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In the Mayor's Parlour

<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> <h3>THE EMPTY ROOM</h3> B rent was out of his seat near the door, out of the court itself, out of the Moot Hall, and in the market-place before he realized what he was doing. It was a brilliant summer day, and just then the town clocks were striking the noontide; he stood for a second staring about him as if blinded and dazed by the strong sunlight. But it was not the sunlight at all that confused him—though he stood there blinking under it—and presently his brain cleared and he turned and ran swiftly down River Gate, the narrow street that led to the low-lying outer edge of the town. River Gate was always quiet; just then it was deserted. And as he came to half-way down it, he saw at its foot a motor-car, drawn up by the curb and evidently waiting for somebody. The somebody was Mrs. Elstrick, who was hastening towards it. In another second she had sprung in, and the car had sped away in the direction of the open country. And Brent let it go, without another glance in its direction. He turned at the foot of River Gate into Farthing Lane, the long, winding, tree-bordered alley that [Pg 292]ran beneath the edge of the town past the outer fringe of houses, the alley wherein Hawthwaite had witnessed the nocturnal meeting between Mrs. Elstrick and Krevin Crood. Brent remembered that as he hastened along, running between the trees on one side and the high walls of the gardens on the other. But he gave no further thought to the recollection—his brain was not yet fully recovered from the shock of Krevin Crood's last words, and it was obsessed by a single idea: that of gaining the garden entrance of the Abbey House and confronting the woman whom Krevin had formally denounced as the murderer of Wallingford. And as he hurried along he found himself saying certain words over and over again, and still again.... "I'm not going to see a woman hang!—I'm not going to see a woman hang! I'm ... not ... going ... to——" Behind this suddenly aroused Quixotic sentiment he was sick with horror. He knew that what Krevin Crood had told at last was true. He knew, too, that it would never have come out if Krevin himself had not been in danger. A feeling of almost physical nausea came over him as he remembered the callous, brutal cynicism of Krevin's last words, "If it's going to be my neck or hers, I prefer it to be hers!" A woman!—yet, a murderess; the murderess of his cousin, whose death he had vowed to avenge. But of course it was so—he saw many things now. The anxiety to get the letters; the dread of publicity expressed to Peppermore; the mystery spread over many things and actions; now this affair with Mallett—there was no reason to doubt Krevin Crood's accusation. [Pg 293]The fragments of the puzzle had been pieced together. But as he ran along that lane, and as his mental faculties regained their normality Brent himself did some piecing together. Every word of Krevin Crood's statement had bitten itself into his intelligence. Now he could reconstruct. It seemed to him that he visualized the Mayor's Parlour on that fateful evening. An angry, disillusioned, nerve-racked man, sore and restive under the fancy, or, rather, the realization of deceit, saying bitter and contemptuous words; a desperate, defeated woman, cornered like a rat—and close to her hand the rapier, lying on the old chest where its purchaser had carelessly flung it. A maddened thing, man or woman, would snatch that up, and—— "Blind, uncontrollable impulse!" muttered Brent. "She struck at him, at him—and then it was all over. Intentional, no! Yet ... the law! But, by God, I won't have a hand in hanging ... a woman! Time?" He knew the exact location of the door in the garden wall of the Abbey House and presently he ran up to it, panting from his swift dash along the lane. Not five minutes had elapsed then since his slip out of the excited court. But every second of the coming minutes was precious. And the door was locked. The garden wall was eight feet high, and so built that on all the expanse of its smoothed surface there was no foothold, no projection for fingers to cling to. But Brent was in that frame of mind which makes light of obstacles: he drew back into the lane, [Pg 294]ran, gathered himself for an upward spring at the coping of the wall, leapt, grasped it, struggled, drew up his weight with a mighty effort, threw a leg over, and dropped, gasping and panting, into the shaded garden. It was quiet there—peaceful as a glade set deep in the heart of a silent wood. He lay for a few seconds where he had dropped; then, with a great effort to get his breath, he rose and went quickly up the laurelled walks towards the house. A moment more and he was abreast of the kitchen and its open door, and in the presence of print-gowned, white-aproned women who first exclaimed and then stared at the sudden sight of him. "Mrs. Saumarez?" said Brent, frightened at the sound of his own voice. "In?" The cook, a fat, comfortable woman, turned on him from a clear fire. "The mistress has not come in yet, sir," she said. "She went out very early this morning on her bicycle, and we haven't seen her since. I expect she'll be back for lunch." Brent glanced at the open window of the room in which he had first encountered Mrs. Saumarez and to which he had brought her the casket and its contents. "Can I go in there and sit down?" he asked. "I want to see Mrs. Saumarez." "Certainly, sir," answered cook and parlour-maid in chorus. "She can't be long, surely." Brent went further along and stepped into the room. Not long? He knew very well that that room would never see its late occupant again! She was gone of course. [Pg 295] The room looked much the same as when he had last seen it, except that now there were great masses of summer flowers on all sides. He glanced round and his observant eye was quick to notice a fact—beneath the writing-table a big waste-paper-basket was filled to its edges with torn-up papers. He moved nearer, speculating on what it was that had been destroyed—and suddenly, behind the basket, he noticed, flung away, crumpled, on the floor, the buff envelope of a telegram. Brent, picking this up, expected to find it empty, but the message was inside. He drew out and smoothed the flimsy sheet and read its contents. They were comprised in five words: Lingmore Cross Roads six-thirty. Of course that was from Mallett. He glanced at the post-marks. The telegram had been sent from Clothford at seven o'clock the previous evening, and received at Hathelsborough before eight. It was an appointment without doubt. Brent knew Lingmore Cross Roads. He had been there on a pleasure jaunt with Queenie. It was a point on a main road whence you could go north or south, east or west with great facility. And doubtless Mrs. Saumarez, arriving there early in the morning, would find Mallett and a swift motor awaiting her. Well.... A sudden ringing at the front-door bell, a sudden loud knocking on the same door, made Brent crush envelope and telegram in his hand and thrust the crumpled ball of paper into his pocket. A second later he heard voices at the door, heavy steps in the hall, Hawthwaite's voice. "No," said the parlour-maid, evidently answering [Pg 296]some question, "but Mr. Brent's in the study. The mistress——" Hawthwaite, with one of his plain-clothes men, came striding in, saw Brent and closed the door, shutting out the parlour-maid. "Gone?" he asked sharply. "They say—out for a bicycle ride," answered Brent, purposely affecting unconcern. "Went out very early this morning." "What did you come here for?" demanded Hawthwaite. "To ask her personally if what Krevin Crood said is true!" replied Brent. Hawthwaite laughed. "Do you think she'd have admitted it, Mr. Brent?" he said. "I don't!" "I think she would," answered Brent. "But——" "Well?" inquired Hawthwaite. "I don't suppose I shall ever have the chance of putting such a question to her," added Brent. "She's—off!" Hawthwaite looked round. "Um!" he remarked. "Well, it only means another hue-and-cry. She and Mallett of course. There's one thing in our favour. She doesn't know that Krevin Crood knew anything about it." "Are you sure of that?" suggested Brent. "Oh, sure enough!" affirmed Hawthwaite. "She hasn't an idea that anybody knows. So we shall get her!" "What about Krevin Crood—and Simon?" asked Brent. "Adjourned," replied Hawthwaite. "There's no [Pg 297]doubt Krevin's told the true story at last, but he and Simon are still in custody and will be until, perhaps, to-morrow. We want to know a bit more yet. But I'll tell you what, Mr. Brent, this morning's work has broken up the old system! The Town Trustees and the ancient regime, as they call it—gone! Smashed, Mr. Brent——" "What are you going to do about this?" interrupted Brent, glancing round the room. "Set the wires to work," answered Hawthwaite half-carelessly. "Unless she and Mallett have laid their plans with extraordinary cleverness, they can't get out of the country. A noticeable pair too! Went out very early this morning, cycling, did she? I must have a talk to the servants. And that companion, now—Mrs. Elstrick—where's she got to? I noticed her in court." "Left, sir, just before Krevin Crood finished," said Hawthwaite's companion. "I saw her slip out." "Ay, well!" observed Hawthwaite. "I don't know that that matters! If any of them can get through the meshes of our net ... Mr. Brent!" "Well?" asked Brent. "We've got at the truth at last about your cousin," continued Hawthwaite, with a significant look. "It's been a case of one thing leading to another. And two things running side by side. If we hadn't cornered Krevin Crood we'd never have had his revelations about the Town Trustees. Talk about your Local Government Board inquiry!—why, five minutes of Krevin's tongue-work did more than half a dozen inquiries. I tell you, sir, the old system's dead—the [Pg 298]Crood gang was smashed to pieces in that court this morning! Somehow, it's that that interests me most, Mr. Brent. But—business!" He turned to the plain-clothes man, and nodded towards the door. "Fetch those servants in here," he said. "They've got to know." Brent went away then, carrying certain secrets with him. He put them away in a mental vault and sealed them down. Let Hawthwaite do his own work, he would give him no help. He forsaw his own future work. Wallingford, dead though he was, had won his victory and in his death had slain the old wicked system. Now there was building and reconstruction to be done, and it was his job to do it. He saw far ahead as he trod the sunlit streets of the old town. He would marry Queenie and they would settle into the slow-moving life of Hathelsborough, and he and men who thought with him would slowly build up a new and healthy state of things on the ruins of the old. So thinking he turned mechanically towards Mrs. Appleyard's house, in search of Queenie. Queenie, said Mrs. Appleyard, was in the garden behind. Brent went through the house, and out into the garden's shade. There he found Queenie. She sat in a summer-house, and she was shelling peas for dinner. <h3>THE END.</h3> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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