In the Mayor's Parlour

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.

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 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 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 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.

THE END