"I suddenly heard the handle of the door into the corridor turned, then Wallingford's voice. I slipped the panel back till it was nearly closed, and stood with my ear against it, listening. Wallingford was not alone. He had a woman with him. And I made out, in their first exchange of words, that he had met her in the corridor just outside the door of the Mayor's Parlour and that they were quarrelling and both in high temper. I–"
"Stop!" exclaimed the chairman, lifting his hand as an excited murmur began to run round the court. "Silence! If there is any interruption—Now," he went on, turning to Krevin, "you say you heard Mr. Wallingford come into the Mayor's Parlour and that he was accompanied by a woman, with whom he was having high words. Did you see this woman?"
"No, I saw neither her nor Wallingford. I only heard their voices."
"Did you recognize her voice as that of any woman you knew?"
"I did—unmistakably! I knew quite well who she was."
"Who was she, then?"
Krevin shook his head.
"For the moment—wait!" he replied. "Let me tell my tale in my own way. To resume, I say they—she and Wallingford—were having high words. I could tell, for instance, that he was in a temper which I should call furious. I overheard all that was said. He was wanting to know as they entered the room how she had got there. She replied that she had watched Mrs. Bunning out of her house from amongst the bushes in St. Lawrence churchyard, and had then slipped in at Bunning's back door, being absolutely determined to see him. Wallingford answered that she would get no good by waylaying him; he had found her out and was done with her; she was an impostor, an adventuress; she had come to the end of her tether. She then demanded some letters—her letters; there were excited words about this from each, and it was not easy to catch all that was said; at times they were both speaking together. But she got in a clear demand at last—was he or was he not going to hand those letters over? He said no, he was not—they were going to remain in his possession as a hold over her; she was a danger to the community with her plottings and underhand ways, and he intended to show certain of those letters to others. There was more excited wrangling over this—I heard Dr. Wellesley's name mentioned, then Mallett's: I also heard some reference, which I couldn't make head or tail of, to money and documents. In the midst of all this Wallingford suddenly told her to go; he had had enough of it, and had his work to attend to. Once more she demanded the letters; he answered with a very peremptory negative. Then I heard a sound as of his chair being pulled up to his desk, followed by a brief silence. Then, all of a sudden, I heard another sound, half-cry, half-groan, and a sort of dull thud, as if something had fallen. A moment later, as I was wondering what had happened, and what to do, I heard the door which opens into the corridor close gently. And at that I pushed back the panel and looked into the Mayor's Parlour."
It seemed to Brent that every soul in that place, from the grey-haired chairman on the bench to the stolid-faced official by the witness-box was holding his breath, and that every eye was fastened on Krevin Crood with an irresistible fascination. There was a terrible silence in the court as Krevin paused, terminated by an involuntary sigh of relief as he made signs of speaking again. And, in that instant, Brent saw Mrs. Elstrick, the tall gaunt woman of whom he had heard at least one mysterious piece of news from Hawthwaite, quietly slip out of her place near the outer door and vanish; he saw too that no one but himself saw her go, so absorbed were all others in what was coming.
"When I saw—what I did see," continued Krevin, in a low, concentrated tone, "I went in. The Mayor was lying across his desk, still, quiet. I touched his shoulder—and got blood on my fingers. I knew then what had happened—the woman had snatched up that rapier and run him through. I pulled out my handkerchief—the handkerchief I had taken from Mallett's drawer—wiped my hand, and threw the handkerchief in the fire. Then I took up a mass of papers and a memorandum book which Wallingford had laid down—and went away by the passage. And that's the plain truth! I should never have told it if I hadn't been arrested. I care nothing at all that Wallingford was killed by this woman—not I! I shouldn't have cared if she'd gone scot-free. But if it's going to be my neck or hers, well, I prefer it to be hers. And there you are!"
"Once again," said the chairman, "who was this woman?"
Krevin Crood might have been answering the most casual of casual questions.
"Who?" he replied. "Why—Mrs. Saumarez!"
CHAPTER XXV
THE EMPTY ROOM
Brent 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 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. 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, 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.
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.