The girl pressed his hands and withdrew her own. "Thank you, thank you!" she said impulsively. "Oh, if you only knew how I want to get away--and breathe! That house----" "Look here," interrupted Brent, "you're very candid. I like that--it suits me. Now, frankly you don't like that old uncle of yours? And just why?" Queenie looked round. There was no one near them, no one indeed in sight, except a nursemaid who wheeled a perambulator along one of the paths, but she sunk her voice to something near a whisper. "Mr. Brent," she said, "Simon Crood's the biggest hypocrite in this town--and that's implying a good deal more than you'd ever think. He and those friends of his, Mallett and Coppinger, who are always there with him--ah, they think I know nothing, and understand nothing, but I hear their schemings and their talk, veiled as it is. They're deep and subtle, those three--and dangerous. Didn't you see last night that if you'd sat there till midnight or till morning you'd never have had a word out of them--a word, that is, that you wanted? You wouldn't!--they knew better!" "I got nothing out of them," admitted Brent. He sat thinking in silence for a time. "Look here," he said at last, "you know what I want to find out--who killed my cousin. Help me! Keep your eyes and ears open to anything you see and hear--understand?" "I will!" answered Queenie. "But you've got a big task before you! You can be certain of this--if the Mayor was murdered for what you called political reasons----" "Well?" asked Brent, as she paused. "Well?" "It would all be arranged so cleverly that there's small chance of discovery," she went on. "I know this town--rotten to the core! But I'll help you all I can, and----" A policeman suddenly came round the corner of the wall, and at sight of Brent touched his peaked cap. "Looking for you, Mr. Brent," he said. "I heard you'd been seen coming up here. The superintendent would be obliged if you'd step round, sir; he wants to see you at once, particularly." "Follow you in a moment," answered Brent. He turned to Queenie as the man went away. "When shall I see you again?" he asked. "I always come here every afternoon," she answered. "It's the only change I get. I come here to read." "Till to-morrow--or the next day, then," said Brent. He nodded and laughed. "Keep smiling! You'll maybe play Juliet, or some other of those old games, yet." The girl smiled gratefully, and Brent strode away after the policeman. In a few minutes he was in Hawthwaite's office. The superintendent closed the door, gave him a mysterious glance, and going over to a cupboard produced a long, narrow parcel, done up in brown paper. "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."