The Borough Treasurer

J >> Joseph Smith Fletcher >> The Borough Treasurer

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"It's going to be war to the knife between Cotherstone and the town,"
remarked the ambassador, when he re-entered the big room and joined his
own circle. "He passed me just now as if I were one of the paving-stones
he trod on! And did you see his face as he went out?--egad, instead of
looking as if he'd had too much to drink, he looked too sober to please
me. You mind if something doesn't happen--yon fellow's desperate!"

"What should he be desperate about?" asked one of the group. "He's saved
his own neck!"

"It was that shouting at him when he came out that did it," observed
another man quietly. "He's the sort of man to resent aught like that. If
Cotherstone thinks public opinion's against him--well, we shall see!"

Cotherstone walked steadily away through the Market Place when he left
the barrister. Whatever the men in the big room might have thought, he
had not been indulging too freely in the little parlour. He had pressed
champagne on the group around him, but the amount he had taken himself
had not been great and it had pulled him together instead of
intoxicating him. And his excitement had suddenly died down, and he had
stopped what might have developed into a drinking bout by saying that he
must go home. And once outside, he made for his house, and as he went he
looked neither to right nor left, and if he met friend or acquaintance
his face became hard as flint.

Cotherstone, indeed, was burning and seething with indignation. The
taunts flung at him as he stood on the Town Hall steps, the looks turned
in his direction as he walked away with the convivially inclined
barrister, the expression on the faces of the men in the big room at the
Highmarket Arms--all these things had stung him to the quick. He knew,
whatever else he might have been, or was, he had proved a faithful
servant to the town. He had been a zealous member of the Corporation, he
had taken hold of the financial affairs of the borough when they were in
a bad way and had put them in a safe and prosperous footing; he had
worked, thought, and planned for the benefit of the place--and this was
his reward! For he knew that those taunts, those looks, those
half-averted, half-sneering faces meant one thing, and one thing
only--the Highmarket men believed him equally guilty with Mallalieu, and
had come to the conclusion that he was only let off in order that direct
evidence against Mallalieu might be forthcoming. He cursed them deeply
and bitterly--and sneered at them in the same breath, knowing that even
as they were weathercocks, veering this way and that at the least breath
of public opinion, so they were also utter fools, wholly unable to see
or to conjecture.

The excitement that had seized upon Cotherstone in face of that public
taunting of him died away in the silence of his own house--when Lettie
and Bent returned home in the course of the afternoon they found him
unusually cool and collected. Bent had come with uneasy feelings and
apprehensions; one of the men who had been at the Highmarket Arms had
chanced to be in the station when he and Lettie arrived, and had drawn
him aside and told him of what had occurred, and that Cotherstone was
evidently going on the drink. But there were no signs of anything
unusual about Cotherstone when Bent found him. He said little about the
events of the morning to either Bent or Lettie; he merely remarked that
things had turned out just as he had expected and that now perhaps they
would get matters settled; he had tea with them; he was busy with his
books and papers in his own room until supper-time; he showed no signs
of anything unusual at supper, and when an hour later he left the house,
saying that he must go down to the office and fetch the accumulated
correspondence, his manner was so ordinary that Bent saw no reason why
he should accompany him.

But Cotherstone had no intention of going to his office. He left his
house with a fixed determination. He would know once and for all what
Highmarket felt towards and about him. He was not the man to live under
suspicion and averted looks, and if he was to be treated as a suspect
and a pariah he would know at once.

There was at that time in Highmarket a small and select club, having its
house in the Market Place, to which all the principal townsmen belonged.
Both Mallalieu and Cotherstone had been members since its foundation;
Cotherstone, indeed, was its treasurer. He knew that the club would be
crowded that night--very well, he would go there and boldly face public
opinion. If his fellow-members cut him, gave him the cold shoulder,
ignored him--all right, he would know what to do then.

But Cotherstone never got inside the club. As he set his foot on the
threshold he met one of the oldest members--an alderman of the borough,
for whom he had a great respect. This man, at sight of him, started,
stopped, laid a friendly but firm hand on his arm, and deliberately
turned him round.

"No, my lad!" he said kindly. "Not in there tonight! If you don't know
how to take care of yourself, let a friend take care of you. Have a bit
of sense, Cotherstone! Do you want to expose yourself again to what you
got outside the Town Hall this noon! No--no!--go away, my lad, go
home--come home with me, if you like--you're welcome!"

The last word softened Cotherstone: he allowed himself to be led away
along the street.

"I'm obliged to you," he said brusquely. "You mean well. But--do you
mean to say that those fellows in there--men that know me--are
thinking--that!"

"It's a hard, censorious world, this," answered the elder man. "Leave
'em alone a bit--don't shove yourself on 'em. Come away--come home and
have a cigar with me."

"Thank you," said Cotherstone. "You wouldn't ask me to do that if you
thought as they do. Thank you! But I've something to do--and I'll go and
do it at once."

He pressed his companion's arm, and turned away--and the other man
watching him closely, saw him walk off to the police-station, to the
superintendent's private door. He saw him enter--and at that he shook
his head and went away himself, wondering what it was that Cotherstone
wanted with the police.

The superintendent, tired by a long day's work, was taking his ease with
his pipe and his glass when Cotherstone was shown into his parlour. He
started with amazement at the sight of his visitor: Cotherstone motioned
him back to his chair.

"Don't let me disturb you," said Cotherstone. "I want a word or two with
you in private--that's all."

The superintendent had heard of the scene at the hotel, and had had his
fears about its sequel. But he was quick to see that his visitor was not
only sober, but remarkably cool and normal, and he hastened to offer
him a glass of whisky.

"Aye, thank you, I will," replied Cotherstone, seating himself. "It'll
be the first spirits I've tasted since you locked me up, and I daresay
it'll do me no harm. Now then," he went on as the two settled themselves
by the hearth, "I want a bit of a straight talk with you. You know
me--we've been friends. I want you to tell me, straight, plain,
truthful--what are Highmarket folk thinking and saying about me? Come!"

The superintendent's face clouded and he shook his head.

"Well, you know what folks will be, Mr. Cotherstone!" he answered. "And
you know how very ready to say nasty things these Highmarket people are.
I'm not a Highmarket man myself, any more than you are, and I've always
regarded 'em as very bitter-tongued folk, and so----"

"Out with it!" said Cotherstone. "Let's know the truth--never mind what
tongues it comes from. What are they saying?"

"Well," replied the superintendent, reluctantly, "of course I get to
hear everything. If you must have it, the prevailing notion is that both
you and Mr. Mallalieu had a hand in Kitely's death. They think his
murder's at your doors, and that what happened to Stoner was a
by-chance. And if you want the whole truth, they think you're a deal
cleverer than Mallalieu, and that Kitely probably met his end at your
hands, with your partner's connivance. And there are those who say that
if Mallalieu's caught--as he will be--he'll split on you. That's all,
sir."

"And what do you think?" demanded Cotherstone.

The superintendent shifted uneasily in his chair.

"I've never been able to bring myself to think that either you or
Mallalieu 'ud murder a man in cold blood, as Kitely was murdered," he
said. "As regards Stoner, I've firmly held to it that Mallalieu struck
him in a passion. But--I've always felt this--you, or Mallalieu, or both
of you, know more about the Kitely affair than you've ever told!"

Cotherstone leaned forward and tapped his host on the arm.

"I do!" he said significantly. "You're right in that. I--do!"

The superintendent laid down his pipe and looked at his visitor gravely.

"Then for goodness sake, Mr. Cotherstone," he exclaimed, "for goodness
sake, tell! For as sure as we're sitting here, as things are at present,
Mallalieu 'll hang if you don't! If he doesn't hang for Stoner, he will
for Kitely, for if he gets off over Stoner he'll be re-arrested on the
other charge."

"Half an hour ago," remarked Cotherstone, "I shouldn't have minded if
Mallalieu had been hanged half a dozen times. Revenge is sweet--and I've
good reason for being revenged on Mallalieu. But now--I'm inclined to
tell the truth. Do you know why? Why--to show these Highmarket folks
that they're wrong!"

The superintendent sighed. He was a plain, honest, simple man, and
Cotherstone's reason seemed a strange--even a wicked one--to him. To
tell the truth merely to spite one's neighbour--a poor, poor reason,
when there was life at stake.

"Aye, Mr. Cotherstone, but you ought to tell the truth in any case!" he
said. "If you know it, get it out and be done with it. We've had enough
trouble already. If you can clear things up----"

"Listen!" interrupted Cotherstone. "I'll tell you all I know--privately.
If you think good, it can be put into proper form. Very well, then! You
remember the night of Kitely's murder?"

"Aye, I should think so!" said the superintendent. "Good reason to!"

"Let your mind go back to it, and to what you've since heard of it,"
said Cotherstone. "You know that on that afternoon Kitely had threatened
me and Mallalieu with exposure about the Wilchester affair. He wanted to
blackmail us. I told Mallalieu, of course--we were both to think about
it till next day. But I did naught but think--I didn't want exposure for
my daughter's sake: I'd ha' given anything to avoid it, naturally. I had
young Bent and that friend of his, Brereton, to supper that night--I was
so full of thought that I went out and left 'em for an hour or more. The
truth was I wanted to get a word with Kitely. I went up the wood at the
side of my house towards Kitely's cottage--and all of a sudden I came
across a man lying on the ground--him!--just where we found him
afterwards."

"Dead?" asked the superintendent.

"Only just," replied Cotherstone. "But he was dead--and I saw what had
caused his death, for I struck a match to look at him. I saw that empty
pocket-book lying by--I saw a scrap of folded newspaper, too, and I
picked it up and later, when I'd read it, I put it in a safe place--I've
taken it from that place tonight for the first time, and it's here--you
keep it. Well--I went on, up to the cottage. The door was open--I looked
in. Yon woman, Miss Pett, was at the table by the lamp, turning over
some papers--I saw Kitely's writing on some of 'em. I stepped softly in
and tapped her on the arm, and she screamed and started back. I looked
at her. 'Do you know that your master's lying dead, murdered, down
amongst those trees?' I said. Then she pulled herself together, and she
sort of got between me and the door. 'No, I don't!' she says. 'But if he
is, I'm not surprised, for I've warned him many a time about going out
after nightfall.' I looked hard at her. 'What're you doing with his
papers there?' I says. 'Papers!' she says. 'They're naught but old bills
and things that he gave me to sort.' 'That's a lie!' I says, 'those
aren't bills and I believe you know something about this, and I'm off
for the police--to tell!' Then she pushed the door to behind her and
folded her arms and looked at me. 'You tell a word,' she says, 'and I'll
tell it all over the town that you and your partner's a couple of
ex-convicts! I know your tale--Kitely'd no secrets from me. You stir a
step to tell anybody, and I'll begin by going straight to young
Bent--and I'll not stop at that, neither.' So you see where I was--I was
frightened to death of that old affair getting out, and I knew then that
Kitely was a liar and had told this old woman all about it, and--well,
I hesitated. And she saw that she had me, and she went on, 'You hold
your tongue, and I'll hold mine!' she says. 'Nobody'll accuse me, I
know--but if you speak one word, I'll denounce you! You and your partner
are much more likely to have killed Kitely than I am! Well, I still
stood, hesitating. 'What's to be done?' I asked at last. 'Do naught,'
she said. 'Go home, like a wise man, and know naught about it. Let him
be found--and say naught. But if you do, you know what to expect.' 'Not
a word that I came in here, then?' I said at last. 'Nobody'll get no
words from me beyond what I choose to give 'em', she says. 'And--silence
about the other?' I said. 'Just as long as you're silent,' she says. And
with that I walked out--and I set off towards home by another way. And
just as I was leaving the wood to turn into the path that leads into our
lane I heard a man coming along and I shrank into some shrubs and
watched for him till he came close up. He passed me and went on to the
cottage--and I slipped back then and looked in through the window, and
there he was, and they were both whispering together at the table. And
it--was this woman's nephew--Pett, the lawyer."

The superintendent, whose face had assumed various expressions during
this narrative, lifted his hands in amazement.

"But--but we were in and about that cottage most of that
night--afterwards!" he exclaimed. "We never saw aught of him. I know he
was supposed to come down from London the _next_ night, but----"

"Tell you he was there _that_ night!" insisted Cotherstone. "D'ye think
I could mistake him? Well, I went home--and you know what happened
afterwards: you know what she said and how she behaved when we went
up--and of course I played my part. But--that bit of newspaper I've
given you. I read it carefully that night, last thing. It's a column cut
out of a Woking newspaper of some years ago--it's to do with an inquest
in which this woman was concerned--there seems to be some evidence that
she got rid of an employer of hers by poison. And d'ye know what I
think, now?--I think that had been sent to Kitely, and he'd plagued her
about it, or held it out as a threat to her--and--what is it?"

The superintendent had risen and was taking down his overcoat.

"Do you know that this woman's leaving the town tomorrow?" he said. "And
there's her nephew with her, now--been here for a week? Of course, I
understand why you've told me all this, Mr. Cotherstone--now that your
old affair at Wilchester is common knowledge, far and wide, you don't
care, and you don't see any reason for more secrecy?"

"My reason," answered Cotherstone, with a grim smile, "is to show
Highmarket folk that they aren't so clever as they think. For the
probability is that Kitely was killed by that woman, or her nephew, or
both."

"I'm going up there with a couple of my best men, any way," said the
superintendent. "There's no time to lose if they're clearing out
tomorrow."

"I'll come with you," said Cotherstone. He waited, staring at the fire
until the superintendent had been into the adjacent police-station and
had come back to say that he and his men were ready. "What do you mean
to do?" he asked as the four of them set out. "Take them?"

"Question them first," answered the superintendent. "I shan't let them
get out of my sight, any way, after what you've told me, for I expect
you're right in your conclusions. What is it?" he asked, as one of the
two men who followed behind called him.

The man pointed down the Market Place to the doors of the
police-station.

"Two cars just pulled up there, sir," he said. "Came round the corner
just now from the Norcaster road."

The superintendent glanced back and saw two staring headlights standing
near his own door.

"Oh, well, there's Smith there," he said. "And if it's anybody wanting
me, he knows where I've gone. Come on--for aught we know these two may
have cleared out already."

But there were thin cracks of light in the living-room window of the
lonely cottage on the Shawl, and the superintendent whispered that
somebody was certainly there and still up. He halted his companions
outside the garden gate and turned to Cotherstone.

"I don't know if it'll be advisable for you to be seen," he said. "I
think our best plan'll be for me to knock at the front door and ask for
the woman. You other two go round--quietly--to the back door, and take
care that nobody gets out that way to the moors at the back--if anybody
once escapes to those moors they're as good as lost for ever on a dark
night. Go round--and when you hear me knock at the front, you knock at
the back."

The two men slipped away round the corner of the garden and through the
adjacent belt of trees, and the superintendent gently lifted the latch
of the garden gate.

"You keep back, Mr. Cotherstone, when I go to the door," he said. "You
never know--hullo, what's this?"

Men were coming up the wood behind them, quietly but quickly. One of
them, ahead of the others, carried a bull's-eye lamp and in swinging it
about revealed himself as one of the superintendent's own officers. He
caught sight of his superior and came forward.

"Mr. Brereton's here, sir, and some gentlemen from Norcaster," he said.
"They want to see you particularly--something about this place, so I
brought them----"

It was at that moment that the sound of the two revolver shots rang out
in the silence from the stillness of the cottage. And at that the
superintendent dashed forward, with a cry to the others, and began to
beat on the front door, and while his men responded with similar
knockings at the back he called loudly on Miss Pett to open.

It was Mallalieu who at last flung the door open and confronted the
amazed and wondering group clustered thickly without. Every man there
shrank back affrighted at the desperation on the cornered man's face.
But Mallalieu did not shrink, and his hand was strangely steady as he
singled out his partner and shot him dead--and just as steady as he
stepped back and turned the revolver on himself.

A moment later the superintendent snatched the bull's-eye lamp from his
man, and stepped over Mallalieu's dead body and went into the
cottage--to come back on the instant shivering and sick with shock at
the sight his startled eyes had met.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE BARRISTER'S FEE

Six months later, on a fine evening which came as the fitting close of a
perfect May afternoon, Brereton got out of a London express at Norcaster
and entered the little train which made its way by a branch line to the
very heart of the hills. He had never been back to these northern
regions since the tragedies of which he had been an unwilling witness,
and when the little train came to a point in its winding career amongst
the fell-sides and valleys from whence Highmarket could be seen, with
the tree-crowned Shawl above it, he resolutely turned his face and
looked in the opposite direction. He had no wish to see the town again;
he would have been glad to cut that chapter out of his book of memories.
Nevertheless, being so near to it, he could not avoid the recollections
which came crowding on him because of his knowledge that Highmarket's
old gables and red roofs were there, within a mile or two, had he cared
to look at them in the glint of the westering sun. No--he would never
willingly set foot in that town again!--there was nobody there now that
he had any desire to see. Bent, when the worst was over, and the strange
and sordid story had come to its end, had sold his business, quietly
married Lettie and taken her away for a long residence abroad, before
returning to settle down in London. Brereton had seen them for an hour
or two as they passed through London on their way to Paris and Italy,
and had been more than ever struck by young Mrs. Bent's philosophical
acceptance of facts. Her father, in Lettie's opinion, had always been a
deeply-wronged and much injured man, and it was his fate to have
suffered by his life-long connexion with that very wicked person,
Mallalieu: he had unfortunately paid the penalty at last--and there was
no more to be said about it. It might be well, thought Brereton, that
Bent's wife should be so calm and equable of temperament, for Bent, on
his return to England, meant to go in for politics, and Lettie would
doubtless make an ideal help-meet for a public man. She would face
situations with a cool head and a well-balanced judgment--and so, in
that respect, all was well. All the same, Brereton had a strong notion
that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Bent would ever revisit Highmarket.

As for himself, his thoughts went beyond Highmarket--to the place
amongst the hills which he had never seen. After Harborough's due
acquittal Brereton, having discharged his task, had gone back to London.
But ever since then he had kept up a regular correspondence with Avice,
and he knew all the details of the new life which had opened up for her
and her father with the coming of Mr. Wraythwaite of Wraye. Her letters
were full of vivid descriptions of Wraye itself, and of the steward's
house in which she and Harborough--now appointed steward and agent to
his foster-brother's estate--had taken up their residence. She had a
gift of description, and Brereton had gained a good notion of Wraye from
her letters--an ancient and romantic place, set amongst the wild hills
of the Border, lonely amidst the moors, and commanding wide views of
river and sea. It was evidently the sort of place in which a lover of
open spaces, such as he knew Avice to be, could live an ideal life. But
Brereton had travelled down from London on purpose to ask her to leave
it.

He had come at last on a sudden impulse, unknown to any one, and
therefore unexpected. Leaving his bag at the little station in the
valley at which he left the train just as the sun was setting behind the
surrounding hills, he walked quickly up a winding road between groves of
fir and pine towards the great grey house which he knew must be the
place into which the man from Australia had so recently come under
romantic circumstances. At the top of a low hill he paused and looked
about him, recognizing the scenes from the descriptions which Avice had
given him in her letters. There was Wraye itself--a big, old-world
place, set amongst trees at the top of a long park-like expanse of
falling ground; hills at the back, the sea in the far distance. The
ruins of an ancient tower stood near the house; still nearer to
Brereton, in an old-fashioned flower garden, formed by cutting out a
plateau on the hillside, stood a smaller house which he knew--also from
previous description--to be the steward's. He looked long at this before
he went nearer to it, hoping to catch the flutter of a gown amongst the
rose-trees already bright with bloom. And at last, passing through the
rose-trees he went to the stone porch and knocked--and was half-afraid
lest Avice herself should open the door to him. Instead, came; a
strapping, redcheeked North-country lass who stared at this evident
traveller from far-off parts before she found her tongue. No--Miss Avice
wasn't in, she was down the garden, at the far end.

Brereton hastened down the garden; turned a corner; they met
unexpectedly. Equally unexpected, too, was the manner of their meeting.
For these two had been in love with each other from an early stage of
their acquaintance, and it seemed only natural now that when at last
they touched hands, hand should stay in hand. And when two young people
hold each other's hands, especially on a Springtide evening, and under
the most romantic circumstances and surroundings, lips are apt to say
more than tongues--which is as much as to say that without further
preface these two expressed all they had to say in their first kiss.

Nevertheless, Brereton found his tongue at last. For when he had taken a
long and searching look at the girl and had found in her eyes what he
sought, he turned and looked at wood, hill, sky, and sea.

"This is all as you described it" he said, with his arm round her, "and
yet the first real thing I have to say to you now that I am here is--to
ask you to leave it!"

She smiled at that and again put her hand in his.

"But--we shall come back to it now and then--together!" she said.

THE END

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