"Can you give us an example of any of these facts—these discoveries?"
"Yes, I can give you one in particular. Wallingford was slowly but surely getting at the knowledge of the system of secret payment which has gone on in this place for a long time under the rule of the Town Trustees. He had found out the truth, for instance, as regards Krevin Crood. Krevin Crood was supposed to be paid a pension of £150 a year; in reality he was paid £300 a year. Wallingford ascertained this beyond all doubt, and that it had gone on ever since Krevin Crood's retirement from his official position. There are other men in the borough, hangers-on and supporters of the Town Trustees, who benefit by public money in the shape of pensions, grants, doles—in every case the actual amount paid is much more than the amount set down in such accounts as are shown. Wallingford meant to sweep all this jobbery clean away!"
"How?"
"By getting the financial affairs of the town into the full and absolute control of the Corporation. He wanted to abolish the Town Trustees as a body. If he had succeeded in his aims, he would have done away with all the abuses which they not only kept up but encouraged."
"Then, if Wallingford's reforms had been carried out, Krevin Crood would have lost £150 a year?"
"He would have lost £300 a year. Wallingford's scheme included the utter abolition of all these Town Trustee-created pensions and doles. Lock, stock and barrel, they were all to go."
"And the Town Trustees—Crood, Mallett, Coppinger—were fully acquainted with his intentions and those of his party?"
The witness shrugged his shoulders.
"That's well known!" he answered. "They were frightened of him and his schemes to the last degree. They knew what it meant."
"What did it mean?"