Mrs. Saumarez shook her head.

"Yes," she answered. "But there are men in this place who wouldn't stick at even that! You don't know. If Wallingford had done all the things he'd vowed to do, there would have been such an exposure of affairs here as would have made the whole country agape. And some men would have been ruined--literally. I know! And things will come out and be tracked down, if no red herrings are drawn across the trail. You're going to get at the truth?"

"By G.o.d, yes!" exclaimed Brent, with sudden fervour. "I am so!"

"Look for his murderers amongst the men he intended to show up, then!"

she said, with a certain fierce intensity. "And look closely--and secretly! There's no other way!"

Brent presently left her and went off wondering about the contents of the little cabinet. He would have wondered still more if he had been able to look back into the cosy room which he had just left. For when he had gone, Mrs. Saumarez took the cabinet from the safe and carefully emptied the whole of its contents into the glowing heart of the fire.

She stood watching as the flames licked round them, and until there was nothing left there but black ash.

CHAPTER IX

THE RIGHT TO INTERVENE

Brent went back to his hotel to find the Town Clerk of Hathelsborough waiting for him in his private sitting-room. His visitor, a sharp-eyed man whose profession was suggested in every look and movement, greeted him with a suavity of manner which set Brent on his guard.

"I am here, Mr. Brent," he said, with an almost deprecating smile, "as--well, as a sort of informal deputation--informal."

"Deputations represent somebody or something," retorted Brent, in his brusquest fashion. "Whom do you represent?"

"The borough authorities," replied the Town Clerk, with another smile.

"That is to say----"

"You'll excuse me for interrupting," said Brent. "I'm a man of plain speech. I take it that by borough authorities you mean, say, Mr. Simon Crood and his fellow Town Trustees? That so?"

"Well, perhaps so," admitted the Town Clerk. "Mr. Alderman Crood, to be sure, is Deputy-Mayor. And he and his brother Town Trustees are certainly men of authority."

"What do you want?" demanded Brent.

The Town Clerk lowered his voice--quite unnecessarily in Brent's opinion. His suave tones became dulcet and mollifying.

"My dear sir," he said, leaning forward, "to-morrow you--you have the sad task of interring your cousin, our late greatly respected Mayor."

"Going to bury him to-morrow," responded Brent. "Just so--well?"

"There is a rumour in the town that you intend the--er--ceremony to be absolutely private," continued the Town Clerk.

"I do," a.s.sented Brent. "And it will be!"

The Town Clerk made a little expostulatory sound.

"My dear sir," he said soothingly, "the late Mr. Wallingford was Mayor of Hathelsborough! The four hundred and eighty-first Mayor of Hathelsborough, Mr. Brent!"

Brent, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, looked fixedly at his visitor.

"Supposing he was the nine hundred and ninety-ninth Mayor of Hathelsborough," he asked quietly, "what then?"

"He should have a public funeral," declared the Town Clerk promptly. "My dear sir, to inter a Mayor of Hathelsborough--and the four hundred and eighty-first holder of the ancient and most dignified office--privately, as if he were a--a mere n.o.body, a common townsman, is--oh, really, it's unheard of!"

"That the notion of the men who sent you here?" asked Brent grimly.

"The notion, as you call it, of the gentlemen who sent me here, Mr.

Brent, is that your cousin's funeral obsequies should be of a public nature," answered the Town Clerk. "According to precedent, of course.

During my term of office as Town Clerk two Mayors have died during their year of Mayoralty. On such occasions the Corporation has been present in state."

"In state?" said Brent. "What's that amount to? Sort of procession?"

"A duly marshalled one," answered the Town Clerk. "The beadle with his mace; the Deputy-Mayor; the Recorder--the Recorder and Town Clerk, of course, in wigs and gowns--the Aldermen in their furred robes; the Councillors in their violet gowns--a very stately procession, Mr. Brent, preceding the funeral cortege to St. Hathelswide's Church, where the Vicar, as Mayor's Chaplain, would deliver a funeral oration. The procession would return subsequently to the Moot Hall, for wine and cake."

Brent rubbed his square chin, staring hard at his visitor.

"Um!" he said at last. "Well, there isn't going to be anything of that sort to-morrow. I'm just going to bury my cousin quietly and privately, without maces and furred robes and violet gowns. So you can just tell 'em politely--nothing doing!"

"But my dear sir, my good Mr. Brent!" expostulated the visitor. "The Mayor of Hathelsborough! The oldest borough in the country! Why, our charter of incorporation dates from----"

"I'm not particularly interested in archaeology, just now anyway,"

interrupted Brent. "And it's nothing to me in connection with this matter if your old charter was signed by William the Conqueror or Edward the Confessor. I say--nothing doing!"

"But your reasons, my dear sir, your reasons!" exclaimed the Town Clerk.

"Such a breaking with established custom and precedent! I really don't know what the neighbouring boroughs will say of us!"

"Let 'em say!" retorted Brent. He laughed contemptuously. But suddenly his mood changed, and he turned on his visitor with what the Town Clerk afterwards described as a very ugly look. "But if you want to know," he added, "I'll tell you why I won't have any Corporation processing after my cousin's dead body! It's because I believe that his murderer's one of 'em! See?"

The Town Clerk, a rosy-cheeked man, turned pale. His gloves lay on the table at his elbow, and his fingers trembled a little as he picked them up and began fitting them on with meticulous precision.

"My dear sir!" he said, in a tone that suggested his profession more strongly than ever. "That's very grave language. As a solicitor, I should advise you----"

"When I say murderer," continued Brent, "I'm perhaps wrong. I might--and no doubt ought to--use the plural. Murderers! I believe that more than one of your rascally Corporation conspired to murder my cousin! And I'm going to have no blood-stained hypocrites processing after his coffin!

You tell 'em to keep away!"

"I had better withdraw," said the Town Clerk.

"No hurry," observed Brent, changing to geniality. He laid his hand on the bell. "Have a whisky-and-soda and a cigar? We've finished our business, and I guess you're a man as well as a lawyer?"

But the visitor was unable to disa.s.sociate his personal ident.i.ty from his office, and he bowed himself out. Brent laughed when he had gone.

"Got the weight of four hundred and eighty-one years of incorporation on him!" he said. "Lord! it's like living with generation after generation of your grandfathers slung round you! Four hundred and eighty-one years!

Must have been in the bad old days when this mouldy town got its charter!"

Next morning Brent buried the dead Mayor in St. Hathelswide's Churchyard, privately and quietly. He stayed by the grave until the s.e.xton and his a.s.sistants had laid the green turf over it; that done, he went round to the Abbey House and sought out Mrs. Saumarez. After his characteristic fashion he spoke out what was in his mind.

"I've pretty well fixed up, in myself, to do what you suggested last night," he said, giving her one of his direct glances. "You know what I mean--to go on with his work."

Mrs. Saumarez's eyes sparkled.