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The field of their operations was not to be near Marriner's house, but in a part of the estates a good bit nearer Weston, and on the other side of it. Marriner had learned that there was to be a poaching expedition on a large scale that night at the other extremity of the preserves, a good three miles off. He knew the men and their method.
"That should be followed up, more," continued Brent. "There's no doubt whatever that that handkerchief, which Wellesley admits is his, got sent by mistake to one or other of Mrs. Marriner's other customers. That's flat! Now, you can trace it." "How?" exclaimed Hawthwaite. "A small article like that!" "It can be done, with patience," said Brent. "It's got to be done.
Sarah Jane Spizey yes. Wife of the Town Bellman. Resident in St. Laurence Lane. Went out charing sometimes; sometimes worked at Marriner's Laundry. Odd-job woman, in fact. "Mrs. Spizey," said the Coroner, "I understand that on the evening of Mr. Wallingford's death you were engaged in some work in the Moot Hall. Is that so?" "Yes, sir. Which I was a-washing the floor of this very court."
Marriner's laundry and make an exhaustive search of her books, lists, and so on till you get some light see?" "Mrs. Marriner has, I should say, a hundred customers," remarked Hawthwaite. "Don't matter if Mrs. Marriner's got five hundred customers," said Brent. "That's got to be seen into. If you aren't going to do it, I will.
"But I thought it better to keep Marriner's attack on this keeper secret for your sake. There was sure to be a row, and in case of the inquiry coming in this direction, and your being questioned, it would be so much jollier for you to be able to say that you knew nothing about it. Whereas, if I had entered into all the details, it would have bothered you.
Now, if I were once suspected, they would find out that I constantly went to Slam's, who finds agents to sell the game for all the poachers round, and some of the keepers too, if the truth were known, and that I had been seen in Marriner's company; who is considered to make a regular income out of Lord Woodruff's pheasants, and they would have some grounds to go upon. But Buller is all right."
Cotman, who had been whispering with his client during the Borough Surveyor's evidence, asked no questions, and presently the interest of the court shifted to a little shrewd-faced, self-possessed woman who tripped into the witness-box and admitted cheerfully that she was Mrs. Marriner, proprietor of Marriner's Laundry, and that she washed for several of the best families in Hathelsborough.
So the next time he went to Marriner's cottage he took the box containing the wax with him, and Marriner paid him the high compliment that a professional burglar could not have done the job better. A week after, he gave him the key, and one night, after everyone had gone to bed, Saurin stole down-stairs, out into the yard, and tried it.
Suddenly he looked up. "There's this matter of the handkerchief, or portion of a handkerchief," he said. "Picked up, we are told, from the hearth in the Mayor's Parlour, where the rest of it had been burned. Did you hear Mrs. Marriner's evidence about that, Dr. Wellesley?" "I did!" "Is what she said, or suggested, correct? Is the handkerchief yours?"
He was never taken to Marriner's, but he still occasionally accompanied his friend to the yard on Sundays, usually, because of the card-playing, to which he had taken a great fancy. He still thought in his heart that it was very wrong, but Saurin laughed at such scruples as being so very childish and silly that he was thoroughly ashamed of them.
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