In the Mayor's Parlour

Chapter 15

THE SPECIAL EDITION

But if the barrister was satisfied with the possibilities suggested by this new evidence, the gist of which had apparently altered the whole aspect of the case, the Coroner obviously was not. Ever since Mrs. Mallett had interrupted his summing-up to the jury, he had shown signs of fidgetiness. He had continually put on and taken off his spectacles; he had moved restlessly in his chair; now and then he had seemed on the point of interrupting counsel or witnesses: it was evident that things were not at all to his liking. And now as Meeking sat down the Coroner turned to Mrs. Bunning, who stood, looking wonderingly about her, and still fingering the apron in which she had been found at her work.

"Mrs. Bunning," he said, "I want to ask you some questions about this back entrance of yours. What is it--a door opening out of the rear of the Moot Hall?"

"Yes, sir; that's it, sir."

"Does it open on St. Lawrence Lane?"

"Yes, sir."

"What does it open into--a hall, lobby, passage, or what?"

"A lobby, sir, next to our living-room."

"Is there a staircase, then, in that lobby--I mean, by which you can get to the upper rooms in the Moot Hall?"

"Oh, yes, sir; that's the staircase we use, me and my husband, when we go up for cleaning and dusting, sir."

"Then, if anybody went in by that door while you were out that evening, whoever it was could go up that staircase to the upper rooms?"

"Oh, yes, sir, they could."

"And get to the Mayor's Parlour?"

"Yes, sir. The staircase opens on to the big landing, sir, and the door of the Mayor's Parlour is at the far end of it."

"And you were out of your rooms for half an hour that evening?"

"Just about that, sir. It would be a bit after half-past seven when I went out, and it was just before eight when I went in again."

"Did you notice anything that made you think somebody had been in?"

"Oh, no, sir, nothing!"

"Had you left your door open--your outer door?"

"Yes, sir--a bit ajar. Of course I never thought to be away many minutes, sir."

"Very good. That's all, thank you, Mrs. Bunning," said the Coroner. He looked round the court. "Is the Borough Surveyor still there?" he asked. "Mr. Walkershaw? Let him come into the witness-box again."

But the Borough Surveyor had gone--nor was he to be found in his office in another part of the building. Once more the Coroner looked round.

"I dare say we are all quite familiar with what I may call the geography of St. Lawrence Lane," he remarked. "But I want some formal evidence about it that can be put on the record. I see Mr. Krevin Crood there--I believe Mr. Crood is as big an authority on Hathelsborough as anybody living--perhaps he'll oblige me by coming forward."

Krevin Crood, sitting at the front of the densely-packed mass of spectators, rose and walked into the witness-box. The Coroner leaned confidentially in his direction.

"Mr. Crood," he said, "I think you're perfectly familiar with St. Lawrence Lane--in its relation to the immediately surrounding property?"

"I am, sir," replied Krevin. "Every inch of it!"

"Just describe it to us, as if we knew nothing about it," continued the Coroner. "You know what I want, and what I mean."

"Certainly, sir," assented Krevin. "St. Lawrence Lane is a narrow thoroughfare, about eighty to ninety yards in length which lies at the back of Mr. Mallett's house--I mean the bank premises--the Moot Hall, and Dr. Wellesley's house. It's north entrance, at the corner of the bank, is in Woolmarket; its south in Strand Lane. On its west side there is a back door to the bank house; another into Bunning's rooms on the basement of the Moot Hall; a third into the Police Office, also in that basement; a fourth into the rear of Dr. Wellesley's house. On the opposite side of the lane--the east--there is nothing but St. Lawrence's Church and churchyard. St. Lawrence's church tower and west end faces the back of the Moot Hall; there is a part of the churchyard opposite the bank premises--the rear premises; the rest of the churchyard faces Dr. Wellesley's house--the back of it, of course."

"Is the lane much frequented?"

"No, sir; it is very little used. Except by tradesmen going to Mr. Mallett's or to Dr. Wellesley's back doors, and by people going to the Police Office, it is scarcely used at all. There is no traffic along it. On Sundays, of course, it is used by people going to the services at St. Lawrence."

"Would it be likely to be quiet, unfrequented, of an evening?"

"Emphatically--yes."

"Do you think it likely that any person wishing to enter the Moot Hall unobserved and seeing Mrs. Bunning go away from her rooms and round the corner to the Chancellor Vaults--as we've just heard she did--could slip in unseen?"

"Oh, to be sure!" affirmed Krevin. "The easiest thing in the world! If I may suggest something----?"

"Go on, go on!" said the Coroner, waving his spectacles. "Anything that helps--suggest whatever you like."

"Well," said Krevin, slowly and thoughtfully, "if I may put it in my own way. Suppose that there is somebody in the town who is desirous of finding the late Mayor alone in the Mayor's Parlour, being also cognizant of the fact--well known to many people--that the late Mr. Wallingford was to be found there every evening? Suppose, too, that that person was well acquainted with the geography of St. Lawrence Lane and the Moot Hall? Suppose further that he or she was also familiar with the fact that Mrs. Bunning invariably went out every evening to fetch the supper beer from the Chancellor Vaults? Such a person could easily enter the Bunnings' back door with an absolutely minimum risk of detection. The churchyard of St. Lawrence is edged with thick shrubs and trees, anybody could easily hide amongst the shrub--laurel, myrtle, ivy--watch for Mrs. Bunning's going out, and, when she had gone, slip across the lane--a very narrow one!--and enter the door which, as she says, she left open. It would not take two minutes for any person who knew the place to pass from St. Lawrence Churchyard to the Mayor's Parlour, or from the Mayor's Parlour to St. Lawrence Churchyard."

A murmur of comprehension and understanding ran round the court: most of the people present knew St. Lawrence Lane and the Moot Hall as well as Krevin Crood knew them; his suggestion appealed to their common sense. And Tansley, with a sudden start, turned to Brent.

"That's done it!" he whispered. "Everybody tumbles to that! We've been going off on all sorts of side-tracks all the morning, now Wellesley, now Mrs. Mallett, and now--here's another! Access to the Mayor's Parlour--there you are! Easy as winking, on Krevin Crood's theory. Lay you a fiver to a shilling old Seagrave won't go on any farther."

Herein Tansley was quickly proved to be right. The Coroner was showing unmistakable symptoms of his satiety for the time being. He thanked Krevin Crood punctiliously for his assistance, and once again toying restlessly with his spectacles, turned to the jury, who, on their part, looked blank and doubtful.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "it seems to me that the entire complexion of this matter is changed by the evidence we have heard since Mrs. Mallett broke in so unexpectedly upon what I was saying to you. I don't propose now to say any more as regards the evidence of either Dr. Wellesley or Mrs. Mallett: since we heard what they had to say we have learnt 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 Parlour during that half hour wherein the Mayor met his death. The mystery of the whole affair has deepened considerably during to-day's proceedings, and instead of bringing this inquiry to a definite conclusion I feel that I must wait for more evidence. I adjourn this inquest for a month from to-day."

The court cleared; the spectators filtered out into the market-place in various moods, and under different degrees of excitement. 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. But, 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.

"There's no doubt about it, you know," he was saying. "The evidence of the Bunning woman, supplemented by what Krevin Crood said--which was a mere, formal, crystallizing of common knowledge--has altered the whole thing. Here's the back entrance to the Moot Hall left absolutely unprotected, unguarded, unwatched--whatever you like to call it--for half an hour, the critical half hour. Of course the murderer got up to the Mayor's Parlour that way and got away by the same means. You're as far off as ever, Hawthwaite, and it's a pity you wasted time on that jealousy business. I watched Wellesley closely, and I believe that he spoke the truth when he said that whatever there might have been there was no jealousy about Mrs. Saumarez between him and Wallingford at the end. My own impression is that Wellesley was clear off with Mrs. Saumarez."

Hawthwaite, essentially a man of fixed ideas, looked sullen.

"Well, it isn't mine, then," he growled. "From all I've learnt--and I've chances and opportunities that most folks haven't--my impression is that both men were after her, right up to the time Wallingford was murdered. I can tell you this--and I could have put it in evidence if I'd thought it worth while--Wellesley used to go and see her, of an evening, constantly, up to a very recent date, though she was supposed to have broken off with him and to be on with the Mayor. Now then!"

"Do you know that for a fact, Hawthwaite?" asked Tansley.

"I know it for a fact! He used to go there late at night, and stop late. If you want to know where I got it from, it was from a young woman that used to be housemaid at the Abbey House, Mrs. Saumarez's place. She's told me a lot; both Wallingford and Wellesley used to visit there a good deal, but as I say, Wellesley used to go there very late of an evening. This young woman says that she knows for a fact that he was often with her mistress till close on midnight. I don't care twopence what Wellesley said; I believe he was, and is, after her, and of course he'd be jealous enough about her being so friendly with Wallingford. 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 Parlour by way of the back staircase, through Bunning's rooms, that evening. Who was it? That's what you've got to find out. If you'd only 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."

Then Meeking, with a cynical laugh, picked up his papers and went off, and Brent, leaving Tansley talking to the superintendent, who was inclined to be huffy, strolled out of the Moot Hall, and went round to the back, with the idea of seeing for himself the narrow street which Krevin Crood had formally described. He saw at once that Krevin was an admirable exponent of the art of description: everything in St. Lawrence Lane was as the ex-official had said: there was the door into the Bunnings' rooms, and there, facing it, the ancient church and its equally ancient churchyard. It was to the churchyard that Brent gave most attention; he immediately realized that Krevin Crood was quite right in speaking of it as a place wherein anybody could conveniently hide--a dark, gloomy, sheltered, high-walled place, filled with thick shrubbery, out of which, here and there, grew sombre yew-trees, some of them of an antiquity as venerable as that of the church itself. It would be a very easy thing indeed, Brent decided, for any designing person to hide amongst these trees and shrubs, watch the Bunnings' door until Mrs. Bunning left it, jug in hand, and then to slip across the grass-grown, cobble-paved lane, silent and lonely enough, and up to the Mayor's Parlour. But all that presupposed knowledge of the place and of its people and their movements.

He went back to the market-place and towards the Chancellor. Peppermore came hurrying out of the hotel as Brent turned into it. He carried a folded paper in his hand, and he waved it at Brent as, at sight of him, he came to a sudden halt.

"Just been looking for you, Mr. Brent!" he said mysteriously. "Come into some quiet spot, sir, and glance at this. Here we are, sir, corner of the hall."

He drew Brent into an alcove that opened close by them, and affecting a mysterious air began to unfold his paper, a sheet of news-print which, Brent's professional eye was quick to see, had just been pulled as a proof.

"All that affair to-day, Mr. Brent," he whispered, "most unsatisfactory, sir, most unsatisfactory--unconvincing, inconclusive, Mr. Brent! The thing's getting no farther, sir, no farther, except, of course, for the very pertinent fact about Mrs. Bunning's absence from her quarters that fateful evening. My own impression, sir, is that Hawthwaite and all the rest of 'em don't know the right way of going about this business. But the Monitor's going to wade in, sir--the Monitor is coming to the rescue! Look here, sir, we're going to publish a special edition to-night, with a full account of to-day's proceedings at the inquest, and with it we're going to give away, as a gratis supplement--what do you think, sir? This, produced at great cost, sir, in the interest of Justice! Look at it!"

Therewith Peppermore, first convincing himself that he and his companion were secure from observation, spread out before Brent a square sheet of very damp paper, strongly redolent of printers' ink, at the head of which appeared, in big, bold, black characters, the question:

WHO TYPED THIS LETTER?

Beneath it, excellently reproduced, was a facsimile of the typewritten letter which Wallingford had shown to Epplewhite and afterwards left in his keeping. And beneath that was a note in large italics inviting anyone who could give any information as to the origin of the document to communicate with the Editor of the Monitor, at once.

"What d'ye think of that for a coup, Mr. Brent?" demanded Peppermore proudly. "Up to Fleet Street form that, sir, ain't it? I borrowed the original, sir, had it carefully reproduced in facsimile, and persuaded my proprietor to go to the expense of having sufficient copies struck off on this specially prepared paper to give one away with every copy of the Monitor that we shall print to-night. Five thousand copies, Mr. Brent! That facsimile, sir, will be all over Hathelsborough by supper time!"

"Smart!" observed Brent. "Top-hole idea, Peppermore. And you hope----?"

"There aren't so many typewriters in Hathelsborough as all that," replied Peppermore. "I hope that somebody'll come forward who can tell something. Do you notice, sir, that this has been done--the original, I mean--on an old-fashioned machine, and that the lettering is considerably worn, sir? I hope the Monitor's efforts will solve the mystery!"

"Much obliged to you," said Brent. "There's a lot of spade-work to do--yet."

He was thinking over the best methods of further attempts on that spade-work, when, late that evening, he received a note from Queenie Crood. It was confined to one line:

To-morrow usual place three urgent--Q.