.

"A discovery!" he whispered. "It occurred to me this afternoon to have
all the heavy furniture in the Mayor's Parlour examined. No light job,
Mr. Brent--but we found this."

And with a jerk of his wrist he drew from the brown paper a long, thin,
highly polished rapier, the highly burnished steel of which was dulled
along half its length, as if it had been first dimmed and then hastily
rubbed.

"I make no doubt that this was what it was done with," continued
Hawthwaite. "We found it thrust away between the wainscoting and a heavy
bookcase which it took six men to move. And our deputy Town Clerk says
that a few days ago he saw this lying on a side table in the Mayor's
Parlour--his late Worship observed to him that it was an old Spanish
rapier that he'd picked up at some old curiosity shop cheap."

"You'll go into that, and bring it in evidence?" suggested Brent.

"You bet!" replied Hawthwaite grimly. "Oh, we're not going to sleep, Mr.
Brent--we'll get at something yet! Slow and sure, sir, slow but sure."

Brent went away presently, and calling on Tansley, the solicitor, walked
with him to Wallingford's rooms. During the next two hours they
carefully examined all the dead man's private papers. They found nothing
that threw any light whatever on his murder. But they came upon his
will. Wallingford had left all he possessed to his cousin, Richard
Brent, and by the tragedy of the previous night Brent found that he had
benefited to the extent of some fifteen thousand pounds.

CHAPTER VI

THE ANCIENT OFFICE OF CORONER

The discovery of Wallingford's will, which lay uppermost amongst a small
collection of private papers in a drawer of the dead man's desk, led
Brent and Tansley into a new train of thought. Tansley, with the ready
perception and acumen of a man trained in the law, was quick to point
out two or three matters which in view of Wallingford's murder seemed to
be of high importance, perhaps of deep significance. Appended to the
will was a schedule of the testator's properties and possessions, with
the total value of the estate estimated and given in precise
figures--that was how Brent suddenly became aware that he had come into
a small fortune. Then the will itself was in holograph, written out in
Wallingford's own hand on a single sheet of paper, in the briefest
possible fashion, and witnessed by his two clerks. And, most important
and significant of all, it had been executed only a week previously