ir 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.

NEW FICTION

THE MOON ROCK. By A. J. REES, author of "The Hand in the Dark," etc.
8_s._ 6_d._ net.

A mystery story conceived almost on the lines of a Greek tragedy.
Told with great technical skill, the plot works to a denouement
which though inevitable is unexpected by the r