The Borough Treasurer Page 19

  CHAPTER XIX

  A TALL MAN IN GREY CLOTHES

  That question remained unanswered, and Brereton remained silent, untilhe and Avice had reached the top of the path and had come out on theedge of the wide stretch of moorland above the little town. He pausedfor a moment and looked back on the roofs and gables of Highmarket,shining and glittering in the moonlight; the girl paused too, wonderingat his silence. And with a curious abruptness he suddenly turned, laid ahand 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 youwhat 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 saysomething to somebody whom I can trust. I can trust you!"

  "Thank you," she answered quietly. "I--I think I understand. And you'llunderstand, too, won't you, when I say--you can!"

  "That's all right," he said, cheerfully. "Of course! Now we understandeach other. Come on, then--you know the way--act as guide, and I'll tellyou as we go along."

  Avice turned off into what appeared to be no more than a sheep-trackacross the heather. Within a few minutes they were not only quite alone,but out of sight of any human habitation. It seemed to Brereton thatthey were suddenly shut into a world of their own, as utterly apart fromthe little world they had just left as one star is from another. Buteven as he thought this he saw, far away across the rising and fallingof the heather-clad undulations, the moving lights of a train that wasspeeding southward along the coast-line from Norcaster, and presentlythe long scream of a whistle from its engine came on the light breezethat blew inland from the hidden sea, and the sight and sound recalledhim to the stern realities of life.

  "Listen, then, carefully," he began. "And bear in mind that I'm puttingwhat I believe to be safety of other men in your hands. It's thisway...."

  Avice Harborough listened in absolute silence as Brereton told her hiscarefully arranged story. They walked slowly across the moor as he toldit; now dipping into a valley, now rising above the ridge of a low hill;sometimes pausing altogether as he impressed some particular point uponher. In the moonlight he could see that she was listening eagerly andintently, but she never interrupted him and never asked a question. Andat last, just as they came in sight of a light that burned in the windowof a little moorland cottage, snugly planted in a hollow beneath theridge which they were then traversing, he brought his story to an endand turned inquiringly to her.

  "There!" he said. "That's all. Now try to consider it withoutprejudice--if you can. How does it appear to you?"

  Instead of replying directly the girl walked on in silence for a momentor 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! Wonderedif--if he did kill that old man. And wondered if he tried to put theblame 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 toour cottage at times. First he came to see my father about killing therats which had got into his out-buildings. Then he made excuses--he usedto come, any way--at night. He began to come when my father was out, ashe often was. He would sit down and smoke and talk. I didn't like it--Idon't like him. Then he used to meet me in the wood in the Shawl, as Icame home from the Northrops'. I complained to my father about it andone 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. Mallalieuthat 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. Henever spoke to Mr. Mallalieu in return. He let him say his say--untilhe'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 hepointed 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 somethingthat's puzzled me a great deal--I must think it out. But at present--isthat the old woman's lamp?"

  Avice led the way down to the hollow by a narrow path which took theminto a little stone-walled enclosure where a single Scotch fir-treestood sentinel over a typical moorland homestead of the smaller sort--aone-storied house of rough stone, the roof of which was secured fromstorm and tempest by great boulders slung on stout ropes, and havingbuilt on to it an equally rough shelter for some small stock of cows andsheep. Out of a sheer habit of reflection on things newly seen, Breretoncould not avoid wondering what life was like, lived in this solitude,and in such a perfect hermitage--but his speculations were cut short bythe opening of the door set deep within the whitewashed porch. An oldwoman, much bent by age, looked out upon him and Avice, holding a smalllamp so that its light fell on their faces.

  "Come your ways in, joy!" she said hospitably. "I was expecting you'dcome up tonight: I knew you'd want to have a word with me as soon asyou 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?" askedAvice as she and Brereton stepped within the porch. "He's thelawyer-gentleman who's defending my father--you won't mind speakingbefore 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'sthe time! Come your ways in, sir--sit you down."

  She carefully closed the door on her guests and motioned them to seatsby a bright fire of turf, and then setting the lamp on the table, seatedherself in a corner of her long-settle and folding her hands in herapron took a long look at her visitors through a pair of unusually largespectacles. And Brereton, genuinely interested, took an equally longlook at her; and saw a woman who was obviously very old but whose facewas eager, intelligent, and even vivacious. As this queer old faceturned 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 foryou before now. But you see, since that affair happened down your way, Ibeen away. Aye, I been to see my daughter--as lives up the coast. And Ididn't come home till today. And I'm no hand at writing letters. Howeverhere we are, and better late than never and no doubt this lawyergentleman'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-nookat her elbow and took from it a folded newspaper.

  "Me and my daughter and her husband read this here account o' the caseagainst Harborough as it was put before the magistrates," she said. "Westudied it. Now you want to know where Harborough was on the night thatold fellow was done away with. That's it, master, what?"

  "That is it," answered Brereton, pressing his arm against Avice, who satclose at his side. "Yes, indeed! And you----"

  "I can tell you where Harborough was between nine o'clock and teno'clock that night," replied Mrs. Hamthwaite, with a smile that was notdevoid 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. Alittle 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, whythen, 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 folksbefore today," she said. "You'll want to know what I could tell before ajudge, 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, butenough. 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 usdoes that, as lives on the moor: some folks calls it poaching, but wecall it taking our own. Now then, on that night we're talking about, Iwent along to Good Folks' Lift to look at some snares I'd set early thatday. There's a good deal of bush and scrub about that place--I wasamongst the bushes when I heard steps, and I looked out and saw a tallman in grey clothes coming close by. How did I know he were in greyclothes? Why, 'cause he stopped close by me to light his pipe! But he'dhis back to me, so I didn't see his full face, only a side of it. Hewere a man with a thin, greyish beard. Well, he walks past there, notfar--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 offacross the moor towards Hexendale. And soon they were out of sight, andwhen 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 Woodbetween nine and ten o'clock that night, then Jack Harborough didn'tkill him, for Jack was up here at soon after nine, and him and the tallman 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 tenwhen I come back. My clock's always right--I set it by the almanack andthe sunrise and sunset every day--and you can't do better," assertedMrs. Hamthwaite.

  "You're equally sure about the second man being Harborough?" insistedBrereton. "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?" askedBrereton. "Can you prove that it was?"

  "Easy!" said Mrs. Hamthwaite. "The very next morning I went away to seemy daughter up the coast. I heard of the old man's murder at High GillJunction. But I didn't hear then that Harborough was suspected--didn'thear that till later on, when we read it in the newspapers."

  "And the other man--the tall man in grey clothes, who has a slightlygrey 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 Ihave seen about this here neighbourhood two or three times during thislast eighteen months or so. If you really want to know, I'm a good dealabout them moors o' nights; old as I am, I'm very active, and I go abouta goodish bit--why not? And I have seen a man about now and then--monthsbetween, as a rule--that I couldn't account for--and I believe it's thisfellow that was with Harborough."

  "And you say they went away in the direction of Hexendale?" saidBrereton. "Where is Hexendale?"

  The old woman pointed westward.

  "Inland," she answered. "Over yonder. Miss there knows Hexendale wellenough."

  "Hexendale is a valley--with a village of the same name in it--that liesabout five miles away on the other side of the moors," said Avice."There's another line of railway there--this man Mrs. Hamthwaite speaksof 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 thisagain at the proper time and place, eh?"

  "Eh, bless you, no!" answered Mrs. Hamthwaite. "I'll tell it whereveryou like, master--before Lawyer Tallington, or the magistrates, or thecrowner, or anybody! But I'll tell you what, if you'll take a bit ofadvice from an old woman--you're a sharp-looking young man, and I'lltell 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 forher 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 sentthe nine hundred pounds."

  Brereton smote his stick on the heather at their feet.

  "By George!--I never thought of that!" he exclaimed. "I shouldn'twonder!--I shouldn't wonder at all. Hooray!--we're getting nearer andnearer to something."

  But he knew that still another step was at hand--an unpleasant, painfulstep--when, on getting back to Bent's, an hour later, Bent told him thatLettie had been cajoled into fixing the day of the wedding, and that theceremony was to take place with the utmost privacy that day week.