THE EMPTY ROOM
Brent was out of his seat near the door, out of the court itself, out of
the Moot Hall, and in the market-place before he realized what he was
doing. It was a brilliant summer day, and just then the town clocks were
striking the noontide; he stood for a second staring about him as if
blinded and dazed by the strong sunlight. But it was not the sunlight at
all that confused him--though he stood there blinking under it--and
presently his brain cleared and he turned and ran swiftly down River
Gate, the narrow street that led to the low-lying outer edge of the
town. River Gate was always quiet; just then it was deserted. And as he
came to half-way down it, he saw at its foot a motor-car, drawn up by
the curb and evidently waiting for somebody. The somebody was Mrs.
Elstrick, who was hastening towards it. In another second she had sprung
in, and the car had sped away in the direction of the open country. And
Brent let it go, without another glance in its direction.
He turned at the foot of River Gate into Farthing Lane, the long,
winding, tree-bordered alley that ran beneath the edge of the town past
the outer fringe of houses, the alley wherein Hawthwaite had witnessed
the nocturnal meeting between Mrs. Elstrick and Krevin Crood. Brent
remembered that as he hastened along, running between the trees on one
side and the high walls of the gardens on the other. But he gave no
further thought to the recollection--his brain was not yet fully
recovered from the shock of Krevin Crood's last words, and it was
obsessed by a single idea: that of gaining the garden entrance of the
Abbey House and confronting the woman whom Krevin had formally denounced
as the murderer of Wallingford. And as he hurried along he found himself
saying certain words over and over again, and still again....
"I'm not going to see a woman hang!--I'm not going to see a woman hang!
I'm ... not ... going ... to----"
Behind this suddenly aroused Quixotic sentiment he was sick with horror.
He knew that what Krevin Crood had told at last was true. He knew, too,
that it would never have come out if Krevin himself had not been in
danger. A feeling of almost physical nausea came over him as he
remembered the callous, brutal cynicism of Krevin's last words, "If it's
going to be my neck or hers, I prefer it to be hers!" A woman!--yet, a
murderess; the murderess of his cousin, whose death he had vowed to
avenge. But of course it was so--he saw many things now. The anxiety to
get the letters; the dread of publicity expressed to Peppermore; the
mystery spread over many things and actions; now this affair with
Mallett--there was no reason to doubt Krevin Crood's accusation. The
fragments of the puzzle had been pieced together.
But as he ran along that lane, and as his mental faculties regained
their normality Brent himself did some piecing together. Every word of
Krevin Crood's statement had bitten itself into his intelligence. Now he
could reconstruct. It seemed to him that he visualized the Mayor's
Parlour on that fateful evening. An angry, disillusioned, nerve-racked
man, sore and restive under the fancy, or, rather, the realization of
deceit, saying bitter and contemptuous words; a desperate, defeated
woman, cornered like a rat--and close to her hand the rapier, lying on
the old chest where its purchaser had carelessly flung it. A maddened
thing, man or woman, would snatch that up, and----
"Blind, uncontrollable impulse!" muttered Brent. "She struck _at_ him,
_at_ him--and then it was all over. Intentional, no! Yet ... the law!
But, by God, I won't have a hand in hanging ... a woman! Time?"
He knew the exact location of the door in the garden wall of the Abbey
House and presently he ran up to it, panting from his swift dash along
the lane. Not five minutes had elapsed then since his slip out of the
excited court. But every second of the coming minutes was precious. And
the door was locked.
The garden wall was eight feet high, and so built that on all the
expanse of its smoothed surface there was no foothold, no projection for
fingers to cling to. But Brent was in that frame of mind which makes
light of obstacles: he drew back into the lane, ran, gathered himself
for an upward spring at the coping of the wall, leapt, grasped it,
struggled, drew up his weight with a mighty effort, threw a leg over,
and dropped, gasping and panting, into the shaded garden. It was quiet
there--peaceful as a glade set deep in the heart of a silent wood. He
lay for a few seconds where he had dropped; then, with a great effort to
get his breath, he rose and went quickly up the laurelled walks towards
the house. A moment more and he was abreast of the kitchen and its open
door, and in the presence of print-gowned, white-aproned women who first
exclaimed and then stared at the sudden sight of him.
"Mrs. Saumarez?" said Brent, frightened at the sound of his own voice.
"In?"
The cook, a fat, comfortable woman, turned on him from a clear fire.
"The mistress has not come in yet, sir," she said. "She went out very
early this morning on her bicycle, and we haven't seen her since. I
expect she'll be back for lunch."
Brent glanced at the open window of the room in which he had first
encountered Mrs. Saumarez and to which he had brought her the casket and
its contents.
"Can I go in there and sit down?" he asked. "I want to see Mrs.
Saumarez."
"Certainly, sir," answered cook and parlour-maid in chorus. "She can't
be long, surely."
Brent went further along and stepped into the room. Not long? He knew
very well that that room would never see its late occupant again! She
was gone of course.
The room looked much the same as when he had last seen it, except that
now there were great masses of summer flowers on all sides. He glanced
round and his observant eye was quick to notice a fact--beneath the
writing-table a big waste-paper-basket was filled to its edges with
torn-up papers. He moved nearer, speculating on what it was that had
been destroyed--and suddenly, behind the basket, he noticed, flung away,
crumpled, on the floor, the buff envelope of a telegram.
Brent, picking this up, expected to find it empty, but the message was
inside. He drew out and smoothed the flimsy sheet and read its contents.
They were comprised in five words: _Lingmore Cross Roads six-thirty_.
Of course that was from Mallett. He glanced at the post-marks. The
telegram had been sent from Clothford at seven o'clock the previous
evening, and received at Hathelsborough before eight. It was an
appointment without doubt. Brent knew Lingmore Cross Roads. He had been
there on a pleasure jaunt with Queenie. It was a point on a main road
whence you could go north or south, east or west with great facility.
And doubtless Mrs. Saumarez, arriving there early in the morning, would
find Mallett and a swift motor awaiting her. Well....
A sudden ringing at the front-door bell, a sudden loud knocking on the
same door, made Brent crush envelope and telegram in his hand and thrust
the crumpled ball of paper into his pocket. A second later he heard
voices at the door, heavy steps in the hall, Hawthwaite's voice.
"No," said the parlour-maid, evidently answering some question, "but
Mr. Brent's in the study. The mistress----"
Hawthwaite, with one of his plain-clothes men, came striding in, saw
Brent and closed the door, shutting out the parlour-maid.
"Gone?" he asked sharply.
"They say--out for a bicycle ride," answered Brent, purposely affecting
unconcern. "Went out very early this morning."
"What did you come here for?" demanded Hawthwaite.
"To ask her personally if what Krevin Crood said is true!" replied
Brent.
Hawthwaite laughed.
"Do you think she'd have admitted it, Mr. Brent?" he said. "I don't!"
"I think she would," answered Brent. "But----"
"Well?" inquired Hawthwaite.
"I don't suppose I shall ever have the chance of putting such a question
to her," added Brent. "She's--off!"
Hawthwaite looked round.
"Um!" he remarked. "Well, it only means another hue-and-cry. She and
Mallett of course. There's one thing in our favour. She doesn't know
that Krevin Crood knew anything about it."
"Are you sure of that?" suggested Brent.
"Oh, sure enough!" affirmed Hawthwaite. "She hasn't an idea that anybody
knows. So we shall get her!"
"What about Krevin Crood--and Simon?" asked Brent.
"Adjourned," replied Hawthwaite. "There's no doubt Krevin's told the
true story at last, but he and Simon are still in custody and will be
until, perhaps, to-morrow. We want to know a bit more yet. But I'll tell
you what, Mr. Brent, this morning's work has broken up the old system!
The Town Trustees and the ancient regime, as they call it--gone!
Smashed, Mr. Brent----"
"What are you going to do about this?" interrupted Brent, glancing round
the room.
"Set the wires to work," answered Hawthwaite half-carelessly. "Unless
she and Mallett have laid their plans with extraordinary cleverness,
they can't get out of the country. A noticeable pair too! Went out very
early this morning, cycling, did she? I must have a talk to the
servants. And that companion, now--Mrs. Elstrick--where's she got to? I
noticed her in court."
"Left, sir, just before Krevin Crood finished," said Hawthwaite's
companion. "I saw her slip out."
"Ay, well!" observed Hawthwaite. "I don't know that that matters! If any
of them can get through the meshes of our net ... Mr. Brent!"
"Well?" asked Brent.
"We've got at the truth at last about your cousin," continued
Hawthwaite, with a significant look. "It's been a case of one thing
leading to another. And two things running side by side. If we hadn't
cornered Krevin Crood we'd never have had his revelations about the Town
Trustees. Talk about your Local Government Board inquiry!--why, five
minutes of Krevin's tongue-work did more than half a dozen inquiries. I
tell you, sir, the old system's dead--the Crood gang was smashed to
pieces in that court this morning! Somehow, it's that that interests me
most, Mr. Brent. But--business!" He turned to the plain-clothes man, and
nodded towards the door. "Fetch those servants in here," he said.
"They've got to know."
Brent went away then, carrying certain secrets with him. He put them
away in a mental vault and sealed them down. Let Hawthwaite do his own
work, he would give him no help. He forsaw his own future work.
Wallingford, dead though he was, had won his victory and in his death
had slain the old wicked system. Now there was building and
reconstruction to be done, and it was his job to do it. He saw far ahead
as he trod the sunlit streets of the old town. He would marry Queenie
and they would settle into the slow-moving life of Hathelsborough, and
he and men who thought with him would slowly build up a new and healthy
state of things on the ruins of the old. So thinking he turned
mechanically towards Mrs. Appleyard's house, in search of Queenie.
Queenie, said Mrs. Appleyard, was in the garden behind. Brent went
through the house, and out into the garden's shade. There he found
Queenie. She sat in a summer-house, and she was shelling peas for
dinner.
THE END.
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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters errors, and
inconsistent spelling and punctuation; otherwise, every effort has been
made to be true to the original book.