The Borough Treasurer

J >> Joseph Smith Fletcher >> The Borough Treasurer

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"We'll settle all that when you've handed the money over," said Miss
Pett. "I haven't counted it yet."

There was a certain unwillingness in Christopher Pett's manner as he
slowly produced a stout pocket-book and took from it a thick wad of
bank-notes. He pushed this across to his aunt, with a tiny heap of
silver and copper.

"Well, I'm trusting to you, you know," he said a little doubtfully.
"Don't forget that I've done well for you."

Miss Pett made no answer. She had taken a pair of spectacles from her
pocket, and with these perched on the bridge of her sharp nose she
proceeded to count the notes, while her nephew alternately sipped at his
toddy and stroked his chin, meanwhile eyeing his relative's proceedings
with somewhat rueful looks.

"Three thousand, four hundred and seventeen pounds, five shillings and
elevenpence," and Miss Pett calmly. "And them costs, now, and the
expenses--how much do they come to, Chris?"

"Sixty-one, two, nine," answered Christopher, passing one of his papers
across the table with alacrity. "You'll find it quite right--I did it as
cheap as possible for you."

Miss Pett set her elbow on her heap of bank-notes while she examined the
statement. That done, she looked over the tops of her spectacles at the
expectant Christopher.

"Well, about that commission," she said. "Of course, you know, Chris,
you oughtn't to charge me what you'd charge other folks. You ought to do
it very reasonable indeed for me. What were you thinking of, now?"

"I got the top price," remarked Christopher reflectively. "I got you
quite four hundred more than the market price. How would--how would five
per cent. be, now?"

Miss Pett threw up the gay turban with a toss of surprise.

"Five per cent!" she ejaculated. "Christopher Pett!--whatever are you
talking about? Why, that 'ud be a hundred and seventy pound! Eh,
dear!--nothing of the sort--it 'ud be as good as robbery. I'm astonished
at you."

"Well, how much, then?" growled Christopher. "Hang it all!--don't be
close with your own nephew."

"I'll give you a hundred pounds--to include the costs," said Miss Pett
firmly. "Not a penny more--but," she added, bending forward and nodding
her head towards that half of the cottage wherein Mallalieu slumbered so
heavily, "I'll give you something to boot--an opportunity of feathering
your nest out of--him!"

Christopher's face, which had clouded heavily, lightened somewhat at
this, and he too glanced at the door.

"Will it be worth it?" he asked doubtfully. "What is there to be got out
of him if he's flying from justice? He'll carry naught--and he can't get
at anything that he has, either."

Miss Pett gave vent to a queer, dry chuckle; the sound of her laughter
always made her nephew think of the clicking of machinery that badly
wanted oiling.

"He's heaps o' money on him!" she whispered. "After he dropped off
tonight I went through his pockets. We've only got to keep a tight hold
on him to get as much as ever we like! So--put your hundred in your
pocket, and we'll see about the other affair tomorrow."

"Oh, well, of course, in that case!" said Christopher. He picked up the
banknote which his aunt pushed towards him and slipped it into his
purse. "We shall have to play on his fears a bit, you know," he
remarked.

"I think we shall be equal to it--between us," answered Miss Pett drily.
"Them big, flabby men's easy frightened."

Mallalieu was certainly frightened when he woke suddenly next morning to
find Miss Pett standing at the side of his bed. He glared at her for one
instant of wild alarm and started up on his pillows. Miss Pett laid one
of her claw-like hands on his shoulder.

"Don't alarm yourself, mister," she said. "All's safe, and here's
something that'll do you good--a cup of nice hot coffee--real Mocha, to
which the late Kitely was partial--with a drop o'rum in it. Drink
it--and you shall have your breakfast in half an hour. It's past nine
o'clock."

"I must have slept very sound," said Mallalieu, following his gaoler's
orders. "You say all's safe? Naught heard or seen?"

"All's safe, all's serene," replied Miss Pett. "And you're in luck's
way, for there's my nephew Christopher arrived from London, to help me
about settling my affairs and removing my effects from this place, and
he's a lawyer and'll give you good advice."

Mallalieu growled a little. He had seen Mr. Christopher Pett and he was
inclined to be doubtful of him.

"Is he to be trusted?" he muttered. "I expect he'll have to be squared,
too!"

"Not beyond reason," replied Miss Pett. "We're not unreasonable people,
our family. He's a very sensible young man, is Christopher. The late
Kitely had a very strong opinion of his abilities."

Mallalieu had no doubt of Mr. Christopher Pett's abilities in a certain
direction after he had exchanged a few questions and answers with that
young gentleman. For Christopher was shrewd, sharp, practical and
judicial.

"It's a very dangerous and--you'll excuse plain speaking under the
circumstances, sir--very foolish thing that you've done, Mr. Mallalieu,"
he said, as he and the prisoner sat closeted together in the still
shuttered and curtained parlour-bedroom. "The mere fact of your making
your escape, sir, is what some would consider a proof of guilt--it is
indeed! And of course my aunt--and myself, in my small way--we're
running great risks, Mr. Mallalieu--we really are--great risks!"

"Now then, you'll not lose by me," said Mallalieu. "I'm not a man of
straw."

"All very well, sir," replied Christopher, "but even if you were a
millionaire and recompensed us on what I may term a princely scale--not
that we shall expect it, Mr. Mallalieu--the risks would be
extraordinary--ahem! I mean will be extraordinary. For you see, Mr.
Mallalieu, there's two or three things that's dead certain. To start
with, sir, it's absolutely impossible for you to get away from here by
yourself--you can't do it!"

"Why not?" growled Mallalieu. "I can get away at nightfall."

"No, sir," affirmed Christopher stoutly. "I saw the condition of the
moors last night. Patrolled, Mr. Mallalieu, patrolled! By men with
lights. That patrolling, sir, will go on for many a night. Make up your
mind, Mr. Mallalieu, that if you set foot out of this house, you'll see
the inside of Norcaster Gaol before two hours is over!"

"What do you advise, then?" demanded Mallalieu. "Here!--I'm fairly in
for it, so I'll tell you what my notion was. If I can once get to a
certain part of Norcaster, I'm safe. I can get away to the Continent
from there."

"Then, sir," replied Christopher, "the thing is to devise a plan by
which you can be conveyed to Norcaster without suspicion. That'll have
to be arranged between me and my aunt--hence our risks on your behalf."

"Your aunt said she'd a plan," remarked Mallalieu.

"Not quite matured, sir," said Christopher. "It needs a little
reflection and trimming, as it were. Now what I advise, Mr. Mallalieu,
is this--you keep snug here, with my aunt as sentinel--she assures me
that even if the police--don't be frightened, sir!--did come here, she
could hide you quite safely before ever she opened the door to them. As
for me, I'll go, casual-like, into the town, and do a bit of quiet
looking and listening. I shall be able to find out how the land lies,
sir--and when I return I'll report to you, and the three of us will put
our heads together."

Leaving the captive in charge of Miss Pett, Christopher, having brushed
his silk hat and his overcoat and fitted on a pair of black kid gloves,
strolled solemnly into Highmarket. He was known to a few people there,
and he took good care to let those of his acquaintance who met him hear
that he had come down to arrange his aunt's affairs, and to help in the
removal of the household goods bequeathed to her by the deceased Kitely.
In proof of this he called in at the furniture remover's, to get an
estimate of the cost of removal to Norcaster Docks--thence, said
Christopher, the furniture could be taken by sea to London, where Miss
Pett intended to reside in future. At the furniture remover's, and in
such other shops as he visited, and in the bar-parlour of the Highmarket
Arms, where he stayed an hour or so, gossiping with the loungers, and
sipping a glass or two of dry sherry, Christopher picked up a great deal
of information. And at noon he returned to the cottage, having learned
that the police and everybody in Highmarket firmly believed that
Mallalieu had got clear and clean away the night before, and was already
far beyond pursuit. The police theory was that there had been collusion,
and that immediately on his escape he had been whirled off by some
person to whose identity there was as yet no clue.

But Christopher Pett told a very different story to Mallalieu. The
moors, he said, were being patrolled night and day: it was believed the
fugitive was in hiding in one of the old quarries. Every road and
entrance to Norcaster, and to all the adjacent towns and stations, was
watched and guarded. There was no hope for Mallalieu but in the kindness
and contrivance of the aunt and the nephew, and Mallalieu recognized the
inevitable and was obliged to yield himself to their tender mercies.

CHAPTER XXV

NO FURTHER EVIDENCE

While Mallalieu lay captive in the stronghold of Miss Pett, Cotherstone
was experiencing a quite different sort of incarceration in the
detention cells of Norcaster Gaol. Had he known where his partner was,
and under what circumstances Mallalieu had obtained deliverance from
official bolts and bars, Cotherstone would probably have laughed in his
sleeve and sneered at him for a fool. He had been calling Mallalieu a
fool, indeed, ever since the previous evening, when the police,
conducting him to Norcaster, had told him of the Mayor's escape from the
Town Hall. Nobody but an absolute fool, a consummate idiot, thought
Cotherstone, would have done a thing like that. The man who flies is the
man who has reason to fly--that was Cotherstone's opinion, and in his
belief ninety-nine out of every hundred persons in Highmarket would
share it. Mallalieu would now be set down as guilty--they would say he
dared not face things, that he knew he was doomed, that his escape was
the desperate act of a conscious criminal. Ass!--said Cotherstone, not
without a certain amount of malicious delight: they should none of them
have reason to say such things of him. He would make no attempt to
fly--no, not if they left the gate of Norcaster Gaol wide open to him!
It should be his particular care to have himself legally cleared--his
acquittal should be as public as the proceedings which had just taken
place. He went out of the dock with that resolve strong on him; he
carried it away to his cell at Norcaster; he woke in the morning with
it, stronger than ever. Cotherstone, instead of turning tail, was going
to fight--for his own hand.

As a prisoner merely under detention, Cotherstone had privileges of
which he took good care to avail himself. Four people he desired to see,
and must see at once, on that first day in gaol--and he lost no time in
making known his desires. One--and the most important--person was a
certain solicitor in Norcaster who enjoyed a great reputation as a sharp
man of affairs. Another--scarcely less important--was a barrister who
resided in Norcaster, and had had it said of him for a whole generation
that he had restored more criminals to society than any man of his
profession then living. And the other two were his own daughter and
Windle Bent. Them he must see--but the men of law first.

When the solicitor and the barrister came, Cotherstone talked to them as
he had never talked to anybody in his life. He very soon let them see
that he had two definite objects in sending for them: the first was to
tell them in plain language that money was of no consideration in the
matter of his defence; the second, that they had come there to hear him
lay down the law as to what they were to do. Talk he did, and they
listened--and Cotherstone had the satisfaction of seeing that they went
away duly impressed with all that he had said to them. He went back to
his cell from the room in which this interview had taken place
congratulating himself on his ability.

"I shall be out of this, and all'll be clear, a week today!" he assured
himself. "We'll see where that fool of a Mallalieu is by then! For he'll
not get far, nor go hidden for thirty years, this time."

He waited with some anxiety to see his daughter, not because he must see
her within the walls of a prison, but because he knew that by that time
she would have learned the secrets of that past which he had kept so
carefully hidden from her. Only child of his though she was, he felt
that Lettie was not altogether of his sort; he had often realized that
she was on a different mental plane from his own, and was also, in some
respects, a little of a mystery to him. How would she take all
this?--what would she say?--what effect would it have on her?--he
pondered these questions uneasily while he waited for her visit.

But if Cotherstone had only known it, he need have suffered no anxiety
about Lettie. It had fallen to Bent to tell her the sad news the
afternoon before, and Bent had begged Brereton to go up to the house
with him. Bent was upset; Brereton disliked the task, though he
willingly shared in it. They need have had no anxiety, either. For
Lettie listened calmly and patiently until the whole story had been
told, showing neither alarm, nor indignation, nor excitement; her
self-composure astonished even Bent, who thought, having been engaged
to her for twelve months, that he knew her pretty well.

"I understand exactly," said Lettie, when, between them, they had told
her everything, laying particular stress on her father's version of
things. "It is all very annoying, of course, but then it is quite
simple, isn't it? Of course, Mr. Mallalieu has been the guilty person
all through, and poor father has been dragged into it. But then--all
that you have told me has only to be put before the--who is
it?--magistrates?--judges?--and then, of course, father will be entirely
cleared, and Mr. Mallalieu will be hanged. Windle--of course we shall
have to put off the wedding?"

"Oh, of course!" agreed Bent. "We can't have any weddings until all this
business is cleared up."

"That'll be so much better," said Lettie. "It really was becoming an
awful rush."

Brereton glanced at Bent when they left the house.

"I congratulate you on having a fiancee of a well-balanced mind, old
chap!" he said. "That was--a relief!"

"Oh, Lettie's a girl of singularly calm and equable temperament,"
answered Bent. "She's not easily upset, and she's quick at sizing things
up. And I say, Brereton, I've got to do all I can for Cotherstone, you
know. What about his defence?"

"I should imagine that Cotherstone is already arranging his defence
himself," said Brereton. "He struck me during that talk this morning at
Tailington's as being very well able to take care of himself, Bent, and
I think you'll find when you visit him that he's already fixed things.
You won't perhaps see why, and I won't explain just now, but this
foolish running away of Mallalieu, who, of course, is sure to be caught,
is very much in Cotherstone's favour. I shall be much surprised if you
don't find Cotherstone in very good spirits, and if there aren't
developments in this affair within a day or two which will impress the
whole neighbourhood."

Bent, visiting the prisoner in company with Lettie next day, found
Brereton's prediction correct. Cotherstone, hearing from his daughter's
own lips what she herself thought of the matter, and being reassured
that all was well between Bent and her, became not merely confident but
cheerily boastful. He would be free, and he would be cleared by that day
next week--he was not sorry, he said, that at last all this had come
out, for now he would be able to get rid of an incubus that had weighted
him all his life.

"You're very confident, you know," remarked Bent.

"Not beyond reason," asserted Cotherstone doggedly. "You wait till
tomorrow!"

"What is there tomorrow?" asked Bent.

"The inquest on Stoner is tomorrow," replied Cotherstone. "You be
there--and see and hear what happens."

All of Highmarket population that could cram itself into the Coroner's
court was there next day when the adjourned inquest on the clerk's death
was held. Neither Bent nor Brereton nor Tallington had any notion of
what line was going to be taken by Cotherstone and his advisers, but
Tallington and Brereton exchanged glances when Cotherstone, in charge
of two warders from Norcaster, was brought in, and when the Norcaster
solicitor and the Norcaster barrister whom he had retained, shortly
afterwards presented themselves.

"I begin to foresee," whispered Tallington. "Clever!--devilish clever!"

"Just so," agreed Brereton, with a sidelong nod at the crowded seats
close by. "And there's somebody who's interested because it's going to
be devilish clever--that fellow Pett!"

Christopher Pett was there, silk hat, black kid gloves and all, not
afraid of being professionally curious. Curiosity was the order of the
day: everybody present--of any intelligent perception--wanted to know
what the presence of Cotherstone, one of the two men accused of the
murder of Stoner, signified. But it was some little time before any
curiosity was satisfied. The inquest being an adjourned one, most of the
available evidence had to be taken, and as a coroner has a wide field in
the calling of witnesses, there was more evidence produced before him
and his jury than before the magistrates. There was Myler, of course,
and old Pursey, and the sweethearting couple: there were other
witnesses, railway folks, medical experts, and townspeople who could
contribute some small quota of testimony. But all these were forgotten
when at last Cotherstone, having been duly warned by the coroner that he
need not give any evidence at all, determinedly entered the
witness-box--to swear on oath that he was witness to his partner's
crime.

Nothing could shake Cotherstone's evidence. He told a plain,
straightforward story from first to last. He had no knowledge whatever
of Stoner's having found out the secret of the Wilchester affair. He
knew nothing of Stoner's having gone over to Darlington. On the Sunday
he himself had gone up the moors for a quiet stroll. At the spinney
overhanging Hobwick Quarry he had seen Mallalieu and Stoner, and had at
once noticed that something in the shape of a quarrel was afoot. He saw
Mallalieu strike heavily at Stoner with his oak stick--saw Mallalieu, in
a sudden passion, kick the stick over the edge of the quarry, watched
him go down into the quarry and eventually leave it. He told how he
himself had gone after the stick, recovered it, taken it home, and had
eventually told the police where it was. He had never spoken to
Mallalieu on that Sunday--never seen him except under the circumstances
just detailed.

The astute barrister who represented Cotherstone had not troubled the
Coroner and his jury much by asking questions of the various witnesses.
But he had quietly elicited from all the medical men the definite
opinion that death had been caused by the blow. And when Cotherstone's
evidence was over, the barrister insisted on recalling the two
sweethearts, and he got out of them, separately (each being excluded
from the court while the other gave evidence), that they had not seen
Mallalieu and Cotherstone together, that Mallalieu had left the quarry
some time before they saw Cotherstone, and that when Mallalieu passed
them he seemed to be agitated and was muttering to himself, whereas in
Cotherstone's manner they noticed nothing remarkable.

Brereton, watching the faces of the jurymen, all tradesmen of the town,
serious and anxious, saw the effect which Cotherstone's evidence and the
further admissions of the two sweethearts was having. And neither he nor
Tallington--and certainly not Mr. Christopher Pett--was surprised when,
in the gathering dusk of the afternoon, the inquest came to an end with
a verdict of _Wilful Murder against Anthony Mallalieu_.

"Your client is doing very well," observed Tallington to the Norcaster
solicitor as they foregathered in an ante-room.

"My client will be still better when he comes before your bench again,"
drily answered the other. "As you'll see!"

"So that's the line you're taking?" said Tallington quietly. "A good
one--for him."

"Every man for himself," remarked the Norcaster practitioner. "We're not
concerned with Mallalieu--we're concerned about ourselves. See you when
Cotherstone's brought before your worthies next Tuesday. And--a word in
your ear!--it won't be a long job, then."

Long job or short job, the Highmarket Town Hall was packed to the doors
when Cotherstone, after his week's detention, was again placed in the
dock. This time, he stood there alone--and he looked around him with
confidence and with not a few signs that he felt a sense of coming
triumph. He listened with a quiet smile while the prosecuting
counsel--sent down specially from London to take charge--discussed with
the magistrates the matter of Mallalieu's escape, and he showed more
interest when he heard some police information as to how that escape had
been effected, and that up to then not a word had been heard and no
trace found of the fugitive. And after that, as the prosecuting counsel
bent over to exchange a whispered word with the magistrates' clerk,
Cotherstone deliberately turned, and seeking out the place where Bent
and Brereton sat together, favoured them with a peculiar glance. It was
the glance of a man who wished to say "I told you!--now you'll see
whether I was right!"

"We're going to hear something--now!" whispered Brereton.

The prosecuting counsel straightened himself and looked at the
magistrates. There was a momentary hesitation on his part; a look of
expectancy on the faces of the men on the bench; a deep silence in the
crowded court. The few words that came from the counsel were sharp and
decisive.

"There will be no further evidence against the prisoner now in the dock,
your worships," he said. "The prosecution decides to withdraw the
charge."

In the buzz of excitement which followed the voice of the old chairman
was scarcely audible as he glanced at Cotherstone.

"You are discharged," he said abruptly.

Cotherstone turned and left the dock. And for the second time he looked
at Bent and Brereton in the same peculiar, searching way. Then, amidst a
dead silence, he walked out of the court.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE VIRTUES OF SUSPICION

During that week Mallalieu was to learn by sad experience that it is a
very poor thing to acquire information at second hand. There he was, a
strictly-guarded--if a cosseted and pampered--prisoner, unable to put
his nose outside the cottage, and entirely dependent on Chris Pett for
any and all news of the world which lay so close at hand and was just
then so deeply and importantly interesting to him. Time hung very
heavily on his hands. There were books enough on the shelves of his
prison-parlour, but the late Kitely's taste had been of a purely
professional nature, and just then Mallalieu had no liking for murder
cases, criminal trials, and that sort of gruesomeness. He was constantly
asking for newspapers, and was skilfully put off--it was not within
Christopher's scheme of things to let Mallalieu get any accurate notion
of what was really going on. Miss Pett did not take in a newspaper;
Christopher invariably forgot to bring one in when he went to the town;
twice, being pressed by Mallalieu to remember, he brought back _The
Times_ of the day before--wherein, of course, Mallalieu failed to find
anything about himself. And it was about himself that he so wanted to
hear, about how things were, how people talked of him, what the police
said, what was happening generally, and his only source of information
was Chris.

Mr. Pett took good care to represent everything in his own fashion. He
was assiduous in assuring Mallalieu that he was working in his interest
with might and main; jealous in proclaiming his own and his aunt's
intention to get him clear away to Norcaster. But he also never ceased
dilating on the serious nature of that enterprise, never wearied in
protesting how much risk he and Miss Pett were running; never refrained
from showing the captive how very black things were, and how much
blacker they would be if it were not for his present gaolers' goodness.
And when he returned to the cottage after the inquest on Stoner, his
face was unusually long and grave as he prepared to tell Mallalieu the
news.

"Things are looking in a very bad way for you, Mr. Mallalieu," he
whispered, when he was closeted with Mallalieu in the little room which
the captive now hated fiercely and loathingly. "They look in a very bad
way indeed, sir! If you were in any other hands than ours, Mr.
Mallalieu, I don't know what you'd do. We're running the most fearful
risks on your behalf, we are indeed. Things is--dismal!"

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