J. S. Fletcher

“ 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!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”