Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 3, 2025
The Mayor of Hathelsborough had walked up into that room, sacred to his official uses and suggestive in its atmosphere and furniture of his great dignity, and had settled down to his desk, only to be assassinated by some enemy who had taken good care to perform his crime with swiftness and thoroughness.
Of one thing Brent was determined whatever Alderman Crood, as Deputy-Mayor, or whatever the Aldermen and Councillors of Hathelsborough desired, he, as the murdered man's next-of-kin, was not going to have any public funeral or demonstration; it roused his anger to white heat to think of even the bare possibility of Wallingford's murderer following him in smug hypocrisy to his grave.
Now, the Corporation of a town is supposed to exist for the good, the welfare, the protection of a town, but the whole idea of these Hathelsborough men, in the past, has been to use their power and privileges as administrators, for their own ends. So here you've had, on the one hand, the unfortunate ratepayer and, on the other, a close Corporation, a privileged band of pirates, battening on them.
I borrowed the original, sir, had it carefully reproduced in facsimile, and persuaded my proprietor to go to the expense of having sufficient copies struck off on this specially prepared paper to give one away with every copy of the Monitor that we shall print to-night. Five thousand copies, Mr. Brent! That facsimile, sir, will be all over Hathelsborough by supper time!" "Smart!" observed Brent.
Brent?" whispered Peppermore, following his companion's thoughts. "Ah, they say that once upon a time Krevin Crood was the biggest buck in Hathelsborough used to drive his horses and ride his horses, and all the rest of it. And now come down to that." He winked significantly as he glanced across the room, and Brent knew what he meant.
On a certain April evening, the time being within an hour of curfew which, to be exact, is rung in Hathelsborough every night, all the year round, sixty minutes after sunset, despite the fact that it is nowadays but a meaningless if time-honoured ceremony Bunning, caretaker and custodian of the Moot Hall, stood without its gates, smoking his pipe and looking around him.
"And it will be!" The Town Clerk made a little expostulatory sound. "My dear sir," he said soothingly, "the late Mr. Wallingford was Mayor of Hathelsborough! The four hundred and eighty-first Mayor of Hathelsborough, Mr. Brent!" Brent, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, looked fixedly at his visitor.
The truth was that Bunning was a Hathelsborough man, and having wandered about a good deal during his military service, from Aldershot to Gibraltar, and Gibraltar to Malta, and Malta to Cairo, and Cairo to Peshawar, was well content to settle down in a comfortable berth amidst the familiar scenes of his childhood.
The underhand affairs, the intrigues, the secret goings-on that exist here are multitudinous. Hathelsborough folk have a fixed standard do what you like, as long as you don't get found out! Understand, sir?" "But in this case the thing seems to have been found out," remarked Brent. "That, in the Hathelsborough mental economy, is the only mistake in it," replied Epplewhite dryly.
Maybe, then, Mrs. Saumarez had been behind the Reform party in Hathelsborough? there was a woman wire-puller at the back of these matters as a rule, he believed that sort of thing, perhaps, was Mrs. Saumarez's little hobby. He turned from these speculations to find her at his elbow. "Thank you for coming, Mr. Brent," she said softly.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking