In the Mayor's Parlour

"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!"

CHAPTER XI

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

"Good heavens!" muttered Brent, utterly unprepared for this suggestion. "You really think—that?"

"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 Parlour?"

"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; 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?"

"He was there, with me, from seven o'clock until half-past seven."

"Attending to patients, I suppose?"

"There were patients—three or four."

"Do you remember who they were?"

"Not particularly. Their names will be in the book."

"Just ordinary callers?"

"Just that."

"You say 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 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. Lawrence 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—he went, leaving me there."

"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."

"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 he 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. Did he say anything to you when he came back at eleven minutes to eight of where he had been or what he had been doing during the interval between 7.30 and 7.49?"

"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, Dr. Wellesley went out at 7.50 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 Parlour, and that it looked like murder. I sent him to find Dr. Wellesley in Meadow Gate, told him where he was."

"You didn't go to the Moot Hall yourself?"

"No; there were 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. And 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 towards 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 endeavouring 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.

"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. Just as you are entitled to ask any questions of any witness, to be sure. You wish to question the present witness?"

"I shall exercise my right to question this and any other witness, sir," replied Cotman. He turned to Carstairs, who had lingered in the witness-box during this exchange between coroner and solicitor. "Dr. Carstairs," he continued, "you say that after being away from his surgery for nineteen minutes on the evening of Mr. Wallingford's death, Dr. Wellesley came back to you there?"

"Yes," answered Carstairs. "That's so."

"Was anyone with you in the surgery when he returned?"

"No, no one."

"You were alone with him, until he went out again to the appointment in Meadow Gate?"

"Yes, quite alone."

"So you had abundant opportunity of observing him. Did he seem at all excited, flurried, did you notice anything unusual in his manner?"

"I didn't. He was just himself."

"Quite calm and normal?"

"Oh, quite!"

"Didn't give you the impression that he'd just been going through any particularly moving or trying episode—such as murdering a fellow-creature?"

"He didn't," replied Carstairs, without the ghost of a smile. "He was—just as usual."

"When did you see him next, after he went out to keep the appointment in Meadow Gate?"

"About half-past eight, or a little later."

"Where?"

"At the mortuary. He sent for me. I went to the mortuary, and found him there with Dr. Barber. They were making an examination of the dead man and wanted my help."

"Was Dr. Wellesley excited or upset then?"

"He was not. He seemed to me—I'm speaking professionally, mind you—remarkably cool."

Cotman suddenly sat down, and turned to his client with a smile on his lips. Evidently he made some cynical remark to Wellesley, for Wellesley smiled too.

"Smart chap, Cotman!" whispered Tansley to Brent. "That bit of cross-exam'll tell with the jury. And now, what next?"

Bunning, recalled from the previous sitting, came next—merely to repeat that the Mayor went up to his parlour at twenty-five minutes past seven, and that he and Mr. Brent found his Worship dead just after eight o'clock. Following him came Dr. Barber, who testified that when he first saw Wallingford's dead body, just about a quarter-past eight, he came to the conclusion that death had taken place about forty-five minutes previously, perhaps a little less. And from him Cotman drew evidence that Wellesley, in the examination at the mortuary, was normal, calm, collected, and, added Dr. Barber, of his own will, greatly annoyed and horrified at the murder.

Brent was beginning to get sick of this new development: to him it seemed idle and purposeless. He whispered as much to Tansley. But Tansley shook his head.

"Can't say that," he replied. "Where was Wellesley during that nineteen minutes' absence from the surgery? He'll have to explain that anyway. But they'll have more evidence than what we've heard. Hello! here's Walkershaw, the Borough Surveyor! What are they going to get out of him, I wonder?"

Brent watched an official-looking person make his way to the witness-box. He was armed with a quantity of rolls of drawing-paper, and a clerk accompanied him whose duty, it presently appeared, was to act as a living easel and hold up these things, diagrams and outlines, while his principal explained them. Presently the eager audience found itself listening to what was neither more nor less than a lecture on the architecture of Hathelsborough Moot Hall and its immediately adjacent buildings—and then Brent began to see the drift of the Borough Surveyor's evidence.

The whole block of masonry between Copper Alley and Piper's Passage, testified Walkershaw, illustrating his observations by pointing to the large diagram held on high by his clerk, was extremely ancient. In it there were three separate buildings—separate, that was, in their use, but all joining on to each other. First, next to Copper Alley, which ran out of Meadow Gate, came the big house long used as a bank. Then came the Moot Hall itself. Next, between the Moot Hall and Piper's Passage, which was a narrow entry between River Gate and St. Lawrence Lane, stood Dr. Wellesley's house. Until comparatively recent times Dr. Wellesley's house had been the official residence of the Mayor of Hathelsborough. And between it and the Moot Hall there was a definite means of communication: in short, a private door.

There was a general pricking of ears upon this announcement, and Tansley indulged in a low whistle: he saw the significance of Walkershaw's statement.

"Another link in the chain, Brent!" he muttered. "'Pon my word, they're putting it together rather cleverly: nineteen minutes' absence? door between his house and the Moot Hall? Come!"

Brent made no comment. He was closely following the Borough Surveyor as that worthy pointed out on his plans and diagrams the means of communication between the Moot Hall and the old dwelling-place at its side. In former days, said Walkershaw, some Mayor of Hathelsborough had caused a door to be made in a certain small room in the house; that door opened on a passage in the Moot Hall which led to the corridor wherein the Mayor's Parlour was situated. It had no doubt been used by many occupants of the Mayoral chair during their term of office. Of late, however, nobody seemed to have known of it; but he himself having examined it, for the purposes of this inquiry, during the last day or two, had found that it showed unmistakable signs of recent usage. In fact, the lock and bolts had quite recently been oiled.

The evidence of this witness came to a dramatic end in the shape of a question from the Coroner:

"How long would it take, then, for any person to pass from Dr. Wellesley's house to the Mayor's Parlour in the Moot Hall?"

"One minute," replied Walkershaw promptly. "If anything—less."

Cotman, who had been whispering with his client during the Borough Surveyor's evidence, asked no questions, and presently the interest of the court shifted to a little shrewd-faced, self-possessed woman who tripped into the witness-box and admitted cheerfully that she was Mrs. Marriner, proprietor of Marriner's Laundry, and that she washed for several of the best families in Hathelsborough. The fragment of handkerchief which had been found in the Mayor's Parlour was handed to her for inspection, and the Coroner asked her if she could say definitely if she knew whose it was. There was considerable doubt and scepticism in his voice as he put the question; but Mrs. Marriner showed herself the incarnation of sure and positive conviction.

"Yes, sir," she answered. "It's Dr. Wellesley's."

"You must wash a great many handkerchiefs at your laundry, Mrs. Marriner," observed the Coroner. "How can you be sure about one—about that one?"

"I'm sure enough about that one, sir, because it's one of a dozen that's gone through my hands many a time!" asserted Mrs. Marriner. "There's nobody in the town, sir, leastways not amongst my customers—and I wash for all the very best people, sir—that has any handkerchiefs like them, except Dr. Wellesley. They're the very finest French cambric. That there is a piece of one of the doctor's best handkerchiefs, sir, as sure as I'm in this here box—which I wish I wasn't!"

The Coroner asked nothing further; he was still plainly impatient about the handkerchief evidence, if not wholly sceptical, and he waved Mrs. Marriner away. But Cotman stopped her.

"I suppose, Mrs. Marriner, that mistakes are sometimes made when you and your assistants send home the clean clothes?" he suggested. "Things get in the wrong baskets, eh?"

"Well, not often—at my place, sir," replied Mrs. Marriner. "We're very particular."

"Still—sometimes, you know?"

"Oh, I'll not say that they don't, sometimes, sir," admitted Mrs. Marriner. "We're all of us human creatures, as you're very well aware, sir."

"This particular handkerchief may have got into a wrong basket?" urged Cotman. "It's—possible?"

"Oh, it's possible, sir," said Mrs. Marriner. "Mistakes will happen, sir."

Mrs. Marriner disappeared amongst the crowd, and a new witness took her place. She, too, was a woman, and a young and pretty one—and in a tearful and nervous condition. Tansley glanced at her and turned, with a significant glance, to Brent.

"Great Scott!" he whispered. "Wellesley's housemaid!"

CHAPTER XII

But this time it was not the Coroner who put questions to the witness. There had been some whispering between him, Hawthwaite and Meeking, the barrister who represented the police authorities, and it was Meeking who turned to the girl and began to get her information from her by means of bland, suavely-expressed, half-suggesting interrogatories. Winifred Wilson; twenty years of age; housemaid at Dr. Wellesley's—been in the doctor's employ about fourteen months.

"Did you give certain information to the police recently?" inquired Meeking, going straight to his point as soon as these preliminaries were over. "Information bearing on the matter now being inquired into?"

"Yes, sir," replied the witness in a low voice.

"Was it relating to something that you saw, in Dr. Wellesley's house, on the evening on which Mr. Wallingford was found dead in the Mayor's Parlour?"

"Yes, sir."

"What was it that you saw?"

The girl hesitated. Evidently on the verge of a fresh outburst of tears, she compressed her nether lip, looking fixedly at the ledge of the witness-box.

"Don't be afraid," said Meeking. "We only want the truth—tell that, and you've nothing to be afraid of, nor to reproach yourself with. Now what did you see?"

The girl's answer came in a whisper.

"I saw Dr. Wellesley!"

"You saw your master, Dr. Wellesley. Where did you see Dr. Wellesley?"

"On the hall staircase, sir."

"On the hall staircase. That, I suppose, is the main staircase of the house? Very well. Now where were you?"

"Up on the top landing, sir."

"What were you doing there?"

"I'd just come out of my room, sir—I'd been getting dressed to go out."

"And how came you to see your master?"

"I heard a door open on the landing below, sir, and I just looked over the banister to see who it was."

"Who was it?"

"Dr. Wellesley, sir."

"Dr. Wellesley. What was he doing?"

"He'd just come out of the drawing-room door, sir."

"Are you sure he'd come out of that particular door?"

"Well, sir, I saw him close it behind him."

"What happened then?"

"He stood for a minute, sir, on the landing."

"Doing anything?"

"No, sir—just standing."

"And what then?"

"He went downstairs, sir."

"And disappeared?"

"He went towards the surgery, sir."

"How was the staircase lighted when you saw all this?"

"Well, sir, there was a light in the hall, at the foot of the staircase, and there was another on the drawing-room floor landing."

"Then you could see Dr. Wellesley quite clearly?"

"Yes, sir."

"How was he dressed?"

"He'd his surgery jacket on, sir—a white linen jacket."

"You saw Dr. Wellesley quite clearly, wearing a white linen jacket, and coming out of the drawing-room door. Now I want to ask you about the drawing-room. Is there another room, a small room, opening out of Dr. Wellesley's drawing-room?"

"Yes, sir."

"How big is it?"

"Well, sir, it's a little room. Not very big, sir."

"What is it used for? What is there in it now?"

"Nothing much, sir. Some book-cases and a desk and a chair or two."

"Is there a door on its farther side—the next side to the Moot Hall?"

"Yes, sir."

"Have you ever seen it open?"

"No, sir, never."

"You don't know where it gives access to?"

"No, sir."

"Might be a cupboard door, eh?"

"I always thought it was a cupboard door, sir."

"Very good. Now I want you to be very particular about answering my next question. What time was it when you saw Dr. Wellesley come out of his drawing-room?"

"It would be just about a quarter to eight, sir."

"Are you quite sure about that?"

"Quite sure, sir!"

"Did anything fix the time on your mind?"

"Yes, sir—at least, I heard the clocks strike the quarter just after. The Moot Hall clock, sir, and the parish church."

"You're sure it was a quarter to eight o'clock that you heard?"

"Yes, sir, quite sure."

"Why are you quite sure?"

The witness reddened a little and looked shyly aside.

"Well, sir, I'd got to meet somebody, outside the house, at a quarter to eight o'clock," she murmured.

"I see! Did you meet him?"

"Yes, sir."

"Punctually?"

"I might have been a minute late, sir. The clocks had done striking."

"Very good. And just before they began to strike you saw Dr. Wellesley come out of his drawing-room door?"

"Yes, sir."

Meeking suddenly dropped back into his seat and began to shuffle his papers. The Coroner glanced at Cotman—and Cotman, with a cynical smile, got to his feet and confronted the witness.

"Was it your young man that you went out to meet at a quarter to eight o'clock that evening?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," admitted the girl.

"What's his name?"

"Joe Green, sir."

"Did you tell Joe Green that you'd just seen Dr. Wellesley come out of his drawing-room?"

"No, sir!"

"Why not?"

"Because I didn't think anything of it, sir."

"You didn't think anything of it? And pray when did you begin to think something of it?"

"Well, sir, it was—it was when the police began asking questions."

"And of whom did they ask questions?"

"Me and the other servants, sir."

"Dr. Wellesley's servants?"

"Yes, sir."

"How many servants has Dr. Wellesley?"

"Four, sir—and a boy."

"So the police came asking questions, did they? About Dr. Wellesley? What about him?"

"Well, sir, it was about what we knew of Dr. Wellesley's movements on that evening, sir—where he was from half-past seven to eight o'clock. Then I remembered, sir."

"And told the police?"

"No, sir—not then. I said nothing to anybody—at first."

"But you did later on. Now, to whom?"

The witness here began to show more signs of tearfulness.

"Don't cry!" said Cotman. "Whom did you first mention this to?"

"Well, sir, it was to Mrs. Lane. I got so upset about it that I told her."

"Who is Mrs. Lane?"

"She's the lady that looks after the Girls' Friendly Society, sir."

"Are you a member of that?"

"Yes, sir."

"So you went and told Mrs. Lane all about it?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did Mrs. Lane say?"

"She said I must tell Mr. Hawthwaite, sir."

"Did she take you to Mr. Hawthwaite?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you told him all that you have told us now?"

"Yes, sir—Mrs. Lane said I must."

"You didn't want to, eh?"

Here the girl burst into tears, and Cotman turned to the Coroner.

"I have no further questions to put to this witness, sir," he said, "but I would make a respectful suggestion to yourself. That is, that my client, Dr. Wellesley, should be called at once. We know now that the police have been secretly working up a case against Dr. Wellesley—in fact, I am very much surprised that, ignoring these proceedings altogether, they have not gone to the length of arresting him! Perhaps that's a card which Superintendent Hawthwaite still keeps up his sleeve. I may tell him, on behalf of my client, that he's quite welcome to arrest Dr. Wellesley and bring him before the magistrates whenever he likes! But as Dr. Wellesley's name has been very freely mentioned this morning I think it will be only fair, sir, that he should be allowed to go into that box at once, where he will give evidence on oath——"

"If Dr. Wellesley elects to go into the box," interrupted the Coroner, "I shall, of course, warn him in the usual way, Mr. Cotman. He is not bound to give any evidence that might incriminate himself, but no doubt you have already made him aware of that."

"Dr. Wellesley is very well aware of it, sir," replied Cotman. "I ask that he should be allowed to give evidence at once."

"Let Dr. Wellesley be called, then," said the Coroner. "That course, perhaps, will be best."

Brent inspected Wellesley closely as he stepped into the witness-box. He was a well set-up, handsome man, noted in the town for his correct and fashionable attire, and he made a distinguished figure as the centre-point of these somewhat sordid surroundings. That he was indignant was very obvious; he answered the preliminary questions impatiently; there was impatience, too, in his manner as after taking the oath he turned to the Coroner; it seemed to Brent that Wellesley's notion was that the point-blank denial of a man of honour was enough to dispose of any charge.

This time the Coroner went to work himself, quietly and confidentially.

"Dr. Wellesley," he began, leaning over his desk, "I need not warn you in the way I mentioned just now: I'm sure you quite understand the position. Now, as you have been in Court all the morning, you have heard the evidence that has already offered itself. As regards the evidence given by your assistant, Dr. Carstairs, as to your movements and absence from the surgery between 7.30 and 7.49—is that correct?"

Wellesley drew himself to his full height, and spoke with emphasis:

"Absolutely!"

"And the evidence of the young woman, your housemaid? Is she correct in what she told us?"

"Quite!"

The Coroner looked down at his papers, his spectacled eyes wandering about them as if in search of something. Suddenly he looked up.

"There's this matter of the handkerchief, or portion of a handkerchief," he said. "Picked up, we are told, from the hearth in the Mayor's Parlour, where the rest of it had been burned. Did you hear Mrs. Marriner's evidence about that, Dr. Wellesley?"

"I did!"

"Is what she said, or suggested, correct? Is the handkerchief yours?"

"I have never seen the handkerchief, or, rather, the remains of it. I heard that some portion of a handkerchief, charred and blood-stained, was found on the hearth in the Mayor's Parlour, and that it had been handed over to Superintendent Hawthwaite, but I have not had it shown to me."

The Coroner glanced at Hawthwaite, who since the opening of the Court had sat near Meeking, occasionally exchanging whispered remarks.

"Let Dr. Wellesley see that fragment," he said.

All eyes were fixed on the witness as he took the piece of charred and faintly stained stuff in his hands and examined it. Everybody knew that the stain was from the blood of the murdered man; the same thought was in everybody's mind—was that stain now being critically inspected by the actual murderer?

Wellesley suddenly looked up; at the same time he handed back the fragment to the policeman who had passed it to him.

"To the best of my belief," he said, turning to the Coroner, "that is certainly part of a handkerchief of mine. The handkerchief is one of a dozen which I bought in Paris about a year ago."

A murmur ran round the crowded court at this candid avowal; as it died away the Coroner again spoke:

"Had you missed this handkerchief?"

"I had not. I have a drawer in my dressing-room full of handkerchiefs—several dozens of them. But—from the texture—I am positive that that is mine."

"Very well," said the Coroner. "Now about the evidence of Mr. Walkershaw. Did you know of the door between your house and the Moot Hall?"

"Yes! So did the late Mayor. As a matter of fact, he and I, some time ago, had it put to rights. We both used it; I, to go into the Moot Hall; he, to come and see me."

"There was no secrecy about it, then?"

"Not between Wallingford and myself at any rate."

The Coroner took off his spectacles and leaned back in his chair—sure sign that he had done. And Meeking rose, cool, level-voiced.

"Dr. Wellesley, I think you heard the evidence of Mrs. Saumarez?"

But before Dr. Wellesley could make answer, the other doctors present in the Court-room were suddenly called into action. As the barrister pronounced her name, Mrs. Saumarez collapsed in her seat, fainting.

CHAPTER XIII

The barrister was again addressing himself to Wellesley, who, after one glance at Mrs. Saumarez as she fainted, had continued, erect and defiant, facing the Court.

"You heard Mrs. Saumarez's evidence just now, Dr. Wellesley?" asked Meeking quietly.

"I did!"

"Was it correct?"

"I am not going to discuss it!"

"Nor answer any questions arising out of it?"

"I am not!"

"Perhaps you will answer some questions of mine. Was there any jealousy existing between you and the late John Wallingford, of which Mrs. Saumarez was the cause?"

Wellesley hesitated, taking a full minute for evident consideration.

"I will answer that to a certain extent," he replied at last. "At the time of his death, no! None!"

"Had there been previously?"

"At one time—yes. It was over."

"You and he were good friends?"

"Absolutely! Both in private and public—I mean in public affairs. I was in complete touch and sympathy with him as regards his public work."

"Now, Dr. Wellesley, I think that for your own sake you ought to give us some information on one or two points. Mrs. Saumarez said on oath that you asked her to marry you, two or three times. She also said that the late Mayor asked her too. Now——"

Wellesley suddenly brought down his hand on the ledge of the witness-box.

"I have already told you, sir, that I am not going to discuss my affairs with Mrs. Saumarez nor with the late Mayor in relation to Mrs. Saumarez!" he exclaimed with some show of anger. "They are private and have nothing to do with this inquiry. I shall not answer any question relating to them."

"In that case, Dr. Wellesley, you will lay yourself open to whatever conclusions the jury chooses to make," said Meeking. "We have already heard Mrs. Saumarez say—what she did say. But, as you won't answer, I will pass to another matter. You have already told us that the evidence of your assistant, Dr. Carstairs, is correct as to your movements between half-past seven and eleven minutes to eight, or, rather, as to your absence from the surgery during those nineteen minutes. You adhere to that?"

"Certainly! Carstairs is quite correct."

"Very well. Where were you during that time—nineteen minutes?"

"For the most part of the time, in my drawing-room."

"What do you mean by most part of the time?"

"Well, I should say three parts of it."

"And the other part?"

"Spent in letting a caller in and letting the caller out."

"By your front door?"

"No; by a side door—a private door."

"You took this caller to your drawing-room?"

"Yes."

"For a private interview?"

"Precisely."

Meeking allowed a minute to elapse, during which he affected to look at his papers. Suddenly he turned full on his witness.

"Who was the caller?"

Wellesley drew his tall figure still more erect.

"I refuse to say!"

"Why?"

"Because I am not going to drag in the name of my caller! The business my caller came upon was of a very private and confidential nature, and I am not going to break my rule of professional silence. I shall not give the name."

Meeking again paused. Finally, with a glance at the Coroner, he turned to his witness and began to speak more earnestly.

"Let me put this to you," he said. "Consider calmly, if you please, what we have heard already, from previous witnesses, and what you yourself have admitted. Mrs. Saumarez has sworn that you and the late Mayor were rivals for her hand and that there was jealousy between you. You admit that Mrs. Marriner is correct in identifying the burnt and blood-stained fragment of handkerchief found in the Mayor's Parlour after the murder as your property; you also acknowledge the existence of a door communicating between your house and the Moot Hall. You further admit that you were away from your surgery for nineteen minutes at the very time the murder was committed—according to the medical evidence—and that you were in your drawing-room from an inner room of which the door I have just referred to opens. Now I suggest to you, Dr. Wellesley, that you should give us the name of the person who was with you in your drawing-room?"

Wellesley, who, during this exordium, had steadily watched his questioner, shook his head more decidedly than before.

"No!" he answered promptly. "I shall not say who my caller was."

Meeking spread out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. He turned to the Coroner who, for the last few minutes, had shown signs of being ill at ease, and had frequently shaken his head at Wellesley's point-blank refusals.

"I don't know if it is any use appealing to you, sir," said Meeking. "The witness——"

The Coroner leaned towards Wellesley, his whole attitude conciliatory and inviting.

"I really think that it would be better, doctor, if you could find it in your way to answer Mr. Meeking's question——"

"I have answered it, sir," interrupted Wellesley. "My answer is—no!"

"Yes, yes, but I don't want the jury to get any false impressions—to draw any wrong conclusions," said the Coroner a little testily. "I feel sure that in your own interest——"

"I am not thinking of my own interest," declared Wellesley. "Once again—I shall not give the name of my caller."

There was a further pause, during which Meeking and the Coroner exchanged glances. Then Meeking suddenly turned again to the witness-box.

"Was your caller a man or a woman?" he asked.

"That I shan't say!" answered Wellesley steadily.

"Who admitted him—or her?"

"I did."

"How—by what door of your house?"

"By the side-door in Piper's Passage."

"Did any of your servants see the caller?"

"No."

"How came that about? You have several servants."

"My caller came to that door by arrangement with myself at a certain time—7.30—was admitted by me, and taken straight up to my drawing-room by a side staircase. My caller left, when the interview was over, by the same way."

"The interview, then, was a secret one?"

"Precisely! Secret; private; confidential."

"And you flatly refuse to give us the caller's name?"

"Flatly!"

Meeking hesitated a moment. Then, with a sudden gesture, as though he washed his hands of the whole episode, he dropped back into his seat, bundled his papers together, and made some evidently cynical remark to Hawthwaite who sat near to him. But Hawthwaite made no response: he was watching the Coroner, and in answer to a questioning glance he shook his head.

"No more evidence," whispered Tansley to Brent, as Wellesley, dismissed, stepped down from the witness-box. "Whew! this is a queer business, and our non-responsive medical friend may come to rue his obstinacy. I wonder what old Seagrave will make of it? He'll have to sum it all up now."

The Coroner was already turning to the jury. He began with his notes of the first day's proceedings and spent some time over them, but eventually he told his listeners that all that had transpired in the opening stages of the inquiry faded into comparative insignificance when viewed in the light of the evidence they had heard that morning. He analysed that evidence with the acumen of the cute old lawyer that everybody knew him to be, and at last got to what the sharper intellects amongst his hearers felt, with him, to be the crux of the situation—was there jealousy of an appreciable nature between Wallingford and Wellesley in respect of Mrs. Saumarez? If there was—and he brushed aside, rather cavalierly, Wellesley's denial that it existed at the time of Wallingford's death, estimating lightly that denial in face of the fact that the cause was still there, and that Wellesley had admitted that it had existed, at one time—then the evidence as they had it clearly showed that between 7.30 and 7.49 on the evening of the late Mayor's death, Wellesley had ready and easy means of access to the Mayor's Parlour. Something might have occurred which had revivified the old jealousy—there might have been a sudden scene, a quarrel, high words: it was a pity, a thousand pities, that Dr. Wellesley refused to give the name of the person who, according to his story, was with him during the nineteen minutes' interval which——

"Going dead against him!" whispered Tansley to Brent. "The old chap's taken Meeking's job out of his hands. Good thing this is a coroner's court—if a judge said as much as Seagrave's saying to an assize jury, Gad! Wellesley would hang! Look at these jurymen! They're half dead-certain that Wellesley's guilty already!"

"Well?" muttered Brent. "I'm not so far off that stage myself. Why didn't he speak out, and be done with it. There's been more in that love affair than I guessed at, Tansley—that's where it is! The woman's anxious enough anyway—look at her!"

Mrs. Saumarez had come back into court. She was pale enough and eager enough—and it seemed to Brent that she was almost holding her breath as the old Coroner, in his slow, carefully-measured accents and phrases, went on piling up the damning conclusions that might be drawn against Wellesley.

"You must not allow yourselves to forget, gentlemen," he was saying, "that Dr. Wellesley's assertion that he was busy with a caller during the fateful nineteen minutes is wholly uncorroborated. There are several—four or five, I think—domestic servants in his establishment, and there was also his assistant in the house, and there were patients going in and out of the surgery, but no one has been brought forward to prove that he was engaged with a visitor in his drawing-room. Now you are only concerned with the evidence that has been put before you, and I am bound to tell you that there is no evidence that Dr. Wellesley had any caller——"

A woman's voice suddenly rang out, clear and sharp, from a point of the audience immediately facing the Coroner.

"He had! I was the caller!"

In the excitement of the moment Tansley sprang to his feet, stared, sank back again.

"Good God!" he exclaimed. "Mrs. Mallett! Who'd have thought it!"

Brent, too, got up and looked. He saw a handsome, determined-looking woman standing amidst the closely-packed spectators. Mallett sat by her side; he was evidently struck dumb with sudden amazement and was staring open-mouthed at her; on the other side, two or three men and women, evidently friends, were expostulating with the interrupter. But Mrs. Mallett was oblivious of her husband's wonder and her friends' entreaties; confronting the Coroner she spoke again.

"Mr. Seagrave, I am the person who called on Dr. Wellesley!" she said in a loud, clear voice. "I was there all the time you're discussing, and if you'll let me give evidence you shall have it on my oath. I am not going to sit here and hear an innocent man traduced for lack of a word of mine."

The Coroner, who looked none too well pleased at this interruption, motioned Mrs. Mallett to come forward. He waved aside impatiently a protest from Wellesley, who seemed to be begging this voluntary witness to go back to her seat and say nothing, and, as Mrs. Mallett entered the witness-box, turned to Meeking.

"Perhaps you'll be good enough to examine this witness," he said a little irritably. "These irregular interruptions! But let her say what she has to say."

Mrs. Mallett, in Brent's opinion, looked precisely the sort of lady to have her say, and to have it right out. She was calm enough now, and when she had taken the oath and told her questioner formally who she was, she faced him with equanimity. Meeking, somewhat uncertain of his ground, took his cue from the witness's dramatic intervention.

"Mrs. Mallett, did you call on Dr. Wellesley at 7.30 on the evening in question—the evening on which Mr. Wallingford met his death?"

"I did."

"By arrangement?"

"Certainly—by arrangement."

"When was the arrangement made?"

"That afternoon. Dr. Wellesley and I met, in the market-place, about four o'clock. We made it then."

"Was it to be a strictly private interview?"

"Yes, it was. That was why I went to the side door in Piper's Passage."

"Did Dr. Wellesley admit you himself?"

"Yes, he did, and he took me straight up to his drawing-room by a side staircase."

"No one saw you going in?"

"No; nor leaving, either!"

"Why all this privacy, Mrs. Mallett?"

"My business was of a private sort, sir!"

"Will you tell us what it was?"

"I will tell you that I had reasons of my own—my particular own—for seeing Dr. Wellesley and the Mayor."

"The Mayor! Did you see the Mayor—there?"

"No. I meant to see him, but I didn't."

"Do you mean that you expected to meet him there—in Dr. Wellesley's drawing-room?"

"No. Dr. Wellesley had told me of the door between his house and the Moot Hall, and he said that after he and I had had our talk I could go through that door to the Mayor's Parlour, where I should be sure to find Mr. Wallingford at that time."

"I see. Then, did you go to see Mr. Wallingford?"

"I did."

"After talking with Dr. Wellesley?"

"Yes. He showed me the way—opened the door for me——"

"Stay, what time would that be?"

"About 7.35 or so. I went along the passage to the Mayor's Parlour, but I never entered."

"Never entered? Why, now, Mrs. Mallett?"

"Because, as I reached the door, I heard people talking inside the Parlour. So I went back."

CHAPTER XIV

"That I can't say. I couldn't distinguish them."

"Well, did you hear the Mayor's voice?"

"I tell you I couldn't distinguish any voice. There were two people talking inside the Mayor's Parlour, anyway, in loud voices. It seemed to me that they were both talking at the same time—in fact, I thought——"

"What did you think?" demanded Meeking, as Mrs. Mallett paused.

"Well, I thought that, whoever they were, the two people were quarrelling—the voices were loud, lifted, angry, I thought."

"And yet you couldn't distinguish them?"

"No, I couldn't. I might have recognized the Mayor's voice perhaps, if I'd gone closer to the door and listened, but I didn't stay. As soon as I heard—what I have told you of—I went straight back."

"By the same way? To Dr. Wellesley's drawing-room?"

"Yes."

"What happened then?"

"I told Dr. Wellesley that the Mayor had somebody with him and that they appeared to be having high words, and as I didn't want to stop he suggested that I should come again next evening. Then I went home."

"In the same way—by the private door into Piper's Passage?"

"Exactly."

"Did Dr. Wellesley go downstairs with you and let you out?"

"He did."

"See anybody about on that occasion?"

"No—no one."

Meeking paused, and after a glance round the table at which he was standing looked at his notes.

"Now, Mrs. Mallett," he said presently, "what time was this—I mean, when you left Dr. Wellesley's?"

"A little before a quarter to eight. The clock struck a quarter to eight just after I got into my own house."

"And—where is your house?"

"Next door to the Moot Hall. Dr. Wellesley's house is on one side of the Moot Hall; ours is on the other."

"It would take you a very short time, then, to go home?"

"A minute or two."

"Very well. And you went to Dr. Wellesley's at 7.30?"

"Just about that."

"Then you were with him most of the time you were there—in his drawing-room?"

"Certainly! All the time except for the two or three minutes spent in going to the Mayor's Parlour."

"Talking to Dr. Wellesley?"

"Of course! What do you suppose I went for?"

"That's just what I want to find out!" retorted Meeking, with a glance that took in the audience, now all agog with excitement. "Will you tell us, Mrs. Mallett?"

Mrs. Mallett's handsome face became rigid, and her well-cut lips fixed themselves in a straight line. But she relaxed them to rap out one word.

"No!"

"Come, now, Mrs. Mallett! This is a serious, a very serious inquiry. It is becoming more serious the more it becomes mysterious, and it is becoming increasingly mysterious. You have already told us that you went secretly to Dr. Wellesley's house in order that you might see him and, afterwards, the Mayor, Mr. Wallingford. Now, you must have had some very special reason, or cause, for these interviews. Tell me what it was. What was it, Mrs. Mallett?"

"No! That's my business! Nobody else's. I shall not say."

"Does Dr. Wellesley know what it was?"

"Of course!"

"Would the Mayor have known if you'd seen him?"

"Considering that that was the object I had in wanting to see him, of course he would!" retorted Mrs. Mallett. "I should think that's obvious."

"But you didn't see him, eh?"

"You know very well I didn't!"

"Pardon me, madam," said Meeking with lightning-like promptitude. "I don't know anything of the sort! However, does anyone else know of this—business?"

"That, too, is my concern," declared Mrs. Mallett, who had bridled indignantly at the barrister's swift reply. "I shan't say."

"Does your husband know of it?"

"I'm not going to say that, either!"

"Did your husband—who, I believe, is one of the Town Trustees—did he know of your visit to Dr. Wellesley's house on this particular occasion?"

"I'll answer that! He did not."

"Where was he, while you were at Dr. Wellesley's? Had you left him at home?"

"No, he had gone out before I went out myself. As to where he was, I should say he was either at the Conservative Club or at Mr. Simon Crood's. Is it relevant?"

Amidst a ripple of laughter Meeking made a gesture which signified that he had done with Mrs. Mallett, and she presently stepped down from the witness-box. Meeking turned to the Coroner.

"I want to have Dr. Wellesley in that box again, sir," he said.

"Let Dr. Wellesley be recalled," commanded the Coroner.

Wellesley, once more in the full gaze of the court, looked vexed and impatient. Those who had occasionally glanced at him while Mrs. Mallett was giving her evidence had observed that he showed signs of being by no means pleased at the turn things had taken since her sudden intervention—sometimes he had frowned; once or twice he had muttered to himself. And he now looked blackly at Meeking as the barrister once more confronted him.

"You have heard the evidence of the last witness?" asked Meeking abruptly.

"All of it," replied Wellesley.

"Is it correct as to details of time?"

"So far as I recollect, quite!"

"When Mrs. Mallett went by the private door between your drawing-room and the Moot Hall to see the Mayor, what did you do?"

"Waited for her in my drawing-room."

"How long was she away?"

"Five minutes perhaps."

"Had you made any appointment with the Mayor on her behalf?"

"No. I had not."

"You sent her to see him on the chance of her finding him there—in the Mayor's Parlour?"

"There was no chance about it. I knew—as a good many other people did—that just then Wallingford spent almost every evening in the Mayor's Parlour."

"Had you ever visited him in the Mayor's Parlour during these evening attendances of his?"

"Oh, yes—several times!"

"By this communicating door?"

"Certainly. And he had made use of it in coming to see me."

"Do you know what the Mayor was doing on these occasions—I mean, do you know why he spent so much time at the Mayor's Parlour of an evening?"

"Yes. He was going as thoroughly as he could into the financial affairs of the Corporation."

"Now I want to put a very particular question to you—with the object of getting at some solution of this mystery. What was Mrs. Mallett's business with you and the Mayor?"

"I cannot reply to that."

"You won't give me an answer?"

"I won't!"

"Do you base your refusal on professional privilege, doctor?"

"No! Not at all. Mrs. Mallett's business was of an absolutely private nature. It had nothing whatever to do with the subject of this inquiry—I tell you that on my honour, on my oath. Nothing whatever!"

"You mean—directly?"

Meeking threw a good deal of significance into this question, which he put slowly, and with a peculiarly meaning glance at his witness. But Wellesley either did not see or affected not to see any significance, and his answer came promptly:

"I mean precisely what I say—as I always do."

Meeking leaned across the table, eyeing Wellesley still more closely.

"Do you think, knowing all that you do now, that it had anything to do with it indirectly? Indirectly!"

Self-controlled though he was, Wellesley could not repress a start of surprise at this question. It was obviously unexpected—and it seemed to those who, like Brent and Tansley, were watching him narrowly, that he was considerably taken aback by it. He hesitated.

"I want an answer to that," said Meeking, after a pause.

"Well," replied Wellesley at last, "I can't say. What I mean by that is that I am not in a position to say. I am not sufficiently acquainted with—let me call them facts to be able to say. What I do say is that Mrs. Mallett's business with me and with Wallingford that evening was of an essentially private nature and had nothing whatever to do with what happened in the Mayor's Parlour just about the time she was in my drawing-room."

"That is, as far as you are aware?"

"As far as I am aware—yes! But I am quite sure it hadn't."

"You can't give this court any information that would help to solve this problem?"

"I cannot!"

"Well, a question or two more. When Mrs. Mallett left you at your door in Piper's Passage—I mean, when you let her out, just before a quarter to eight, what did you next do?"

"I went upstairs again to my drawing-room."

"May I ask why?"

"Yes. I thought of going to see Wallingford, in the Mayor's Parlour."

"Did you go?"

"No. I should have gone, but I suddenly remembered that I had an appointment with a patient in Meadow Gate at ten minutes to eight o'clock. So I went back to the surgery, exchanged my jacket for a coat and went out."

"On your oath, have you the slightest idea as to who killed John Wallingford?"

"I have not the least idea! I never have had."

Meeking nodded, as much as to imply that he had no further questions to ask; when his witness had stepped down, he turned to the Coroner.

"I should like to have Bunning, the caretaker, recalled, sir," he said. "I want to ask him certain questions which have just occurred to me. Bunning," he continued, when the ex-sergeant had been summoned to the witness-box, "I want you to give me some information about the relation of your rooms to the upper portion of the Moot Hall. You live in rooms on the ground floor, don't you? Yes? Very well, now, is there any entrance to your rooms other than that at the front of the building—the entrance from the market-place?"

"Yes, sir. There's an entrance from St. Lawrence Lane, at the back."

"Is there any way from your rooms to the upper floors of the Moot Hall?"

"Yes, sir. There's a back stair, from our back door."

"Could anybody reach the Mayor's Parlour by that stair?"

"They could, sir, certainly; but either me or my wife would see them."

"Just so, if you were in your rooms. But you told us in your first evidence that from about 7.20 or so until eight o'clock you were smoking your pipe at the market-place entrance to the Moot Hall, where, of course, you couldn't see your back door. That correct? Very well. Now, while you were at the front, was your wife in your rooms at the back?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you know what she was doing?"

"I do, sir. She was getting our supper ready."

"Are you sure she never left the house—your rooms, you know?"

Bunning started. Obviously, a new idea had occurred.

"Ay!" said Meeking, with a smile. "Just so, Bunning. You're not sure?"

"Well, sir," replied Bunning slowly, "now that I come to think of it, I'm not! It never occurred to me before, but during that time my missis may have been out of the place for a few minutes or so, to fetch the supper beer, sir."

"To be sure! Now where does Mrs. Bunning get your supper beer?"

"At the Chancellor Vaults, sir—round the corner."

Meeking turned quietly to the Coroner.

"I think we ought to have Mrs. Bunning's evidence," he remarked.

It took ten minutes to fetch Mrs. Bunning from her rooms in the lower regions of the old Moot Hall. She came at last, breathless, and in her working attire, and turned a wondering, good-natured face on the barrister.

"Just a little question or two, Mrs. Bunning," he said half-indifferently. "On the evening of the late Mayor's death, did you go out to the Chancellor Vaults to fetch your supper beer?"

"I did, sir—just as usual."

"What time?"

"A bit earlier than usual, sir—half-past seven."