fternoon, to go through any
private papers that might be found there. Then his cousin's
office--there were clerks there awaiting instructions. Brent had to
consult with them as to what was to be done about business. And that
over, there was another and still more difficult task--the arrangements
for Wallingford's interment. Of one thing Brent was determined--whatever
Alderman Crood, as Deputy-Mayor, or whatever the Aldermen and
Councillors of Hathelsborough desired, he, as the murdered man's
next-of-kin, was not going to have any public funeral or demonstration;
it roused his anger to white heat to think of even the bare possibility
of Wallingford's murderer following him in smug hypocrisy to his grave.
And in Brent's decided opinion that murderer was a Hathelsborough man,
and one of high place.

It was nearly noon when he had completed these arrangements, and then,
having no more to do at the moment, he remembered the little newspaper
man, Peppermore, and his invitation to call at the _Monitor_ office. So,
as twelve o'clock chimed and struck from the tower of St. Hathelswide,
he walked up the narrow entry from the market-place, along which the
editor-reporter had shot the previous night, and, after a preliminary
reconnoitring of the premises, tapped at a door marked "Editorial." A
shrill voice bade him enter, and he turned the handle to find himself
inspecting an unusually untidy and littered room, the atmosphere of
which seemed chiefly to be derived from a mixture of gas, paste and
printers' ink. Somewhere beyond sounded the monotonous rumble of what
was probably an old-fashioned printing machine.

A small-figured, sharp-faced, red-haired youngster of apparently fifteen
or sixteen years was the sole occupant of this unsavoury sanctum. He was
very busy--so busy that he had divested himself of his jacket, and had
rolled up his shirt-sleeves. In his right hand he wielded a pair of
scissors; with them he was industriously clipping paragraphs from a pile
of newspapers which lay before him on a side-table. It was evident that
he had a sharp eye for telling stuff, for in the moment which elapsed
after Brent's entrance he had run it over a column, swooped on a likely
item, snipped it out and added it to a heap of similar gleanings at his
elbow. He glanced at his caller with an expression which was of the sort
that discourages wasting of time.

"Mr. Peppermore?" inquired Brent, taking his cue. "In?"

"Out," answered the bo