oppinger. How was he, a stranger, going to unearth the
truth about his cousin's brutal murder, amongst people like these,
endowed, it seemed to him, with an Eastern-like quality of
secretiveness? But he would!

He went on to the rooms in which Wallingford had lived ever since his
first coming to the town. They were good, roomy, old-fashioned
apartments in a big house, cosy and comfortable, but the sight of
Wallingford's study, of his desk, his books and papers, of his favourite
chair and his slippers at the fire, of the supper-table already spread
for him and Brent in an inner parlour, turned Brent sick at heart. He
turned hastily to Wallingford's landlady, who had let him in and
followed him into the dead man's room.

"It's no use, Mrs. Appleyard," he said. "I can't stop here to-night,
anyway. It would be too much! I'll go to the _Chancellor_, and send on
for my luggage."

The woman nodded, staring at him wonderingly. The news had evidently
wrought a curious change in her; usually, she was a cheery,
good-natured, rather garrulous woman, but she looked at Brent now as if
something had dazed her.

"Mr. Brent," she whispered, in awe-stricken accents, "you could have
knocked me down with a feather when they came here and told me. He was
that well--and cheerful--when he went out!"

"Yes," said Brent dully. "Yes." He let his eyes run over the room
again--he had looked forward to having a long, intimate chat with
Wallingford that night over the bright fire, still crackling and
glowing in readiness for host and guest. "Ay, well!" he added. "It's
done now!"

"Them police fellows, Mr. Brent," said the landlady, "have they any idea
who did it?"

"I don't think they've the least idea yet," replied Brent. "I suppose
you haven't, either?"

Mrs. Appleyard, thus spurred to reminiscence, recovered something of her
customary loquaciousness.

"No, to be sure I haven't," she answered. "But I've heard things, and I
wish--eh, I do wish!--that I'd warned him! I ought to ha' done."

"What about?" asked Brent. "And what things?"

The landlady hesitated a little, shaking her head.

"Well, you know, Mr. Brent," she said at last, "in a little town like
this, folk will talk--Hathelsborough's a particular bad place for talk
and gossip; for all that, Hathelsborough people's as secret as the grave
when they like, about their own affairs. And, as I say, I've heard
things. There's a woman comes here to work for me at odd times, a woman