The Borough Treasurer

Cotherstone neither started nor flinched. There was no sign of weakness nor of hesitation about him now. Instead, he seemed to have suddenly recovered all the sharpness and vigour with which two at any rate of the three men who were so intently watching him had always associated with him. He sat erect and watchful in his chair, and his voice became clear and strong.

"Before I answer that question, Mr. Tallington," he said, "I'll ask one of Mr. Bent here. It's this—is my daughter going to suffer from aught that may or may not be raked up against her father? Let me know that!—if you want any words from me."

Bent flushed angrily.

"You ought to know what my answer is!" he exclaimed. "It's no!"

"That'll do!" said Cotherstone. "I know you—you're a man of your word." He turned to Tallington. "Now I'll reply to you," he went on. "My answer's in one word, too. Yes!"

Tallington opened Kitely's scrap-book at the account of the trial at Wilchester, placed it before Cotherstone, and indicated certain lines with the point of a pencil.

"You're the Chidforth mentioned there?" he asked quietly. "And your partner's the Mallows?"

"That's so," replied Cotherstone, so imperturbably that all three looked at him in astonishment. "That's quite so, Mr. Tallington."

"And this is an accurate report of what happened?" asked Tallington, trailing the pencil over the newspaper. "That is, as far as you can see at a glance?"

"Oh, I daresay it is," said Cotherstone, airily. "That was the best paper in the town—I daresay it's all right. Looks so, anyway."

"You know that Kitely was present at that trial?" suggested Tallington, who, like Brereton, was beginning to be mystified by Cotherstone's coolness.

"Well," answered Cotherstone, with a shake of his head, "I know now. But I never did know until that afternoon of the day on which the old man was murdered. If you're wanting the truth, he came into our office that afternoon to pay his rent to me, and he told me then. And—if you want more truth—he tried to blackmail me. He was to come next day—at four o'clock—to hear what me and Mallalieu 'ud offer him for hush-money."

"Then you told Mallalieu?" asked Tallington.

"Of course I told him!" replied Cotherstone. "Told him as soon as Kitely had gone. It was a facer for both of us—to be recognized, and to have all that thrown up against us, after thirty years' honest work!"

The three listeners looked silently at each other. A moment of suspence passed. Then Tallington put the question which all three were burning with eagerness to have answered.

"Mr. Cotherstone!—do you know who killed Kitely?"

"No!" answered Cotherstone. "But I know who I think killed him!"

"Who, then?" demanded Tallington.

"The man who killed Bert Stoner," said Cotherstone firmly. "And for the same reason."

"And this man is–"

Tallington left the question unfinished. For Cotherstone's alert face took a new and determined expression, and he raised himself a little in his chair and brought his lifted hand down heavily on the desk at his side.

"Mallalieu!" he exclaimed. "Mallalieu! I believe he killed Kitely. I suspicioned it from the first, and I came certain of it on Sunday night. Why? Because I saw Mallalieu fell Stoner!"

There was a dead silence in the room for a long, painful minute. Tallington broke it at last by repeating Cotherstone's last words.

"You saw Mallalieu fell Stoner? Yourself?"

"With these eyes! Look here!" exclaimed Cotherstone, again bringing his hand down heavily on the desk. "I went up there by Hobwick Quarry on Sunday afternoon—to do a bit of thinking. As I got to that spinney at the edge of the quarry, I saw Mallalieu and our clerk. They were fratching—quarrelling—I could hear 'em as well as see 'em. And I slipped behind a big bush and waited and watched. I could see and hear, even at thirty yards off, that Stoner was maddening Mallalieu, though of course I couldn't distinguish precise words. And all of a sudden Mallalieu's temper went, and he lets out with that heavy oak stick of his and fetches the lad a crack right over his forehead—and with Stoner starting suddenly back the old railings gave way and—down he went. That's what I saw—and I saw Mallalieu kick that stick into the quarry in a passion, and—I've got it!"

"You've got it?" said Tallington.

"I've got it!" repeated Cotherstone. "I watched Mallalieu—after this was over. Once I thought he saw me—but he evidently decided he was alone. I could see he was taking on rarely. He went down to the quarry as it got dusk—he was there some time. Then at last he went away on the opposite side. And I went down when he'd got clear away and I went straight to where the stick was. And as I say, I've got it."

Tallington looked at Brereton, and Brereton spoke for the first time.

"Mr. Cotherstone must see that all this should be told to the police," he said.

"Wait a bit," replied Cotherstone. "I've not done telling my tales here yet. Now that I am talking, I will talk! Bent!" he continued, turning to his future son-in-law. "What I'm going to say now is for your benefit. But these lawyers shall hear. This old Wilchester business has been raked up—how, I don't know. Now then, you shall all know the truth about that! I did two years—for what? For being Mallalieu's catspaw!"

Tallington suddenly began to drum his fingers on the blotting-pad which lay in front of him. From this point he watched Cotherstone with an appearance of speculative interest which was not lost on Brereton.

"Ah!" he remarked quietly. "You were Mallalieu's—or Mallows'—catspaw? That is—he was the really guilty party in the Wilchester affair, of Which that's an account?"

"Doesn't it say here that he was treasurer?" retorted Cotherstone, laying his hand on the open scrap-book. "He was—he'd full control of the money. He drew me into things—drew me into 'em in such a clever way that when the smash came I couldn't help myself. I had to go through with it. And I never knew until—until the two years was over—that Mallalieu had that money safely put away."

"But—you got to know, eventually," remarked Tallington. "And—I suppose—you agreed to make use of it?"

Cotherstone smote the table again.

"Yes!" he said with some heat. "And don't you get any false ideas, Mr. Tallington. Bent!—I've paid that money back—I, myself. Each penny of it—two thousand pound, with four per cent. interest for thirty years! I've done it—Mallalieu knows naught about it. And here's the receipt. So now then!"

"When did you pay it, Mr. Cotherstone?" asked Tallington, as Bent unwillingly took the paper which Cotherstone drew from a pocket-book and handed to him. "Some time ago, or lately?"

"If you want to know," retorted Cotherstone, "it was the very day after old Kitely was killed. I sent it through a friend of mine who still lives in Wilchester. I wanted to be done with it—I didn't want to have it brought up against me that anybody lost aught through my fault. And so—I paid."

"But—I'm only suggesting—you could have paid a long time before that, couldn't you?" said Tallington. "The longer you waited, the more you had to pay. Two thousand pounds, with thirty years' interest, at four per cent.—why, that's four thousand four hundred pounds altogether!"

"That's what he paid," said Bent. "Here's the receipt."

"Mr. Cotherstone is telling us—privately—everything," remarked Tallington, glancing at the receipt and passing it on to Brereton. "I wish he'd tell us—privately, as I say—why he paid that money the day after Kitely's murder. Why, Mr. Cotherstone?"

Cotherstone, ready enough to answer and to speak until then, flushed angrily and shook his head. But he was about to speak when a gentle tap came at Tallington's door, and before the solicitor could make any response, the door was opened from without, and the police-superintendent walked in, accompanied by two men whom Brereton recognized as detectives from Norcaster.

"Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Tallington," said the superintendent, "but I heard Mr. Cotherstone was here. Mr. Cotherstone!—I shall have to ask you to step across with me to the office. Will you come over now?—it'll be best."

"Not until I know what I'm wanted for," answered Cotherstone determinedly. "What is it?"

The superintendent sighed and shook his head.

"Very well—it's not my fault, then," he answered. "The fact is we want both you and Mr. Mallalieu for this Stoner affair. That's the plain truth! The warrants were issued an hour ago—and we've got Mr. Mallalieu already. Come on, Mr. Cotherstone!—there's no help for it."

CHAPTER XXI

THE INTERRUPTED FLIGHT

Twenty-four hours after he had seen Stoner fall headlong into Hobwick Quarry, Mallalieu made up his mind for flight. And as soon as he had come to that moment of definite decision, he proceeded to arrange for his disappearance with all the craft and subtlety of which he was a past master. He would go, once and for all, and since he was to go he would go in such a fashion that nobody should be able to trace him.

After munching his sandwich and drinking his ale at the Highmarket Arms, Mallalieu had gone away to Hobwick Quarry and taken a careful look round. Just as he had expected, he found a policeman or two and a few gaping townsfolk there. He made no concealment of his own curiosity; he had come up, he said, to see what there was to be seen at the place where his clerk had come to this sad end. He made one of the policemen take him up to the broken railings at the brink of the quarry; together they made a careful examination of the ground.

"No signs of any footprints hereabouts, the superintendent says," remarked Mallalieu as they looked around. "You haven't seen aught of that sort!"

"No, your Worship—we looked for that when we first came up," answered the policeman. "You see this grass is that short and wiry that it's too full of spring to show marks. No, there's naught, anywhere about—we've looked a goodish way on both sides."

Mallalieu went close to the edge of the quarry and looked down. His sharp, ferrety eyes were searching everywhere for his stick. A little to the right of his position the side of the quarry shelved less abruptly than at the place where Stoner had fallen; on the gradual slope there, a great mass of bramble and gorse, broom and bracken, clustered: he gazed hard at it, thinking that the stick might have lodged in its meshes. It would be an easy thing to see that stick in daylight; it was a brightish yellow colour and would be easily distinguished against the prevalent greens and browns around there. But he saw nothing of it, and his brain, working around the event of the night before, began to have confused notions of the ringing of the stick on the lime-stone slabs at the bottom of the quarry.

"Aye!" he said musingly, with a final look round. "A nasty place to fall over, and a bad job—a bad job! Them rails," he continued, pointing to the broken fencing, "why, they're rotten all through! If a man put his weight on them, they'd be sure to give way. The poor young fellow must ha' sat down to rest himself a bit, on the top one, and of course, smash they went."

"That's what I should ha' said, your Worship," agreed the policeman, "but some of 'em that were up here seemed to think he'd been forced through 'em, or thrown against 'em, violent, as it might be. They think he was struck down—from the marks of a blow that they found."

"Aye, just so," said Mallalieu, "but he could get many blows on him as he fell down them rocks. Look for yourself!—there's not only rough edges of stone down there, but snags and roots of old trees that he'd strike against in falling. Accident, my lad!—that's what it's been—sheer and pure accident."

The policeman neither agreed with nor contradicted the Mayor, and presently they went down to the bottom of the quarry again, where Mallalieu, under pretence of thoroughly seeing into everything, walked about all over the place. He did not find the stick, and he was quite sure that nobody else had found it. Finally he went away, convinced that it lay in some nook or cranny of the shelving slope on to which he had kicked it in his sudden passion of rage. There, in all probability, it would remain for ever, for it would never occur to the police that whoever wielded whatever weapon it was that struck the blow would not carry the weapon away with him. No—on the point of the stick Mallalieu began to feel easy and confident.

He grew still easier and more confident about the whole thing during the course of the afternoon. He went about the town; he was in and out of the Town Hall; he kept calling in at the police-station; he became certain towards evening that no suspicion attached to himself—as yet. But—only as yet. He knew something would come out. The big question with him as he went home in the evening was—was he safe until the afternoon of the next day? While he ate and drank in his lonely dining-room, he decided that he was; by the time he had got through his after-dinner cigar he had further decided that when the next night came he would be safely away from Highmarket.

But there were things to do that night. He spent an hour with a Bradshaw and a map. While he reckoned up trains and glanced at distances and situations his mind was busy with other schemes, for he had all his life been a man who could think of more than one thing at once. And at the end of the hour he had decided on a plan of action.

Mallalieu had two chief objects in immediate view. He wanted to go away openly from Highmarket without exciting suspicion: that was one. He wanted to make it known that he had gone to some definite place, on some definite mission; that was the other. And in reckoning up his chances he saw how fortune was favouring him. At that very time the Highmarket Town Council was very much concerned and busied about a new water-supply. There was a project afoot for joining with another town, some miles off, in establishing a new system and making a new reservoir on the adjacent hills, and on the very next morning Mallalieu himself was to preside over a specially-summoned committee which was to debate certain matters relating to this scheme. He saw how he could make use of that appointment. He would profess that he was not exactly pleased with some of the provisions of the proposed amalgamation, and would state his intention, in open meeting, of going over in person to the other town that very evening to see its authorities on the points whereon he was not satisfied. Nobody would see anything suspicious in his going away on Corporation business. An excellent plan for his purpose—for in order to reach the other town it would be necessary to pass through Norcaster, where he would have to change stations. And Norcaster was a very big city, and a thickly-populated one, and it had some obscure parts with which Mallalieu was well-acquainted—and in Norcaster he could enter on the first important stage of his flight.

And so, being determined, Mallalieu made his final preparations. They were all connected with money. If he felt a pang at the thought of leaving his Highmarket property behind him, it was assuaged by the reflection that, after all, that property only represented the price of his personal safety—perhaps (though he did not like to think of that) of his life. Besides, events might turn out so luckily that the enjoyment of it might be restored to him—it was possible. Whether that possibility ever came off or not, he literally dared not regard it just then. To put himself in safety was the one, the vital consideration. And his Highmarket property and his share in the business only represented a part of Mallalieu's wealth. He could afford to do without all that he left behind him; it was a lot to leave, he sighed regretfully, but he would still be a very wealthy man if he never touched a pennyworth of it again.

From the moment in which Mallalieu had discovered that Kitely knew the secret of the Wilchester affair he had prepared for eventualities, and Kitely's death had made no difference to his plans. If one man could find all that out, he argued, half a dozen other men might find it out. The murder of the ex-detective, indeed, had strengthened his resolve to be prepared. He foresaw that suspicion might fall on Cotherstone; deeper reflection showed him that if Cotherstone became an object of suspicion he himself would not escape. And so he had prepared himself. He had got together his valuable securities; they were all neatly bestowed in a stout envelope which fitted into the inner pocket of a waistcoat which he once had specially made to his own design: a cleverly arranged garment, in which a man could carry a lot of wealth—in paper. There in that pocket it all was—Government stock, railway stock, scrip, shares, all easily convertible, anywhere in the world where men bought and sold the best of gilt-edged securities. And in another pocket Mallalieu had a wad of bank-notes which he had secured during the previous week from a London bank at which he kept an account, and in yet another, a cunningly arranged one, lined out with wash-leather, and secured by a strong flap, belted and buckled, he carried gold.

Mallalieu kept that waistcoat and its precious contents under his pillow that night. And next morning he attired himself with particular care, and in the hip pocket of his trousers he placed a revolver which he had recently purchased, and for the first time for a fortnight he ate his usual hearty breakfast. After which he got into his most serviceable overcoat and went away townwards … and if anybody had been watching him they would have seen that Mallalieu never once turned his head to take a look at the house which he had built, and might be leaving for ever.

Everything that Mallalieu did that morning was done with method. He was in and about his office and his yard for an hour or two, attending to business in his customary fashion. He saw Cotherstone, and did not speak to him except on absolutely necessary matters. No word was said by either in relation to Stoner's death. But about ten o'clock Mallalieu went across to the police-station and into the superintendent's office, and convinced himself that nothing further had come to light, and no new information had been given. The coroner's officer was with the police, and Mallalieu discussed with him and them some arrangements about the inquest. With every moment the certainty that he was safe increased—and at eleven o'clock he went into the Town Hall to his committee meeting.

Had Mallalieu chanced to look back at the door of the police-station as he entered the ancient door of the Town Hall he would have seen three men drive up there in a motor-car which had come from Norcaster—one of the men being Myler, and the other two Norcaster detectives. But Mallalieu did not look back. He went up to the committee-room and became absorbed in the business of the meeting. His fellow committee-men said afterwards that they never remembered the Mayor being in such fettle for business. He explained his objections to the scheme they were considering; he pointed out this and urged that—finally, he said that he was so little satisfied with the project that he would go and see the Mayor of the sister town that very evening, and discuss the matter with him to the last detail.

Mallalieu stepped out of the committee-room to find the superintendent awaiting him in the corridor. The superintendent was pale and trembling, and his eyes met Mallalieu's with a strange, deprecating expression. Before he could speak, two strangers emerged from a doorway and came close up. And a sudden sickening sense of danger came over Mallalieu, and his tongue failed him.

"Mr. Mayor!" faltered the superintendent. "I—I can't help it! These are officers from Norcaster, sir—there's a warrant for your arrest. It's—it's the Stoner affair!"

CHAPTER XXII

THE HAND IN THE DARKNESS

The Highmarket clocks were striking noon when Mallalieu was arrested. For three hours he remained under lock and key, in a room in the Town Hall—most of the time alone. His lunch was brought to him; every consideration was shown him. The police wanted to send for his solicitor from Norcaster; Mallalieu bade them mind their own business. He turned a deaf ear to the superintendent's entreaties to him to see some friend; let him mind his own business too, said Mallalieu. He himself would do nothing until he saw the need to do something. Let him hear what could be brought against him—time enough to speak and act then. He ate his lunch, he smoked a cigar; he walked out of the room with defiant eye and head erect when they came to fetch him before a specially summoned bench of his fellow-magistrates. And it was not until he stepped into the dock, in full view of a crowded court, and amidst quivering excitement, that he and Cotherstone met.

The news of the partners' arrest had flown through the little town like wildfire. There was no need to keep it secret; no reason why it should be kept secret. It was necessary to bring the accused men before the magistrates as quickly as possible, and the days of private inquiries were long over. Before the Highmarket folk had well swallowed their dinners, every street in the town, every shop, office, bar-parlour, public-house, private house rang with the news—Mallalieu and Cotherstone, the Mayor and the Borough Treasurer, had been arrested for the murder of their clerk, and would be put before the magistrates at three o'clock. The Kitely affair faded into insignificance—except amongst the cute and knowing few, who immediately began to ask if the Hobwick Quarry murder had anything to do with the murder on the Shawl.

If Mallalieu and Cotherstone could have looked out of the windows of the court in the Town Hall, they would have seen the Market Square packed with a restless and seething crowd of townsfolk, all clamouring for whatever news could permeate from the packed chamber into which so few had been able to fight a way. But the prisoners seemed strangely indifferent to their surroundings. Those who watched them closely—as Brereton and Tallington did—noticed that neither took any notice of the other. Cotherstone had been placed in the dock first. When Mallalieu was brought there, a moment later, the two exchanged one swift glance and no more—Cotherstone immediately moved off to the far corner on the left hand, Mallalieu remained in the opposite one, and placing his hands in the pockets of his overcoat, he squared his shoulders and straitened his big frame and took a calm and apparently contemptuous look round about him.

Brereton, sitting at a corner of the solicitor's table, and having nothing to do but play the part of spectator, watched these two men carefully and with absorbed interest from first to last. He was soon aware of the vastly different feelings with which they themselves watched the proceedings. Cotherstone was eager and restless; he could not keep still; he moved his position; he glanced about him; he looked as if he were on the verge of bursting into indignant or explanatory speech every now and then—though, as a matter of fact, he restrained whatever instinct he had in that direction. But Mallalieu never moved, never changed his attitude. His expression of disdainful, contemptuous watchfulness never left him—after the first moments and the formalities were over, he kept his eyes on the witness-box and on the people who entered it. Brereton, since his first meeting with Mallalieu, had often said to himself that the Mayor of Highmarket had the slyest eyes of any man he had even seen—but he was forced to admit now that, however sly Mallalieu's eyes were, they could, on occasion, be extraordinarily steady.

The truth was that Mallalieu was playing a part. He had outlined it, unconsciously, when he said to the superintendent that it would be time enough for him to do something when he knew what could be brought against him. And now all his attention was given to the two or three witnesses whom the prosecution thought it necessary to call. He wanted to know who they were. He curbed his impatience while the formal evidence of arrest was given, but his ears pricked a little when he heard one of the police witnesses speak of the warrant having been issued on information received. "What information? Received from whom?" He half-turned as a sharp official voice called the name of the first important witness.

"David Myler!"

Mallalieu stared at David Myler as if he would tear whatever secret he had out of him with a searching glance. Who was David Myler? No Highmarket man—that was certain. Who was he, then?—what did he know?—was he some detective who had been privately working up this case? A cool, quiet, determined-looking young fellow, anyway. Confound him! But—what had he to do with this?