One of them was a pigmy pedlar from the North, and as he scarcely knew a word of Dorimarite no information could be extracted from him as to how he had procured the fruit. Another was a little street urchin who had found some sherds in a dustbin, but was in too dazed a state to remember exactly where. The third was the deaf-mute known as Bawdy Bess. And, of course, no information could be got from a deaf-mute. Clearly, then, there was some leakage in the admirable system of the Senate. As a result, rebellious lampoons against the inefficient Mayor were found nailed to the doors of the Guildhall, and Master Nathaniel received several anonymous letters of a vaguely threatening nature, bidding him to cease to meddle with matters that did not concern him, lest they should prove to concern him but too much. But so well had the antidote of action been agreeing with his constitution that he merely flung them into the fire with a grim laugh and a vow to redouble his efforts. CHAPTER XII DAME MARIGOLD HEARS THE TAP OF A WOODPECKER Miss Primrose Crabapple's trial was still dragging on, clogged by all the foolish complications arising from the legal fiction that had permitted her arrest. If you remember, in the eye of the law fairy fruit was regarded as woven silk, and many days were wasted in a learned discussion of the various characteristics of gold tissues, stick tuftaffities, figured satins, wrought grograines, silk mohair and ferret ribbons. Urged partly by curiosity and, perhaps, also by a subconscious hope that in the comic light of Miss Primrose's personality recent events might lose something of their sinister horror, one morning Dame Marigold set out to visit her old schoolmistress in her captivity. It was the first time she had left the house since the tragedy, and, as she walked down the High Street she held her head high and smiled a little scornful smile--just to show the vulgar herd that even the worst disgrace could not break the spirit of a Vigil. Now, Dame Marigold had very acute senses. Many a time she had astonished Master Nathaniel by her quickness in detecting the faintest whiff of any of the odours she disliked--shag, for instance, or onions. She was equally quick in psychological matters, and would detect the existence of a quarrel or love affair long before they were known to anyone except the parties concerned. And as she made her way that morning to the Guildhall she became conscious in everything that was going on round her of what one can only call a change of key. She could have sworn that the baker's boy with the tray of loaves on his head was not whistling, that the maid-servant, leaning out of a window to tend her mistress's pot-flowers, was not humming the same tune that they would have been some months ago.