J. S. Fletcher

“ Brent, sir—that's a fact!” he gasped, tumbling headlong into Brent's room. “Heard the news, sir? It's all through your articles!”
“Heard nothing,” replied Brent. “What is it?”
“I had it from the town clerk just now, so it's gospel truth,” replied Peppermore. “The Local Government Board, sir, is at last moved to action. It's going to send down an inspector—a real, full-fledged inspector! The town clerk is in a worse state of righteous indignation than I ever saw a man, and as for Mayor Simon Crood, I understand his anger is beyond belief. Mr. Brent, you've done it.” ”

“ Brent realized that most men in his position would have given up the contest and retired from the field in weariness and disgust; but he was not going to give up or to retire. He had a feeling, amounting to something near akin to a superstition, that it was his sacred duty to carry on his dead cousin's work, especially as Wallingford, by leaving him all his money, had provided him with the means of doing it. There in Hathelsborough he was, and in Hathelsborough he would stick, holding on like a bulldog to the enemy. ”

“ Hathelsborough folk have a fixed standard—do what you like, as long as you don't get found out. Understand, sir?”
“But in this case the thing seems to have been found out,” remarked Brent.
“That, in the Hathelsborough mental economy, is the only mistake in it,” replied Epplewhite dryly. “It's the only thing that Mallett will be blamed for. Lord bless you, do you think he's the only man in the place who has had such an affair? Hathelsborough people—men and women—are past masters and mistresses at secrecy and deception. ”

“ It wouldn't do to have you on the council, Brent! You're too much of an innovator. Now this town—the real town—doesn't want innovation. Innovation in an ancient borough like this is unsettling and uncomfortable—see?”
“This world doesn't stand still,” retorted Brent. “I'm going ahead!”
But he reflected, as he left the lawyer's office, that much of what Tansley had said was true. There was something baffling in the very atmosphere of Hathelsborough, and he felt like a man who fights the wind. ”

“ I don't want publicity.'
“Um!” concluded Peppermore. “Pretty woman, Mr. Brent, and with taking ways, but of course I had to be adamant, sir—firm, Mr. Brent, firm as St. Hathelswide's tower.
“'The press, Mrs. Saumarez,' I says, as I dismissed the matter—politely, of course—'the press, ma'am, has its duties. It can make no exception, Mrs. Saumarez, to wealth, or rank, or—beauty.' I made her a nice bow, Mr. Brent, as I spoke the last word, but she wasn't impressed. As I say, a queer woman! What does publicity matter to her, so long as she's no more than a witness?” ”

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

“ The man whom Mrs. Mallett employed is a thoroughly dependable man.”
“And that's the reason for her sudden flight—if you call it so—is it, doctor?” asked Hawthwaite.
“That's the reason for it—yes,” replied Wellesley.
“What is she going to do?” inquired Hawthwaite. “Divorce?”
“She said something about a legal separation,” answered Wellesley. “I suppose it will come to the other thing.”
“And how do you think this is related to Wallingford's murder?” asked Hawthwaite, with sudden directness. “Let's be plain, doctor. Do you suspect Mallett?” ”

“ The sequence of events seemed probable to Brent. First there had been Wellesley; then Wallingford, perhaps a cleverly contrived double affair with both. Recently there had been this affair with Mallett, which, from Wellesley's showing, had come to Wallingford's ears. Brent knew his cousin sufficiently well to know that the late mayor would develop an ugly frame of mind on finding that he had been deceived. All sorts of things might well have developed out of a sudden discovery. ”

“ During the progress of the Local Government Board inquiry he had learned something—that men like Tansley and Epplewhite knew a lot more about Hathelsborough and Hathelsborough folk than he knew, or than Wallingford had known, despite the murdered man's longer experience of town and people. Reform was not going to be carried out in a day in that timeworn borough, nor were its ancient customs, rotten and corrupt as they were, to be uprooted by newspaper articles. So far, Simon Crood and his gang had won all along the line. ”

“ I took up this work—which I mean to see through—in succession to my cousin, John Wallingford, late mayor of this borough, who was murdered in this very hall,” said Brent. “There are men here who know that he was working day and night to bring about the financial reforms which I advocate.”
The inspector moved uneasily in his seat at the sound of the word which Brent emphasized in his reference to his cousin.
“I am sure I sympathize with you, Mr. Brent,” he said. “I have been much grieved to hear of the late mayor's sad fate. You say you have voluntarily taken up his work. ”

“ I'll lay anything most of the people you've been to see have promised their support to both candidates.”
“Why should these people support such robbers as Crood and his gang?” demanded Brent.
“Because Crood and his crew represent the only God they worship,” said Tansley, with a cynical laugh. “Bran, as they call it! All that most Hathelsborough men think about is bran—money. Get money—where you can—never mind how, as long as you get it, and keep just within the law. ”

“ He was still sure of victory when, at noon on the polling day, he chanced to meet Tansley.
“Going strong, as far as I can make out,” he answered, in response to the solicitor's inquiry. “I've been about all the morning, and from what I've seen, and what my committee tell me, I'm in!”
Tansley shook his head.
“Look here, my lad!” he said, drawing Brent aside, as they stood together in the Market Place. “Don't you build too high! They're working against you to-day, the Crood gang, as they never worked in their lives. They're bringing every influence they can get hold of against you ”

“ Krevin took the matter calmly, and merely remarked that he, Hawthwaite, was making the biggest mistake he had ever made in his life. Simon manifested great anger and indignation, and threatened an action for false imprisonment.
The superintendent stood down, and Meeking looked toward an inner door of the court. An attendant came forward at his nod, bearing a heavy package done up in canvas, and sealed.
At the same moment a smart-looking young man answered to the name of Samuel Owthwaite, and stepped alertly into the witness box. ”

“ We'll just attack the thing on principle, taking the line that it's a bad principle that the finances of a borough should be intrusted to the sole control of three men responsible to nobody, and with the power, if one dies, to elect his successor. Let's argue it out on the principle. Then, later, we'll have another article on the argument that the finances of a town should be wholly controlled by the elected representatives of the people—see?”
“Your late cousin's theories, Mr. Brent,” said Peppermore. “Excellent notions, both, sir. You write the articles—I'll find the space. ”

“ Eh?”
“No!” declared Peppermore. “She's not engaged to Wellesley. I'll lay anything she isn't, Mr. Brent. There's a third man, somewhere in the background; and it's my opinion that that's the reason why she doesn't want the publicity she came to me about.”
Brent fell into a new train of thought, more or less confused. Mrs. Saumarez's talk to him about Wallingford, and the letters, and the things in the casket, were all mixed up in it.
“Had you any opportunity of seeing Wellesley and Wallingford together during the last week or two before my cousin's death?” ”

“ True, the inspector can ask for information and for criticism, and for any facts bearing on the subject; but who'll come forward to give them? Can I? Can Wellesley? Can any of our party? Not one, in any satisfactory fashion. We've nothing but impressions and suspicions to go on. We haven't access to the books and papers. The only man who could have done something was your cousin, our late mayor, and he's gone. Talking about that, Mr. Brent, there's a matter that I've been thinking a good deal about lately, and I think it should be put to Hawthwaite. ”

“ Brent.”
“Um!” said Brent. “Well, there's a lot of queer stuff about this affair, Peppermore; but let's get back to the business of the moment. Look here, I've got a fine notion for your Monitor, and you'll just have time to get it out before my election day. Let's make a real, vigorous, uncompromising attack on the principle of the town trustee business. We'll not say one word about the present trustees—old Crood, Mallett, and Coppinger. We'll have no personalities, and we'll make no charges. We'll avoid all stuff of that sort. ”

“ People glanced from it to the witness, Some of those present recognized him as a young mechanic, a native of Hathelsborough, who had gone, a few years previously, to work in the neighboring city of Clothford. They began to ask themselves what he could have to do with this case, and waited eagerly for his evidence.
Meeking, with the battered typewriter before him, kept the witness waiting. Turning to the bench, he put in the depositions taken at the coroner's inquest with respect to the threatening letter sent to Wallingford, and by him intrusted to Epplewhite. ”

“ Saumarez's back garden opened, and a woman came out. I knew her, too.”
“Not Mrs. Saumarez?” suggested Brent.
“No,” replied Hawthwaite, “not Mrs. Saumarez, but that companion of hers, Mrs. Elstrick. Tall, thin, very reserved woman. You may have noticed that she goes about the town very quietly—never talks to anybody.”
“I've scarcely noticed her except when she was here in court with Mrs. Saumarez,” replied Brent; “but I know the woman you mean. ”

“ Everything will be nice and proper and in strict order, and every man will say precisely what he's been ordered to say—and there you are! The inspector will issue his report, stating that he has carefully examined everything and found all correct, and the comedy will conclude with the farce of votes of thanks all around. ”

“ He would show their worships, he went on, by the evidence which he would produce, that patient and exhaustive investigation by the local police had brought to light as wicked a conspiracy as could well be imagined. ”

“ Reckon I'll filtrate and percolate the waters of pure truth into these people in such a fashion that they'll come to see that what that old uncle of yours and his precious satellites have been giving 'em was nothing but a very muddy mixture. ”

“ They said they could. He left it to be rebuilt, and it was handed over to this young man. Now this young man, my informant, has some relations here in Hathelsborough. A day or so before Simon Crood called with his machine, they sent him—the young man—a copy of the Monitor with this facsimile letter inclosed. Being concerned with such things in his trade, he was naturally interested in the facsimile, and, of course, as an expert, he noticed the broken letters. However, he didn't connect the facsimile with Crood's typewriter—not at first ”