d a word of advice----"

"Yes?" Brent inquired.

"Leave your young lady at home," said Hawthwaite. "No need for her
feelings to be upset. They're her uncles, these two, after all, you
know. Don't bring her."

"No; of course," assented Brent. "Never intended to."

He went away to his hotel, sorely puzzled. Hawthwaite seemed positively
confident that he had solved the problem at last; but was Hawthwaite
right? Somehow, Brent could scarcely think of Krevin Crood as a
cold-blooded murderer, nor did it seem probable to him that calculating,
scheming men like Simon Crood, Mallett, and Coppinger would calmly plot
assassination and thereby endanger their own safety. One thing, anyway,
seemed certain--if Wallingford's knowledge of the financial iniquities
of the Town Trustees was so deep as to lead them to commit murder as the
only way of compelling his silence, then those iniquities must have been
formidable indeed and the great and extraordinary wonder was that they
had just been able to cloak them so thoroughly and successfully.

He was early in attendance at the court-room of the Moot Hall next
morning, and for a particular reason of his own selected a seat in close
proximity to the door. Long before the magistrates had filed on to the
bench, the whole place was packed, and Hawthwaite, passing him,
whispered that there were hundreds of people in the market square who
could not get in. Everybody of any note in Hathelsborough was present;
Brent particularly observed the presence of Mrs. Mallett who, heavily
veiled, sat just beneath him. He looked in vain, however, for Mrs.
Saumarez; she was not there. But in a corner near one of the exits he
saw her companion, Mrs. Elstrick, the woman whom Hawthwaite had seen in
secret conversation with Krevin Crood in Farthing Lane.

Tansley caught sight of Brent, and leaving the solicitors' table in the
well of the court went over to him.

"What're you doing perched out there?" he asked. "Come down with
me--I'll find room for you."

"No," said Brent. "I'm all right here; I may have to leave. And I'm not
on in this affair. It's Hawthwaite's show. And is he right, this time?"

"God knows!" exclaimed Tansley. "He's something up his sleeve anyway.
Queerest business ever I knew! Simon! If it had been Krevin alone, now.
Here, I'll sit by you--I'm not on, either--nobody's instructed me. I
say, you'll not notice it, but there's never been such a show of
magistrates on that bench for many a