CHAPTER X
THE CAT IN THE BAG
B ut as the day of the adjourned inquest drew near Brent became aware that there were rumours in the air—rumours of some sensational development, the particulars of which were either non-obtainable or utterly vague. He heard of them from Peppermore, whose journalistic itching for news had so far gone unrelieved; Peppermore himself knew no more than that rumour was busy, and secret.
"Can't make out for the life of me what it is, Mr. Brent!" said Peppermore, calling upon Brent at the Chancellor on the eve of the inquiry. "But there's something, sir, something! You know that boy of mine—young Pryder?"
"Smart youth!" replied Brent.
"As they make 'em, sir," agreed Peppermore. "That boy, Mr. Brent, will go far in the profession of which you're a shining and I'm a dim light!—he's got what the French, I believe, sir, call a flair for news. Took to our line like a duck to water, Mr. Brent! Well, now, young Pryder's father is a policeman—sergeant in the Borough Constabulary, and naturally he's opportunities of knowing. And when he knows he talks—in the home circle, Mr. Brent."
"Been talking?" asked Brent.
"Guardedly, sir, guardedly!" replied Peppermore. "Young Pryder, he told me this afternoon that his father, when he came home to dinner to-day, said to him and his mother that when the inquest's reopened to-morrow there's be something to talk about—somebody, said Sergeant Pryder, would have something to talk of before the day was over. So—there you are!"