In the Mayor's Parlour

"How long were you away?"

"Why, sir, to tell you the truth, nigh on to half an hour. I met a neighbour at the corner and——"

"Exactly! And stopped chatting a bit. So you were out of your rooms in the Moot Hall that evening from 7.30 to nearly eight o'clock?"

"Yes, sir."

Meeking gave the Coroner a glance, thrust his hands into his pockets, and dropped back into his seat—silent and apparently satisfied.

CHAPTER XV

"A lobby, sir, next to our living-room."

"Is there a staircase, then, in that lobby—I mean, by which you can get to the upper rooms in the Moot Hall?"

"Oh, yes, sir; that's the staircase we use, me and my husband, when we go up for cleaning and dusting, sir."

"Then, if anybody went in by that door while you were out that evening, whoever it was could go up that staircase to the upper rooms?"

"Oh, yes, sir, they could."

"And get to the Mayor's Parlour?"

"Yes, sir. The staircase opens on to the big landing, sir, and the door of the Mayor's Parlour is at the far end of it."

"And you were out of your rooms for half an hour that evening?"

"Just about that, sir. It would be a bit after half-past seven when I went out, and it was just before eight when I went in again."

"Did you notice anything that made you think somebody had been in?"

"Oh, no, sir, nothing!"

"Had you left your door open—your outer door?"

"Yes, sir—a bit ajar. Of course I never thought to be away many minutes, sir."

"Very good. That's all, thank you, Mrs. Bunning," said the Coroner. He looked round the court. "Is the Borough Surveyor still there?" he asked. "Mr. Walkershaw? Let him come into the witness-box again."

But the Borough Surveyor had gone—nor was he to be found in his office in another part of the building. Once more the Coroner looked round.

"I dare say we are all quite familiar with what I may call the geography of St. Lawrence Lane," he remarked. "But I want some formal evidence about it that can be put on the record. I see Mr. Krevin Crood there—I believe Mr. Crood is as big an authority on Hathelsborough as anybody living—perhaps he'll oblige me by coming forward."

Krevin Crood, sitting at the front of the densely-packed mass of spectators, rose and walked into the witness-box. The Coroner leaned confidentially in his direction.

"Mr. Crood," he said, "I think you're perfectly familiar with St. Lawrence Lane—in its relation to the immediately surrounding property?"

"I am, sir," replied Krevin. "Every inch of it!"

"Just describe it to us, as if we knew nothing about it," continued the Coroner. "You know what I want, and what I mean."

"Certainly, sir," assented Krevin. "St. Lawrence Lane is a narrow thoroughfare, about eighty to ninety yards in length which lies at the back of Mr. Mallett's house—I mean the bank premises—the Moot Hall, and Dr. Wellesley's house. It's north entrance, at the corner of the bank, is in Woolmarket; its south in Strand Lane. On its west side there is a back door to the bank house; another into Bunning's rooms on the basement of the Moot Hall; a third into the Police Office, also in that basement; a fourth into the rear of Dr. Wellesley's house. On the opposite side of the lane—the east—there is nothing but St. Lawrence's Church and churchyard. St. Lawrence's church tower and west end faces the back of the Moot Hall; there is a part of the churchyard opposite the bank premises—the rear premises; the rest of the churchyard faces Dr. Wellesley's house—the back of it, of course."

"Is the lane much frequented?"

"No, sir; it is very little used. Except by tradesmen going to Mr. Mallett's or to Dr. Wellesley's back doors, and by people going to the Police Office, it is scarcely used at all. There is no traffic along it. On Sundays, of course, it is used by people going to the services at St. Lawrence."

"Would it be likely to be quiet, unfrequented, of an evening?"

"Emphatically—yes."

"Do you think it likely that any person wishing to enter the Moot Hall unobserved and seeing Mrs. Bunning go away from her rooms and round the corner to the Chancellor Vaults—as we've just heard she did—could slip in unseen?"

"Oh, to be sure!" affirmed Krevin. "The easiest thing in the world! If I may suggest something——?"

"Go on, go on!" said the Coroner, waving his spectacles. "Anything that helps—suggest whatever you like."

"Well," said Krevin, slowly and thoughtfully, "if I may put it in my own way. Suppose that there is somebody in the town who is desirous of finding the late Mayor alone in the Mayor's Parlour, being also cognizant of the fact—well known to many people—that the late Mr. Wallingford was to be found there every evening? Suppose, too, that that person was well acquainted with the geography of St. Lawrence Lane and the Moot Hall? Suppose further that he or she was also familiar with the fact that Mrs. Bunning invariably went out every evening to fetch the supper beer from the Chancellor Vaults? Such a person could easily enter the Bunnings' back door with an absolutely minimum risk of detection. The churchyard of St. Lawrence is edged with thick shrubs and trees, anybody could easily hide amongst the shrub—laurel, myrtle, ivy—watch for Mrs. Bunning's going out, and, when she had gone, slip across the lane—a very narrow one!—and enter the door which, as she says, she left open. It would not take two minutes for any person who knew the place to pass from St. Lawrence Churchyard to the Mayor's Parlour, or from the Mayor's Parlour to St. Lawrence Churchyard."

A murmur of comprehension and understanding ran round the court: most of the people present knew St. Lawrence Lane and the Moot Hall as well as Krevin Crood knew them; his suggestion appealed to their common sense. And Tansley, with a sudden start, turned to Brent.

"That's done it!" he whispered. "Everybody tumbles to that! We've been going off on all sorts of side-tracks all the morning, now Wellesley, now Mrs. Mallett, and now—here's another! Access to the Mayor's Parlour—there you are! Easy as winking, on Krevin Crood's theory. Lay you a fiver to a shilling old Seagrave won't go on any farther."

Herein Tansley was quickly proved to be right. The Coroner was showing unmistakable symptoms of his satiety for the time being. He thanked Krevin Crood punctiliously for his assistance, and once again toying restlessly with his spectacles, turned to the jury, who, on their part, looked blank and doubtful.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "it seems to me that the entire complexion of this matter is changed by the evidence we have heard since Mrs. Mallett broke in so unexpectedly upon what I was saying to you. I don't propose now to say any more as regards the evidence of either Dr. Wellesley or Mrs. Mallett: since we heard what they had to say we have learnt a good deal which I think will be found to have more importance than we attach to it at present. As matters stand, the evidence of Mrs. Bunning is of supreme importance—there is no doubt whatever that there was easy means of access to the Mayor's Parlour during that half hour wherein the Mayor met his death. The mystery of the whole affair has deepened considerably during to-day's proceedings, and instead of bringing this inquiry to a definite conclusion I feel that I must wait for more evidence. I adjourn this inquest for a month from to-day."

The court cleared; the spectators filtered out into the market-place in various moods, and under different degrees of excitement. Some were openly disappointed that the jury had not been allowed to return a verdict; some were vehement in declaring that the jury never would return a verdict; here and there were men who wagged their heads sagely and remarked with sinister smiles that they knew what they thought about it. But, within the rapidly emptying court Brent, Tansley and Hawthwaite were grouped around Meeking—the barrister was indulging in some private remarks upon the morning's proceedings, chiefly addressed to the police superintendent.

"There's no doubt about it, you know," he was saying. "The evidence of the Bunning woman, supplemented by what Krevin Crood said—which was a mere, formal, crystallizing of common knowledge—has altered the whole thing. Here's the back entrance to the Moot Hall left absolutely unprotected, unguarded, unwatched—whatever you like to call it—for half an hour, the critical half hour. Of course the murderer got up to the Mayor's Parlour that way and got away by the same means. You're as far off as ever, Hawthwaite, and it's a pity you wasted time on that jealousy business. I watched Wellesley closely, and I believe that he spoke the truth when he said that whatever there might have been there was no jealousy about Mrs. Saumarez between him and Wallingford at the end. My own impression is that Wellesley was clear off with Mrs. Saumarez."

Hawthwaite, essentially a man of fixed ideas, looked sullen.

"Well, it isn't mine, then," he growled. "From all I've learnt—and I've chances and opportunities that most folks haven't—my impression is that both men were after her, right up to the time Wallingford was murdered. I can tell you this—and I could have put it in evidence if I'd thought it worth while—Wellesley used to go and see her, of an evening, constantly, up to a very recent date, though she was supposed to have broken off with him and to be on with the Mayor. Now then!"

"Do you know that for a fact, Hawthwaite?" asked Tansley.

"I know it for a fact! He used to go there late at night, and stop late. If you want to know where I got it from, it was from a young woman that used to be housemaid at the Abbey House, Mrs. Saumarez's place. She's told me a lot; both Wallingford and Wellesley used to visit there a good deal, but as I say, Wellesley used to go there very late of an evening. This young woman says that she knows for a fact that he was often with her mistress till close on midnight. I don't care twopence what Wellesley said; I believe he was, and is, after her, and of course he'd be jealous enough about her being so friendly with Wallingford. There's a deal more in all this than's come out yet—let me tell you that!"

"I don't think anybody will contradict you, Hawthwaite," observed the barrister dryly. "But the pertinent fact is what I tell you—the fact of access! Somebody got to the Mayor's Parlour by way of the back staircase, through Bunning's rooms, that evening. Who was it? That's what you've got to find out. If you'd only found out, before now, that Mrs. Bunning took half an hour to fetch the supper beer that night we should have been spared a lot of talk this morning. As things are, we're as wise as ever."

Then Meeking, with a cynical laugh, picked up his papers and went off, and Brent, leaving Tansley talking to the superintendent, who was inclined to be huffy, strolled out of the Moot Hall, and went round to the back, with the idea of seeing for himself the narrow street which Krevin Crood had formally described. He saw at once that Krevin was an admirable exponent of the art of description: everything in St. Lawrence Lane was as the ex-official had said: there was the door into the Bunnings' rooms, and there, facing it, the ancient church and its equally ancient churchyard. It was to the churchyard that Brent gave most attention; he immediately realized that Krevin Crood was quite right in speaking of it as a place wherein anybody could conveniently hide—a dark, gloomy, sheltered, high-walled place, filled with thick shrubbery, out of which, here and there, grew sombre yew-trees, some of them of an antiquity as venerable as that of the church itself. It would be a very easy thing indeed, Brent decided, for any designing person to hide amongst these trees and shrubs, watch the Bunnings' door until Mrs. Bunning left it, jug in hand, and then to slip across the grass-grown, cobble-paved lane, silent and lonely enough, and up to the Mayor's Parlour. But all that presupposed knowledge of the place and of its people and their movements.

He went back to the market-place and towards the Chancellor. Peppermore came hurrying out of the hotel as Brent turned into it. He carried a folded paper in his hand, and he waved it at Brent as, at sight of him, he came to a sudden halt.

"Just been looking for you, Mr. Brent!" he said mysteriously. "Come into some quiet spot, sir, and glance at this. Here we are, sir, corner of the hall."

He drew Brent into an alcove that opened close by them, and affecting a mysterious air began to unfold his paper, a sheet of news-print which, Brent's professional eye was quick to see, had just been pulled as a proof.

"All that affair to-day, Mr. Brent," he whispered, "most unsatisfactory, sir, most unsatisfactory—unconvincing, inconclusive, Mr. Brent! The thing's getting no farther, sir, no farther, except, of course, for the very pertinent fact about Mrs. Bunning's absence from her quarters that fateful evening. My own impression, sir, is that Hawthwaite and all the rest of 'em don't know the right way of going about this business. But the Monitor's going to wade in, sir—the Monitor is coming to the rescue! Look here, sir, we're going to publish a special edition to-night, with a full account of to-day's proceedings at the inquest, and with it we're going to give away, as a gratis supplement—what do you think, sir? This, produced at great cost, sir, in the interest of Justice! Look at it!"

Therewith Peppermore, first convincing himself that he and his companion were secure from observation, spread out before Brent a square sheet of very damp paper, strongly redolent of printers' ink, at the head of which appeared, in big, bold, black characters, the question:

WHO TYPED THIS LETTER?

Beneath it, excellently reproduced, was a facsimile of the typewritten letter which Wallingford had shown to Epplewhite and afterwards left in his keeping. And beneath that was a note in large italics inviting anyone who could give any information as to the origin of the document to communicate with the Editor of the Monitor, at once.

"What d'ye think of that for a coup, Mr. Brent?" demanded Peppermore proudly. "Up to Fleet Street form that, sir, ain't it? I borrowed the original, sir, had it carefully reproduced in facsimile, and persuaded my proprietor to go to the expense of having sufficient copies struck off on this specially prepared paper to give one away with every copy of the Monitor that we shall print to-night. Five thousand copies, Mr. Brent! That facsimile, sir, will be all over Hathelsborough by supper time!"

"Smart!" observed Brent. "Top-hole idea, Peppermore. And you hope——?"

"There aren't so many typewriters in Hathelsborough as all that," replied Peppermore. "I hope that somebody'll come forward who can tell something. Do you notice, sir, that this has been done—the original, I mean—on an old-fashioned machine, and that the lettering is considerably worn, sir? I hope the Monitor's efforts will solve the mystery!"

"Much obliged to you," said Brent. "There's a lot of spade-work to do—yet."

He was thinking over the best methods of further attempts on that spade-work, when, late that evening, he received a note from Queenie Crood. It was confined to one line:

To-morrow usual place three urgent—Q.

CHAPTER XVI

"And that you'll never do!" affirmed Queenie. "You might as well try to blow up the Castle keep with a halfpenny cracker! Hathelsborough people are like the man in the Bible—they're joined to their idols. You can try and try, and you'll only break your heart, or your back, in the effort, just as Wallingford would have done. If Wallingford had been a wise man he'd have let Hathelsborough go to the devil in its own way; then he'd have been alive now."

"Well, I'm going to try," declared Brent. "I said I would, and I will! You wait till I'm elected to that Town Council! Then we'll see."

"It's fighting a den of wild beasts," said Queenie. "You won't have a rag left on you when they're through with you."

She used to tell him at these meetings of the machinations of Simon Crood and Coppinger and Mallett against his chances of success in the Castle Ward election: according to her they were moving heaven and earth to prevent him from succeeding Wallingford. Evidently believing Queenie to be a tame bird that carried no tales, they were given to talking freely before her during their nightly conclaves. Brent heard a good deal about the underhand methods in which municipal elections are carried on in small country towns, and was almost as much amused as amazed at the unblushing corruption and chicanery of which Queenie told him. And now he fancied that she had some special news of a similar sort to give him: the election was close at hand, and he knew that Simon and his gang were desperately anxious to defeat him. Although Simon had been elected to the Mayoralty, his party in the Town Council was in a parlous position—at present it had a majority of one; if Brent were elected, that majority would disappear, and there were signs that at the annual elections in the coming November it would be transformed into a minority. Moreover, the opponent whom Brent had to face in this by-election was a strong man, a well-known, highly respected ratepayer, who, though an adherent of the Old Party, was a fair-minded and moderate politician, and likely to secure the suffrages of the non-party electors. It was going to be a stiff fight, and Brent was thankful for the occasional insights into the opposition's plans of campaign which Queenie was able to give him.

But there were other things than this to think about, and he thought much as he lay wakeful in bed that night and as he dressed next morning. The proceedings at the adjourned inquest had puzzled him; left him doubtful and uncertain. He was not sure about the jealousy theory. He was not sure about Mrs. Saumarez, from what he had seen of her personally and from what he had heard of her. He was inclined to believe that she was not only a dabbler in politics with a liking for influencing men who were concerned in them but that she was also the sort of woman who likes to have more than one man in leash. He was now disposed to think that there had been love-passages between her and Wallingford, and not only between her and Wallingford but between her and Wellesley—there might, after all, be something in the jealousy idea. But then came in the curious episode of Mrs. Mallett, and the mystery attaching to it—as things presented themselves at present there seemed to be no chance whatever that either Mrs. Mallett or Wellesley would lift the veil on what was evidently a secret between them. The only satisfactory and straightforward feature about yesterday's proceedings, he thought, was the testimony of Mrs. Bunning as to her unguarded door. Now, at any rate, it was a sure thing that there had been ready means of access to the Mayor's Parlour that evening; what was necessary was to discover who it was that had taken advantage of them.

After breakfast Brent went round to see Hawthwaite. Hawthwaite gave him a chair and eyed him expectantly.

"We don't seem to be going very fast ahead," remarked Brent.

"Mr. Brent," exclaimed Hawthwaite, "I assure you we're doing all we can! But did you ever know a more puzzling case? Between you and me, I'm not at all convinced about either Dr. Wellesley or Mrs. Mallett—there's a mystery there which I can't make out. They may have said truth, and they mayn't, and——"

"Cut them out," interrupted Brent. "For the time being anyway. We got some direct evidence yesterday—for the first time."

"As—how?" questioned Hawthwaite.

"That door into Bunning's room," replied Brent. "That's where the murderer slipped in."

"Ay; but did he?" said Hawthwaite. "If one could be certain——"

"Look here!" asserted Brent. "There is one thing that is certain—dead certain. That handkerchief!"

"Well?" asked Hawthwaite.

"That should be followed up, more," continued Brent. "There's no doubt whatever that that handkerchief, which Wellesley admits is his, got sent by mistake to one or other of Mrs. Marriner's other customers. That's flat! Now, you can trace it."

"How?" exclaimed Hawthwaite. "A small article like that!"

"It can be done, with patience," said Brent. "It's got to be done. That handkerchief got into somebody's hands. That somebody is probably the murderer. As to how it can be traced—well, I suggest this. As far as I'm conversant with laundry matters, families, such as Mrs. Marriner says she works for, have laundry books. These books are checked, I believe, when the washing's sent home. If there's an article missing, the person who does the checking notes it; if a wrong article's enclosed, that, too, is noted, and returned to the laundry."

"If Wellesley's handkerchief got to the wrong place, why wasn't it returned?" demanded Hawthwaite.

"To be sure; but that's just what you've got to find out," retorted Brent. "You ought to go to Mrs. Marriner's laundry and make an exhaustive search of her books, lists, and so on till you get some light—see?"

"Mrs. Marriner has, I should say, a hundred customers," remarked Hawthwaite.

"Don't matter if Mrs. Marriner's got five hundred customers," said Brent. "That's got to be seen into. If you aren't going to do it, I will. Whoever it was that was in that Mayor's Parlour tried to burn a blood-stained handkerchief there. That handkerchief was Wellesley's. Wellesley swears he was never near the Mayor's Parlour. I believe him! So that handkerchief got by error into the box or basket of some other customer of Mrs. Marriner. Trace it!"

He rose and moved towards the door, and Hawthwaite nodded.

"We'll make a try at it, Mr. Brent," he said. "But, as I say, to work on a slight clue like that——"

"I've known of far slighter clues," replied Brent.

Yet, as he went away, he reflected on the extreme thinness of this clue—it was possible that the handkerchief had passed through more hands than one before settling in those of the person who had thrown it on the hearth, stained with Wallingford's blood, in the Mayor's Parlour. But it was a clue, and, in Brent's opinion, the clue. One fact in relation to it had always struck him forcibly—the murderer of his cousin was either a very careless and thoughtless person or had been obliged to quit the Mayor's Parlour very hurriedly. Anyone meticulously particular about destroying clues or covering up traces would have seen to it that the handkerchief was completely burnt up before leaving the room. As it was, it seemed to Brent that the murderer had either thrown the handkerchief on the hearth, seen it catch fire and paid no more attention to it—which would denote carelessness—or had quitted the place immediately after flinging it aside, which would imply that some sound from without had startled him—or her. And, was it him—or was it her? There were certain features of the case which had inclined Brent of late to speculating on the possibility that his cousin had been murdered by a woman. And, to be sure, a woman was now in the case—Mrs. Mallett. If only he knew why Mrs. Mallett went to see the doctor and the Mayor....

But that, after all, was mere speculation, and he had a busy morning before him, in relation to his election business. He had been continuously engaged all the time when at three o'clock he hurried to the Castle Grounds to meet Queenie. He found her in her usual haunt, a quiet spot in the angle of a wall, where she was accustomed to sit and read.

"Well, and why 'urgent'?" asked Brent as he dropped on the seat at her side.

"To make sure that you'd come," retorted Queenie. "Didn't want to leave it to chance."

"I'm here!" said Brent. "Go ahead with the business."

"Did you see the Monitor last night and that facsimile they gave away with it?" inquired Queenie.

"I did! Saw the facsimile before it was published. Peppermore showed it to me."

"Very well—that's the urgent business. I know whose machine that letter—the original, I mean—was typed on!"

"You do? Great Scott! Whose, then?"

"Uncle Simon Crood's! Fact!"

"Whew! So the old fossil's got such a modern invention as a typewriter, has he? And you think——"

"Don't think—I know! He's had a typewriter for years; it's an old-fashioned thing, a good deal worn out. He rarely uses it, but now and then he operates, with one finger, slowly. And that letter originated from him—his machine."

"Proof!" said Brent.

Queenie took up a book that lay on the seat between them and from it extracted a folded copy of the Monitor's facsimile. She leaned nearer to Brent.

"Now look!" she said. "Do you notice that two or three of the letters are broken? That M—part of it's gone. That O—half made. The top of that A is missing. More noticeable still—do you see that the small t there is slanting the wrong way? Well, all that's on Uncle Simon's machine! I knew where that letter had originated as soon as ever I saw this facsimile last night."

She laid aside the supplement and once more opening her book produced a sheet of paper.

"Look at this!" she continued. "When Uncle Simon went out to the tannery this morning, I just took advantage of his absence to type out the alphabet on his machine. Now then, you glance over that and compare the faulty letters with those in the facsimile! What do you say now?"

"You're a smart girl, Queenie!" said Brent. "You're just the sort of girl I've been wanting to meet—the sort that can see things when they're right in front of her eyes. Oh, my! that's sure, positive proof that old Simon——"

"Oh!" broke in Queenie sharply. "Oh, I say!"

Before Brent could look up, he was conscious that a big and bulky shadow had fallen across the gravelled path at their feet. He lifted his eyes. There, in his usual raiment of funereal black, his top-hat at the back of his head, his hands behind him under the ample skirts of his frock-coat, his broad, fat face heavy with righteous and affectedly sorrowful indignation, stood Simon Crood. His small, pig-like eyes were fixed on the papers which the two young people were comparing.

"Hello!" exclaimed Brent. He was quick to see that he and Queenie were in for a row, probably for a row of a decisive sort which would affect both their lives, and he purposely threw as much hearty insolence into his tone as he could summon. "Eavesdropping, eh, Mr. Crood?"

Simon withdrew a hand from the sable folds behind him, and waved it in lordly fashion.

"I've no words to waste on impudent young fellers as comes from nobody knows where," he said loftily. "My words is addressed to my niece, as I see sitting there, a-deceiving of her lawful rellytive and guardian. Go you home at once, miss!"

"Rot!" exclaimed Brent. "She'll go home when she likes—and not at all, if she doesn't like! You stick where you are, Queenie! I'm here."

And as if to prove the truth of his words he slipped his right arm round Queenie's waist, clasped it tightly, and turned a defiant eye on Simon.

"See that?" he said. "Well! that's just where Queenie stops, as long as ever Queenie likes! Eh, Queenie?"

The girl, reddening as Brent's arm slipped round her, instinctively laid her free hand on his wrist. And as he appealed to her he felt her fingers tighten there with a firm, understanding pressure.

"That's all right!" he whispered to her. "We've done it, girlie—it's for good!" He looked up at Simon, whose mouth was opening with astonishment. "Queenie's my girl, old bird!" he went on. "She isn't going anywhere—not anywhere at all—at anybody's bidding, unless she likes. And why shouldn't she be here?"

It seemed, from the pause that followed, as if Simon would never find his tongue again. But at last he spoke.

"So this here is what's been going on behind my back, is it, miss?" he demanded, pointedly ignoring Brent and fixing his gaze on Queenie. "A-carrying on with strangers at my very gates, as you might say, and in public places in a town of which I'm chief magistrate! What sort o' return do you call this, miss, I should like to know, for all that I've done for you? me that's lodged and boarded and clothed you, ever since——"

"What have I done for you in return?" demanded Queenie with a flash of spirit. "Saved you the wages of a couple of servants for all these years! But this is the end, if you're going to throw that in my teeth——"

Brent drew Queenie to her feet and turned her away from Simon. He gave the big man a look over his shoulder.

"That's it, my friend!" he said. "That's the right term—the end! Find somebody else to do your household drudgery—this young lady's done her last stroke for you. And now don't begin to bluster," he added, as Simon, purpling with wrath, shook his fist. "We'll just leave you to yourself."

He led Queenie away down a side-path, and once within its shelter, put a finger under her chin, and lifting her face, looked steadily at her.

"Look here, girlie," he said. "You heard what I whispered to you just now? 'It's for good!' Didn't I say that? Well, is it?"

Queenie managed to get her eyes to turn on him at last.

"Do you mean it?" she murmured.

"I just do!" answered Brent fervently. "Say the word!"

"Yes, then!" whispered Queenie.

She looked at him wonderingly when he had bent and kissed her.

"You're an extraordinary man!" she said. "Whatever am I going to do—now? Homeless!"

"Not much!" exclaimed Brent. "You come along with me, Queenie. I'm a good hand at thinking fast. I'll put you up, warm and comfortable, at Mother Appleyard's; and as quick as the thing can be done we'll be married. Got that into your little head? Come on, then!"

That night Brent told Tansley of what had happened and what he was going to do. Tansley listened, laughed, and shook his head.

"All right, my lad!" he said. "I've no doubt you and Queenie'll suit each other excellently. But you've settled your chances of winning that election, Brent! Simon Crood'll bring up every bit of his heavy artillery against you, now—and will smash you!"

CHAPTER XVII

"As to the exact how," answered Tansley, "can't say! Mole work—but he'll set the majority of the electors in that Castle Ward against you."

"I've enough promises of support now to give me a majority," retorted Brent.

"That for promises!" exclaimed Tansley, snapping his fingers. "You don't know Hathelsborough people! They'll promise you their support to your face—just to get rid of your presence on their door-steps—and vote against you when they reach the ballot-box. I'll lay anything most of the folk you've been to see have promised their support to both candidates."

"Why should these people support Crood and his crew?" demanded Brent.

"Because Crood and his crew represent the only god they worship!" said Tansley, with a cynical laugh. "Brass!—as they call it. All that a Hathelsborough man thinks about is brass—money. Get money where you can—never mind how, as long as you get it, and keep just within the law. Simon Crood represents the Hathelsborough principle of graft, and whatever you may think, he's the paramount influence in the town to-day."

"He and his lot have only got the barest majority on the Council," remarked Brent.

"Maybe; but they've got all the really influential men behind 'em, the moneyed men," said Tansley. "And they've distributed all the various official posts, sinecures most of 'em, amongst their friends. That Town Trustee business is the nut to crack here, Brent, and a nut that's been hardening for centuries isn't going to be cracked with an ordinary implement. Come now, are you an extraordinary one?"

"I'll make a try at things anyway," replied Brent. "And I don't believe I shall lose that election, either."

"You might have scraped in if you hadn't carried Simon Crood's niece away from under his very nose," said Tansley. "But now that you've brought personal matters into the quarrel, the old chap'll move every piece he has on the board to checkmate you. It won't do to have you on the Council, Brent, you're too much of an innovator. Now this town—the real town!—doesn't want innovation. Innovation in an ancient borough like this is—unsettling and uncomfortable. See?"

"This world doesn't stand still," retorted Brent. "I'm going ahead!"

But he reflected, as he left the solicitor's office, that much of what Tansley had said was true. There was something baffling in the very atmosphere of Hathelsborough—he felt like a man who fights the wind. Everything was elusive, ungraspable, evasive—he seemed to get no further forward. And, if Tansley was right in affirming that Hathelsborough people made promises which they had no intention of redeeming, his chances of getting a seat on the Town Council and setting to work to rebuild his late cousin's schemes of reformation were small indeed. But once more he set his jaw and nerved himself to endeavour, and, as the day of election was now close at hand, plunged into the task of canvassing and persuading—wondering all the time, now that he had heard Tansley's cynical remarks, if the people to whom he talked and who were mostly plausible and ingratiating in their reception of him were in reality laughing at him for his pains. He saw little of the efforts of the other side; but Peppermore agreed with Tansley that the opposition would leave no stone unturned in the task of beating him.

The Monitor was all for Brent—Peppermore's proprietor was a Progressive; a tradesman who had bought up the Monitor for a mere song, and ran it as a business speculation which had so far turned out very satisfactorily. Consequently, Brent at this period went much to the Monitor office, and did things in concert with Peppermore, inspiring articles which, to say the least of them, were severely critical of the methods of the Crood regime. On one of these visits Peppermore, in the middle of a discussion about one of these effusions, abruptly switched off the trend of his thought in another direction.

"I'd a visit from Mrs. Saumarez this morning, Mr. Brent," he said, eyeing his companion with a knowing look. "Pretty and accomplished woman, that, sir; but queer, Mr. Brent, queer!"

"What do you mean?" asked Brent.

"Odd ideas, sir, very odd!" replied Peppermore. "Wanted to find out from me, Mr. Brent, if, in case she's called up again at this inquest business, or if circumstances arise which necessitate police proceedings at which she might be a witness, her name couldn't be suppressed? Ever hear such a proposal, sir, to make to a journalist? 'Impossible, my dear madam!' says I. 'Publicity, ma'am,' I says, 'is—well, it's the very salt of life, as you might term it,' I says. 'When gentlemen of our profession report public affairs we keep nothing back,' I says; firmly, sir. 'I very much object to my name figuring in these proceedings,' she says. 'I object very strongly indeed!' 'Can't help it, ma'am,' says I. 'If the highest in the land was called into a witness-box, and I reported the case,' I says, 'I should have to give the name! It's the glory of our profession, Mrs. Saumarez.' I says, 'just as it's that of the law, that we don't countenance hole-and-corner business. The light of day, ma'am, the light of day! that's the idea, Mrs. Saumarez!' I says. 'Let the clear, unclouded radiance of high noon, ma'am, shine on'—but you know what I mean, Mr. Brent. As I said to her, the publicity that's attendant on all this sort of thing in England is one of the very finest of our national institutions.

"Odd, sir, but, for a woman that's supposed to be modern and progressive, she didn't agree. 'I don't want to see my name in the papers in connection with this affair, Mr. Peppermore,' she declared again. 'I thought, perhaps,' she says, rather coaxingly, 'that you could suggest some way of keeping it out if there are any further proceedings.' 'Can't, ma'am!' says I. 'If such an eventuality comes to be, it'll be my duty to record faithfully and fully in the Monitor whatever takes place.' 'Oh,' says she. 'But it's not the Monitor that I so much object to—it's the London papers. I understand that you supply the reports to them, Mr. Peppermore.' Well, of course, as you know, Mr. Brent, I am district correspondent for two of the big London agencies, but I had to explain to her that in a sensational case like this the London papers generally sent down men of their own: there were, for instance, two or three London reporters present the other day.

"Yes, she said; so she'd heard, and she'd got all the London papers to see if her name was mentioned, and had been relieved to find that it hadn't: there were nothing but summarized reports: her name hadn't appeared anywhere but in the Monitor. 'And what I wanted, Mr. Peppermore,' she says, more wheedlingly than ever, 'was that, if it lay in your power, and if occasion arises, you would do what you could to keep my name out of it—I don't want publicity!' Um!" concluded Peppermore. "Pretty woman, Mr. Brent, and with taking ways, but of course I had to be adamant, sir—firm, Mr. Brent, firm as St. Hathelswide's tower. 'The Press, Mrs. Saumarez,' I says, as I dismissed the matter—politely, of course—'has its Duties. It can make no exception, Mrs. Saumarez, to wealth, or rank, or—beauty.' I made her a nice bow, Mr. Brent, as I spoke the last word. But she wasn't impressed. As I say—queer woman! What's publicity matter to her as long as she's no more than a witness?"

Brent was not particularly impressed by Peppermore's story. He saw nothing in it beyond the natural desire of a sensitive, highly-strung woman to keep herself aloof from an unpleasant episode, and he said so.

"I don't see what good Hawthwaite hoped to get by ever calling Mrs. Saumarez before the Coroner," he added. "She told nothing that everybody didn't know. What did it all amount to?"

"Ay, but that's just it, in a town like this, Mr. Brent," answered Peppermore with a wink. "I can tell you why the police put the Coroner up to calling Mrs. Saumarez as a witness. They'd got a theory—that Wellesley killed your cousin in a fit of jealousy, of which she was the cause, and they hoped to substantiate it through her evidence. There's no doubt, sir, that there were love-passages between Dr. Wellesley and this attractive lady and between her and your cousin, but—shall I tell you, sir, something that's in my mind?"

"Ay. Why not?" answered Brent. He was thinking of the thick pile of letters which he had returned to Mrs. Saumarez and of the unmistakable love-tokens which he had seen deposited with them in the casket wherein Wallingford had kept them. "What is it you're thinking of?"

Peppermore edged his chair closer to his visitor's, and lowered his voice.

"I am not unobservant, Mr. Brent," he said. "Our profession, as you know, sir, leads us to the cultivation of that faculty. Now, I've thought a good deal about this matter, and I'll tell you a conclusion I've come to. Do you remember that when Dr. Wellesley was being questioned the other day he was asked if there was jealousy between him and Mr. Wallingford about Mrs. Saumarez? To be sure! Now what did he answer? He answered frankly that there had been but it no longer existed! Do you know what I deduced from that, Mr. Brent? This—that the little lady had had both those men as strings to her bow at the same time, indecisive as to which of 'em she'd finally choose, but that, not so long since, she'd given up both, in favour of a third man!"

Brent started, and laughed.

"Ingenious, Peppermore, very ingenious!" he said. "Given 'em both the mitten as they say? But the third man?"

"Mrs. Saumarez was away on the Continent most of the winter," answered Peppermore. "The Riviera, Nice, Monte Carlo—that sort of thing. She may have met somebody there that she preferred to either Wellesley or Wallingford. Anyway, Mr. Brent, what did the doctor mean when he frankly admitted that there had been jealousy between him and Wallingford, but that it no longer existed? He meant, I take it, that there was no reason for its further existence. That implies that another man had come into the arena!"

"Ay, but does it?" said Brent. "It might mean something else—that she'd finally accepted Wellesley. Eh?"

"No," declared Peppermore. "She's not engaged to Wellesley: I'll lay anything she isn't, Mr. Brent. There's a third man, somewhere in the background, and it's my opinion that that's the reason why she doesn't want the publicity she came to me about."

Brent fell into a new train of thought, more or less confused. Mrs. Saumarez's talk to him about Wallingford, and the letters, and the things in the casket, were all mixed up in it.

"Had you any opportunity of seeing Wellesley and my cousin together during the last week or two before my cousin's death?" he asked presently.

"Several, Mr. Brent, several opportunities," answered Peppermore. "I went to report the proceedings of two or three committees of the Town Council during the fortnight preceding that lamentable occurrence, sir, and saw them at close quarters. I saw them frequently at the Club, of which I am a member. I should say, sir, from what I observed, that they were on very good terms with each other—more friendly than ever, Mr. Brent."

"Um," said Brent. "Well, there's a lot of queer stuff about this business, Peppermore. But let's get back to that of the moment. Look here, I've got a fine notion for your Monitor—you'll just have time to get it out before my election day. Let's make a real, vigorous, uncompromising attack on the principle of the Town Trustee business. We'll not say one word about the present Trustees, old Crood, Mallett and Coppinger—we'll have no personalities, and make no charges; we'll avoid all stuff of that sort. We'll just attack the thing on its principle, taking up the line that it's a bad principle that the finances of a borough should be entrusted to the sole control of three men responsible to nobody and with the power, if one dies, to elect his successor. Let's argue it out on the principle; then, later, we'll have another article on the argument that the finances of a town should be wholly controlled by the elected representatives of the people—see?"

"Your late cousin's theories, Mr. Brent," said Peppermore. "Excellent notions, both, sir. You write the articles; I'll find the space. All on principle—no personalities. Plain and practical, Mr. Brent, let them be, so that everybody can understand. Though to be sure," he added regretfully, "what our readers most like is personalities! If we dared to slate old Crood with all the abuse we could lay our pens to, the readers of the Monitor, sir, would hug themselves with pleasure. But libel, Mr. Brent, libel! Do you know, sir, that ever since I occupied the editorial chair of state I have always felt that the wet blanket of the law of libel sat at my banquet like the ghost in Macbeth, letting its sword hang by a thread an inch from my cranium! Bit mixed in my metaphors, sir, but you know what I mean. Mustn't involve my respected proprietor in a libel suit, Mr. Brent, so stick to abstract principles, sir, and eschew those saucy personal touches which I regret—deeply—I can't print."

Brent had no intention of indulging in personalities in his warfare with Simon Crood and the reactionaries, but as the day of the election approached he discovered that his adversaries were not at all particular about putting forth highly personal references to himself. Hathelsborough suddenly became flooded with handbills and posters, each bearing a few pithy words in enormous type. These effusions were for the most part in the form of questions, addressed to the recipients; there was a cynical and sinister sneer in all of them. "Who is Mr. Brent?" "Why Support a Stranger?" "Who Wants a Carpet-Bagger?" "Vote for the Home-Made Article." "Hathelsborough Men for Hathelsborough Matters." "Stand by the True and Tried!" These appeals to the free and enlightened burgesses whose suffrages he solicited met Brent on every side, and especially on the day of the election. He had gone in for nothing of this sort himself: his original election address, it seemed to him, contained everything that he had to say, and beyond posting it all over the town in great placards and distributing it in the form of handbills to the electors of the Castle Ward he had issued nothing in the shape of literature. But he had stumped his desired constituency thoroughly, making speeches at every street corner and at every public meeting-place, and he had a personal conviction from his usual reception on these occasions that the people were with him. He was still sure of victory when, at noon on the polling-day, he chanced to meet Tansley.

"Going strong, as far as I can make out," he answered, in response to the solicitor's inquiry. "I've been about all the morning, and from what I've seen and what my Committee tell me, I'm in!"

Tansley shook his head.

"Look here, my lad," he said, drawing Brent aside as they stood together in the market-place, "don't you build too high! They're working against you to-day, the Crood gang, as they never worked in their lives! They're bringing every influence they can get hold of against you. And—you haven't been over wise."

"What have I done now?" demanded Brent.

"Those articles that are appearing in the Monitor," replied Tansley. "Everybody knows they're yours. Do you think there's a soul in Hathelsborough who believes that Peppermore could write them? Now, they're a mistake! They may be true——"

"They are true!" growled Brent.

"Granted! But, however true they are, they're an attack on Hathelsborough," said Tansley. "Now, of whatever political colour they are, Hathelsborough folk are Hathelsborough folk, and they're prouder of this old town than you know. Look round you, my lad; there isn't a stone that you can see that wasn't just where it is now hundreds of years before you were born. Do you think these people like to hear you, a stranger, criticizing their old customs, old privileges, as you are doing in those articles? Not a bit of it! They're asking who you are to come judging them. You'd have done a lot better, Brent, if you'd been a bit diplomatic. You should have left all politics and reforms out of it, and tried to win the seat simply on your relationship to Wallingford. You could have shown your cards when you'd got in—you've shown 'em too soon!"

"That be damned!" said Brent. "I've played the game straightforwardly anyhow. I don't want any underhand business—there's enough of that in this rotten place now. And I still think I shall be in!"

But before the summer evening had progressed far, Brent learnt that the vested interests of an ancient English borough are stronger than he thought. He was hopelessly defeated—only rather more than a hundred voters marked their papers for him. His opponent was returned by a big majority. He got a new idea when he heard the result, and went straight off to Peppermore and the Monitor with it. They would go on with the articles, and make them of such a nature that the Local Government Board in London would find it absolutely necessary to give prompt and searching attention to Hathelsborough and its affairs.

CHAPTER XVIII

B y business time next morning Brent had cast aside all thought of the previous day's proceedings and of his defeat at the hands of the Old Gang, and had turned to affairs which were now of far more importance. He had three separate enterprises in hand; to be sure, they were all related, but each had a distinctive character of its own. He specified all three as he ate his breakfast at the Chancellor, where he was still located. First, now that he had done with his electioneering—for the time being—he was going to work harder than ever at the task of discovering Wallingford's murderer. Secondly, he was going to marry Queenie, and that speedily. Queenie and he had settled matters to their mutual satisfaction as soon as the row with Uncle Simon Crood was over, and they had already begun furnishing the house which Brent had bought in order to constitute himself a full-fledged burgess of Hathelsborough. Thirdly, he was going to put all he knew into the articles which he was writing for the Monitor—two had already appeared; he was going on writing them until public opinion, gradually educated, became too strong for the reactionary forces that had beaten him yesterday but which he would infallibly defeat to-morrow, or, if not to-morrow, the day after.

And first the murderer. He fetched Queenie from Mrs. Appleyard's that morning, and, utterly careless of the sly looks that were cast on him and her, marched her through the market-place to Hawthwaite's office at the police station. To Hawthwaite, keenly interested, he detailed particulars of Queenie's discovery about the typewritten letter and produced her proofs. Hawthwaite took it all in silently.

"You'll have to go into that, you know," concluded Brent. "Now that I've got through with that election I'm going to give more time to this business. We've got to find out who killed my cousin, Hawthwaite, somehow—it's not going to rest. I won't leave a stone unturned! And there," he added, pointing to the sheet of paper on which Queenie had made specimens of the broken type of Simon's antiquated machine, "is a stone which needs examining on all four sides!"

Hawthwaite picked up the sheet of paper, twisted it in his big fingers, and looked over it at the two young people with a quizzical smile.

"I understand that you and Miss Queenie there are contemplating matrimony, Mr. Brent?" he remarked. "That so, sir?"

"That's so," replied Brent promptly. "As soon as we've got our house furnished we'll be married."

"Then I can speak freely and in confidence before Mrs. Brent that's to be," responded Hawthwaite, with another smile. "Well, now, what you've just told me isn't exactly fresh news to me! I'll show you something." He turned, drew out a drawer from a chest behind his chair, and finding a paper in it took it out and handed it to his visitors. "Look at that, now!" he said. "You see what it is?"

Brent saw at once. It was a half-sheet of notepaper, on which were examples of faulty type, precisely similar to those on Queenie's bit of evidence.

"Hello!" exclaimed Brent. "Somebody else been at the same game, eh?"

"I'll tell you," answered Hawthwaite, settling himself in his chair. "It's a bit since—let us think, now—yes, it would be a day or two after that facsimile appeared in the Monitor that a young man came to me here one evening: respectable artisan sort of chap. He told me that he was in the employ of a typewriter company at Clothford, which, Mr. Brent, as Miss Queenie there knows, is our big town, only a few miles away. He said that he'd come to tell me something in confidence. The previous day, he said, Mr. Crood, of Hathelsborough, had come to their place in Clothford and had brought with him an old-fashioned typewriter which, he told them, he had bought when such things first came out. He wanted to know the thing being, he said, an old favourite—if they couldn't do it up for him, go through its mechanism thoroughly, supply new letters, and so on. They said they could. He left it to be done, and it was handed over to this young man. Now then, this young man, my informant, has some relations here in Hathelsborough; a day or so before Simon Crood called with his machine, they sent him—the young man—a copy of the Monitor with this facsimile letter enclosed. Being concerned with such things in his trade, he was naturally interested in the facsimile, and of course, as an expert, he noticed the broken letters. However, he didn't connect the facsimile with Crood's machine at first. But, happening to look at that machine more narrowly, to see exactly what had to be done to it, he—as he phrased it—ran off the keys on a sheet of paper, and he then saw at once that he had before him the identical machine on which the threatening letter to our late Mayor had been typed! And so he came to me!"

"What have you done about it?" asked Brent.

Hawthwaite gave him a knowing look.

"Well, I'll tell you that too," he answered. "I've got the machine! It's there—in that box in the corner. The Clothford firm will make an excuse to Mr. Crood that they've had to send this machine away for repairs—eh? Of course I'm not going to let it out of my possession until—well, until we know more."

"There's no doubt he wrote that threatening letter," observed Brent.

"Oh, no doubt, no doubt whatever," agreed Hawthwaite.

"What about that handkerchief and the inquiry at the laundry?" asked Brent.

Hawthwaite accompanied his reply with a nod and a wink.

"That's being followed up," he said. "Don't ask me any more now; we're progressing, and, I believe, in the right direction this time. Do you leave it to us, Mr. Brent; you'll be surprised before long and so will some other folks. You go on with those articles you've started in the Monitor. It doesn't do for me to say much, being an official," he added, with another wink, "but you'll do some good in that way—there's a lot under the surface in this old town, sir, that only needs exposing to the light of day to ensure destruction! Public opinion, Mr. Brent, public opinion! You stir it up, and leave this matter to me; I may be slow, Mr. Brent, but I'll surely get there in the end!"

"Good! It's all I ask," said Brent. "Only get there!"

He took Queenie away, but before they had gone many steps from the superintendent's office Hawthwaite called Brent back, and leading him inside the room closed the door on him.

"Your young lady'll not mind waiting a minute or two," he said, with a significant glance. "As she already knew about old Simon's typewriter, I didn't mind telling that I knew, d'ye see? But there's another little matter that I'd like to tell you about—between ourselves, and to go no further, you understand?"

"Just so," agreed Brent.

"Well," continued Hawthwaite, "there may be nothing in it. But I've always had a suspicion that there was nothing definite got out of either Dr. Wellesley or Mrs. Saumarez about their—well, I won't say love affairs, but relations. Anyway, that there was something mysterious about the sort of three-cornered relations between her and Wellesley and your cousin I'm as dead certain as that I see you! I've an idea too that somehow or other those relations have something to do with your cousin's murder. But now, this is it—you know, I dare say, that at the back of Mrs. Saumarez's garden at the Abbey House, there's a quiet, narrow lane, little used?"

"I know it," replied Brent. "Farthing Lane."

"Just so, and why so called none of our local antiquaries know," said Hawthwaite. "Well, not so many nights ago I had some business in that lane, at a late hour—I was watching for somebody, as a matter of fact, though it came to nothing. I was in a secret place, just as it was getting nicely dark. Now then, who should come along that lane but Krevin Crood!"

"Krevin Crood!" exclaimed Brent. "Ay?"

"Krevin Crood," repeated Hawthwaite. "And thinks I to myself, 'What may you be doing here, my lad, at this hour of the night?' For as you know that lane, Mr. Brent, you'll know that on one side of it there's nothing but the long wall of Mrs. Saumarez's garden and grounds, and on the other a belt of trees that shuts off Robinson's market-garden and orchards. I was safe hidden amongst those trees. Well, Krevin came along—I recognized him well enough. He sort of loitered about, evidently waiting for somebody. And just as the parish church clock struck ten I heard the click of a latch, and the door in Mrs. Saumarez's back garden opened, and a woman came out! I knew her too."

"Not Mrs. Saumarez?" suggested Brent.

"No," replied Hawthwaite. "Not Mrs. Saumarez. But that companion of hers, Mrs. Elstrick. Tall, thin, very reserved woman; you may have noticed that she goes about the town very quietly—never talks to anybody."

"I've scarcely noticed her except when she was here in court with Mrs. Saumarez," replied Brent. "But I know the woman you mean. So it was she?"

"Just so—Mrs. Elstrick," said Hawthwaite. "And I saw, of course, that this was a put-up job, an arranged meeting between her and Krevin. They met, turned, walked up and down the lane together for a good ten minutes, talking in whispers. They passed and repassed me several times, and I'd have given a good deal to hear what they were talking about. But I couldn't catch a word—they were on the opposite side of the lane, you see, close to the garden wall."

"And eventually?" asked Brent.

"Oh, eventually they parted of course," replied Hawthwaite. "She slipped back into the garden, and he went off down the lane. Now——"

"They're both tending to elderliness, I think," interrupted Brent, with a cynical laugh, "but one's never surprised at anything nowadays. So, did you see any love-making?"

"Oh, Lord save us, no!" exclaimed Hawthwaite. "Nothing of that sort! They never even shook hands. Just talked—and very earnestly too."

Brent reflected for a while.

"Queer!" he said at last. "What did they want with each other?"

"Ay!" said Hawthwaite. "As I said just now, I'd have given a good deal to know. But Krevin Crood is a deep, designing, secret sort of man, and that woman, whoever she may be, looks just the same."

"Has she been with Mrs. Saumarez long?" asked Brent.

"Came with her, when Mrs. Saumarez first came and took the Abbey House," replied Hawthwaite. "Always been with her; went away with her when Mrs. S. was in the South of France all last winter. Odd couple I call the two of 'em, Mr. Brent; between you and myself."

"Why, exactly?" inquired Brent. "I've seen nothing particularly odd about Mrs. Saumarez, except that she's evidently a highly-strung, perhaps a bit excitable sort of woman, all nerves, I should say, and possibly a bit emotional. Clever woman, I think, and pretty."

"Pretty enough—and clever enough," assented Hawthwaite dryly. "And I dare say you're right about the rest. But I'll tell you why I used that term; at least, in regard to her. When Mrs. Saumarez first came here, it was understood that she was the widow of a naval officer of high rank. Well, naturally, the big folk of the neighbourhood called on her when she'd settled down—she furnished and fitted her house from local shops, and it took her some time to get fixed up—expecting, of course, that she'd return their calls. She never returned a single one! Not one, sir!"

"That certainly sounds odd," admitted Brent.

"Ay, doesn't it?" said Hawthwaite. "You'd have thought that a young and stylish woman, coming to live here as she did, would have been glad of society. But, though some dozen or so ladies of the place called on her, she never, as I say, returned a single call; in fact, it very soon became evident that she didn't want any society of that sort. She used to go out bicycling a good deal by herself in those early days—that, I fancy, was how she got to know both Wellesley and your cousin. She was fond enough of their society anyway!"

"Always?" asked Brent. He was learning things that he had never heard of, and was already thinking deeply about them. "From the beginning?"

"Well, practically," replied Hawthwaite. "First it was the doctor; then it was Wallingford. And," he added, with a wink, "there are folk in the town who declare that she carried on with both, playing one off against the other, till the very end! I don't know how that may be, but I do know that at one time she and Wellesley were very thick, and that afterwards your cousin was always running after her. Naturally, there was talk, especially amongst the folk who'd called on her and whose calls she didn't return. And, to tell you the plain truth, they said things."

"What sort of things?" inquired Brent.

"Oh, well!" said Hawthwaite, with a laugh. "If you'd lived as long in this town as I have, and been in my position, you'd know that it—like all little places—is a hotbed of scandal and gossip. The women, of course, seeing her partiality for men friends, said things and hinted more. Then the Vicar's wife—parsons' ladies are great ones for talk—found something out and made the most of it. I told you that when Mrs. Saumarez first came here it was understood that she was the widow of an officer of some high position in the Royal Navy. Well, our Vicar's wife has a brother who's a big man in that profession, and she was a bit curious to know about the new-comer's relation to it. She persisted in calling on Mrs. Saumarez though her calls weren't returned—she could make excuses, you see, about parish matters and charities and what not. And one day she asked Mrs. Saumarez point-blank what ship her late husband had last served on? Now she says that Mrs. Saumarez snapped her up short—anyway, Mrs. S. gave her an answer. 'My late husband,' said Mrs. S., 'was not in the British service!' And of course that wasn't in her favour with the people whom she'd already snubbed."

"Um!" said Brent. There were many things in this retailing of gossip that he wanted to think about at leisure. "Well," he added, after a pause, "I dare say all sorts of small items help towards a solution, Hawthwaite. But you're already busy about it."

"I'm not only busy, but actively so," replied the superintendent. "And—again between you and me and nobody else—I'm expecting some very special professional and expert assistance within the next few days. Oh, you leave this to me, Mr. Brent, I'll run down your cousin's murderer or murderess yet! Go you on with your articles—they're helpful, for they're rousing public interest."