-Wallingford was to draw off his forces, and he was to be
rewarded as I have said. Not a man of us doubted that he would be
tempted by the bait, and would swallow it."

Brent leapt to his feet and flung a scornful exclamation across the
court.

"Then not a man of you knew him!" he cried. "He'd have flung your bribe
back into the dirty hands that offered it!"

But Krevin Crood smiled more cynically than ever.

"That's all you know, young man," he retorted. "You'll know more when
you're my age. Well," he continued, turning his back on Brent and again
facing the bench, "that was the situation. I was to act as ambassador,
and if I succeeded in my embassy I was to be well paid for my labour."

"By the Town Trustees?" inquired the chairman.

"By the Town Trustees, certainly," replied Krevin. "Who else? As my
principals----"

"I think you will have to tell us what fee, or payment, you were to
have," interrupted the chairman. "If----"

"Oh, as the whole thing's come to nothing, I don't mind telling that,"
said Krevin. "I shall never get it now, so why not talk of it? I was to
have a thousand pounds."

"As reward for inducing the Mayor to withhold from the public certain
information which he had acquired as regards the unsatisfactory
condition of the borough finances?" asked the chairman.

"Y-es, if you put it that way," assented Krevin. "You might put it
another way, as regards the Mayor. He was to--just let things slide."

"Go on, if you please," said the chairman dryly. "We understand."

"Well," continued Krevin cheerfully, "we settled my mission over
Mallett's port. The next thing was for me to carry it out. It was
necessary to do this immediately--we knew that Wallingford had carried
his investigations to such an advanced stage that he might make the
results public at any moment. Now, I did not want anyone to know of my
meeting with him--I wanted it to be absolutely secret. But I knew how
to bring that about. Wallingford spent nearly every evening alone in the
Mayor's Parlour--I knew how to reach the Mayor's Parlour unobserved. The
secret of which Dr. Pellery has just told you was also known to me--I
discovered the passage between St. Lawrence tower and the Moot Hall many
years ago. And I determined to get at Wallingford by way of that
passage.

"About seven o'clock of the evening on which Wallingford was murdered, I
called at Spizey's cottage in St. Lawrence churchyard and got the keys
of the church from hi