Kitabı oku: «In the Mayor's Parlour», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XVI
THE CASTLE WALL

Brent went to bed that night wondering what it was that Queenie Crood wanted. Since their first meeting in the Castle grounds they had met frequently. He was getting interested in Queenie: she developed on acquaintance. Instead of being the meek and mild mouse of Simon Crood's domestic hearth that Brent had fancied her to be on his visit to the Tannery, he was discovering possibilities in her that he had not suspected. She had spirit and imagination and a continually rebellious desire to get out of Simon Crood's cage and spread her wings in flight—anywhere, so long as Hathelsborough was left behind. She had told Brent plainly that she thought him foolish for buying property in the town; what was there in that rotten old borough, said Queenie, to keep any man of spirit and enterprise there? Brent argued the point in his downright way: it was his job, he conceived, to take up his cousin's work where it had been laid down; he was going to regenerate Hathelsborough.

"And that you'll never do!" affirmed Queenie. "You might as well try to blow up the Castle keep with a halfpenny cracker! Hathelsborough people are like the man in the Bible—they're joined to their idols. You can try and try, and you'll only break your heart, or your back, in the effort, just as Wallingford would have done. If Wallingford had been a wise man he'd have let Hathelsborough go to the devil in its own way; then he'd have been alive now."

"Well, I'm going to try," declared Brent. "I said I would, and I will! You wait till I'm elected to that Town Council! Then we'll see."

"It's fighting a den of wild beasts," said Queenie. "You won't have a rag left on you when they're through with you."

She used to tell him at these meetings of the machinations of Simon Crood and Coppinger and Mallett against his chances of success in the Castle Ward election: according to her they were moving heaven and earth to prevent him from succeeding Wallingford. Evidently believing Queenie to be a tame bird that carried no tales, they were given to talking freely before her during their nightly conclaves. Brent heard a good deal about the underhand methods in which municipal elections are carried on in small country towns, and was almost as much amused as amazed at the unblushing corruption and chicanery of which Queenie told him. And now he fancied that she had some special news of a similar sort to give him: the election was close at hand, and he knew that Simon and his gang were desperately anxious to defeat him. Although Simon had been elected to the Mayoralty, his party in the Town Council was in a parlous position—at present it had a majority of one; if Brent were elected, that majority would disappear, and there were signs that at the annual elections in the coming November it would be transformed into a minority. Moreover, the opponent whom Brent had to face in this by-election was a strong man, a well-known, highly respected ratepayer, who, though an adherent of the Old Party, was a fair-minded and moderate politician, and likely to secure the suffrages of the non-party electors. It was going to be a stiff fight, and Brent was thankful for the occasional insights into the opposition's plans of campaign which Queenie was able to give him.

But there were other things than this to think about, and he thought much as he lay wakeful in bed that night and as he dressed next morning. The proceedings at the adjourned inquest had puzzled him; left him doubtful and uncertain. He was not sure about the jealousy theory. He was not sure about Mrs. Saumarez, from what he had seen of her personally and from what he had heard of her. He was inclined to believe that she was not only a dabbler in politics with a liking for influencing men who were concerned in them but that she was also the sort of woman who likes to have more than one man in leash. He was now disposed to think that there had been love-passages between her and Wallingford, and not only between her and Wallingford but between her and Wellesley—there might, after all, be something in the jealousy idea. But then came in the curious episode of Mrs. Mallett, and the mystery attaching to it—as things presented themselves at present there seemed to be no chance whatever that either Mrs. Mallett or Wellesley would lift the veil on what was evidently a secret between them. The only satisfactory and straightforward feature about yesterday's proceedings, he thought, was the testimony of Mrs. Bunning as to her unguarded door. Now, at any rate, it was a sure thing that there had been ready means of access to the Mayor's Parlour that evening; what was necessary was to discover who it was that had taken advantage of them.

After breakfast Brent went round to see Hawthwaite. Hawthwaite gave him a chair and eyed him expectantly.

"We don't seem to be going very fast ahead," remarked Brent.

"Mr. Brent," exclaimed Hawthwaite, "I assure you we're doing all we can! But did you ever know a more puzzling case? Between you and me, I'm not at all convinced about either Dr. Wellesley or Mrs. Mallett—there's a mystery there which I can't make out. They may have said truth, and they mayn't, and–"

"Cut them out," interrupted Brent. "For the time being anyway. We got some direct evidence yesterday—for the first time."

"As—how?" questioned Hawthwaite.

"That door into Bunning's room," replied Brent. "That's where the murderer slipped in."

"Ay; but did he?" said Hawthwaite. "If one could be certain–"

"Look here!" asserted Brent. "There is one thing that is certain—dead certain. That handkerchief!"

"Well?" asked Hawthwaite.

"That should be followed up, more," continued Brent. "There's no doubt whatever that that handkerchief, which Wellesley admits is his, got sent by mistake to one or other of Mrs. Marriner's other customers. That's flat! Now, you can trace it."

"How?" exclaimed Hawthwaite. "A small article like that!"

"It can be done, with patience," said Brent. "It's got to be done. That handkerchief got into somebody's hands. That somebody is probably the murderer. As to how it can be traced—well, I suggest this. As far as I'm conversant with laundry matters, families, such as Mrs. Marriner says she works for, have laundry books. These books are checked, I believe, when the washing's sent home. If there's an article missing, the person who does the checking notes it; if a wrong article's enclosed, that, too, is noted, and returned to the laundry."

"If Wellesley's handkerchief got to the wrong place, why wasn't it returned?" demanded Hawthwaite.

"To be sure; but that's just what you've got to find out," retorted Brent. "You ought to go to Mrs. Marriner's laundry and make an exhaustive search of her books, lists, and so on till you get some light—see?"

"Mrs. Marriner has, I should say, a hundred customers," remarked Hawthwaite.

"Don't matter if Mrs. Marriner's got five hundred customers," said Brent. "That's got to be seen into. If you aren't going to do it, I will. Whoever it was that was in that Mayor's Parlour tried to burn a blood-stained handkerchief there. That handkerchief was Wellesley's. Wellesley swears he was never near the Mayor's Parlour. I believe him! So that handkerchief got by error into the box or basket of some other customer of Mrs. Marriner. Trace it!"

He rose and moved towards the door, and Hawthwaite nodded.

"We'll make a try at it, Mr. Brent," he said. "But, as I say, to work on a slight clue like that–"

"I've known of far slighter clues," replied Brent.

Yet, as he went away, he reflected on the extreme thinness of this clue—it was possible that the handkerchief had passed through more hands than one before settling in those of the person who had thrown it on the hearth, stained with Wallingford's blood, in the Mayor's Parlour. But it was a clue, and, in Brent's opinion, the clue. One fact in relation to it had always struck him forcibly—the murderer of his cousin was either a very careless and thoughtless person or had been obliged to quit the Mayor's Parlour very hurriedly. Anyone meticulously particular about destroying clues or covering up traces would have seen to it that the handkerchief was completely burnt up before leaving the room. As it was, it seemed to Brent that the murderer had either thrown the handkerchief on the hearth, seen it catch fire and paid no more attention to it—which would denote carelessness—or had quitted the place immediately after flinging it aside, which would imply that some sound from without had startled him—or her. And, was it him—or was it her? There were certain features of the case which had inclined Brent of late to speculating on the possibility that his cousin had been murdered by a woman. And, to be sure, a woman was now in the case—Mrs. Mallett. If only he knew why Mrs. Mallett went to see the doctor and the Mayor....

But that, after all, was mere speculation, and he had a busy morning before him, in relation to his election business. He had been continuously engaged all the time when at three o'clock he hurried to the Castle Grounds to meet Queenie. He found her in her usual haunt, a quiet spot in the angle of a wall, where she was accustomed to sit and read.

"Well, and why 'urgent'?" asked Brent as he dropped on the seat at her side.

"To make sure that you'd come," retorted Queenie. "Didn't want to leave it to chance."

"I'm here!" said Brent. "Go ahead with the business."

"Did you see the Monitor last night and that facsimile they gave away with it?" inquired Queenie.

"I did! Saw the facsimile before it was published. Peppermore showed it to me."

"Very well—that's the urgent business. I know whose machine that letter—the original, I mean—was typed on!"

"You do? Great Scott! Whose, then?"

"Uncle Simon Crood's! Fact!"

"Whew! So the old fossil's got such a modern invention as a typewriter, has he? And you think–"

"Don't think—I know! He's had a typewriter for years; it's an old-fashioned thing, a good deal worn out. He rarely uses it, but now and then he operates, with one finger, slowly. And that letter originated from him—his machine."

"Proof!" said Brent.

Queenie took up a book that lay on the seat between them and from it extracted a folded copy of the Monitor's facsimile. She leaned nearer to Brent.

"Now look!" she said. "Do you notice that two or three of the letters are broken? That M—part of it's gone. That O—half made. The top of that A is missing. More noticeable still—do you see that the small t there is slanting the wrong way? Well, all that's on Uncle Simon's machine! I knew where that letter had originated as soon as ever I saw this facsimile last night."

She laid aside the supplement and once more opening her book produced a sheet of paper.

"Look at this!" she continued. "When Uncle Simon went out to the tannery this morning, I just took advantage of his absence to type out the alphabet on his machine. Now then, you glance over that and compare the faulty letters with those in the facsimile! What do you say now?"

"You're a smart girl, Queenie!" said Brent. "You're just the sort of girl I've been wanting to meet—the sort that can see things when they're right in front of her eyes. Oh, my! that's sure, positive proof that old Simon–"

"Oh!" broke in Queenie sharply. "Oh, I say!"

Before Brent could look up, he was conscious that a big and bulky shadow had fallen across the gravelled path at their feet. He lifted his eyes. There, in his usual raiment of funereal black, his top-hat at the back of his head, his hands behind him under the ample skirts of his frock-coat, his broad, fat face heavy with righteous and affectedly sorrowful indignation, stood Simon Crood. His small, pig-like eyes were fixed on the papers which the two young people were comparing.

"Hello!" exclaimed Brent. He was quick to see that he and Queenie were in for a row, probably for a row of a decisive sort which would affect both their lives, and he purposely threw as much hearty insolence into his tone as he could summon. "Eavesdropping, eh, Mr. Crood?"

Simon withdrew a hand from the sable folds behind him, and waved it in lordly fashion.

"I've no words to waste on impudent young fellers as comes from nobody knows where," he said loftily. "My words is addressed to my niece, as I see sitting there, a-deceiving of her lawful rellytive and guardian. Go you home at once, miss!"

"Rot!" exclaimed Brent. "She'll go home when she likes—and not at all, if she doesn't like! You stick where you are, Queenie! I'm here."

And as if to prove the truth of his words he slipped his right arm round Queenie's waist, clasped it tightly, and turned a defiant eye on Simon.

"See that?" he said. "Well! that's just where Queenie stops, as long as ever Queenie likes! Eh, Queenie?"

The girl, reddening as Brent's arm slipped round her, instinctively laid her free hand on his wrist. And as he appealed to her he felt her fingers tighten there with a firm, understanding pressure.

"That's all right!" he whispered to her. "We've done it, girlie—it's for good!" He looked up at Simon, whose mouth was opening with astonishment. "Queenie's my girl, old bird!" he went on. "She isn't going anywhere—not anywhere at all—at anybody's bidding, unless she likes. And why shouldn't she be here?"

It seemed, from the pause that followed, as if Simon would never find his tongue again. But at last he spoke.

"So this here is what's been going on behind my back, is it, miss?" he demanded, pointedly ignoring Brent and fixing his gaze on Queenie. "A-carrying on with strangers at my very gates, as you might say, and in public places in a town of which I'm chief magistrate! What sort o' return do you call this, miss, I should like to know, for all that I've done for you? me that's lodged and boarded and clothed you, ever since–"

"What have I done for you in return?" demanded Queenie with a flash of spirit. "Saved you the wages of a couple of servants for all these years! But this is the end, if you're going to throw that in my teeth–"

Brent drew Queenie to her feet and turned her away from Simon. He gave the big man a look over his shoulder.

"That's it, my friend!" he said. "That's the right term—the end! Find somebody else to do your household drudgery—this young lady's done her last stroke for you. And now don't begin to bluster," he added, as Simon, purpling with wrath, shook his fist. "We'll just leave you to yourself."

He led Queenie away down a side-path, and once within its shelter, put a finger under her chin, and lifting her face, looked steadily at her.

"Look here, girlie," he said. "You heard what I whispered to you just now? 'It's for good!' Didn't I say that? Well, is it?"

Queenie managed to get her eyes to turn on him at last.

"Do you mean it?" she murmured.

"I just do!" answered Brent fervently. "Say the word!"

"Yes, then!" whispered Queenie.

She looked at him wonderingly when he had bent and kissed her.

"You're an extraordinary man!" she said. "Whatever am I going to do—now? Homeless!"

"Not much!" exclaimed Brent. "You come along with me, Queenie. I'm a good hand at thinking fast. I'll put you up, warm and comfortable, at Mother Appleyard's; and as quick as the thing can be done we'll be married. Got that into your little head? Come on, then!"

That night Brent told Tansley of what had happened and what he was going to do. Tansley listened, laughed, and shook his head.

"All right, my lad!" he said. "I've no doubt you and Queenie'll suit each other excellently. But you've settled your chances of winning that election, Brent! Simon Crood'll bring up every bit of his heavy artillery against you, now—and will smash you!"

CHAPTER XVII
IMPREGNABLE

Brent received this plain-spoken declaration with a curious tightening of lips and setting of jaw which Tansley, during their brief acquaintance, had come to know well enough. They were accompanied by a fixed stare—the solicitor knew that too. These things meant that Brent's fighting spirit was roused and that his temper became ugly. Tansley laughed.

"You're the sort of chap for a scrap, Brent," he continued, "and a go-ahead customer too! But—you don't know this lot, nor their resources. Whatever anybody may say, and whatever men like your late cousin, and Epplewhite, and any of the so-called Progressives—I'm not one, myself; it pays me to belong to neither party!—whatever these folks may think or say, Simon Crood and his lot are top-dogs in this little old town! Vested interests, my boy!—ancient tree, with roots firmly fixed in the piled-up soil, strata upon strata, of a thousand years! You're not going to pull up these roots, my lad!"

"How'll Simon Crood smash me?" demanded Brent quietly.

"As to the exact how," answered Tansley, "can't say! Mole work—but he'll set the majority of the electors in that Castle Ward against you."

"I've enough promises of support now to give me a majority," retorted Brent.

"That for promises!" exclaimed Tansley, snapping his fingers. "You don't know Hathelsborough people! They'll promise you their support to your face—just to get rid of your presence on their door-steps—and vote against you when they reach the ballot-box. I'll lay anything most of the folk you've been to see have promised their support to both candidates."

"Why should these people support Crood and his crew?" demanded Brent.

"Because Crood and his crew represent the only god they worship!" said Tansley, with a cynical laugh. "Brass!—as they call it. All that a Hathelsborough man thinks about is brass—money. Get money where you can—never mind how, as long as you get it, and keep just within the law. Simon Crood represents the Hathelsborough principle of graft, and whatever you may think, he's the paramount influence in the town to-day."

"He and his lot have only got the barest majority on the Council," remarked Brent.

"Maybe; but they've got all the really influential men behind 'em, the moneyed men," said Tansley. "And they've distributed all the various official posts, sinecures most of 'em, amongst their friends. That Town Trustee business is the nut to crack here, Brent, and a nut that's been hardening for centuries isn't going to be cracked with an ordinary implement. Come now, are you an extraordinary one?"

"I'll make a try at things anyway," replied Brent. "And I don't believe I shall lose that election, either."

"You might have scraped in if you hadn't carried Simon Crood's niece away from under his very nose," said Tansley. "But now that you've brought personal matters into the quarrel, the old chap'll move every piece he has on the board to checkmate you. It won't do to have you on the Council, Brent, you're too much of an innovator. Now this town—the real town!—doesn't want innovation. Innovation in an ancient borough like this is—unsettling and uncomfortable. See?"

"This world doesn't stand still," retorted Brent. "I'm going ahead!"

But he reflected, as he left the solicitor's office, that much of what Tansley had said was true. There was something baffling in the very atmosphere of Hathelsborough—he felt like a man who fights the wind. Everything was elusive, ungraspable, evasive—he seemed to get no further forward. And, if Tansley was right in affirming that Hathelsborough people made promises which they had no intention of redeeming, his chances of getting a seat on the Town Council and setting to work to rebuild his late cousin's schemes of reformation were small indeed. But once more he set his jaw and nerved himself to endeavour, and, as the day of election was now close at hand, plunged into the task of canvassing and persuading—wondering all the time, now that he had heard Tansley's cynical remarks, if the people to whom he talked and who were mostly plausible and ingratiating in their reception of him were in reality laughing at him for his pains. He saw little of the efforts of the other side; but Peppermore agreed with Tansley that the opposition would leave no stone unturned in the task of beating him.

The Monitor was all for Brent—Peppermore's proprietor was a Progressive; a tradesman who had bought up the Monitor for a mere song, and ran it as a business speculation which had so far turned out very satisfactorily. Consequently, Brent at this period went much to the Monitor office, and did things in concert with Peppermore, inspiring articles which, to say the least of them, were severely critical of the methods of the Crood regime. On one of these visits Peppermore, in the middle of a discussion about one of these effusions, abruptly switched off the trend of his thought in another direction.

"I'd a visit from Mrs. Saumarez this morning, Mr. Brent," he said, eyeing his companion with a knowing look. "Pretty and accomplished woman, that, sir; but queer, Mr. Brent, queer!"

"What do you mean?" asked Brent.

"Odd ideas, sir, very odd!" replied Peppermore. "Wanted to find out from me, Mr. Brent, if, in case she's called up again at this inquest business, or if circumstances arise which necessitate police proceedings at which she might be a witness, her name couldn't be suppressed? Ever hear such a proposal, sir, to make to a journalist? 'Impossible, my dear madam!' says I. 'Publicity, ma'am,' I says, 'is—well, it's the very salt of life, as you might term it,' I says. 'When gentlemen of our profession report public affairs we keep nothing back,' I says; firmly, sir. 'I very much object to my name figuring in these proceedings,' she says. 'I object very strongly indeed!' 'Can't help it, ma'am,' says I. 'If the highest in the land was called into a witness-box, and I reported the case,' I says, 'I should have to give the name! It's the glory of our profession, Mrs. Saumarez.' I says, 'just as it's that of the law, that we don't countenance hole-and-corner business. The light of day, ma'am, the light of day! that's the idea, Mrs. Saumarez!' I says. 'Let the clear, unclouded radiance of high noon, ma'am, shine on'—but you know what I mean, Mr. Brent. As I said to her, the publicity that's attendant on all this sort of thing in England is one of the very finest of our national institutions.

"Odd, sir, but, for a woman that's supposed to be modern and progressive, she didn't agree. 'I don't want to see my name in the papers in connection with this affair, Mr. Peppermore,' she declared again. 'I thought, perhaps,' she says, rather coaxingly, 'that you could suggest some way of keeping it out if there are any further proceedings.' 'Can't, ma'am!' says I. 'If such an eventuality comes to be, it'll be my duty to record faithfully and fully in the Monitor whatever takes place.' 'Oh,' says she. 'But it's not the Monitor that I so much object to—it's the London papers. I understand that you supply the reports to them, Mr. Peppermore.' Well, of course, as you know, Mr. Brent, I am district correspondent for two of the big London agencies, but I had to explain to her that in a sensational case like this the London papers generally sent down men of their own: there were, for instance, two or three London reporters present the other day.

"Yes, she said; so she'd heard, and she'd got all the London papers to see if her name was mentioned, and had been relieved to find that it hadn't: there were nothing but summarized reports: her name hadn't appeared anywhere but in the Monitor. 'And what I wanted, Mr. Peppermore,' she says, more wheedlingly than ever, 'was that, if it lay in your power, and if occasion arises, you would do what you could to keep my name out of it—I don't want publicity!' Um!" concluded Peppermore. "Pretty woman, Mr. Brent, and with taking ways, but of course I had to be adamant, sir—firm, Mr. Brent, firm as St. Hathelswide's tower. 'The Press, Mrs. Saumarez,' I says, as I dismissed the matter—politely, of course—'has its Duties. It can make no exception, Mrs. Saumarez, to wealth, or rank, or—beauty.' I made her a nice bow, Mr. Brent, as I spoke the last word. But she wasn't impressed. As I say—queer woman! What's publicity matter to her as long as she's no more than a witness?"

Brent was not particularly impressed by Peppermore's story. He saw nothing in it beyond the natural desire of a sensitive, highly-strung woman to keep herself aloof from an unpleasant episode, and he said so.

"I don't see what good Hawthwaite hoped to get by ever calling Mrs. Saumarez before the Coroner," he added. "She told nothing that everybody didn't know. What did it all amount to?"

"Ay, but that's just it, in a town like this, Mr. Brent," answered Peppermore with a wink. "I can tell you why the police put the Coroner up to calling Mrs. Saumarez as a witness. They'd got a theory—that Wellesley killed your cousin in a fit of jealousy, of which she was the cause, and they hoped to substantiate it through her evidence. There's no doubt, sir, that there were love-passages between Dr. Wellesley and this attractive lady and between her and your cousin, but—shall I tell you, sir, something that's in my mind?"

"Ay. Why not?" answered Brent. He was thinking of the thick pile of letters which he had returned to Mrs. Saumarez and of the unmistakable love-tokens which he had seen deposited with them in the casket wherein Wallingford had kept them. "What is it you're thinking of?"

Peppermore edged his chair closer to his visitor's, and lowered his voice.

"I am not unobservant, Mr. Brent," he said. "Our profession, as you know, sir, leads us to the cultivation of that faculty. Now, I've thought a good deal about this matter, and I'll tell you a conclusion I've come to. Do you remember that when Dr. Wellesley was being questioned the other day he was asked if there was jealousy between him and Mr. Wallingford about Mrs. Saumarez? To be sure! Now what did he answer? He answered frankly that there had been but it no longer existed! Do you know what I deduced from that, Mr. Brent? This—that the little lady had had both those men as strings to her bow at the same time, indecisive as to which of 'em she'd finally choose, but that, not so long since, she'd given up both, in favour of a third man!"

Brent started, and laughed.

"Ingenious, Peppermore, very ingenious!" he said. "Given 'em both the mitten as they say? But the third man?"

"Mrs. Saumarez was away on the Continent most of the winter," answered Peppermore. "The Riviera, Nice, Monte Carlo—that sort of thing. She may have met somebody there that she preferred to either Wellesley or Wallingford. Anyway, Mr. Brent, what did the doctor mean when he frankly admitted that there had been jealousy between him and Wallingford, but that it no longer existed? He meant, I take it, that there was no reason for its further existence. That implies that another man had come into the arena!"

"Ay, but does it?" said Brent. "It might mean something else—that she'd finally accepted Wellesley. Eh?"

"No," declared Peppermore. "She's not engaged to Wellesley: I'll lay anything she isn't, Mr. Brent. There's a third man, somewhere in the background, and it's my opinion that that's the reason why she doesn't want the publicity she came to me about."

Brent fell into a new train of thought, more or less confused. Mrs. Saumarez's talk to him about Wallingford, and the letters, and the things in the casket, were all mixed up in it.

"Had you any opportunity of seeing Wellesley and my cousin together during the last week or two before my cousin's death?" he asked presently.

"Several, Mr. Brent, several opportunities," answered Peppermore. "I went to report the proceedings of two or three committees of the Town Council during the fortnight preceding that lamentable occurrence, sir, and saw them at close quarters. I saw them frequently at the Club, of which I am a member. I should say, sir, from what I observed, that they were on very good terms with each other—more friendly than ever, Mr. Brent."

"Um," said Brent. "Well, there's a lot of queer stuff about this business, Peppermore. But let's get back to that of the moment. Look here, I've got a fine notion for your Monitor—you'll just have time to get it out before my election day. Let's make a real, vigorous, uncompromising attack on the principle of the Town Trustee business. We'll not say one word about the present Trustees, old Crood, Mallett and Coppinger—we'll have no personalities, and make no charges; we'll avoid all stuff of that sort. We'll just attack the thing on its principle, taking up the line that it's a bad principle that the finances of a borough should be entrusted to the sole control of three men responsible to nobody and with the power, if one dies, to elect his successor. Let's argue it out on the principle; then, later, we'll have another article on the argument that the finances of a town should be wholly controlled by the elected representatives of the people—see?"

"Your late cousin's theories, Mr. Brent," said Peppermore. "Excellent notions, both, sir. You write the articles; I'll find the space. All on principle—no personalities. Plain and practical, Mr. Brent, let them be, so that everybody can understand. Though to be sure," he added regretfully, "what our readers most like is personalities! If we dared to slate old Crood with all the abuse we could lay our pens to, the readers of the Monitor, sir, would hug themselves with pleasure. But libel, Mr. Brent, libel! Do you know, sir, that ever since I occupied the editorial chair of state I have always felt that the wet blanket of the law of libel sat at my banquet like the ghost in Macbeth, letting its sword hang by a thread an inch from my cranium! Bit mixed in my metaphors, sir, but you know what I mean. Mustn't involve my respected proprietor in a libel suit, Mr. Brent, so stick to abstract principles, sir, and eschew those saucy personal touches which I regret—deeply—I can't print."

Brent had no intention of indulging in personalities in his warfare with Simon Crood and the reactionaries, but as the day of the election approached he discovered that his adversaries were not at all particular about putting forth highly personal references to himself. Hathelsborough suddenly became flooded with handbills and posters, each bearing a few pithy words in enormous type. These effusions were for the most part in the form of questions, addressed to the recipients; there was a cynical and sinister sneer in all of them. "Who is Mr. Brent?" "Why Support a Stranger?" "Who Wants a Carpet-Bagger?" "Vote for the Home-Made Article." "Hathelsborough Men for Hathelsborough Matters." "Stand by the True and Tried!" These appeals to the free and enlightened burgesses whose suffrages he solicited met Brent on every side, and especially on the day of the election. He had gone in for nothing of this sort himself: his original election address, it seemed to him, contained everything that he had to say, and beyond posting it all over the town in great placards and distributing it in the form of handbills to the electors of the Castle Ward he had issued nothing in the shape of literature. But he had stumped his desired constituency thoroughly, making speeches at every street corner and at every public meeting-place, and he had a personal conviction from his usual reception on these occasions that the people were with him. He was still sure of victory when, at noon on the polling-day, he chanced to meet Tansley.