Brent made as if to leave. But he suddenly turned on her.
"You know a lot," he remarked brusquely. "What's your opinion about my cousin's murder?"
Mrs. Saumarez remained silent so long that he spoke again.
"Do you think, from what you've seen of things in this town, that it was what we may call political?" he asked. "A—removal?"
He was watching her closely, and he saw the violet eyes grow sombre, and a certain hardness settle about the lines of the well-shaped mouth and chin.
"It's this!" she said suddenly. "I told you just now that this town is rotten—rotten and corrupt, as so many of these little old-world English boroughs are! He knew it, poor fellow; he's steadily been finding it out ever since he came here. I dare say you, coming from London, a great city, wouldn't understand, but it's this way: this town is run by a gang, the members of which manœuvre everything for their own and their friends' benefit, their friends and their hangers-on, their associates, their toadies. They——"
"Do you mean the Town Trustees?" asked Brent.
"Not wholly," replied Mrs. Saumarez. "But all that Epplewhite said to-day about the Town Trustees is true. The three men control the financial affairs of the borough. Wallingford, by long and patient investigation, had come to know how they controlled them, and how utterly corrupt and rotten the whole financial administration is. If you could see some of the letters of his which I have in that safe——"