Hawthwaite looked round the room, and Brent looked with him. It was a big room, panelled in old oak to half the height of its walls; above the panelling hung numerous portraits of past occupants of the Mayoral chair and some old engravings of scenes in the town. A wide, old-fashioned fire-place stood to the right of the massive desk; on either side of it were recesses, in each of which there was a door. Hawthwaite stepped across to these in turn and tried them; each was locked from the inside; he silently pointed to the keys. "The door to the stairs was open, sir," remarked Bunning. "I mean his Worship hadn't locked himself in, as I have known him do." Hawthwaite nodded. Then he nudged Brent's elbow, looking sideways at the dead man. "Been done as he sat writing in his chair," he muttered. "Look--the pen's fallen from his fingers as he fell forward. Queer!" A policeman came hurrying into the room, pulling himself up as he saw what was there. His voice instinctively hushed. "Dr. Wellesley's just gone down Meadow Gate, sir," he announced. "They've sent for him to come here at once." "Unless!" murmured the superintendent. "Still----" Then the five or six men present stood, silently waiting. Some stared about the room, as if wondering at its secret: some occasionally took covert glances at its central figure. One of the three high, narrow windows was open: Brent distinctly heard the murmur of children playing in the streets outside. And suddenly, from the tower of St. Hathelswide, at the other end of the market-place, curfew began to ring. "He's coming, sir!" whispered the policeman who stood near the door. "On the stairs, sir." Brent turned as Dr. Wellesley came hurrying into the room; a tall, clean-shaven, fresh-coloured man, who went straight to the desk, looked at what he found there, and turned quickly on the men grouped around. "How long is it since he was found?" he asked abruptly. "Ten or twelve minutes," answered Brent. "Dead then?" "Yes," said Brent. "I should say--of course, I don't speak professionally--but I should think he'd been dead at least half an hour." The doctor glanced at the superintendent. "We must have him taken down to the mortuary," he said. "Let some of you men stay here with me, and send another for my assistant and for Dr. Barber." The superintendent gave some orders, and touching Brent's arm motioned him to follow outside the room. "This is a bad business, Mr. Brent!" he said as they paused at the head of the stair. "That's murder, sir! But how on earth did the murderer get in there? Bunning tells me that he himself was standing outside the iron gates at the entrance to the Moot Hall from the time the Mayor entered until you came. He asserts that nobody entered the place by those gates." "I suppose there are other means of entrance?" suggested Brent.