uess
we shall hear many things before the day's out; of course I haven't the
slightest notion what evidence is going to be given. But I've a pretty
good idea that Seagrave means to say some pretty straight things to the
jury!"

Here Tansley proved to be right. The Coroner, in opening the
proceedings, made some forcible remarks on their unusual gravity and
importance. Here was a case in which the chief magistrate of one of the
most ancient boroughs in England had been found dead in his official
room under circumstances which clearly seemed to point to murder.
Already there were rumours in the town and neighbourhood of the darkest
and most disgraceful sort--that the Mayor of Hathelsborough had been
done to death, in a peculiarly brutal fashion, by a man or men who
disagreed with the municipal reforms which he was intent on carrying
out. It would be a lasting, an indelible blot on the old town's fair
fame, never tarnished before in this way, if this inquiry came to
naught, if no definite verdict was given, he earnestly hoped that by the
time it concluded they would be in possession of facts which would, so
to speak, clear the town, and any political party in the town. He begged
them to give the closest attention to all that would be put before them,
and to keep open minds until they heard all the available evidence.

"A fairly easy matter in this particular case!" muttered Tansley, as the
jurymen went out to discharge their distasteful, preliminary task of
viewing the body of the murdered man. "I don't suppose there's a single
man there who has the ghost of a theory, and I'm doubtful if he'll know
much more to-night than he knows now--unless something startling is
sprung upon us."

Brent was the first witness called into the box when the court settled
down to its business. He formally identified the body of the deceased as
that of his cousin, John Wallingford: at the time of his death, Mayor of
Hathelsborough, and forty-one years of age. He detailed the particulars
of his own coming to the town on the evening of the murder, and told how
he and Bunning, going upstairs to the Mayor's Parlour, had found
Wallingford lying across his desk, dead. All this every man and woman in
the court knew already--but the Coroner desired to know more.

"I believe, Mr. Brent," he said, when the witness had given these
particulars, "that you are the deceased's nearest blood-relative?"

"I am," replied Brent.

"Then you can give us some