In the Mayor's Parlour

Chapter 20

THE FELL HAND

Brent heard what the superintendent said, nodded a silent reply, and five minutes later had put that particular thing clean out of his mind. 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 did, 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 time-worn 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, and 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, nor 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.

"I'm not counted out!" he said that evening, talking the proceedings of the day over with Queenie. "I'm up again and ready for the next round. Here I am, and here I stop! But new tactics! Permeation! that's the ticket. Reckon I'll nitrate 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. Permeation! that's the game in future."

Queenie scarcely knew what he meant. But she gathered a sense of it from the set of his square jaw and the flash of his grey eyes; being increasingly in love with him, it was incomprehensible to her that anybody could beat Brent at any game he took a hand in.

"The inquiry was all cut-and-dried business," remarked Queenie. "Arranged! Of course the accounts and things would be cooked. Uncle Simon and Mallett and Coppinger would see to that. They'll have an extra bottle to-night over this victory. And if they could only hear to-morrow that you're going to clear out their joy would be full."

"Well, I'm not!" declared Brent. "Instead of clearing out, I'm going to dig in. I guess they'll find me entrenched harder than ever before long. We'll get on at that to-morrow, now that this all-hollow inquiry's over."

Queenie understood him perfectly that time. He and she were furnishing the house which Brent had purchased in order to get a properly legal footing in Hathelsborough. It was serious and occasionally deeply fascinating work, necessitating much searching of the shops wherein antique furniture was stored, much consultation with upholsterers and decorators, much consideration of style and effect. Brent quickly discovered that Queenie was a young woman of artistic taste with a natural knowledge and appreciation of colour schemes and values; Queenie found out that Brent had a positive horror of the merely modern. Consequently, this furnishing and decorating business took up all their spare time: Queenie eventually spent all hers at the house, superintending and arranging; Brent was there when he was not writing his Monitor articles or interviewing Hawthwaite. The unproductive inquiry had broken into this domestic adventure; Brent now proposed to go ahead with it until it was finished; then he and Queenie would quietly get married and settle down. Hathelsborough, he remarked, might not want him, but there in Hathelsborough he had set up his tent, and the pegs were firmly driven in.

On the day succeeding the Local Government Board inquiry Brent and Queenie had spent morning, afternoon, and the first part of the evening at the house, at the head of a small gang of workmen, and had reduced at least half of the chaos to order. As dusk grew near Brent put on his coat and gave Queenie one of his looks which signified that there was no answer needed to what he was about to say.

"That's enough!" said Brent. "Dog tired! Now we'll go round to the Chancellor and get the best dinner they can give us. Put on your hat!"

Queenie obeyed, readily enough: she was in that stage whereat a young woman finds obedience the most delightful thing in the world. Brent locked up the house, and they went away together towards the hotel. In the old market square the lamps were just being lighted; as usual there were groups of townsfolk gathered about High Cross and Low Cross, and the pavements were thronged with strolling pedestrians. Something suggested to Brent that all these folk were discussing some news of moment; he heard excited voices; once or twice men glanced inquisitively at Queenie and himself as they walked towards the Chancellor; on the steps outside the hotel a knot of men, amongst them the landlord, were plainly in deep debate. They became silent as Queenie and Brent passed in, and Brent, ushering Queenie into the inner hall, turned back to them.

"Something going?" he asked laconically.

The men looked at each other; the landlord, with a glance in Queenie's direction, replied, lowering his voice:

"Then you haven't heard, Mr. Brent?" he said. "I thought you'd have known. Hawthwaite's arrested Krevin Crood for the murder."

In spite of his usual self-possession, Brent started.

"What!" he exclaimed. "Krevin!"

"Krevin," answered the landlord. "And Simon! Both of 'em. Got 'em at seven o'clock. They're in the police station--cells of course. Nice business--Mayor of a town arrested for the murder of his predecessor!"

"As far as I can make out, Simon's charged with being accessory," remarked one of the other men. "Krevin's the culprit-in-chief."

"Well, there they both are anyway," said the landlord. "And, if I know anything about the law, it's as serious a thing to be accessory to a murder as to be the principal in one. What do you say, Mr. Brent?"

Brent made no reply. He was thinking. So this was what Hawthwaite had meant when he said, the day before, that all was ready? He wished that Hawthwaite had given him a hint, or been perfectly explicit with him. For there was Queenie to consider.

And now, without further remark to the group of gossipers, he turned on his heel and went back to her and took her into the coffee-room and to the table which was always specially reserved for him. Not until Queenie had eaten her dinner did he tell her of what he had learned.

"So now there's going to be hell for a time, girlie," he said in conclusion. "No end of unpleasantness for me--and for you, considering that these men are your folk. And so all the more reason why you and I stick together like leeches--not all the Simons and the Krevins in the world are going to make any difference between you and me, and we'll just go forward as if they didn't exist, whatever comes out. And now, come along and I'll see you home to Mother Appleyard's, and then I'll drop in on Hawthwaite and learn all about it."

"Do--do you think they did it?" asked Queenie in a fearful whisper. "Actually?"

"God knows!" muttered Brent. "Damned if I do, or if I know what to think. But Hawthwaite must have good grounds for this!"

He saw Queenie safely home to Mrs. Appleyard's and hurried off to the police station, where he found the superintendent alone in his office.

"You've heard?" said Hawthwaite.

"I've heard," replied Brent. "I wish you'd given me an idea--a hint."

Hawthwaite shook his head. There was something peculiarly emphatic in the gesture.

"Mr. Brent," he said solemnly. "I wouldn't have given the King himself a hint! I'd reasons--good reasons--for keeping the thing a profound secret until I could strike. As it is, I've been foiled. I've got Krevin Crood, and I've got Simon Crood--safely under lock and key. But I haven't got the other two!"

"What other two?" exclaimed Brent.

Hawthwaite smiled sourly.

"What other two?" he repeated. "Why, Mallett and Coppinger! They're off, though how the devil they got wind of what was going on I can't think. Leaked out, somehow."

"You suspect them too?" asked Brent.

"Suspect!" sneered Hawthwaite. "Lord! You wait till Simon and Krevin are brought up before the magistrates to-morrow morning! We've got the whole evidence so absolutely full and clear that we can go right full steam ahead with the case to-morrow. Meeking'll prosecute, and I hope to get 'em committed before the afternoon's over."

"Look here," said Brent, "tell me--what's the line? How does the thing stand?"

"Thus," replied Hawthwaite. "We shall charge Krevin with the murder of your cousin, and Simon with being accessory to the fact."

"Before or after?" asked Brent.

"Before!"

"And those other two--Mallett and Coppinger?"

"Same charge as Simon."

Brent took a turn or two about the room.

"That," he remarked, pausing at last in front of Hawthwaite's desk, "means that there was a conspiracy?"

"To be sure!" assented Hawthwaite. "Got proof of it!"

"Then I wish you'd laid hands on Mallett and Coppinger," said Brent. "You've no idea of their whereabouts, I suppose?"

"None, so far," replied Hawthwaite. "Nor can I make out how or precisely when they slipped off. But they are off. Oddly enough, Mrs. Mallett's back in the town--I saw and spoke to her an hour ago. Of course she knows nothing about Mallett. She didn't come back to him. I don't know what she came back for. She's staying with friends, down Waterdale."

"What time will these men be brought up to-morrow morning?" asked Brent.

"Ten o'clock sharp," answered Hawthwaite. "And I hope that before the end of the afternoon they'll have been fully committed to take their trial! As I said just now, we can go straight on. Careful preparation makes speedy achievement, Mr. Brent! And by the Lord Harry, we've done some preparing!"

"If only the whole thing is cleared ... at last," said Brent quietly. "You think ... now ... it will be?"

Hawthwaite smacked his hand on his blotting-pad.

"Haven't the shadow of a doubt, Mr. Brent, that Krevin Crood murdered your cousin!" he asserted. "But you'll hear for yourself to-morrow. Come early. And a word of advice----"

"Yes?" Brent inquired.

"Leave your young lady at home," said Hawthwaite. "No need for her feelings to be upset. They're her uncles, these two, after all, you know. Don't bring her."

"No; of course," assented Brent. "Never intended to."

He went away to his hotel, sorely puzzled. Hawthwaite seemed positively confident that he had solved the problem at last; but was Hawthwaite right? Somehow, Brent could scarcely think of Krevin Crood as a cold-blooded murderer, nor did it seem probable to him that calculating, scheming men like Simon Crood, Mallett, and Coppinger would calmly plot assassination and thereby endanger their own safety. One thing, anyway, seemed certain--if Wallingford's knowledge of the financial iniquities of the Town Trustees was so deep as to lead them to commit murder as the only way of compelling his silence, then those iniquities must have been formidable indeed and the great and extraordinary wonder was that they had just been able to cloak them so thoroughly and successfully.

He was early in attendance at the court-room of the Moot Hall next morning, and for a particular reason of his own selected a seat in close proximity to the door. Long before the magistrates had filed on to the bench, the whole place was packed, and Hawthwaite, passing him, whispered that there were hundreds of people in the market square who could not get in. Everybody of any note in Hathelsborough was present; Brent particularly observed the presence of Mrs. Mallett who, heavily veiled, sat just beneath him. He looked in vain, however, for Mrs. Saumarez; she was not there. But in a corner near one of the exits he saw her companion, Mrs. Elstrick, the woman whom Hawthwaite had seen in secret conversation with Krevin Crood in Farthing Lane.

Tansley caught sight of Brent, and leaving the solicitors' table in the well of the court went over to him.

"What're you doing perched out there?" he asked. "Come down with me--I'll find room for you."

"No," said Brent. "I'm all right here; I may have to leave. And I'm not on in this affair. It's Hawthwaite's show. And is he right, this time?"

"God knows!" exclaimed Tansley. "He's something up his sleeve anyway. Queerest business ever I knew! Simon! If it had been Krevin alone, now. Here, I'll sit by you--I'm not on, either--nobody's instructed me. I say, you'll not notice it, but there's never been such a show of magistrates on that bench for many a year, if ever. Crowded! every magistrate in the place present. And the chief magistrate to be in the dock presently! That's dramatic effect, if you like!"

Brent was watching the dock: prisoners came into it by a staircase at the back. Krevin came first: cool, collected, calmly defiant--outwardly, he was less concerned than any spectator. But Simon shambled heavily forward, his big, flabby face coloured with angry resentment and shame. He beckoned to his solicitor and began to talk eagerly to him over the separating partition; he, it was evident, was all nerves and eagerness. But Krevin, after a careful look round the court, during which he exchanged nods with several of his acquaintance, stood staring reflectively at Meeking, as if speculating on what the famous barrister was going to say in opening the case.

Meeking said little. The prisoners, he observed, addressing the bench in quiet, conversational tones, were charged, Krevin Crood with the actual murder of the late Mayor, John Wallingford; Simon, with being accessory to the fact, and, if they had not absconded during the previous twenty-four hours, two other well-known residents of the borough, Stephen Mallett and James Coppinger, would have stood in the dock with Simon Crood, similarly charged. He should show their worships 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. There could be no doubt in the mind of any reasonable person after hearing that evidence, that Simon Crood, Mallett and Coppinger entered into a plot to rid themselves of a man who, had his investigations continued, would infallibly have exposed their nefarious practices to the community, nor that they employed Krevin Crood to carry out their designs. He would show that the murder of Wallingford was deliberately plotted at Mallett's house, between the four men, on a certain particular date, and that Krevin Crood committed the actual murder on the following evening. Thanks to the particularly able and careful fashion in which Superintendent Hawthwaite had marshalled the utterly damning body of evidence against these men, their Worships would have no difficulty in deciding that there was a prima facie case against them and that they must be committed to take their trial at the next Assizes.

Hawthwaite, called first, gave evidence as to the arrest of the two prisoners. He arrested Krevin Crood in the passage leading from Bull's Snug about 6.30 the previous evening, and Simon at his own home, half an hour later. 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. When actually charged neither of the accused made any answer at all.

The superintendent stood down, and Meeking looked towards an inner door of the court. An attendant came forward at his nod, bearing a heavy package done up in Crown 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.