In the Mayor's Parlour

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Fletcher Joseph Smith. In the Mayor's Parlour

CHAPTER I. THE MAYOR'S PARLOUR

CHAPTER II. THE CAMBRIC HANDKERCHIEF

CHAPTER III. THE TANNERY HOUSE

CHAPTER IV. BULL'S SNUG

CHAPTER V. SLEEPING FIRES

CHAPTER VI. THE ANCIENT OFFICE OF CORONER

CHAPTER VII. THE VOLUNTARY WITNESS

CHAPTER VIII. MRS. SAUMAREZ

CHAPTER IX. THE RIGHT TO INTERVENE

CHAPTER X. THE CAT IN THE BAG

CHAPTER XI. THE NINETEEN MINUTES' INTERVAL

CHAPTER XII. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

CHAPTER XIII. A WOMAN INTERVENES

CHAPTER XIV. WHOSE VOICES?

CHAPTER XV. THE SPECIAL EDITION

CHAPTER XVI. THE CASTLE WALL

CHAPTER XVII. IMPREGNABLE

CHAPTER XVIII. LOOSE STRANDS

CHAPTER XIX. BLACK SECRETS AND RED TAPE

CHAPTER XX. THE FELL HAND

CHAPTER XXI. CORRUPTION

CHAPTER XXII. THE PARLOUR-MAID

CHAPTER XXIII. THE CONNECTING WALL

CHAPTER XXIV. BEHIND THE PANEL

CHAPTER XXV. THE EMPTY ROOM

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Bunning knew the Mayor was dead before that cry of surprise had passed his lips. In his time he had seen many dead men—sometimes it was a bullet, sometimes a bayonet; he knew the signs of what follows on the swift passage of one and the sharp thrust of the other. In his first glance into the room he had been quick to notice the limp hand hanging across the edge of the desk, the way in which Wallingford's head lay athwart the mass of papers over which he had collapsed in falling forward from his chair—that meant death. And the old soldier's observant eye had seen more than that—over the litter of documents which lay around the still figure were great crimson stains. The caretaker's cry changed to articulated speech.

"Murder! The Mayor's been murdered!"

.....

"This is the Council Chamber," he said, as they entered a spacious apartment. "You see that door in the far corner, over there? There's a staircase leads down from that to the rooms that Bunning and his wife occupy as caretakers—a back stairs, in fact. But nobody can come up it, and through the Council Chamber, and along the corridor to the Mayor's Parlour without first coming through Bunning's rooms, that's flat. As for the other—well, it's still more unlikely."

He led Brent out of the Council Chamber and farther along to another door, which he flung open as he motioned his companion to enter.

.....