The Borough Treasurer, J. S. Fletcher [learn to read books TXT] 📗

crisis, which he had anticipated, and—he was prepared. It was an outwardly calm and cool Cotherstone, who, with a quick glance at all three men and at the closed door, took the chair which Tallington handed to him, and turned on the solicitor with a single word.

"Well?"

"As I told you in coming along," said Tallington, "we want to speak to you privately about some information which has been placed in our hands—that is, of course, in Mr. Brereton's and in mine. We have thought it well to already acquaint Mr. Bent with it. All this is between ourselves, Mr. Cotherstone—so[Pg 196] treat us as candidly as we'll treat you. I can put everything to you in a few words. They're painful. Are you and your partner, Mr. Mallalieu, the same persons as the Chidforth and Mallows who were prosecuted for fraud at Wilchester Assizes in 1881 and sentenced to two years' imprisonment?"

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?"

[Pg 197]"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.

[Pg 198]"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 sud[Pg 199]den 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[Pg 200] 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[Pg 201] 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.

[Pg 202]"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."

[Pg 203]

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[Pg 204] 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[Pg 205] '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