.

"Do you know how that strikes me?" observed Tansley in a low voice, as
if he feared to be overheard. "It just looks to me as if Wallingford had
anticipated that something was about to happen. Had he ever given you
any idea in his letters that he was going to do this?"

"Never!" replied Brent. "Still--I'm the only very near relative that he
had."

"Well," said Tansley, "it may be mere coincidence, but it's a bit odd
that he should be murdered within a week of that will's being made. I'd
just like to know if he'd been threatened--openly, anonymously, any way.
Looks like it."

"I suppose we shall get into things at the inquest?" asked Brent.

Tansley shrugged his shoulders.

"Maybe," he answered. "I've no great faith in inquests myself. But
sometimes things do come out. And our coroner, Seagrave, is a
painstaking and thorough-going sort of old chap--the leading solicitor
in the town too. But it all depends on what evidence can be brought
forward. I've always an uneasy feeling, as regards a coroner's inquiry,
that the very people who really could tell something never come
forward."

"Doesn't that look as if such people were keeping something back that
would incriminate themselves?" suggested Brent.

"Not necessarily," replied Tansley. "But it often means that it might
incriminate others. And in an old town like this, where the folk are
very clannish and closely connected one with another by, literally,
centuries of intermarriage between families, you're not going to get one
man to give another away."

"You think that even if the murderer is known, or if some one suspected,
he would be shielded?" asked Brent.

"In certain eventualities, yes," answered Tansley. "We all know that
rumours about your cousin's murder are afloat in the town now--and
spreading. Well, the more they spread, the closer and more secretive
will those people become who are in the know; that is, of course, if
anybody is in the know. That's a fact!"

"What do you think yourself?" said Brent suddenly. "Come now?"

"I think the Mayor was got rid of--and very cleverly," replied Tansley.
"So cleverly that I'm doubtful if to-morrow's inquest will reveal
anything. However, it's got to be held."

"Well, you'll watch it for me?" said Brent. "I'm going to spare no
expense and no pains to get at the truth."

He sat at Tansley's side when the inquest was opened next morning in the
principal court of the old Moot Hall. It struck him as rather a cu