Timeworn Town (Munsey's Magazine, 1923)/Part 3

by J. S. Fletcher

 

Timeworn Town

THE STORY OF THE STRANGE MURDER MYSTERY IN HISTORIC HATHELSBOROUGH

By J. S. Fletcher
Author of “The Town of Crooked Ways,” “The Harvest Moon,” etc.

RICHARD BRENT, a London newspaper man, comes to Hathelsborough to visit his cousin, John Wallingford, mayor of the old north country town. Bunning, caretaker of the Moot Hall, takes him upstairs to the mayor's office, where the two men are shocked to find Wallingford dead at his desk, stabbed through the body. In the room are two possible clews to the murderer—a cambric handkerchief, blood-stained and half burned, in the fireplace, and a long, sharp rapier thrown behind a bookcase.

Brent suspects that the murder was due to political reasons, as Wallingford had incurred much hostility on account of his efforts to sweep away certain long-standing abuses in the government of the old borough. He interviews Alderman Simon Crood, leader of the conservative party in Hathelsborough, and Crood's henchmen, Mallett and Coppinger, but without result, although he finds an ally in Queenie Crood, a young girl who is the alderman's niece and housekeeper. Simon Crood has a brother, Krevin Crood, who draws an unearned pension from the borough—a typical instance of the “graft” that the late mayor sought to abolish.

Determined to solve the mystery of his cousin's murder, and, if he can, to carry on Wallingford's work for reform, Brent buys a house in Hathelsborough and announces himself as a candidate for the seat in the town council left vacant by the late mayor's death.

At the coroner's inquest, Hawthwaite, the superintendent of police, brings forward evidence which seems to cast suspicion on Dr. Wellesley, the police surgeon. A possible motive for the crime is disclosed in the fact that both Wallingford and Wellesley were ardent admirers of an attractive young widow, Mrs. Saumarez, who admits on the witness stand that there was jealousy between the two men. Dr. Carstairs, the police surgeon's assistant, testifies that Wellesley left his surgery—a back room of his house, which adjoins the Moot Hall—just about the time of the murder, and was absent for several minutes.

Cotman, Dr. Wellesley's lawyer, now intervenes to protect his client.

XV

COTMAN turned to Carstairs, who had lingered in the witness box during this exchange between the coroner and Dr. Wellesley's lawyer.

“Dr. Carstairs,” he began, “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. “Yes—that is so.”

“Was any one 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 or flurried? Did you notice anything unusual in his manner?”

“I did not. He was just himself.”

“Quite calm and normal?”

“Quite.”

“Didn't give you the impression that he had just been going through any particularly moving or trying episode, such as murdering a fellow creature?”

“He did not,” 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-examination will tell with the jury. Now, what next?”

Bunning, recalled from the previous sitting, came next—merely to repeat that the mayor went up to his parlor 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, or perhaps a little less. And from him Cotman drew evidence that Wellesley, in the examination at the mortuary, was normal, calm, and collected—and, Dr. Barber added 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. 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 was accompanied by a clerk, 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. Then, of course, 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 standing together like one structure.

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. Laurence Lane, stood Dr. Wellesley's house. Until comparatively recent times this 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. Tansley, at Brent's side, indulged in a low whistle. He saw the full 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 house 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 parlor 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 the borough surveyor, 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, aw 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 go by this private passage from Dr. Wellesley's house to the mayor's parlor in the Moot Hall?”

“One minute,” replied Walkershaw promptly. “If anything, less than that.”

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 parlor was handed to her for inspection, and the coroner asked her if she could say definitely whether she knew whose it was. There was considerable doubt and skepticism 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 among 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 plainly impatient about the handkerchief evidence, if not wholly skeptical, 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 always very careful.”

“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 among the crowd, and a new witness took her place. She, too, was a woman—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!”

XVI

Interest was beginning to thicken. The people in court, from Simon Crood, pompous and aloof in his new grandeur of chief magistrate, to Spizey the bellman, equally pompous in his ancient livery, were already open-mouthed with wonder at the new and startling development; but the sudden advent of the young and pretty domestic, whose tears betrayed her unwillingness to come forward, deepened the interest still further. Everybody leaned forward toward the center of the court, intent on hearing what the girl had to tell.

She paid no attention to these manifestations of inquisitiveness. Standing in the witness box, a tear-soaked handkerchief in her hands, half sullen, half resentful of mouth and eye, she looked at nobody but the coroner. Her whole expression was that of a defenseless animal, pinned in a corner and watchful of its captor.

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 reluctant 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 parlor?”

“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 or 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 on the staircase?”

“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.”

“What was he doing?”

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

“Are you sure he had come out of that particular door?”

“Well, sir, I saw him close it behind him.”

“What happened then?”

“He stood still for a minute, sir, on the landing.”

“Doing anything?”

“No, sir—just standing.”

“And what then?”

“He went downstairs, sir.”

“And disappeared?”

“He went toward 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 light on the drawing-room floor landing.”

“Then you could see Dr. Wellesley quite clearly?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How was he dressed?”

“He had 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 opening out of Dr. Wellesley's drawing-room?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How big is it?”

“It's a little room. Not very big, sir.”

“What is it used for? What is there in it, now?”

“Nothing much, sir—some bookcases, and a desk, and a chair or two.”

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

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you ever seen it open?”

“No, sir, never.”

“You don't know where it gives access to, I suppose?”

“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 door?”

“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 had 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. 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 had 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 does Dr. Wellesley keep?”

“Four, sir, and a boy.”

“So the police came asking questions about Dr. Wellesley, did they? 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. “To whom did you first mention this?”

“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. 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. I urge 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 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 would 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.

Brent inspected Wellesley closely as the surgeon 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 quite a distinguished figure as the center 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 honor 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. 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 absence from the surgery between seven thirty and seven forty-nine—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. “It was picked up, we are told, from the hearth in the mayor's parlor, 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 lying on the hearth in the mayor's parlor, 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 part of a handkerchief of mine. The handkerchief was 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 I am positive, from the texture, 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, and 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—a sure sign that he had finished his questions. 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.

XVII

In the midst of the commotion that followed, and while Mrs. Saumarez, attended by the doctors, was being carried out of the court room, Tansley, at Brent's elbow, drew in his breath with a sharp sibilant sound that came near being a whistle. Brent turned from the withdrawing figures to look at him questioningly.

“Well?” he said.

“Queer!” muttered Tansley. “Why should she faint? I wonder—”

“What?” demanded Brent, as the solicitor paused.

“I'm wondering if she and Wellesley know anything that they're keeping to themselves,” said Tansley. “She was obviously nervous and frightened when she was in that box just now.”

“She's a nervous, highly strung woman, I should say, from what I've seen of her,” remarked Brent. “Excitable!”

“Well, he's cool enough,” said Tansley, nodding toward the witness box. “Hasn't turned a hair! Meeking will get nothing out of him!”

The barrister was again addressing himself to Wellesley, who, after one glance at Mrs. Saumarez as she fainted, had remained 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 consideration.

“I will answer that to a certain extent,” he replied at last. “At the time of his death, no—none!”

“Had there been any 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, or 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 may choose 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 most of the time, I was in my drawing-room.”

“What do you mean by 'most of the time'?"

“Well, I should say three-quarters of it.”

“And the other quarter?”

“Spent in letting a caller in and letting that caller out.”

“By your front door?”

“No, by a side door—a private door.”

“You took this caller to your drawing-room, then?”

“Yes.”

“For a private interview?”

“Precisely.”

Meeking allowed a minute to elapse, during which he affected to be looking 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 the witness and began to speak more earnestly.

“Let me put this to you,” he said. “Consider calmly, if you please, what we have heard 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 burned and blood-stained fragment of handkerchief found in the mayor's parlor after the murder as your property. You also acknowledge the existence of a door communicating between your house and the Moot Hall. You admit that you were away from your surgery for nineteen minutes at the very time when the murder was committed, according to the medical evidence. You admit 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 is—”

The coroner leaned toward Wellesley, his whole attitude placatory 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 the lawyer 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 at the door?”

“No.”

“How came that about? You have several servants.”

“My caller came to that door by arrangement with myself at a certain time—seven thirty—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. It was 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 if 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.

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.”

XVIII

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 analyzed that evidence with the acumen of the shrewd old lawyer that everybody knew him to be.

At last he got to what the sharper intellects among 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 to Mrs. Saumarez? If there was—and he rather cavalierly brushed aside Wellesley's denial that it existed at the time of Wallingford's death, estimating that denial lightly in face of the fact that its 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 seven thirty and seven forty-nine on the evening of the late mayor's death, Wellesley had ready and easy means of access to the mayor's parlor.

Something might have occurred, the coroner suggested, 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, Wellesley would hang! Look at those 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 looked very pale, and was evidently under great excitement. 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 domestic servants in his establishment—four or five, I think. 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, and sank back again.

“Good God!” he exclaimed. “Mrs. Mallett! Whew!”

Brent, too, got up and looked. He saw a handsome, determined-looking woman standing amid the closely packed spectators. Mallett, the bank manager, 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 impatiently waved aside a protest from Wellesley, who seemed to be begging this voluntary witness to go back to her seat and say nothing. Then, as Mrs. Mallett entered the witness box, Seagrave 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 seven thirty 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 the interview to be a strictly private one?”

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

“Did Dr. Wellesley admit you to the house 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 parlor, where I should be sure to find Mr. Wallingford at that time.”

“I see! Did you go to see the late Mr. Wallingford?”

“I did.”

“After talking with Dr. Wellesley?”

“Yes. He showed me the way, and opened the door for me—”

“Stay—what time would that be?”

“About seven thirty-five or so. I went along the passage to the mayor's parlor, but I never entered.”

“Never entered! And why, now, Mrs. Mallett?”

“Because, as I reached the door, I heard people talking inside the room; so I went back the way I came.”

XIX

Meeking, who, by long experience, knew the value of dramatic effect in the examination of witnesses, took full advantage of Mrs. Mallett's strange and unexpected announcement. He paused, staring at her. He knew well enough that when he stared, other folk would stare, too.

So for a full moment the situation rested. There stood Mrs. Mallett, resolute and unmoved, in the box, with every eye in the crowded court fixed full upon her, and Meeking still gazing at her intently—and, of set purpose, half incredulously. There was something intentionally skeptical and cynical in his tone, when at last he spoke.

“Do you say—on oath—that you went through the door between Dr. Wellesley's house and Moot Hall, to the mayor's parlor, that evening?”

“To the door of the mayor's parlor,” corrected Mrs. Mallett. “Yes—I do—I did.”

“Was the door closed?”

“The door was closed.”

“But you say you heard voices?”

“I heard voices within.”

“Whose voices?”

“That I can't say. I couldn't distinguish them.”

“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 parlor, 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 quarreling. 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. As I didn't want to wait, 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. After a glance around the table at which he was standing, he 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 the quarter just after I got into my own house.”

“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 seven thirty?”

“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 I spent in going to the mayor's parlor.”

“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 as it becomes increasingly mysterious. You have already told us that you went, secretly, to Dr. Wellesley's house in order that you might see him and, afterward, the mayor, Mr. Wallingford. Now you must have had some very special reason, or cause, for these interviews. 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 had 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 lightninglike promptitude, “but I don't know anything of the sort. However, does any one 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?”

Amid 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. He looked blackly at Meeking as the barrister once more confronted him.

“You have heard the evidence of the last witness?” Meeking asked 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?”

“Four or 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 parlor?”

“There was no chance about it. I knew, as a good many other people did, that Wallingford spent almost every evening in the mayor's parlor.”

“Had you ever visited him there 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 parlor of an evening?”

“Yes—he was going into the financial affairs of the borough.”

“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 honor—on my oath—nothing whatever.”

“You mean, not 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 special significance, and his answer came promptly.

“I mean precisely what I say, as I always do.”

Meeking leaned across the table, eying 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. 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 parlor 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 the court any further 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 right—what did you do next?”

“I went upstairs again to my drawing-room.”

“May I ask why?”

“Yes. I thought of going to see Wallingford, in the mayor's parlor.”

“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 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. Laurence 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 parlor by that stair?”

“They could, sir, certainly; but either I 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 seven twenty 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 to him.

“Aye!” 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. I never thought of it 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—around 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, in a tone of indifference. “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.”

“How long were you away?”

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

“Exactly—and you stopped, chatting a bit. So you were out of your rooms in the Moot Hall that evening from seven thirty 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.

XX

If the barrister was satisfied with the possibilities suggested by this new evidence, the gist of which had apparently altered the whole aspect of the case, the coroner obviously was not.

Ever since Mrs. Mallett had interrupted his address to the jury, he had shown signs of fidgetiness. He had continually put on and taken off his spectacles. He had moved restlessly in his chair. Now and then he had seemed on the point of interrupting counsel or witnesses. It was evident that things were not at all to his liking. Now, as Meeking sat down, the coroner turned to Mrs. Bunning, who stood, looking wonderingly about her, and still fingering the apron in which she had been found at her work.

“Mrs. Bunning,” he said, “I want to ask you some questions about this back entrance of yours. What is it—a door opening out of the rear of the Moot Hall?”

“Yes, sir—that's it, sir.”

“Does it open on St. Laurence Lane?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What does it open into—a hall, a lobby, a passage, or what?”

“A lobby, sir, next to our living room.”

“Is there a staircase, then, in that lobby, by which you can get to the upper rooms in the Moot Hall?”

“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?”

“Yes, sir, they could.”

“And get to the mayor's parlor?”

“Yes, sir. The staircase leads to the big landing, sir, and the door of the mayor's parlor 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?”

“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 from the house for many minutes, sir.”

“Very good! That's all, thank you, Mrs. Bunning,” said the coroner. He looked around the court. “Is the borough surveyor still there?” he asked. “If so, let him come into the witness box again.”

But Walkershaw had gone, nor was he to be found in his office in another part of the building. Once more the coroner looked around.

“I dare say we are all familiar with what I may call the geography of St. Laurence 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 good 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 believe you are familiar with St. Laurence Lane, in its relation to the immediately surrounding property?”

“I am, sir,” replied Krevin. “I am familiar with every inch of it.”

“Just describe it to us, as if we knew nothing about it,” continued the coroner. “You know what I mean.”

“Certainly, sir,” assented Krevin. “St. Laurence 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. Its 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 in 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. Laurence's Church and churchyard. St. Laurence's church tower and west end face 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 and 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. Laurence's.”

“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 around 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 parlor, being 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. Laurence 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. Laurence is edged with thick shrubs and trees. Anybody could easily hide among the shrubs—laurel, myrtle, ivy—watch for Mrs. Bunning's going out, and, when she had gone, slip across the narrow lane 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 the churchyard to the mayor's parlor, or from the mayor's parlor to the churchyard.”

A murmur of comprehension and understanding ran around the court. Most of the people present knew St. Laurence Lane and the Moot Hall as well as Krevin Crood knew them, and his suggestion appealed to their common sense.

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 parlor—there you are! Easy as winking, on Krevin Crood's theory. Lay you a fiver to a shilling old Seagrave won't go any further!”

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 learned 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 parlor during that half hour wherein the mayor met his death. The mystery of the whole affair has deepened considerably during to-day's proceedings. Instead of attempting to bring 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.

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 merely a formal crystallizing of common knowledge—has altered the whole thing. Where's the back entrance to the Moot Hall left absolutely unprotected, unguarded, unwatched, or whatever you like to call it, for half an hour—the critical half hour. Of course, the murderer got up to the mayor's parlor that way, and got away by the same means. You're as far off as ever, Hawthwaite! It's a pity you wasted time on that jealousy business. I watched Wellesley closely, and I believe 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 the lady.”

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

“Well, it isn't mine, then,” he growled. “From all I've learned—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 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 be there very late of an evening. This young woman says 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 parlor by way of the back stair, through Bunning's rooms, that evening. Who was it? That's what you've got to find out. If only you had 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. Brent, leaving Tansley talking to the superintendent, who was inclined to be huffy, strolled out of the Moot Hall and went around 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. Laurence Lane was precisely as the former town clerk 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 somber 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 among these trees and shrubs, to 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 parlor. But—all that presupposed knowledge of the place, and of its people and their movements.

Brent went back to the Market Place and toward the Chancellor. As he turned into the hotel, Peppermore came hurrying out of it. He carried a folded paper in his hand, and he waved it at Brent, who, at sight of the newspaper man, came to a sudden halt.

“Just been looking for you, Mr. Brent!” Peppermore 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, as Brent's professional eye was quick to see, had just been pulled as a proof.

“All that affair to-day, Mr. Brent,” he whispered, “was most unsatisfactory, sir, most unsatisfactory—unconvincing, inconclusive, Mr. Brent. The thing's getting no further, sir, no further—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. The Monitor is 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 free, 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 afterward left in his keeping; and beneath that was a note in large italics inviting any one who could give any information as to the origin of the document to communicate at once with the editor of the Monitor.

“What d'ye think of that for a coup, Mr. Brent?” proudly demanded Peppermore. “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 us 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 accomplishing 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.

XXI

Brent went to bed that night wondering what it was that Queenie Crood wanted. Since their first meeting in the castle grounds, they had met frequently. He was getting interested in Queenie, who developed on acquaintance. Instead of being the meek and mild mouse of Simon Crood's domestic hearth, as Brent had fancied her to be on his visit to her uncle's house, he was discovering possibilities in her that he had not suspected. She had spirit, and imagination, and a continually rebellious desire to get out of Simon Crood's cage and spread her wings in flight—anywhere, so long as Hathelsborough was left behind.

She had told Brent plainly that she thought him foolish to buy property in the town. What was there in that rotten old borough, said Queenie, to keep any man of spirit and enterprise there?

Brent argued the point in his downright way. It was his job, he conceived, to take up his cousin's work where it had been laid down. He was going to regenerate the old town of Hathelsborough.

“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 like 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 who would carry 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. He 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.

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, likely to secure the votes of many independent 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—had 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 to influence 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 also 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, Brent 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 easy means of access to the mayor's parlor that evening. What was necessary was to discover who it was that had taken advantage of the opportunity.

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

“We don't seem to be going ahead very fast,” 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—for the time being, anyway,” interrupted Brent. “We got some direct evidence yesterday, for the first time.”

“What?” questioned Hawthwaite.

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

“Aye—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,” 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, and 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 is sent home. If there's an article missing, the person who does the checking notes it. If a wrong article's inclosed, 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—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 has 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 the mayor's parlor tried to burn a bloodstained handkerchief there. That handkerchief was Dr. Wellesley's. Wellesley swears he was never near the mayor's parlor, and I believe him. That handkerchief must have got by error into the box or basket of some other customer of Mrs. Marriner. Trace it!”

He rose and moved toward the door. Hawthwaite nodded.

“We'll make a try at it, Mr. Brent,” he said; “but, as I say, to work on a slight clew like that—”

“I've known of far slighter clews,” replied Brent.

Yet, as he went away, he reflected on the extreme thinness of this clew. 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 parlor; but it was a clew, and, in Brent's opinion, the clew.

One fact in relation to it had always struck him forcibly—the murderer of his cousin either was a very careless and thoughtless person, or had been obliged to quit the mayor's parlor very hurriedly. Any one meticulously particular about destroying clews or covering up traces would have seen to it that the handkerchief was completely burned 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.

Him—or her! Which was it? 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 this, 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! Why 'urgent'?” asked Brent, as he dropped into the seat at her side.

“To make sure that you would 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.

“Yes, I did. I saw the facsimile before it was published. Peppermore showed it to me.”

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

“You do?” cried Brent. “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. That letter originated from him—from 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 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—a girl who can see things when they're right in front of her eyes. 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 graveled 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, piglike 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. 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, deceiving of her lawful relative 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!”

As if to prove the truth of his words, he slipped his right arm around 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 around her, instinctively laid her free hand on his wrist. 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, girly—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. “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 of 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. “I've 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 has done her last stroke for you. 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 quiet walk. Behind the shelter of some trees, he put a finger under her chin, and, lifting her face, looked steadily at her.

“Look here, girly,” 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 answer 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. “What 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 of 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 will suit each other excellently; but you've settled your chances of winning that election, Brent! Simon Crood will bring up every bit of his heavy artillery against you now—and he'll smash you!”

(To be continued in the November number of Munsey's Magazine)