CHAPTER XVIII
LOOSE STRANDS
B y business time next morning Brent had cast aside all thought of the previous day's proceedings and of his defeat at the hands of the Old Gang, and had turned to affairs which were now of far more importance. He had three separate enterprises in hand; to be sure, they were all related, but each had a distinctive character of its own. He specified all three as he ate his breakfast at the Chancellor, where he was still located. First, now that he had done with his electioneering—for the time being—he was going to work harder than ever at the task of discovering Wallingford's murderer. Secondly, he was going to marry Queenie, and that speedily. Queenie and he had settled matters to their mutual satisfaction as soon as the row with Uncle Simon Crood was over, and they had already begun furnishing the house which Brent had bought in order to constitute himself a full-fledged burgess of Hathelsborough. Thirdly, he was going to put all he knew into the articles which he was writing for the Monitor—two had already appeared; he was going on writing them until public opinion, gradually educated, became too strong for the reactionary forces that had beaten him yesterday but which he would infallibly defeat to-morrow, or, if not to-morrow, the day after.
And first the murderer. He fetched Queenie from Mrs. Appleyard's that morning, and, utterly careless of the sly looks that were cast on him and her, marched her through the market-place to Hawthwaite's office at the police station. To Hawthwaite, keenly interested, he detailed particulars of Queenie's discovery about the typewritten letter and produced her proofs. Hawthwaite took it all in silently.
"You'll have to go into that, you know," concluded Brent. "Now that I've got through with that election I'm going to give more time to this business. We've got to find out who killed my cousin, Hawthwaite, somehow—it's not going to rest. I won't leave a stone unturned! And there," he added, pointing to the sheet of paper on which Queenie had made specimens of the broken type of Simon's antiquated machine, "is a stone which needs examining on all four sides!"
Hawthwaite picked up the sheet of paper, twisted it in his big fingers, and looked over it at the two young people with a quizzical smile.
"I understand that you and Miss Queenie there are contemplating matrimony, Mr. Brent?" he remarked. "That so, sir?"
"That's so," replied Brent promptly. "As soon as we've got our house furnished we'll be married."
"Then I can speak freely and in confidence before Mrs. Brent that's to be," responded Hawthwaite, with another smile. "Well, now, what you've just told me isn't exactly fresh news to me! I'll show you something." He turned, drew out a drawer from a chest behind his chair, and finding a paper in it took it out and handed it to his visitors. "Look at that, now!" he said. "You see what it is?"