In the Mayor's Parlour

by J. S. Fletcher

"There is! And I discovered it—years ago. And I have always thought that I was the only living person who knew of it!"

Meeking let this answer soak into the mentality of his hearers. Then he said quietly:

"Will you tell us all about it, Dr. Pellery?"

"Enough for your purpose," replied the witness. "You have there, I believe, a sectional drawing of the tower—give it to me. Now," he continued, holding up a sheet of stout paper and illustrating his remarks with the tip of his forefinger, "I will show you what I mean. St. Lawrence tower is eighty feet in height. It is divided into three sections. The lower section, the most considerable of the three, forms a western porch to the church itself, which is entered from it by a Norman arch. Above this is the middle section; above that the upper section, wherein are three ancient bells. The middle and upper sections are reached from the lower by a newel stair, set in the south-west angle of the tower. Now the middle section has for many centuries been a beamed and panelled chamber, from which the bells are rung, and wherein are stored a good many old things belonging to the church—chiefly in ancient chests. During the years that I lived in Hathelsborough I spent a great deal of time in this chamber—the then vicar of St. Lawrence, Mr. Goodbody, allowed me to examine anything I found stored there—it was amongst the muniments and registers of St. Lawrence, indeed, that I discovered a great deal of valuable information about the history of the town. Well, I have just said that this chamber, this middle section of the tower, is panelled; it is panelled from the oak flooring to within two feet of the oak beams in its ceiling, and the panelling, though it is probably four hundred years old, is in an excellent state of preservation. Now, about the middle of the last year that I spent in this town, I began to be very puzzled about the connecting wall between St. Lawrence tower and the Moot Hall. I saw no reason for making an arch at that point, and the wall had certainly not been built as a support, for the masonry of the tower and of the hall is unusually solid. I got the idea that that wall had originally been built as a means of communication between tower and hall; that it was hollow, and that there at each extremity there was a secret means of entrance and exit. I knew from experience that this sort of thing was common in Hathelsborough; the older part of the town is a veritable rabbit-warren! There is scarcely a house in the market-place, for instance, in which there is not a double staircase, the inner one being very cleverly concealed, and I know of several secret ways and passages, entered, say, on one side of a street and terminating far off on another. There is a secret underground way beneath the market-square which is entered at the Barbican in the Castle and terminates in St. Faith's chapel in St. Hathelswide's church; there is another, also underground, from St. Matthias's Hospital to the God's House in Cripple Lane. There are others—as I say, the old town is honeycombed. So there would be, of course, nothing unusual or remarkable in the presence of a secret passage between St. Lawrence tower and the Moot Hall. The only thing was that there was no record of any such passage through the connecting wall; no one had ever heard of it; and there were no signs of entrance to it either in the tower or in the Moot Hall. However, I discovered it—by careful and patient investigation of the panelling in the chamber I have mentioned. The panelling is divided, on each wall of the chamber, into seven compartments; the fourth compartment on the outer wall slides back, and gives access to a passage cut through the arch across St. Lawrence Lane and so to the Moot Hall."

"There's one man here who knows all this!" whispered Tansley in Brent's ear. "Look at Krevin Crood!"

Krevin was smiling. There was something unusually cynical in his smile, but it conveyed more than cynical amusement to Brent. There was in it the suggestion of assurance—Krevin, decided Brent, had something up his sleeve.

But the other people present were still intent on the old antiquary. Having come to the end of his explanation he was passing back the chart to Meeking, and seemed satisfied with what he had said. Meeking, however, wanted more.

"To the Moot Hall!" he repeated. "Well, Dr. Pellery, and where does this passage emerge in the Moot Hall?"

"Just so," said Dr. Pellery. "That, of course, is important. Well, the wall or arch between St. Lawrence tower and the Moot Hall, on reaching the outer wall of the latter, is continued within, from that outer wall along the right-hand side of the corridor off which the extremely ancient chamber known as the Mayor's Parlour is situated. If close examination is made of that wall you will find that it is eight feet thick. But it is not a solid wall. The secret passage I have mentioned runs through it, to a point half-way along the length of the Mayor's Parlour. And access to the Mayor's Parlour is had by a secret door in the old panelling of that chamber—just as in the case of the chamber in the church tower."

"You investigated all this yourself, Dr. Pellery?"