque, off-hand speech, and masterful manner, a curiously fascinating person; besides, he was beginning to do things that only strong men do.

"You're in high disgrace at the Tannery House," she remarked archly when they met that afternoon. "I should think your ears must have burned this dinner-time."

"Why, now?" inquired Brent.

"Uncle Simon brought Mallet and Coppinger home to dinner," continued Queenie. "It was lucky there was a big hot joint!—they're all great eaters and drinkers. And they abused you to their hearts' content. This Town Council business—they say it's infernal impudence for you to put up for election. However, Coppinger says you'll not get in."

"Coppinger is a bad prophet," said Brent. "I'll be Town Councillor in a fortnight. Lay anybody ten to one!"

"Well, they'll do everything they can to keep you out," declared Queenie. "You've got to fight an awful lot of opposition."

"Let 'em all come!" retorted Brent. "I'll represent the Castle Ward, and now that I'm a burgess of Hathelsborough I'll be Mayor some old time."

"Not yet, though," said Queenie. "They're going to elect a new Mayor to-morrow. In place of your cousin of course."

Brent started. Nobody had mentioned that to him. Yet he might have thought of it himself—of course there must be a new Mayor of Hathelsborough.

"Gad! I hope it'll not be one of the old gang!" he muttered. "If it is——"

But by noon next day he heard that the old gang had triumphed. Mr. Alderman Crood was elected Mayor of Hathelsborough by a majority of two votes. A couple of the wobblers on the Council had given way at the last moment and thrown in their lot with the reactionary, let-things-alone party.

"Never mind! I'll win my election," said Brent. "The future is with me."

He set to work, in strenuous fashion, to enlist the favours of the Castle Ward electorate. All day, from early morning until late at night, he was cultivating the acquaintance of the burgesses. He had little time for any other business than this—there were but ten days before the election. But now and then he visited the police station and interviewed Hawthwaite; and at each visit he found the superintendent becoming increasingly reserved and mysterious in manner. Hawthwaite would say nothing definite, but he dropped queer hints about certain things that he had up his sleeve, to be duly produced at the adjourned inquest. As to what they were, he remained resolutely silent, even to Brent.



CHAPTER X

THE CAT IN THE BAG

But as the day of the adjourned inquest drew near Brent became aware that there were rumours in the air—rumours of some sensational development, the particulars of which were either non-obtainable or utterly vague. He heard of them from Peppermore, whose journalistic itching for news had so far gone unrelieved; Peppermore himself knew no more than that rumour was busy, and secret.

"Can't make out for the life of me what it is, Mr. Brent!" said Peppermore, calling upon Brent at the Chancellor on the eve of the inquiry. "But there's something, sir, something! You know that boy of mine—young Pryder?"

"Smart youth!" replied Brent.

"As they make 'em, sir," agreed Peppermore. "That boy, Mr. Brent, will go far in the profession of which you're a shining and I'm a dim light!—he's got what the French, I believe, sir, call a flair for news. Took to our line like a duck to water, Mr. Brent! Well, now, young Pryder's father is a policeman—sergeant in the Borough Constabulary, and naturally he's opportunities of knowing. And when he knows he talks—in the home circle, Mr. Brent."

"Been talking?" asked Brent.

"Guardedly, sir, guardedly!" replied Peppermore. "Young Pryder, he told me this afternoon that his father, when he came home to dinner to-day, said to him and his mother that when the inquest's reopened to-morrow there's be something to talk about—somebody, said Sergeant Pryder, would have something to talk of before the day was over. So—there you are!"

"I suppose old Pryder didn't tell young Pryder any more than that?" suggested Brent.

"He did not, sir," said Peppermore. "Had he done so, Jimmy Pryder would have made half a column, big type, leaded, out of it. No; nothing more. There are men in this world, Mr. Brent, as you have doubtless observed, who are given to throwing out mere hints—sort of men who always look at you as much as to say, 'Ah, I could tell a lot if I would!' I guess Sergeant Pryder's one of 'em."

"Whatever Sergeant Pryder knows he's got from Hawthwaite, of course," remarked Brent.

"To be sure, sir!" agreed Peppermore. "Hawthwaite's been up to something—I've felt that for some days. I imagine there'll be new witnesses to-morrow, but who they'll be I can't think."

Brent could not think, either, nor did he understand Hawthwaite's reserve. But he wasted no time in speculation: he had already made up his mind that unless something definite arose at the resumed inquiry he would employ professional detective assistance and get to work on lines of his own. He had already seen enough of Hathelsborough ways and Hathelsborough folk to feel convinced that if this affair of his cousin's murder could be hushed up it would be hushed up—the Simon Crood gang, he was persuaded, would move heaven and earth to smooth things over and consign the entire episode to oblivion. Against that process he meant to labour: in his opinion the stirring up of strong public interest was the line to take, and he was fully determined that if the Coroner and his twelve good men and true could not sift the problem of this inquiry to the bottom he would.

That public feeling and curiosity—mainly curiosity—were still strong enough, and were lasting well over the proverbial nine days, Brent saw as soon as he quitted the hall door of the Chancellor next morning. The open space between High Cross and the Moot Hall was packed with people, eager to enter the big court room as soon as the doors were thrown open. Conscious that he himself would get a seat whoever else did not, Brent remained standing on the steps of the hotel, lazily watching the gossiping crowd And suddenly Mrs. Saumarez, once more attired in the semi-mourning which she had affected at the earlier proceedings, and attended by the same companion, came along the market-place in his direction. Brent went down and joined her.

"Pretty stiff crowd!" he remarked laconically. "I'm afraid you'll find it a bit of a crush this time. I suppose you'll not let that stop you, though?"

He noticed then that Mrs. Saumarez was looking anxious, perhaps a little distressed, and certainly not too well pleased. She gave him a glance which began at himself and ended at a folded paper which she carried in her well-gloved hand.

"I've got to go!" she murmured. "Got to—whether I like it or not! They've served me with a summons, as a witness. Ridiculous! What do I know about it? All that I do know is—private."

Brent stared at the bit of paper. He, too, was wondering what the Coroner wanted with Mrs. Saumarez.

"I'm afraid they haven't much respect for privacy in these affairs," he remarked. "Odd, though, that if they want you now they didn't want you at the first sitting!"

"Do you think they'll ask questions that are—private?" she suggested half-timidly.

"Can't say," replied Brent. "You'd better be prepared for anything. You know best, after all, what they can ask you. I reckon the best thing, in these affairs, is just to answer plainly, and be done with it."

"There are certain things one doesn't want raking up," she murmured. "For instance—do you think you'll have to give evidence again?"

"Maybe," said Brent.

She gave him a meaning look and lowered her voice.

"Well," she whispered, "if you have to, don't let anything come out about—about those letters. You know what I mean—the letters you got for me from his rooms? I—I don't want it to be known, in the town, that he and I corresponded as much as all that. After all, there are some things——"

Just then, and while Brent was beginning to speculate on this suddenly-revealed desire for secrecy, a movement in the crowd ahead of them showed that the doors of the Moot Hall had been thrown open; he, too, moved forward, drawing his companion with him.