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 abou