The Borough Treasurer
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Joseph Smith Fletcher >> The Borough Treasurer
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Brereton walked on a little way without replying. He was asking a
serious question of himself. Should he tell all he knew to Avice
Harborough?
CHAPTER XIX
A TALL MAN IN GREY CLOTHES
That question remained unanswered, and Brereton remained silent, until
he and Avice had reached the top of the path and had come out on the
edge of the wide stretch of moorland above the little town. He paused
for a moment and looked back on the roofs and gables of Highmarket,
shining and glittering in the moonlight; the girl paused too, wondering
at his silence. And with a curious abruptness he suddenly turned, laid a
hand on her arm, and gave it a firm, quick pressure.
"Look here!" he said. "I'm going to trust you. I'm going to say to you
what I haven't said to a soul in that town!--not even to Tallington,
who's a man of the law, nor to Bent, who's my old friend. I want to say
something to somebody whom I can trust. I can trust you!"
"Thank you," she answered quietly. "I--I think I understand. And you'll
understand, too, won't you, when I say--you can!"
"That's all right," he said, cheerfully. "Of course! Now we understand
each other. Come on, then--you know the way--act as guide, and I'll tell
you as we go along."
Avice turned off into what appeared to be no more than a sheep-track
across the heather. Within a few minutes they were not only quite alone,
but out of sight of any human habitation. It seemed to Brereton that
they were suddenly shut into a world of their own, as utterly apart from
the little world they had just left as one star is from another. But
even as he thought this he saw, far away across the rising and falling
of the heather-clad undulations, the moving lights of a train that was
speeding southward along the coast-line from Norcaster, and presently
the long scream of a whistle from its engine came on the light breeze
that blew inland from the hidden sea, and the sight and sound recalled
him to the stern realities of life.
"Listen, then, carefully," he began. "And bear in mind that I'm putting
what I believe to be safety of other men in your hands. It's this
way...."
Avice Harborough listened in absolute silence as Brereton told her his
carefully arranged story. They walked slowly across the moor as he told
it; now dipping into a valley, now rising above the ridge of a low hill;
sometimes pausing altogether as he impressed some particular point upon
her. In the moonlight he could see that she was listening eagerly and
intently, but she never interrupted him and never asked a question. And
at last, just as they came in sight of a light that burned in the window
of a little moorland cottage, snugly planted in a hollow beneath the
ridge which they were then traversing, he brought his story to an end
and turned inquiringly to her.
"There!" he said. "That's all. Now try to consider it without
prejudice--if you can. How does it appear to you?"
Instead of replying directly the girl walked on in silence for a moment
or two, and suddenly turned to Brereton with an impulsive movement.
"You've given me your confidence and I'll give you mine!" she exclaimed.
"Perhaps I ought to have given it before--to you or to Mr.
Tallington--but--I didn't like. I've wondered about Mallalieu! Wondered
if--if he did kill that old man. And wondered if he tried to put the
blame on my father out of revenge!"
"Revenge!" exclaimed Brereton. "What do you mean?"
"My father offended him--not so very long ago, either," she answered.
"Last year--I'll tell you it all, plainly--Mr. Mallalieu began coming to
our cottage at times. First he came to see my father about killing the
rats which had got into his out-buildings. Then he made excuses--he used
to come, any way--at night. He began to come when my father was out, as
he often was. He would sit down and smoke and talk. I didn't like it--I
don't like him. Then he used to meet me in the wood in the Shawl, as I
came home from the Northrops'. I complained to my father about it and
one night my father came in and found him here. My father, Mr. Brereton,
is a very queer man and a very plain-spoken man. He told Mr. Mallalieu
that neither of us desired his company and told him to go away. And Mr.
Mallalieu lost his temper and said angry things."
"And your father?" said Brereton. "Did he lose his temper, too?"
"No!" replied Avice. "He has a temper--but he kept it that night. He
never spoke to Mr. Mallalieu in return. He let him say his say--until
he'd got across the threshold, and then he just shut the door on him.
But--I know how angry Mr. Mallalieu was."
Brereton stood silently considering matters for a moment. Then he
pointed to the light in the window beneath them, and moved towards it.
"I'm glad you told me that," he said. "It may account for something
that's puzzled me a great deal--I must think it out. But at present--is
that the old woman's lamp?"
Avice led the way down to the hollow by a narrow path which took them
into a little stone-walled enclosure where a single Scotch fir-tree
stood sentinel over a typical moorland homestead of the smaller sort--a
one-storied house of rough stone, the roof of which was secured from
storm and tempest by great boulders slung on stout ropes, and having
built on to it an equally rough shelter for some small stock of cows and
sheep. Out of a sheer habit of reflection on things newly seen, Brereton
could not avoid wondering what life was like, lived in this solitude,
and in such a perfect hermitage--but his speculations were cut short by
the opening of the door set deep within the whitewashed porch. An old
woman, much bent by age, looked out upon him and Avice, holding a small
lamp so that its light fell on their faces.
"Come your ways in, joy!" she said hospitably. "I was expecting you'd
come up tonight: I knew you'd want to have a word with me as soon as
you could. Come in and sit you down by the fire--it's coldish o' nights,
to be sure, and there's frost in the air.
"This gentleman may come in, too, mayn't he, Mrs. Hamthwaite?" asked
Avice as she and Brereton stepped within the porch. "He's the
lawyer-gentleman who's defending my father--you won't mind speaking
before him, will you?"
"Neither before him, nor behind him, nor yet to him," answered Mrs.
Hamthwaite with a chuckle. "I've talked to lawyers afore today, many's
the time! Come your ways in, sir--sit you down."
She carefully closed the door on her guests and motioned them to seats
by a bright fire of turf, and then setting the lamp on the table, seated
herself in a corner of her long-settle and folding her hands in her
apron took a long look at her visitors through a pair of unusually large
spectacles. And Brereton, genuinely interested, took an equally long
look at her; and saw a woman who was obviously very old but whose face
was eager, intelligent, and even vivacious. As this queer old face
turned from one to the other, its wrinkles smoothed out into a smile.
"You'll be wondering what I've got to tell, love," said Mrs. Hamthwaite,
turning to Avice. "And no doubt you want to know why I haven't sent for
you before now. But you see, since that affair happened down your way, I
been away. Aye, I been to see my daughter--as lives up the coast. And I
didn't come home till today. And I'm no hand at writing letters. However
here we are, and better late than never and no doubt this lawyer
gentleman'll be glad to hear what I can tell him and you."
"Very glad indeed!" responded Brereton. "What is it?"
The old woman turned to a box which stood in a recess in the ingle-nook
at her elbow and took from it a folded newspaper.
"Me and my daughter and her husband read this here account o' the case
against Harborough as it was put before the magistrates," she said. "We
studied it. Now you want to know where Harborough was on the night that
old fellow was done away with. That's it, master, what?"
"That is it," answered Brereton, pressing his arm against Avice, who sat
close at his side. "Yes, indeed! And you----"
"I can tell you where Harborough was between nine o'clock and ten
o'clock that night," replied Mrs. Hamthwaite, with a smile that was not
devoid of cunning. "I know, if nobody else knows!"
"Where, then?" demanded Brereton.
The old woman leaned forward across the hearth.
"Up here on the moor!" she whispered. "Not five minutes' walk from here.
At a bit of a place--Miss there'll know it--called Good Folks' Lift. A
little rise i' the ground where the fairies used to dance, you know,
master."
"You saw him?" asked Brereton.
"I saw him," chuckled Mrs. Hamthwaite. "And if I don't know him, why
then, his own daughter doesn't!"
"You'd better tell us all about it," said Brereton.
Mrs. Hamthwaite gave him a sharp look. "I've given evidence to law folks
before today," she said. "You'll want to know what I could tell before a
judge, like?"
"Of course," replied Brereton.
"Well, then----" she continued. "You see, master, since my old man died,
I've lived all alone up here. I've a bit to live on--not over much, but
enough. All the same, if I can save a bit by getting a hare or a rabbit,
or a bird or two now and then, off the moor--well, I do! We all of us
does that, as lives on the moor: some folks calls it poaching, but we
call it taking our own. Now then, on that night we're talking about, I
went along to Good Folks' Lift to look at some snares I'd set early that
day. There's a good deal of bush and scrub about that place--I was
amongst the bushes when I heard steps, and I looked out and saw a tall
man in grey clothes coming close by. How did I know he were in grey
clothes? Why, 'cause he stopped close by me to light his pipe! But he'd
his back to me, so I didn't see his full face, only a side of it. He
were a man with a thin, greyish beard. Well, he walks past there, not
far--and then I heard other steps. Then I heard your father's voice,
miss--and I see the two of 'em meet. They stood, whispering together,
for a minute or so--then they came back past me, and they went off
across the moor towards Hexendale. And soon they were out of sight, and
when I'd finished what I was after I came my ways home. That's all,
master--but if yon old man was killed down in Highmarket Shawl Wood
between nine and ten o'clock that night, then Jack Harborough didn't
kill him, for Jack was up here at soon after nine, and him and the tall
man went away in the opposite direction!"
"You're sure about the time?" asked Brereton anxiously.
"Certain, master! It was ten minutes to nine when I went out--nearly ten
when I come back. My clock's always right--I set it by the almanack and
the sunrise and sunset every day--and you can't do better," asserted
Mrs. Hamthwaite.
"You're equally sure about the second man being Harborough?" insisted
Brereton. "You couldn't be mistaken?"
"Mistaken? No!--master, I know Harborough's voice, and his figure, aye,
and his step as well as I know my own fireside," declared Mrs.
Hamthwaite. "Of course I know it were Harborough--no doubt on't!"
"How are you sure that this was the evening of the murder?" asked
Brereton. "Can you prove that it was?"
"Easy!" said Mrs. Hamthwaite. "The very next morning I went away to see
my daughter up the coast. I heard of the old man's murder at High Gill
Junction. But I didn't hear then that Harborough was suspected--didn't
hear that till later on, when we read it in the newspapers."
"And the other man--the tall man in grey clothes, who has a slightly
grey beard--you didn't know him?"
Mrs. Hamthwaite made a face which seemed to suggest uncertainty.
"Well, I'll tell you," she answered. "I believe him to be a man that I
have seen about this here neighbourhood two or three times during this
last eighteen months or so. If you really want to know, I'm a good deal
about them moors o' nights; old as I am, I'm very active, and I go about
a goodish bit--why not? And I have seen a man about now and then--months
between, as a rule--that I couldn't account for--and I believe it's this
fellow that was with Harborough."
"And you say they went away in the direction of Hexendale?" said
Brereton. "Where is Hexendale?"
The old woman pointed westward.
"Inland," she answered. "Over yonder. Miss there knows Hexendale well
enough."
"Hexendale is a valley--with a village of the same name in it--that lies
about five miles away on the other side of the moors," said Avice.
"There's another line of railway there--this man Mrs. Hamthwaite speaks
of could come and go by that."
"Well," remarked Brereton presently, "we're very much obliged to you,
ma'am, and I'm sure you won't have any objection to telling all this
again at the proper time and place, eh?"
"Eh, bless you, no!" answered Mrs. Hamthwaite. "I'll tell it wherever
you like, master--before Lawyer Tallington, or the magistrates, or the
crowner, or anybody! But I'll tell you what, if you'll take a bit of
advice from an old woman--you're a sharp-looking young man, and I'll
tell you what I should do if I were in your place--now then!"
"Well, what?" asked Brereton good-humouredly.
Mrs. Hamthwaite clapped him on the shoulder as she opened the door for
her visitors.
"Find that tall man in the grey clothes!" she said. "Get hold of him!
He's the chap you want!"
Brereton went silently away, meditating on the old woman's last words.
"But where are we to find him?" he suddenly exclaimed. "Who is he?"
"I don't think that puzzles me," remarked Avice. "He's the man who sent
the nine hundred pounds."
Brereton smote his stick on the heather at their feet.
"By George!--I never thought of that!" he exclaimed. "I shouldn't
wonder!--I shouldn't wonder at all. Hooray!--we're getting nearer and
nearer to something."
But he knew that still another step was at hand--an unpleasant, painful
step--when, on getting back to Bent's, an hour later, Bent told him that
Lettie had been cajoled into fixing the day of the wedding, and that the
ceremony was to take place with the utmost privacy that day week.
CHAPTER XX
AT BAY
It was only by an immense effort of will that Brereton prevented an
exclamation and a start of surprise. But of late he had been perpetually
on the look-out for all sorts of unforeseen happenings and he managed to
do no more than show a little natural astonishment.
"What, so soon!" he said. "Dear me, old chap!--I didn't think of its
being this side of Christmas."
"Cotherstone's set on it," answered Bent. "He seems to be turning into a
regular hypochondriac. I hope nothing is really seriously wrong with
him. But anyway--this day week. And you'll play your part of best man,
of course."
"Oh, of course!" agreed Brereton. "And then--are you going away?"
"Yes, but not for as long as we'd meant," said Bent. "We'll run down to
the Riviera for a few weeks--I've made all my arrangements today. Well,
any fresh news about this last bad business? This Stoner affair, of
course, has upset Cotherstone dreadfully. When is all this mystery
coming to an end, Brereton? There is one thing dead certain--Harborough
isn't guilty in this case. That is, if Stoner really was killed by the
blow they talk of."
But Brereton refused to discuss matters that night. He pleaded fatigue,
he had been at it all day long, he said, and his brain was confused and
tired and needed rest. And presently he went off to his room--and when
he got there he let out a groan of dismay. For one thing was
imperative--Bent's marriage must not take place while there was the
least chance of a terrible charge being suddenly let loose on
Cotherstone.
He rose in the morning with his mind made up on the matter. There was
but one course to adopt--and it must be adopted immediately. Cotherstone
must be spoken to--Cotherstone must be told of what some people at any
rate knew about him and his antecedents. Let him have a chance to
explain himself. After all, he might have some explanation. But--and
here Brereton's determination became fixed and stern--it must be
insisted upon that he should tell Bent everything.
Bent always went out very early in the morning, to give an eye to his
business, and he usually breakfasted at his office. That was one of the
mornings on which he did not come back to the house, and Brereton
accordingly breakfasted alone, and had not seen his host when he, too,
set out for the town. He had already decided what to do--he would tell
everything to Tallington. Tallington was a middle-aged man of a great
reputation for common-sense and for probity; as a native of the town,
and a dweller in it all his life, he knew Cotherstone well, and he would
give sound advice as to what methods should be followed in dealing with
him. And so to Tallington Brereton, arriving just after the solicitor
had finished reading his morning's letters, poured out the whole story
which he had learned from the ex-detective's scrap-book and from the
memorandum made by Stoner in his pocket-book.
Tallington listened with absorbed attention, his face growing graver and
graver as Brereton marshalled the facts and laid stress on one point of
evidence after another. He was a good listener--a steady, watchful
listener--Brereton saw that he was not only taking in every fact and
noting every point, but was also weighing up the mass of testimony. And
when the story came to its end he spoke with decision, spoke, too, just
as Brereton expected he would, making no comment, offering no opinion,
but going straight to the really critical thing.
"There are only two things to be done," said Tallington. "They're the
only things that can be done. We must send for Bent, and tell him. Then
we must get Cotherstone here, and tell him. No other course--none!"
"Bent first?" asked Brereton.
"Certainly! Bent first, by all means. It's due to him. Besides," said
Tallington, with a grim smile, "it would be decidedly unpleasant for
Cotherstone to compel him to tell Bent, or for us to tell Bent in
Cotherstone's presence. And--we'd better get to work at once, Brereton!
Otherwise--this will get out in another way."
"You mean--through the police?" said Brereton.
"Surely!" replied Tallington. "This can't be kept in a corner. For
anything we know somebody may be at work, raking it all up, just now. Do
you suppose that unfortunate lad Stoner kept his knowledge to himself?
I don't! No--at once! Come, Bent's office is only a minute away--I'll
send one of my clerks for him. Painful, very--but necessary."
The first thing that Bent's eyes encountered when he entered
Tallington's private room ten minutes later was the black-bound,
brass-clasped scrap-book, which Brereton had carried down with him and
had set on the solicitor's desk. He started at the sight of it, and
turned quickly from one man to the other.
"What's that doing here?" he asked, "is--have you made some discovery?
Why am I wanted?"
Once more Brereton had to go through the story. But his new listener did
not receive it in the calm and phlegmatic fashion in which it had been
received by the practised ear of the man of law. Bent was at first
utterly incredulous; then indignant: he interrupted; he asked questions
which he evidently believed to be difficult to answer; he was
fighting--and both his companions, sympathizing keenly with him, knew
why. But they never relaxed their attitude, and in the end Bent looked
from one to the other with a cast-down countenance in which doubt was
beginning to change into certainty.
"You're convinced of--all this?" he demanded suddenly. "Both of you?
It's your conviction?"
"It's mine," answered Tallington quietly.
"I'd give a good deal for your sake, Bent, if it were not mine," said
Brereton. "But--it is mine. I'm--sure!"
Bent jumped from his chair.
"Which of them is it, then?" he exclaimed. "Gad!--you don't mean to say
that Cotherstone is--a murderer! Good heavens!--think of what that would
mean to--to----"
Tallington got up and laid a hand on Bent's arm.
"We won't say or think anything until we hear what Cotherstone has to
say," he said. "I'll step along the street and fetch him, myself. I know
he'll be alone just now, because I saw Mallalieu go into the Town Hall
ten minutes ago--there's an important committee meeting there this
morning over which he has to preside. Pull yourself together,
Bent--Cotherstone may have some explanation of everything."
Mallalieu & Cotherstone's office was only a few yards away along the
street; Tallington was back from it with Cotherstone in five minutes.
And Brereton, looking closely at Cotherstone as he entered and saw who
awaited him, was certain that Cotherstone was ready for anything. A
sudden gleam of understanding came into his sharp eyes; it was as if he
said to himself that here was a moment, a situation, a 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 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?"
"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!"
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