In the Mayor's Parlour

"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

LOOSE STRANDS

By 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–"