Timeworn Town (Munsey's Magazine, 1923)/Part 2

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RENT 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, who, at the time of his death, was mayor of Hathelsborough, and forty-one years of age. He detailed the particulars of his own arrival in the town on the evening of the murder, and told how he and Bunning, going upstairs to the mayor's parlor, 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, “that you are the nearest blood relative of the deceased?”

“I am,” replied Brent.

“Then you can give us some information which may be of use. Although the mayor had lived in Hathelsborough some ten or eleven years, he was not a native of the town, or of this part of the country. 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 Rev. Septimus Wallingford, who was sometime vicar of Market Meadow, in Berkshire. His father and mother died many years ago. He 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 the firm for some time. About eleven 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. “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 very good terms?”

“We were on affectionate 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 by 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 stables 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 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 England.”

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

“Oh, well, he laughed as he made it. I took it as an instance 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. Brent sat down again beside 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 did not seem to carry affairs any further. Yet he began to see that even the apparently irrelevant fragments of evidence were not without their 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, but the watchman 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 parlor, half burned, and when he brought forward the rapier which had been discovered behind the bookcase. Still more was aroused 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.

The interest died down again, however, 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 parlor. 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 through the door near which his desk was posted.

On pressure by the coroner, this witness admitted that between six and eight o'clock on the fateful evening he had twice been absent from the neighborhood of that door for intervals of five or six minutes. It was possible, therefore, 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 happened on the evening of the murder—for Peppermore had published, in successive editions of his Monitor, every scrap of information he could rake up—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 these papers 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 away from it twice?”

“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 any one could get up to the mayor's parlor 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—auntil 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 about the same length of time, 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 don't you think so?”

“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. “What is the length of the passage between that door and 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 parlor?”

The witness reflected for a moment.

“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 the bench, 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 amid a heterogeneous collection of people, men and women, congregated at the rear of the witness box, a woman came forward—one of the most extraordinary creatures he had ever seen, thought Brent. She was nearly six feet in height, and 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, and her eyes as shrewd and hard as they were small and close-set. A very grenadier of a woman!

Apparently she was quite unmoved by the knowledge that everybody was staring at her. Sarah Jane Spizey—yes, she said. Wife of the town bellman, she added, and 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 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 toward the mayor's parlor?”

“Which I never did, sir. I never see a soul of any sort. 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.

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 Samuel John Epplewhite, an elderly and highly respectable tradesman of the town, closely associated with the reform party in the town council, of which the late mayor had become the acknowledged leader. He was 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—to give 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. Perhaps you'll step into the witness box?”

The people 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, who 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 had similar tastes and interests, and we had been friends since his first coming to the town; but our friendship had been on an even more intimate basis during the last year or two, and especially in recent months, owing, no doubt, to the fact that we belonged to the same party in the town council, and were 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 in the council, resolved that during his year of office we would do our best to sweep away certain crying abuses, and generally to 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 that is 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 favoritism 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 have used their power to benefit relations and favorites. I question if there's another town in the country in which such a state of things would be permitted. But there is a still 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. This is the fact that the financial affairs of this town are entirely controlled by what is virtually a self-constituted body of officials, called the town trustees. They are three in number. [f one dies, the surviving two elect his successor. Needless to say, they take good care to 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. He claimed that the municipal government 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. Of course, there was much bitter animosity aroused by this proposal, because the town trustees have had a free hand, and have 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 asked only as a mere formality.

“The town trustees at present, sir,” he answered quietly, “are Mr. Alderman Crood, deputy mayor; Mr. Councilor Mallett, borough auditor; and Mr. Councilor Coppinger, borough treasurer.”

Amid a curious silence, broken only by the scratching of the coroner's pen, Alderman Crood rose heavily in his place among 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 later. 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 active hostility. He, and those of us who agreed with him, were constantly asked in the Council Chamber what right we had to be endeavoring 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 recently, in the case of the late mayor, actual threats have been used. 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 documentary 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, we 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. The mayor 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 me being found with a bullet—my head or a knife between my ribs!'

“What do you mean, Mr. Mayor?' 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 amid 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 shall now read the letter to you. It is as follows:

“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 person—or, at any rate, a partially 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, and expressed precisely as a vulgar, coarse sort of person would speak. That is the first point. The second is that 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, and 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 employee. Therefore he must have typed it himself. I shall invite your attention to the letter, which I now hand to you, and then I shall place it in the custody of the police, who will, of course, use their best endeavors 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. “'You can keep that, Sam,' he said, half jokingly. '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, and it has remained there until this morning.”

“Of course you 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 party.”

“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, I mean, 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 very 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 Mr. 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 in 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, Mr. Seagrave adjourned the inquest for ten days. Presently the people who had listened to the proceedings streamed out into the Market Place, excited and voluble. Instead of going away, most of those who had been present lingered around the entrance.

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! Nothing 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 side. “Implying!”

“Dirty work!” shouted Alderman Crood. “Such as nobody but the likes o' you radicals and teetotalers and chapel folk—would 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 not 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—and 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 a side, led him away along the Market Place.

Suddenly, from among 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 the bottom o' this! Down wi' 'em!”

The town trustees retreated before a chorus of hooting, and 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 looking grave.

“Bad, bad!” muttered Tansley. “Very bad! Once get public opinion set on like that, and—”

“And what?” demanded Brent. He was already so fully 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 among the working folk. If they once get it into their heads that the other 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 murderer, I don't care if the people hang him 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 toward it this morning, but not far.”

“How about 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 unraveling of which time and trouble would have to be expended freely. Nevertheless, 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 around to the private residence of Mrs. Saumarez.

, at that moment, was in a state of mind which made every fiber of his being particularly sensitive to suspicions and speculative ideas. No sooner had he 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.

As he crossed the hall of the hotel, he encountered Tansley, who was just emerging from the smoking room. A thought occurred to him. He motioned Tansley back into the room that 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 around to her house at once.”

Tansley looked his interest.

“Ah!” he exclaimed. “Then she has something to tell!”

“Why to me?” demanded Brent.

“You're Wallingford's next of kin,” said the solicitor. “That's why.”

“Wonder what it is!” muttered Brent.

“Go to her 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 bought 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. She used to go out driving with him, 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. 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 afterthought struck him, “I'll say this for Wellesley—he's never allowed his undoubted jealousy of Wallingford to prevent him from supporting Wallingford in the town council. Indeed, he has always been one of the late mayor's stanchest and most consistent supporters.”

“Oh! Dr. Wellesley's in the town council, is he?” asked Brent. “And a reform man?”

“He is councilor 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. My cousin, poor fellow, was about as plain and insignificant a chap to look at as ever I came across.”

“Your cousin was a damned clever chap!” said Tansley incisively. “He had brains, my dear sir; and where women—cleverish women, anyhow—are concerned, brains are going to come in winners by as many lengths as you please. Mrs. Saumarez, I understand, is a woman who dabbles in politics. Your cousin interested her; and when a woman gets deeply interested in a man—eh?”

“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 he had just received. So there was a coolness between his cousin and Wellesley—a coolness that amounted, said Tansley, to something stronger! Did it amount to jealousy? Did the jealousy lead to—

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 timeworn old place there were people who had secrets, and who did things in a curiously secret fashion.

Mrs. Saumarez's house stood a little way back from the street called Abbey Gate—an old Jacobean mansion, set amid the elms for which Hathelsborough was famous, so preposterously and to such a height did they grow all over the town. A smart parlor maid who looked inquisitively at him, and who was evidently expecting his arrival, admitted Brent, and led him at once along a dimly lighted hall into a little room, half parlor, half library, where the glow of a shaded lamp shone on a snug and comfortable interior, and on more rows of books than young and pretty women generally possess.

Left alone for a few minutes, Brent glanced along 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 were those in which Wallingford had always been deeply absorbed.

Perhaps, 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; and that sort of thing might be 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. 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 somberly clothed at the inquest that morning, but she was now in full evening dress. 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 much 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 to see 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 to see 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—“perhaps you're already aware that your cousin and I were great friends?”

“I've heard it,” answered Brent. He nodded at one of the bookcases 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 care 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. “I am his sole everything.”

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

“That's so,” answered Brent. “Everything is 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 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 around the corner of her pretty lips.

“Rotten to the core!” she said quietly. “Ripe rotten! He knew it. He knew more than he ever let any one know!”

“More than he even 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 slender fingers which lay in her lap.

“He kept all mine,” she continued.

“Yes?” repeated Brent.

“1 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 locked in a cedarwood cabinet in a drawer in his bedroom.”

“All right!” said Brent. “I'll get them.”

Was he mistaken in thinking that an unmistakable sigh of relief left Mrs. Saumarez's delicate red lips, and that an additional flush of color came into her cheeks? At any rate, 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 had a motto drummed into my head day in and day out—'Do it now!' I guess I'll just go around 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 stay here, Mr. Brent, and take up your cousin's work.”

“It would be a fitting tribute to his memory, wouldn't it?” answered Brent. “Aye, well, I don't know. 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 around 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 the key among those,” he said. “They're all the private keys of his that I have, anyhow.”

“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. Unthinking, 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, and some faded flowers.

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

Mrs. Saumarez took the key from him in silence, relocked the cabinet, and carried it over to a safe let into 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 suddenly he 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 a political crime?” he asked. “A—removal?”

He was watching her closely. He saw the violet eyes grow somber, 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 old-world English boroughs are. He knew it, poor fellow. He had steadily been finding it out since he came here. I dare say you, coming from London, a great city, wouldn't understand; but this little town is run by a gang, the members of which maneuver everything for the benefit of themselves and their friends—their friends and their hangers-on, 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. Those 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.

“No—not yet, anyhow,” she said. “I'll consider that. Much of it is general statement, not particular accusation; and 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. Why do you suppose men went into the town council? To represent the taxpayers, 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! A municipal government 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 powers and privileges for their own ends. So here you've had, on the one hand, the unfortunate taxpayer, 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 people as a means to their own ends. The town has been a helpless, defenseless thing, from which these harpies have picked whatever they could lay their talons on!”

“That's the conclusion he'd come to, eh?” asked Brent.

“He couldn't come to any other after many years of patient investigation,” declared Mrs. Saumarez. “He was the sort of man who had an inborn hatred of abuses and shams and hypocrisy. 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.

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. Some men would have been ruined—literally ruined—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 fervor. “I am so!”

“Look for his murderers among 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!”

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,” said he, with an almost deprecating smile, “as—well, as a sort of informal deputation—very informal indeed.”

“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 here.”

“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 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 rumor in the town that you intend the—er—ceremony to be absolutely private,” continued the town clerk.

“I do,” assented Brent. “It will be absolutely private.”

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,” promptly declared the town clerk. “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 city authorities have been present in state.”

“In state, eh?” said Brent. “What would that amount to? Some sort of procession, eh?”

“A duly marshaled one,” answered the town clerk. “The beadle with his mace; the deputy mayor; the recorder and the town clerk, with their wigs and gowns; the aldermen in their furred robes; the councilors in their violet gowns—a very stately procession, Mr. Brent, preceding the funeral cortège to St. Hathelswide's Church, where the vicar, as mayor's chaplain, would deliver a funeral oration. The procession would subsequently return 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. 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 archæology just now, anyway,” interrupted Brent. “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—there's 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 neighboring 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 afterward described as a very ugly look.

“If you want to know,” he added, “I'll tell you why I won't have any city authorities processing after my cousin's dead body. It's because I believe that his murderer's one of 'em! Understand?”

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 should, have used the plural—murderers. I believe that more than one of your rascally gang conspired to murder my cousin, and I'm going to have no bloodstained 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, eh?”

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 history on him!” he said. “Lord! It's like living with generation after generation of your grandfathers slung around you. Four hundred and eighty-one years! Must have been in the bad old days when this moldy 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 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 decided 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 don't see how I can get any right to do it. I've no locus standi. I'm not a townsman; but then he wasn't, to begin with.”

“I'd forgotten that,” said Mrs. Saumarez. “And of course you would 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 sticking to it any longer. There's other work—literary work—that I should prefer. I'm not dependent on it, for I have means of my own, and now Wallingford has left me a good lot of money. No—I guess I wouldn't mind coming here and going on with the job that he set himself to. I should like to do it; but how to get a footing in the place?”

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

“You have 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 around and see Tansley about it.”

Tansley was one of the very few men whom Brent had invited to be present at his cousin's interment. The solicitor 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 Tansley, who knew his man by this 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. You don't know of anybody who has a bit of real estate to sell—nice little house, or something of that sort? If so—eh?”

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 have come to feel that it's up to me to go on with my cousin's job in this place. Understand?”

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 newspaper 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 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 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—what then?” 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 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, eh?”

“He sat for the Castle Ward as town councilor,” 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. Councilor Richard Brent—see?”

“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! If I buy real estate in the town, I shall be a townsman, shan't I? A burgess, I reckon; and then—why, legally I shall be as much a Hathelsborough man as—say Simon Crood.”

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

“Well, you're a go-ahead chap, Brent,” he said. “Evidently not the sort to let grass grow under your feet. 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 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 the 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 look at it,” he said.

a few hours Brent had settled his purchase of Acacia Lodge from the retired tradesman, and Tansley was busy with the legal formalities 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 a confession which the editor of the Monitor was to keep secret until next day.

This done, Brent, retiring to his sitting room at the Chancellor, 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 interlined and corrected several times before Brent carried it to Peppermore's office. Reading it over, the editor 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. 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 you!” 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 Crood, 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, Simon Crood saw the poster, on which was set out Brent's election address to the voters of the Castle Ward. A copy of it had been posted on a blank wall opposite, and the three men, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, gathered before it 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 does 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 Chilling-ham'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 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 has a good chance. It's 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.”

“Aye,” said Mallett, “but—so can they! The thing is the three votes that 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 talk in those sheltered nooks. Already he was not quite sure that he was not looking forward with increasing pleasure to their meetings. For with each, Queenie came farther out of her shell. The more they met, the more she let him see of herself, and he found that she interested him.

They had given up talking of Queenie's stage ambitions. Not that she had thrown them over, but 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 the other a mine worth exploring. Brent began to see much in Queenie and her dark eyes. Queenie was beginning to consider Brent, with his grim jaw, his brusque, offhand speech, and his 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, I can tell you,” she remarked archly, when they met that afternoon. “I should think your ears must have burned at dinner time to-day.”

“Why, now?” inquired Brent.

“Uncle Simon brought Mallett and Coppinger home to dinner,” continued Queenie. “It was lucky there was a big hot joint, for they're all great eaters and drinkers. Well, 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 councilor in a fortnight. Lay anybody ten to one!”

“Well, they'll do everything they possibly 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—”

By noon next day he heard that the old gang had triumphed, for Mr. Alderman Crood was elected mayor by a majority of two votes. A couple of the wabblers on the council had given way at the last moment, and had decided to throw 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 favor 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, for there were but ten days before the election; but now and then he visited the police station and interviewed Hawthwaite.

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 these revelations might be, he remained resolutely silent, even to Brent.

the day of the adjourned inquest drew near, Brent became aware that there were rumors in the air—rumors of some sensational development, the particulars of which were either unprocurable 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 rumor was busy, and secret.

“Can't make out for the life of me what it is,” said Peppermore, calling upon Brent at the Chancellor on the eve of the inquiry; “but there's something coming, 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 has 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 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 would 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 guess.”

Brent could not guess, 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 would 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 labor. In his opinion, the stirring up of strong public interest was the line to take, and he had 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 curiosity was still strong enough, and was lasting well over the proverbial nine days, Brent saw as soon as he quitted the 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.

Suddenly Mrs. Saumarez, once more attired in the half 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. “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 that 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. “It seems 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 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 plan, in these affairs, is just to answer as plainly as possible, and be done with it.”

“There are certain things one doesn't want to have raked 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, Mr. Brent—the letters you got for me from Mr. Wallingford's rooms. I—I don't want it to be known 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.

“You'll not forget that?” said Mrs. Saumarez insistently. “The letters have nothing to do with this, of course—nothing! Don't let it out that—”

“I shan't volunteer any evidence of any sort,” responded Brent. “If I'm confronted with a direct question which necessitates a direct answer, that's another matter; but I don't think you have anything to worry about. I should say that what they want you for is to ask a question or two as to my cousin's movements that night. Didn't he call at your house on his way to the mayor's parlor? Yes, that 'll be it!”

“I hope so!” said Mrs. Saumarez, with a sigh of relief. “But that witness box, and before all these people—I don't like it at all!”

“Got to be done,” observed Brent. “Soon over, though. Now let's get in.”

He piloted Mrs. Saumarez and her companion into the borough court, handed over to the coroner for the special purposes of his inquest, and found them seats in a reserved part. Leaving them, he went over to the solicitors' table, where he took a place by the side of Tansley, who was already settled there with his notes and papers. Tansley gave Brent a significant glance, nodding his head sidewise at other men near them.

“Going to be a more serious affair, this, than the first was, Brent,” he whispered. “Either these police chaps have something up their sleeves or Hawthwaite's got some bee in his bonnet. Anyway, there's a barrister in the case on their behalf—that little, keen-eyed chap at the far end of the table on your left. That's Meeking, one of the sharpest criminal barristers going. I hear they're meaning to call a lot of new witnesses; but what it's all about I don't know.”

Brent looked up and down the table at which they were sitting. There were men there—legal-looking men—whom he had not seen in the court at the opening day's proceedings.

“Who are these other fellows?” he asked.

“Oh, well, Crood's got a man representing his interests,” replied Tansley. “There's another solicitor watching the case on behalf of the municipal government; and I rather fancy that that chap at the extreme end of the table is representing the treasury—which may mean that this affair is going to be taken up at headquarters; but we know nothing till the cards are on the board. Hawthwaite looks important enough this morning to hold all the aces!”

Brent glanced at the superintendent, who was exchanging whispers with the coroner's officer, and from him to the crowded seats that ran around three sides of the court. All the notabilities of Hathelsborough were there again, in full force—Simon Crood, in a seat of honor, as befitted his new dignity of mayor; Mallett; Coppinger; anybody and everybody of consequence. There, too, were Krevin Crood and Queenie, and, just behind Mrs. Saumarez, Dr. Wellesley, looking distinctly bored, and his assistant, Dr. Carstairs, a young Scotsman. Near them was another medical man, Dr. Barber; and near the witness box were several men whom Brent knew by sight as townsmen, and who were evidently expecting to be called for testimony. He turned away, wondering what was to come out of all this.

Once more the coroner, precise and formal as ever, took his seat; once more the twelve jurymen settled in their places. While Brent was speculating on the first order of procedure, he was startled by the sharp, official voice of the coroner's officer.

“Mrs. Anita Saumarez!”

Brent heard Tansley smother an exclamation of surprise. A murmur that was not smothered ran along the crowded benches behind him. There was something dramatic in the sudden calling of the pretty young widow, whose personality was still more or less of a mystery to Hathelsborough people. There was something curiosity-raising in the mere fact that she was called. All eyes were on her as, showing traces of confusion and resentment, she made her way to the witness box.

There was delay then. Mrs. Saumarez had to be instructed to lift her veil and remove her right-hand glove. This gave the crowd abundant opportunity for observing that her usually bright complexion had paled, and that she was obviously ill at ease. It was with much embarrassment, and in a very low voice, that she replied to the preliminary questions.

Anita Saumarez—widow of the late Captain Roderick Francis Saumarez—had been resident at the Abbey House, Hathelsborough, for about two years.

“Doesn't like this job!” whispered Tansley to Brent. “Queer! From what bit I've seen of her, I should have said she'd make a very good and self-possessed witness; but she's nervous! Old Seagrave will have to tackle her gently.”

The coroner evidently realized this as much as Tansley did. He leaned forward confidentially from his desk, toying with his spectacles, and regarded the witness with an encouraging and paternal smile.

“Mrs. Saumarez,” he began, “we want to ask you a few questions—questions your replies to which may perhaps give us a little light on this very sad matter. I believe I am correct in thinking that you and the late Mr. Wallingford were personal friends?”

Mrs. Saumarez's answer came in low tones, and in one word.

“Yes.”

“Very close friends, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“He used to visit at your house a great deal?”

““Yes.”

“Dine with you, I think, once or twice a week?”

“At one time—yes.”

“At one time, you say? When was that period?”

Mrs. Saumarez, who had thus far kept her eyes on the ledge of the witness box, began to take courage. She lifted them toward the coroner, and, encountering his placidly benevolent gaze, let them remain there.

“Well,” she replied, “from about the time he became mayor until the time of his death.”

“Regularly?”

“Yes, regularly.”

“We may take it, then, that you were fond of each other's society?”

Mrs. Saumarez hesitated.

“He was a very interesting man,” she said at last. “I liked to talk to him.”

The coroner bent a little nearer.

“Well, now, a more personal question,” he said suavely. “You will see the importance of it. Mr. Wallingford was constantly visiting you. I want a plain answer to what I am going to ask you. Was he a suitor for your hand?”

Mrs. Saumarez's cheeks flushed, and she looked down at the ungloved hand which rested, pressed on its gloved fellow, on the ledge before her.

“He—he asked me to marry him,” she murmured.

“When was that?”

“Not—not long before his death.”

“And—I'm afraid I must ask you—what was your answer?”

“I—refused his offer.”

“Did that make any difference to your friendship?”

“It hadn't done so, up to the time of his death.”

“He still visited you?”

“Yes, just as often.”

The coroner remained silent for a moment, glancing at his notes. When he looked toward the witness again, he was blander than ever.

“Now I shall have to ask you still more personal questions,” he said. “It is, as you must be aware, Mrs. Saumarez, well known in the town that after you first came here as a resident, you were on terms of great friendship with Dr. Wellesley. Do you agree to that?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“You used to go out a great deal with Dr. Wellesley—driving, and so on?”

“Yes.”

“In fact, Dr. Wellesley at that time paid you great attention?”

“Yes.”

“Did those attentions cease about the time that you became so friendly with Mr. Wallingford?”

“Well, they didn't altogether cease.”

“But they—shall we say that they fell off?”

Mrs. Saumarez hesitated, obviously disliking the question.

“I have always been friends with Dr. Wellesley,” she said eventually.

“All the same, has your friendship with him been quite what it was originally, since you became so very friendly with the late mayor?”

“Well, perhaps not.”

“Will you give me a plain answer to this question? Was there any jealousy aroused between Dr. Wellesley and Mr. Wallingford because of you?”

This time Mrs. Saumarez took a long time to answer. She seemed to be thinking, reflecting; and when she replied, it was only to question the coroner.

“Am I obliged to answer that?” she asked.

“I am afraid I must press for an answer,” said the coroner. “It is an important point.”

“I think there was jealousy,” she replied in a low voice.

“On whose part?”

“Dr. Wellesley thought I had thrown him over for Mr. Wallingford.”

“Had Dr. Wellesley ever asked you to marry him?”

Mrs. Saumarez's answer came with unexpected swiftness.

“Oh, yes—two or three times!”

“Had you refused him also, then?”

Mrs. Saumarez paused. Her cheeks flushed a deeper red.

“The fact was, I didn't want to marry anybody—not just then, anyway,” she answered. “They—both asked me—several times. I—if you please, will you not ask me any more about my private affairs? They have nothing to do with this. It wasn't my fault that those two men were jealous of each other, and—”

“She's let the cat out of the bag now!” whispered Tansley to Brent. “Gad, I see how this thing's going to develop! Whew! Well, there she goes!”

For the coroner had politely motioned Mrs. Saumarez away from the box, and the next instant the official voice rapped out another name:

“Dr. Rutherford Carstairs!”

, a red-haired, blue-eyed, stolid-faced young Scotsman, stepped into the witness box with the air of a man who is being forced against his will to the performance of some distasteful duty. Everybody looked wonderingly at him. He was a comparative stranger in the town, and unimaginative people among the spectators were already cudgeling their brains for an explanation of his presence.

Brent, after a glance at Carstairs, transferred his attention to the young Scotsman's principal, at whom he had already looked once or twice during Mrs. Saumarez's brief occupancy of the witness box. Wellesley, sitting in a corner seat a little to the rear of the solicitors' table, had manifested some signs of surprise and annoyance while Mrs. Saumarez was being questioned; now he showed blank wonder at hearing his assistant called. He looked from Carstairs to the coroner, and from the coroner to Hawthwaite. Suddenly, while Carstairs was taking the oath, he slipped from his seat, approached Cotman, a local solicitor, who sat listening, close by Tansley, and began to talk to him in hurried undertones.

Tansley nudged Brent's elbow.

“Wellesley's tumbled to it!” he whispered. “The police suspect—him!”

“Good Heavens!” muttered Brent, utterly unprepared for this suggestion. “You really think so?”

“Dead sure!” asserted Tansley. “That's the theory! What's this red-headed chap called for, else? You listen!”

Brent was listening keenly enough. The witness was giving an account of himself. Robert Carstairs—qualified medical practitioner—qualifications specified—at present assistant to Dr. Wellesley—been with him three months.

“Dr. Carstairs,” began the coroner, “do you remember the evening on which the late mayor, Mr. Wallingford, was found dead in the mayor's parlor?”

“I do,” replied Carstairs bluntly.

“Where were you on that evening?”

“In the surgery.”

“What are your surgery hours at Dr. Wellesley's?”

“Nine to ten of a morning and seven to nine of an evening.”

“Was Dr. Wellesley with you in the surgery on that particular evening?”

“He was—some of the time.”

“Not all the time?”

“No.”

“What part of the time was he there with you?”

“From seven o'clock until half past seven.”

“Attending to patients, I suppose?”

“There were patients in the surgery—three or four.”

“Do you remember who they were?”

“Not particularly. Their names will be in the book.”

“Just ordinary callers?”

“Just that.”

“You stated just now that Dr. Wellesley was there until half past seven. What happened then?”

“He went out of the surgery.”

“Do you mean out of the house?”

“I mean just what I say—out of the surgery.”

“Where is the surgery situated?”

“At the back of the house, behind the dining room. There's a way into it from St. Laurence Lane. That's the way the patients come in.”

“Did Dr. Wellesley go out that way, or did he go into the house?”

“I don't know where he went. All I know is that he went, leaving me in the surgery.”

“Didn't say where he was going?”

“He didn't say anything.”

“Was he dressed for going out?”

“No—he was wearing a white linen jacket, such as we always wear at surgery hours.”

“And that was at half past seven?”

“Half past seven precisely.”

“How do you fix the time?”

“There's a big, old-fashioned clock in the surgery. Just as Dr. Wellesley went out, I heard the Moot Hall clock chime half past seven, and then the chimes of St. Hathelswide's church. I noticed that our clock was a couple of minutes slow, and I put it right.”

“And when did you next see Dr. Wellesley?”

“At just eleven minutes to eight.”

“Where?”

“In the surgery.”

“He came back there?”

"Yes."

“How do you fix that precise time—eleven minutes to eight?”

“Because he'd arranged to see a patient in Meadow Gate at ten minutes to eight. I glanced at the clock as he came in, saw what time it was, and reminded him of the appointment.”

“Did he go to keep it?”

“He did.”

“Was Dr. Wellesley still wearing the white linen jacket when he came back to you?”

“Yes. He took it off then, put on his coat and hat, and went out again.”

“According to what you say, he was out of the surgery, wearing that white linen jacket, exactly nineteen minutes. When he came back, at eleven minutes to eight, did he say anything to you of where he had been, or what he had been doing, during the interval between seven thirty and seven forty-nine?”

“He said nothing.”

“You concluded that he had been in the house?”

“I concluded nothing. I never even thought about it; but I certainly shouldn't have thought that he would go out into the street in his surgery jacket.”

“Well, you have said that Dr. Wellesley went out at ten minutes to eight to see this patient in Meadow Gate. Did anything unusual happen after that—in the surgery, I mean?”

“Nothing, until a little after eight. Then a policeman came for Dr. Wellesley, saying that the mayor had been found dead in his parlor, and that it looked like murder. I sent him to find Dr. Wellesley in Meadow Gate. I told him where the doctor was.”

“You didn't go over to the Moot Hall yourself?”

“No—there were several patients in the surgery.”

The coroner paused in his questioning, glanced at his papers, and then nodded to the witness, as an intimation that he had nothing further to ask him. Carstairs was about to step down from the box, when Cotman, the solicitor to whom Wellesley had been whispering, rose quickly from his seat and turned toward the coroner.

“Before this witness leaves the box, sir,” he said, “I should like to ask him two or three questions. I am instructed by Dr. Wellesley to appear for him. Dr. Wellesley, since you resumed this inquest, sir, learns with surprise and—yes, I will say disgust, for, strong word though it is, it is strictly applicable—that, all unknown to him, the police hold him suspect, and are endeavoring to fasten the crime of murder on him. In fact, sir, I cannot sufficiently express my condemnation of the methods which have evidently been resorted to, in underhand fashion—”

The coroner waved a deprecating hand at the solicitor.

“Yes, yes!” he said. “But we are here, Mr. Cotman, to hold a full inquiry into the circumstances of the death of the late mayor, and the police, or anybody else, as you know very well, are fully entitled to pursue any course they choose in the effort to get at the truth. You, to be sure, are equally entitled to ask any questions of any witness. You wish to question the present witness?”

“I shall exercise my right to question this and any other witness, sir,” replied Cotman.