THE RIGHT TO INTERVENE
Brent went back to his hotel to find the Town Clerk of Hathelsborough
waiting for him in his private sitting-room. His visitor, a sharp-eyed
man whose profession was suggested in every look and movement, greeted
him with a suavity of manner which set Brent on his guard.
"I am here, Mr. Brent," he said, with an almost deprecating smile,
"as--well, as a sort of informal deputation--informal."
"Deputations represent somebody or something," retorted Brent, in his
brusquest fashion. "Whom do you represent?"
"The borough authorities," replied the Town Clerk, with another smile.
"That is to say----"
"You'll excuse me for interrupting," said Brent. "I'm a man of plain
speech. I take it that by borough authorities you mean, say, Mr. Simon
Crood and his fellow Town Trustees? That so?"
"Well, perhaps so," admitted the Town Clerk. "Mr. Alderman Crood, to be
sure, is Deputy-Mayor. And he and his brother Town Trustees are
certainly men of authority."
"What do you want?" demanded Brent.
The Town Clerk lowered his voice--quite unnecessarily in Brent's
opinion. His suave tones became dulcet and mollifying.
"My dear sir," he said, leaning forward, "to-morrow you--you have the
sad task of interring your cousin, our late greatly respected Mayor."
"Going to bury him to-morrow," responded Brent. "Just so--well?"
"There is a rumour in the town that you intend the--er--ceremony to be
absolutely private," continued the Town Clerk.
"I do," assented Brent. "And it will be!"
The Town Clerk made a little expostulatory sound.
"My dear sir," he said soothingly, "the late Mr. Wallingford was Mayor
of Hathelsborough! The four hundred and eighty-first Mayor of
Hathelsborough, Mr. Brent!"
Brent, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, looked fixedly at his
visitor.
"Supposing he was the nine hundred and ninety-ninth Mayor of
Hathelsborough," he asked quietly, "what then?"
"He should have a public funeral," declared the Town Clerk promptly. "My
dear sir, to inter a Mayor of Hathelsborough--and the four hundred and
eighty-first holder of the ancient and most dignified office--privately,
as if he were a--a mere nobody, a common townsman, is--oh, really, it's
unheard of!"
"That the notion of the men who sent you here?" asked Brent grimly.
"The notion, as you call it, of the gentlemen who sent me here, Mr.
Brent, is that your cousin's funeral obsequies should be of a public
nature," answered the Town Clerk. "According to precedent, of course.
During my term of office as Town Clerk two Mayors have died during their
year of Mayoralty. On such occasions the Corporation has been present in
state."
"In state?" said Brent. "What's that amount to? Sort of procession?"
"A duly marshalled one," answered the Town Clerk. "The beadle with his
mace; the Deputy-Mayor; the Recorder--the Recorder and Town Clerk, of
course, in wigs and gowns--the Aldermen in their furred robes; the
Councillors in their violet gowns--a very stately procession, Mr. Brent,
preceding the funeral cortege to St. Hathelswide's Church, where the
Vicar, as Mayor's Chaplain, would deliver a funeral oration. The
procession would return subsequently to the Moot Hall, for wine and
cake."
Brent rubbed his square chin, staring hard at his visitor.
"Um!" he said at last. "Well, there isn't going to be anything of that
sort to-morrow. I'm just going to bury my cousin quietly and privately,
without maces and furred robes and violet gowns. So you can just tell
'em politely--nothing doing!"
"But my dear sir, my good Mr. Brent!" expostulated the visitor. "The
Mayor of Hathelsborough! The oldest borough in the country! Why, our
charter of incorporation dates from----"
"I'm not particularly interested in archaeology, just now anyway,"
interrupted Brent. "And it's nothing to me in connection with this
matter if your old charter was signed by William the Conqueror or
Edward the Confessor. I say--nothing doing!"
"But your reasons, my dear sir, your reasons!" exclaimed the Town Clerk.
"Such a breaking with established custom and precedent! I really don't
know what the neighbouring boroughs will say of us!"
"Let 'em say!" retorted Brent. He laughed contemptuously. But suddenly
his mood changed, and he turned on his visitor with what the Town Clerk
afterwards described as a very ugly look. "But if you want to know," he
added, "I'll tell you why I won't have any Corporation processing after
my cousin's dead body! It's because I believe that his murderer's one of
'em! See?"
The Town Clerk, a rosy-cheeked man, turned pale. His gloves lay on the
table at his elbow, and his fingers trembled a little as he picked them
up and began fitting them on with meticulous precision.
"My dear sir!" he said, in a tone that suggested his profession more
strongly than ever. "That's very grave language. As a solicitor, I
should advise you----"
"When I say murderer," continued Brent, "I'm perhaps wrong. I might--and
no doubt ought to--use the plural. Murderers! I believe that more than
one of your rascally Corporation conspired to murder my cousin! And I'm
going to have no blood-stained hypocrites processing after his coffin!
You tell 'em to keep away!"
"I had better withdraw," said the Town Clerk.
"No hurry," observed Brent, changing to geniality. He laid his hand on
the bell. "Have a whisky-and-soda and a cigar? We've finished our
business, and I guess you're a man as well as a lawyer?"
But the visitor was unable to disassociate his personal identity from
his office, and he bowed himself out. Brent laughed when he had gone.
"Got the weight of four hundred and eighty-one years of incorporation on
him!" he said. "Lord! it's like living with generation after generation
of your grandfathers slung round you! Four hundred and eighty-one years!
Must have been in the bad old days when this mouldy town got its
charter!"
Next morning Brent buried the dead Mayor in St. Hathelswide's
Churchyard, privately and quietly. He stayed by the grave until the
sexton and his assistants had laid the green turf over it; that done, he
went round to the Abbey House and sought out Mrs. Saumarez. After his
characteristic fashion he spoke out what was in his mind.
"I've pretty well fixed up, in myself, to do what you suggested last
night," he said, giving her one of his direct glances. "You know what I
mean--to go on with his work."
Mrs. Saumarez's eyes sparkled.
"That would be splendid!" she exclaimed. "But, if he had opposition,
you'll have it a hundred-fold! You're not afraid?"
"Afraid of nothing," said Brent carelessly. "But I just don't know how
I'd get any right to do it. I'm not a townsman--I've no _locus standi_.
But, then he wasn't, to begin with."
"I'd forgotten that," said Mrs. Saumarez. "And you'd have to give up
your work in London--journalism, isn't it?"
"I've thought of that," said Brent. "Well, I've had a pretty good spell
at it, and I'm not so keen about keeping on it any longer. There's other
work--literary work--I'd prefer. And I'm not dependent on it any
way--I've got means of my own, and now Wallingford's left me a good lot
of money. No; I guess I wouldn't mind coming here and going on with the
job he'd set himself to; I'd like to do it But, then, how to get a
footing in the place?"
Mrs. Saumarez considered for a while. Suddenly her face lighted up.
"You've got money," she said. "Why don't you buy a bit of property in
the town--a piece of real estate? Then----"
Brent picked up his hat.
"That's a good notion," he said. "I'll step round and see Tansley about
it."
Tansley had been one of the very few men whom Brent had invited to be
present at his cousin's interment. He had just changed his mourning
garments for those of everyday life and was settling down to his
professional business when Brent was shown into his private office.
"Busy?" demanded Brent in his usual laconic fashion.
"Give you whatever time you want," answered the solicitor, who knew his
man by that time. "What is it now?"
"I've concluded to take up my abode in this old town," said Brent, with
something of a sheepish smile. "Seems queer, no doubt, but my mind's
fixed. And so, look here, you don't know anybody that's got a bit of
real estate to sell--nice little house, or something of that sort? If
so----"
Tansley thrust his letters and papers aside, pushed an open box of
cigars in his visitor's direction, and lighting one himself became
inquisitively attentive.
"What's the game?" he asked.
Brent lighted a cigar and took two or three meditative puffs at it
before answering this direct question.
"Well," he said at last, "I don't think that I'm a particularly
sentimental sort of person, but all the same I'm not storm-proof against
sentiment. And I've just got the conviction that it's up to me to go on
with my cousin's job in this place."
Tansley took his cigar from his lips and whistled.
"Tall order, Brent!" he remarked.
"So I reckon," assented Brent. "But I've served an apprenticeship to
that sort of thing. And I've always gone through with whatever came in
my way."
"Let's be plain," said Tansley. "You mean that you want to settle here
in the town, and go on with Wallingford's reform policy?"
"That's just it," replied Brent. "You've got it."
"All I can say is, then, that you're rendering yourself up to--well, not
envy, but certainly to hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, as it's
phrased in the Prayer Book," declared Tansley. "You'll have a hot old
time!"
"Used to 'em!" retorted Brent. "You forget I've been a press-man for
some years."
"But you didn't get that sort of thing?" suggested Tansley, half
incredulous.
Brent flicked the ash from his cigar and smiled.
"Don't go in for tall talk," he said lazily. "But it was I who tracked
down the defaulting directors of the Great Combined Amalgamation affair,
and ran to earth that chap who murdered his ward away up in
Northumberland, and found the Pembury absconding bank-manager who'd
scooted off so cleverly that the detectives couldn't trace even a smile
of him! Pretty stiff propositions, all those! And I reckon I can do my
bit here in this place, on Wallingford's lines, if I get the right to
intervene, as a townsman. That's what I want--_locus standi_."
"And when you've got it?" asked Tansley.
Brent worked his cigar into the corner of his firm lips and folding his
arms stared straight in front of him.
"Well," he said slowly, "I think I've fixed that in my own mind, fixed
it all out while the parson was putting him away in that old churchyard
this morning--I was thinking hard while he was reading his book. I
understand that by my cousin's death there's a vacancy in the Town
Council--he sat for some ward or other?"
"He sat for the Castle Ward, as Town Councillor," assented Tansley. "So
of course there's a vacancy."
"Well," continued Brent, "I reckon I'll put up for that vacancy. I'll be
Mr. Councillor Richard Brent!"
"You're a stranger, man!" laughed Tansley.
"I'll not be in a week's time," retorted Brent. "I'll be known to every
householder in that ward! But--this _locus standi_? If I bought real
estate in the town, I'd be a townsman, wouldn't I? A burgess, I reckon.
And then--why legally I'd be as much a Hathelsborough man as, say, Simon
Crood?"
Tansley took his hands out of his pockets and began to search amongst
his papers.
"Well, you're a go-ahead chap, Brent!" he said. "Evidently not the sort
to let grass grow under your feet. And if you want to buy a bit of nice
property I've the very goods for you. There's a client of mine, John
Chillingham, a retired tradesman, who wants to sell his house--he's
desirous of quitting this part of the country and going to live on the
South Coast. It's a delightful bit of property, just at the back of the
Castle, and it's therefore in the Castle Ward. Acacia Lodge, it's
called--nice, roomy, old-fashioned house, in splendid condition,
modernized, set in a beautiful old garden, with a magnificent cedar tree
on the lawn, and a fine view from its front windows. And, for a quick
sale, cheap."
"What's the figure?" asked Brent.
"Two thousand guineas," answered Tansley.
Brent reached for his hat.
"Let's go and look at it," he said.
Within a few hours Brent had settled his purchase of Acacia Lodge from
the retired tradesman and Tansley was busy with the legal necessities of
the conveyance. That done, and in his new character of townsman and
property owner, Brent sought out Peppermore, and into that worthy's
itching and astonished ears poured out a confession which the editor of
the _Monitor_ was to keep secret until next day; after which, retiring
to his sitting-room at the _Chancellor_, he took up pen and paper, and
proceeded to write a document which occasioned him more thought than he
usually gave to his literary productions. It was not a lengthy document,
but it had been rewritten and interlineated and corrected several times
before Brent carried it to the _Monitor_ office and the printing-press.
Peppermore, reading it over, grinned with malicious satisfaction.
"That'll make 'em open their mouths and their eyes to-morrow morning,
Mr. Brent!" he exclaimed. "We'll have it posted all over the town by ten
o'clock, sir. And all that the _Monitor_--powerful organ, Mr. Brent,
very powerful organ!--can do on your behalf and in your interest shall
be done, sir, it shall be done--_con amore_, as I believe they say in
Italy."
"Thank 'ee!" said Brent. "You're the right stuff."
"Don't mention it, sir," replied Peppermore. "Only too pleased. Egad! I
wish I could see Mr. Alderman Crood's face when he reads this poster!"
At five minutes past ten next morning, as he, Mallett and Coppinger came
together out of the side-door of the bank, where they had been in close
conference since half-past nine, on affairs of their own, Mr. Alderman
Crood saw the poster on which was set out Brent's election address to
the voters of the Castle Ward. The bill-posting people had pasted a copy
of it on a blank wall opposite; the three men, open-mouthed and
wide-eyed, gathered round and read. Crood grew purple with anger.
"Impudence!" he exclaimed at last. "Sheer brazen impudence! Him--a
stranger! Take up his cousin's work, will he? And what's he mean by
saying that he's now a Hathelsborough man?"
"I heard about that last night," answered Coppinger. "Tansley told two
or three of us at the club. This fellow Brent has bought that property
of old Chillingham's--Acacia Lodge. Freehold, you know; bought it right
out. He's a Hathelsborough man now, right enough."
Then they both turned and glanced at Mallett, who was re-reading Brent's
election address with brooding eyes and lowering brow.
"Well?" demanded Coppinger. "What do you make of it, Mallett?"
Mallett removed his glasses and sniffed.
"Don't let's deceive ourselves," he said, with a hasty glance round.
"This chap's out to make trouble. He's no fool, either. If he gets into
the Council we shall have an implacable enemy. And he's every chance. So
it's all the more necessary than ever that we should bring off to-morrow
what we've been talking over this morning."
"We ought to do that," said Coppinger. "We can count on fourteen sure
votes."
"Ay!" said Mallett. "But so can they! The thing is--the three votes
neither party can count on. We must get at those three men to-day. If we
don't carry our point to-morrow, we shall have Sam Epplewhite or Dr.
Wellesley as Mayor, and things'll be as bad as they were under
Wallingford."
This conversation referred to an extraordinary meeting of the Town
Council which had been convened for the next day, in order to elect a
new Mayor of Hathelsborough in succession to John Wallingford, deceased.
Brent heard of it that afternoon, from Queenie Crood, in the Castle
grounds. He had met Queenie there more than once since their first
encountering in those sheltered nooks: already he was not quite sure
that he was not looking forward with increasing pleasure to these
meetings. For with each Queenie came further out of her shell, the more
they met, the more she let him see of herself--and he found her
interesting. And they had given up talking of Queenie's stage
ambitions--not that she had thrown them over, but that she and Brent had
begun to find the discussion of their own personalities more to the
immediate point than the canvassing of remote possibilities: each, in
fact, was in the stage of finding each other a mine worth exploring.
Brent began to see a lot in Queenie and her dark eyes; Queenie was
beginning to consider Brent, with his grim jaw, his brusque, off-hand
speech, and masterful manner, a curiously fascinating person; besides,
he was beginning to do things that only strong men do.
"You're in high disgrace at the Tannery House," she remarked archly when
they met that afternoon. "I should think your ears must have burned this
dinner-time."
"Why, now?" inquired Brent.
"Uncle Simon brought Mallet and Coppinger home to dinner," continued
Queenie. "It was lucky there was a big hot joint!--they're all great
eaters and drinkers. And they abused you to their hearts' content. This
Town Council business--they say it's infernal impudence for you to put
up for election. However, Coppinger says you'll not get in."
"Coppinger is a bad prophet," said Brent. "I'll be Town Councillor in a
fortnight. Lay anybody ten to one!"
"Well, they'll do everything they can to keep you out," declared
Queenie. "You've got to fight an awful lot of opposition."
"Let 'em all come!" retorted Brent. "I'll represent the Castle Ward, and
now that I'm a burgess of Hathelsborough I'll be Mayor some old time."
"Not yet, though," said Queenie. "They're going to elect a new Mayor
to-morrow. In place of your cousin of course."
Brent started. Nobody had mentioned that to him. Yet he might have
thought of it himself--of course there must be a new Mayor of
Hathelsborough.
"Gad! I hope it'll not be one of the old gang!" he muttered. "If it
is----"
But by noon next day he heard that the old gang had triumphed. Mr.
Alderman Crood was elected Mayor of Hathelsborough by a majority of two
votes. A couple of the wobblers on the Council had given way at the last
moment and thrown in their lot with the reactionary, let-things-alone
party.
"Never mind! I'll win my election," said Brent. "The future is with me."
He set to work, in strenuous fashion, to enlist the favours of the
Castle Ward electorate. All day, from early morning until late at night,
he was cultivating the acquaintance of the burgesses. He had little time
for any other business than this--there were but ten days before the
election. But now and then he visited the police station and interviewed
Hawthwaite; and at each visit he found the superintendent becoming
increasingly reserved and mysterious in manner. Hawthwaite would say
nothing definite, but he dropped queer hints about certain things that
he had up his sleeve, to be duly produced at the adjourned inquest. As
to what they were, he remained resolutely silent, even to Brent.