The Borough Treasurer

J >> Joseph Smith Fletcher >> The Borough Treasurer

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"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?

Those questions were speedily answered for Mallalieu. He kept his
immovable attitude, his immobile expression, while Myler told the story
of Stoner's visit to Darlington, and of the revelation which had
resulted. And nothing proved his extraordinary command over his temper
and his feelings better than the fact that as Myler narrated one damning
thing after another, he never showed the least concern or uneasiness.

But deep within himself Mallalieu was feeling a lot. He knew now that he
had been mistaken in thinking that Stoner had kept his knowledge to
himself. He also knew what line the prosecution was taking. It was
seeking to show that Stoner was murdered by Cotherstone and himself, or
by one or other, separately or in collusion, in order that he might be
silenced. But he knew more than that. Long practice and much natural
inclination had taught Mallalieu the art of thinking ahead, and he
could foresee as well as any man of his acquaintance. He foresaw the
trend of events in this affair. This was only a preliminary. The
prosecution was charging him and Cotherstone with the murder of Stoner
today: it would be charging them with the murder of Kitely tomorrow.

Myler's evidence caused a profound sensation in court--but there was
even more sensation and more excitement when Myler's father-in-law
followed him in the witness-box. It was literally in a breathless
silence that the old man told the story of the crime of thirty years
ago; it was a wonderfully dramatic moment when he declared that in spite
of the long time that had elapsed he recognized the Mallalieu and
Cotherstone of Highmarket as the Mallows and Chidforth whom he had known
at Wilchester.

Even then Mallalieu had not flinched. Cotherstone flushed, grew
restless, hung his head a little, looked as if he would like to explain.
But Mallalieu continued to stare fixedly across the court. He cared
nothing that the revelation had been made at last. Now that it had been
made, in full publicity, he did not care a brass farthing if every man
and woman in Highmarket knew that he was an ex-gaol-bird. That was far
away in the dead past--what he cared about was the present and the
future. And his sharp wits told him that if the evidence of Myler and of
old Pursey was all that the prosecution could bring against him, he was
safe. That there had been a secret, that Stoner had come into possession
of it, that Stoner was about to make profit of it, was no proof that he
and Cotherstone, or either of them, had murdered Stoner. No--if that
was all....

But in another moment Mallalieu knew that it was not all. Up to that
moment he had firmly believed that he had got away from Hobwick Quarry
unobserved. Here he was wrong. He had now to learn that a young man from
Norcaster had come over to Highmarket that Sunday afternoon to visit his
sweetheart; that this couple had gone up the moors; that they were on
the opposite side of Hobwick Quarry when he went down into it after
Stoner's fall; that they had seen him move about and finally go away;
what was more, they had seen Cotherstone descend into the quarry and
recover the stick; Cotherstone had passed near them as they stood hidden
in the bushes; they had seen the stick in his hand.

When Mallalieu heard all this and saw his stick produced and identified,
he ceased to take any further interest in that stage of the proceedings.
He knew the worst now, and he began to think of his plans and schemes.
And suddenly, all the evidence for that time being over, and the
magistrates and the officials being in the thick of some whispered
consultations about the adjournment, Mallalieu spoke for the first time.

"I shall have my answer about all this business at the right time and
place," he said loudly. "My partner can do what he likes. All I have to
say now is that I ask for bail. You can fix it at any amount you like.
You all know me."

The magistrates and the officials looked across the well of the court in
astonishment, and the chairman, a mild old gentleman who was obviously
much distressed by the revelation, shook his head deprecatingly.

"Impossible!" he remonstrated. "Quite impossible! We haven't the
power----"

"You're wrong!" retorted Mallalieu, masterful and insistent as ever.
"You have the power! D'ye think I've been a justice of the peace for
twelve years without knowing what law is? You've the power to admit to
bail in all charges of felony, at your discretion. So now then!"

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