He set to work, in strenuous fashion, to enlist the favours of the Castle Ward electorate. All day, from early morning until late at night, he was cultivating the acquaintance of the burgesses. He had little time for any other business than this--there were but ten days before the election. But now and then he visited the police station and interviewed Hawthwaite; and at each visit he found the superintendent becoming increasingly reserved and mysterious in manner. Hawthwaite would say nothing definite, but he dropped queer hints about certain things that he had up his sleeve, to be duly produced at the adjourned inquest. As to what they were, he remained resolutely silent, even to Brent. CHAPTER X THE CAT IN THE BAG But as the day of the adjourned inquest drew near Brent became aware that there were rumours in the air--rumours of some sensational development, the particulars of which were either non-obtainable or utterly vague. He heard of them from Peppermore, whose journalistic itching for news had so far gone unrelieved; Peppermore himself knew no more than that rumour was busy, and secret. "Can't make out for the life of me what it is, Mr. Brent!" said Peppermore, calling upon Brent at the _Chancellor_ on the eve of the inquiry. "But there's something, sir, something! You know that boy of mine--young Pryder?" "Smart youth!" replied Brent. "As they make 'em, sir," agreed Peppermore. "That boy, Mr. Brent, will go far in the profession of which you're a shining and I'm a dim light!--he's got what the French, I believe, sir, call a _flair_ for news. Took to our line like a duck to water, Mr. Brent! Well, now, young Pryder's father is a policeman--sergeant in the Borough Constabulary, and naturally he's opportunities of knowing. And when he knows he talks--in the home circle, Mr. Brent." "Been talking?" asked Brent. "Guardedly, sir, guardedly!" replied Peppermore. "Young Pryder, he told me this afternoon that his father, when he came home to dinner to-day, said to him and his mother that when the inquest's reopened to-morrow there's be something to talk about--somebody, said Sergeant Pryder, would have something to talk of before the day was over. So--there you are!" "I suppose old Pryder didn't tell young Pryder any more than that?" suggested Brent. "He did not, sir," said Peppermore. "Had he done so, Jimmy Pryder would have made half a column, big type, leaded, out of it. No; nothing more. There are men in this world, Mr. Brent, as you have doubtless observed, who are given to throwing out mere hints--sort of men who always look at you as much as to say, 'Ah, I could tell a lot if I would!' I guess Sergeant Pryder's one of 'em." "Whatever Sergeant Pryder knows he's got from Hawthwaite, of course," remarked Brent. "To be sure, sir!" agreed Peppermore. "Hawthwaite's been up to something--I've felt that for some days. I imagine there'll be new witnesses to-morrow, but who they'll be I can't think."