J. S. Fletcher

“ If I buy real estate in the town, I shall be a townsman, shan't I? A burgess, I reckon; and then—why, legally I shall be as much a Hathelsborough man as—say Simon Crood.”
Tansley took his hands out of his pockets and began to search among his papers.
“Well, you're a go-ahead chap, Brent,” he said. “Evidently not the sort to let grass grow under your feet. If you want to buy a bit of nice property, I've the very goods for you. There's a client of mine, John Chillingham, a retired tradesman, who wants to sell his house. ”

“ In plain words, there are about a hundred men in Hathelsborough who have used the seven or eight thousand other people as a means to their own ends. The town has been a helpless, defenseless thing, from which these harpies have picked whatever they could lay their talons on!”
“That's the conclusion he'd come to, eh?” asked Brent.
“He couldn't come to any other after many years of patient investigation,” declared Mrs. Saumarez. “He was the sort of man who had an inborn hatred of abuses and shams and hypocrisy. ”

“ However, Coppinger says you'll not get in.”
“Coppinger is a bad prophet,” said Brent. “I'll be town councilor in a fortnight. Lay anybody ten to one!”
“Well, they'll do everything they possibly can to keep you out,” declared Queenie. “You've got to fight an awful lot of opposition.”
“Let 'em all come!” retorted Brent. “I'll represent the Castle Ward, and, now that I'm a burgess of Hathelsborough, I'll be mayor some old time!”
“Not yet, though,” said Queenie. “They're going to elect a new mayor to-morrow—in place of your cousin, of course.” ”

“ He knew his danger.”
“But—murder!” said Brent.
Mrs. Saumarez shook her head.
“Yes,” she answered; “but there are men in this place who wouldn't stick at even that. You don't know. If Wallingford had done all the things he'd vowed to do, there would have been such an exposure of affairs here as would have made the whole country agape. Some men would have been ruined—literally ruined—I know! And things will come out and be tracked down, if no red herrings are drawn across the trail. You're going to get at the truth?”
“By God, yes!” exclaimed Brent, with sudden fervor. “I am so!” ”

“ XI Brent went back to his hotel, to find the town clerk of Hathelsborough waiting for him in his private sitting room. His visitor, a sharp-eyed man whose profession was suggested in every look and movement, greeted him with a suavity of manner which set Brent on his guard.
“I am here, Mr. Brent,” said he, with an almost deprecating smile, “as—well, as a sort of informal deputation—very informal indeed.”
“Deputations represent somebody or something,” retorted Brent, in his brusquest fashion. “Whom do you represent?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ The coroner, who was making elaborate notes, lifted his pen.
“Who are the town trustees at present, Mr. Epplewhite?” he inquired.
Epplewhite smiled, as a man might smile who knows that a question is asked only as a mere formality.
“The town trustees at present, sir,” he answered quietly, “are Mr. Alderman Crood, deputy mayor; Mr. Councilor Mallett, borough auditor; and Mr. Councilor Coppinger, borough treasurer.” ”

“ We were warned, too, in the Council Chamber, that we should get ourselves into trouble—”
“Do you refer to actual threats?” asked the coroner.
“Scarcely that, sir—hints, and so on,” replied the witness; “but recently, in the case of the late mayor, actual threats have been used. To bring my evidence to a point, Mr. Coroner, I now wish to make a certain statement, on my oath, and to produce a certain piece of documentary evidence, to show that Mr. Wallingford's personal safety was threatened only a few days before his murder.” ”

“ Needless to say, they take good care to choose a man who is in thorough sympathy with their own ideas. Now the late mayor was convinced that this system led to nothing but—well, to put it mildly, to nothing but highly undesirable results. He claimed that the municipal government had the right to deprive the existing town trustees of their power, and to take into its own hands the full administration of the borough finances. ”

“ Then, with a few words of counsel to the jury, Mr. Seagrave adjourned the inquest for ten days. Presently the people who had listened to the proceedings streamed out into the Market Place, excited and voluble. Instead of going away, most of those who had been present lingered around the entrance.
Brent, leaving in Tansley's company a few minutes later, found high words being spoken between Alderman Crood and Epplewhite, who, prominent on the pavement, were haranguing each other amidst a ring of open-mouthed bystanders. ”

“ Besides, he was beginning to do things that only strong men do.
“You're in high disgrace at the Tannery House, I can tell you,” she remarked archly, when they met that afternoon. “I should think your ears must have burned at dinner time to-day.”
“Why, now?” inquired Brent.
“Uncle Simon brought Mallett and Coppinger home to dinner,” continued Queenie. “It was lucky there was a big hot joint, for they're all great eaters and drinkers. Well, they abused you to their hearts' content. This town council business—they say it's infernal impudence for you to put up for election. ”

“ There's something a deal stronger in this town than what you and them are, and that you'll see proved—or happen you won't see it, for if you go on as you are doing, putting your nose in where you've no right, you'll be made so that you'll never see nor hear again. Things is not going to be upset here for want of putting upsetters out of the way; there's been better men than you quietly sided for less. ”

“ There are others who draw salaries for what are really sinecures. A great deal of the ratepayers' money has gone in this way. Men in high places have used their power to benefit relations and favorites. I question if there's another town in the country in which such a state of things would be permitted. But there is a still more serious matter than that—one which Mr. Wallingford was absolutely determined, with the help of his party, and backed by public opinion, if he could win it over—no easy thing, for we had centuries of usage and tradition against us—to bring to an end. ”

“ No—nothing more. There are men in this world, Mr. Brent, as you have doubtless observed, who are given to throwing out mere hints—sort of men who always look at you as much as to say, 'Ah, I could tell a lot if I would!' I guess Sergeant Pryder's one of 'em.”
“Whatever Sergeant Pryder knows he's got from Hawthwaite, of course,” remarked Brent.
“To be sure, sir!” agreed Peppermore. “Hawthwaite's been up to something—I've felt that for some days. I imagine there'll be new witnesses to-morrow, but who they'll be I can't guess.” ”

“ Once get public opinion set on like that, and—”
“And what?” demanded Brent. He was already so fully convinced that his cousin had fallen a victim to political hatred that he was rather welcoming the revengeful outburst of feeling. “What, now?”
“There'll be an end of all sensible and practical proceedings in connection with the affair,” answered Tansley. “There's a big following of the reform party in the town among the working folk. If they once get it into their heads that the other lot put your cousin away—well, there'll be hell to pay!” ”

“ XII Within a few hours Brent had settled his purchase of Acacia Lodge from the retired tradesman, and Tansley was busy with the legal formalities of the conveyance. That done, and in his new character of townsman and property owner, Brent sought out Peppermore, and into that worthy's itching and astonished ears poured a confession which the editor of the Monitor was to keep secret until next day. ”

“ Indeed, he has always been one of the late mayor's stanchest and most consistent supporters.”
“Oh! Dr. Wellesley's in the town council, is he?” asked Brent. “And a reform man?”
“He is councilor for the Riverside Ward,” answered Tansley, “and a regular radical. In fact, he, Wallingford, and that chap Epplewhite were the three recognized leaders of the reform party. Yes, Wellesley stuck to Wallingford as leader even when it became pretty evident that Wallingford had ousted him in Mrs. Saumarez's affections—fact!” ”

“ Saumarez, I understand, is a woman who dabbles in politics. Your cousin interested her; and when a woman gets deeply interested in a man—eh?”
“I guess you're right,” assented Brent. “Well, I'll step along and see her.”
He left Tansley in the hotel and went away along the Market Place, wondering a good deal about the information he had just received. So there was a coolness between his cousin and Wellesley—a coolness that amounted, said Tansley, to something stronger! ”

“ Scarcely know her myself.”
“I think you said my cousin knew her?” suggested Brent.
“Your cousin and she—latterly—were very thick,” asserted Tansley. “He spent a lot of time at her house. During nearly all last autumn and winter, though, she was away in the south of France. Oh, yes, Wallingford often went to dine with her. She has a companion who lives with her—that elderly woman we saw this morning. Yes, I suppose Wallingford went there—oh, two or three evenings a week. In fact, there were people—gossipers—who firmly believed that he and Mrs. Saumarez were going to make a match of it. ”

“ Brent glanced at the superintendent, who was exchanging whispers with the coroner's officer, and from him to the crowded seats that ran around three sides of the court. All the notabilities of Hathelsborough were there again, in full force—Simon Crood, in a seat of honor, as befitted his new dignity of mayor; Mallett; Coppinger; anybody and everybody of consequence. There, too, were Krevin Crood and Queenie, and, just behind Mrs. Saumarez, Dr. Wellesley, looking distinctly bored, and his assistant, Dr. Carstairs, a young Scotsman. Near them was another medical man, Dr. Barber ”

“ He was Samuel John Epplewhite, an elderly and highly respectable tradesman of the town, closely associated with the reform party in the town council, of which the late mayor had become the acknowledged leader. He was a man of substance and repute, who would not break in without serious reason upon proceedings of the sort then going on. The coroner, following Hawthwaite's glance, nodded to him.
“You wish to make some observation, Mr. Epplewhite?” he inquired.
“Before you adjourn, sir—if you please,” replied Epplewhite. “I should like to make a statement—to give evidence, in fact, sir. ”

“ The coroner silently took the letter, which was passed across to him from the witness, withdrew a sheet of paper from it, and read the contents with an inscrutable face, and amid a dead silence. It seemed a long time before he turned to the jury. Then he held up the sheet of paper and the envelope which had contained it.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I shall have to draw your particular attention to this matter. This is an anonymous letter. From the date on the postmark, it was received by the late mayor about a week before he showed it to Mr. Epplewhite. It is a typewritten communication. ”

“ Bunning came next after himself, but the watchman had nothing new to tell. Nor was there anything new in the medical evidence given by Dr. Wellesley and Dr. Barber. All the town knew how the mayor had been murdered, and the purely scientific explanations as to the cause of death were merely details.
More interest came when Hawthwaite produced the fragment of handkerchief picked up on the hearth of the mayor's parlor, half burned, and when he brought forward the rapier which had been discovered behind the bookcase. ”

“ Now put it to yourself—when a man stands up against vested interests, such as exist here, and says plainly that he's never going to rest, nor leave a stone unturned, until he's made a radical and thorough reformation, do you think he's going to have a primrose path of it? ”

“ She came here about two years ago, and bought a picturesque old place that was built, long since, out of the ruins of the old Benedictine abbey that used to stand at the rear of what's now called Abbey Gate. Some of the ruins, as you know, are still there. Clever woman—reads a lot, and all that sort of thing. Not at all a society woman, in spite of her prettiness. ”

“ Wellesley was there until half past seven. What happened then?”
“He went out of the surgery.”
“Do you mean out of the house?”
“I mean just what I say—out of the surgery.”
“Where is the surgery situated?”
“At the back of the house, behind the dining room. There's a way into it from St. Laurence Lane. That's the way the patients come in.” ”

“ You only got elected to the mayoral chair by one vote, and if you are fool enough to think that you and those behind you are strong enough to upset things, you'll find yourself wrong, for you won't be allowed. ”

“ The thing is the three votes that neither party can count on. We must get at those three men to-day. If we don't carry our point to-morrow, we shall have Sam Epplewhite or Dr. Wellesley as mayor, and things 'll be as bad as they were under Wallingford.”
This conversation referred to an extraordinary meeting of the town council which had been convened for the next day, in order to elect a new mayor of Hathelsborough in succession to John Wallingford, deceased. Brent heard of it that afternoon from Queenie Crood, in the Castle grounds. ”