The Borough Treasurer Page 30

  CHAPTER XXX

  COTHERSTONE

  Cotherstone walked out of the dock and the court and the Town Hallamidst a dead silence--which was felt and noticed by everybody buthimself. At that moment he was too elated, too self-satisfied to noticeanything. He held his head very high as he went out by the crowdeddoorway, and through the crowd which had gathered on the stairs; hemight have been some general returning to be publicly feted as heemerged upon the broad steps under the Town Hall portico and threw atriumphant glance at the folk who had gathered there to hear the latestnews. And there, in the open air, and with all those staring eyes uponhim, he unconsciously indulged in a characteristic action. He had causedhis best clothes to be sent to him at Norcaster Gaol the previous night,and he had appeared in them in the dock. The uppermost garment was anexpensive overcoat, finished off with a deep fur collar: now, as hestood there on the top step, facing the crowd, he unbuttoned the coat,threw its lapels aside, and took a long, deep breath, as if he wereinhaling the free air of liberty. There were one or two shrewd andobservant folk amongst the onlookers--it seemed to them that thisunconscious action typified that Cotherstone felt himself throwing offthe shackles which he had worn, metaphorically speaking, for the lasteight days.

  But in all that crowd, no one went near Cotherstone. There were many ofhis fellow-members of the Corporation in it--councillors, aldermen--butnone of them approached him or even nodded to him; all they did was tostare. The news of what had happened had quickly leaked out: it wasknown before he came into view that Cotherstone had been discharged--hisappearance in that bold, self-assured fashion only led to covertwhispers and furtive looks. But suddenly, from somewhere in the crowd, asneering voice flung a contemptuous taunt across the staring faces.

  "Well done, Cotherstone!--saved your own neck, anyway!"

  There was a ripple of jeering laughter at that, and as Cotherstoneturned angrily in the direction from whence the voice came, another,equally contemptuous, lifted itself from another corner of the crowd.

  "King's evidence! Yah!--who'd believe Cotherstone? Liar!"

  Cotherstone's face flushed angrily--the flush died as quickly away andgave place to a sickly pallor. And at that a man who had stood near himbeneath the portico, watching him inquisitively, stepped nearer andwhispered--

  "Go home, Mr. Cotherstone!--take my advice, and get quietly away, atonce!"

  Cotherstone rejected this offer of good counsel with a sudden spasm offurious anger.

  "You be hanged!" he snarled. "Who's asking you for your tongue? D'yethink I'm afraid of a pack like yon? Who's going to interfere with me,I'd like to know? Go home yourself!"

  He turned towards the door from which he had just emerged--turned to seehis solicitor and his counsel coming out together. And his sudden angerdied down, and his face relaxed to a smile of triumph.

  "Now then!" he exclaimed. "Didn't I tell you how it would be, a weeksince! Come on across to the Arms and I'll stand a bottle--aye, two,three, if you like!--of the very best. Come on, both of you."

  The solicitor, glancing around, saw something of the state of affairs,hurriedly excused himself, and slipped back into the Town Hall byanother entrance. But the barrister, a man who, great as his forensicabilities were, was one of those people who have no private reputationto lose, and of whom it was well known that he could never withstand thetemptation to a bottle of champagne, assented readily, and with greatgood humour. And he and Cotherstone, arm in arm, walked down the stepsand across the Market Place--and behind them the crowd sneered andlaughed and indulged in audible remarks.

  Cotherstone paid, or affected to pay, no heed. He steered his companioninto the Arms, and turned into the great bow-windowed room which servedas morning meeting-place for all the better class of loungers andtownsmen in Highmarket. The room was full already. Men had come acrossfrom the court, and from the crowd outside; a babel of talk arose fromevery corner. But when Cotherstone and the well-known barrister (sofamous in that circuit for his advocacy of criminals that he hadacquired the nickname of the Felons' Friend) entered, a dead silencefell, and men looked at this curious pair and then at each other withsignificant glances.

  In that silence, Cotherstone, seizing a waiter, loudly demandedchampagne and cigars: he glared defiantly around him as he supplementedthe order with a command for the best box of cigars in the house, thebest champagne in the cellars. A loud laugh from some corner of the roombroke the silence, and the waiter, a shrewd fellow who saw how thingswere, gave Cotherstone a look.

  "Come into the small parlour, Mr. Cotherstone," he whispered. "Nobody inthere--you'll be more comfortable, sir."

  "All right, then," responded Cotherstone. He glared once more at thecompany around him, and his defiance suddenly broke out in anotherfashion. "Any friend of mine that likes to join us," he said pointedly,"is welcome. Who's coming, like?"

  There was another hoarse laugh at this, and most of the men there turnedtheir backs on Cotherstone and began to talk loudly. But one or two ofthe less particular and baser sort, whom Cotherstone would certainly nothave called friends a week before, nudged each other and made towardsthe door which the waiter held invitingly open--it was not every daythat the best champagne and the best cigars were to be had for nothing,and if Cotherstone liked to fling his money about, what did it matter,so long as they benefited by his folly?

  "That's the style!" said Cotherstone, pushing the barrister along."Bring two--bring three bottles," he cried to the waiter. "Big'uns!--and the best."

  An elderly man, one of Cotherstone's fellow-members of the Corporation,came forward and caught him by the arm.

  "Cotherstone!" he whispered. "Don't be a fool! Think of what's only justover. Go home, like a good fellow--go quietly home. You're doing no goodwith this--you'll have all the town talking!"

  "Hang the town, and you too!" snapped Cotherstone. "You're one of themthat shouted at me in front of the Town Hall, curse you! I'll let youand all Highmarket see what I care for you. What's it to you if I have aquiet glass of wine with my friends?"

  But there was no quiet drinking of a glass of wine in the parlour towhich Cotherstone and his cronies retired. Whenever its door openedCotherstone's excited tones were heard in the big room, and the moresober-minded of the men who listened began to shake their heads.

  "What's the matter with him?" asked one. "Nobody ever knew him like thisbefore! What's he carrying on in that fashion for?"

  "He's excited with getting off," said another. "And that bit of a sceneoutside there threw him off his balance. He should ha' been takenstraight home. Nice lot he's got with him, too! We all know what yonbarrister chap is--he can drink champagne like water, they say, and forthe others--listen to that, now!" he added as a burst of excited talkingcame through the opened door. "He'll be in a fine fit state to go hometo that daughter of his, I know, if that goes on."

  "It mustn't go on," said another, and got up. "I'll go across to Bent'sand get him to come over and take Cotherstone away. Bent's the only manthat'll have any influence with him."

  He went out and crossed the Market Place to Bent's office. But Bent wasnot there. By his advice Lettie had gone to stay with some friends untilthe recent proceedings were over in one way or another, and Benthimself, as soon as Cotherstone had left the court, had hurried away tocatch a train to the town in which she was temporarily staying in orderto tell her the news and bring her home. So the would-be doer-of-goodwent back disappointed--and as he reached the hotel, Cotherstone and thebarrister emerged from it, parted at the door with evident greatcordiality, and went their several ways. And Cotherstone, passing theman who had been to Bent's, stared him in the face and cut him dead.

  "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 hisown circle. "He passed me just now as if I were one of the paving-stoneshe trod on! And did you see his face as he went out?--egad, instead oflooking as if he'd had too much to drink, he looked too sober to pleaseme. You mind if som
ething doesn't happen--yon fellow's desperate!"

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

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

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

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

  The excitement that had seized upon Cotherstone in face of that publictaunting of him died away in the silence of his own house--when Lettieand Bent returned home in the course of the afternoon they found himunusually cool and collected. Bent had come with uneasy feelings andapprehensions; one of the men who had been at the Highmarket Arms hadchanced to be in the station when he and Lettie arrived, and had drawnhim aside and told him of what had occurred, and that Cotherstone wasevidently going on the drink. But there were no signs of anythingunusual about Cotherstone when Bent found him. He said little about theevents of the morning to either Bent or Lettie; he merely remarked thatthings had turned out just as he had expected and that now perhaps theywould get matters settled; he had tea with them; he was busy with hisbooks and papers in his own room until supper-time; he showed no signsof 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 accumulatedcorrespondence, his manner was so ordinary that Bent saw no reason whyhe should accompany him.

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

  There was at that time in Highmarket a small and select club, having itshouse 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 becrowded that night--very well, he would go there and boldly face publicopinion. 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 thethreshold 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 deliberatelyturned him round.

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

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

  "I'm obliged to you," he said brusquely. "You mean well. But--do youmean to say that those fellows in there--men that know me--arethinking--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 andhave a cigar with me."

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

  He pressed his companion's arm, and turned away--and the other manwatching him closely, saw him walk off to the police-station, to thesuperintendent's private door. He saw him enter--and at that he shookhis head and went away himself, wondering what it was that Cotherstonewanted with the police.

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

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

  The superintendent had heard of the scene at the hotel, and had had hisfears about its sequel. But he was quick to see that his visitor was notonly sober, but remarkably cool and normal, and he hastened to offerhim a glass of whisky.

  "Aye, thank you, I will," replied Cotherstone, seating himself. "It'llbe the first spirits I've tasted since you locked me up, and I daresayit'll do me no harm. Now then," he went on as the two settled themselvesby the hearth, "I want a bit of a straight talk with you. You knowme--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. "Andyou 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 alwaysregarded 'em as very bitter-tongued folk, and so----"

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

  "Well," replied the superintendent, reluctantly, "of course I get tohear everything. If you must have it, the prevailing notion is that bothyou and Mr. Mallalieu had a hand in Kitely's death. They think hismurder's at your doors, and that what happened to Stoner was aby-chance. And if you want the whole truth, they think you're a dealcleverer than Mallalieu, and that Kitely probably met his end at yourhands, with your partner's connivance. And there are those who say thatif 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 orMallalieu 'ud murder a man in cold blood, as Kitely was murdered," hesaid. "As regards Stoner, I've firmly held to it that Mallalieu struckhim in a passion. But--I've always felt this--you, or Mallalieu, or bothof 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 goodnesssake, 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 willfor Kitely, for if he gets off over Stoner he'll be re-arrested on theother charge."

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

  The superintendent sighed. He was a plain, honest, simple man, andCotherstone's reason seemed a strange--even a wicked one--to him. Totell 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!" hesaid. "If you know it, get it out and be done with it. We've had enoughtrouble 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! Youremember 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 threatenedme and Mallalieu with exposure about the Wilchester affair. He wanted toblackmail us. I told Mallalieu, of course--we were both to think aboutit till next day. But I did naught but think--I didn't want exposure formy daughter's sake: I'd ha' given anything to avoid it, naturally. I hadyoung Bent and that friend of his, Brereton, to supper that night--I wasso full of thought that I went out and left 'em for an hour or more. Thetruth was I wanted to get a word with Kitely. I went up the wood at theside of my house towards Kitely's cottage--and all of a sudden I cameacross a man lying on the ground--him!--just where we found himafterwards."

  "Dead?" asked the superintendent.

  "Only just," replied Cotherstone. "But he was dead--and I saw what hadcaused his death, for I struck a match to look at him. I saw that emptypocket-book lying by--I saw a scrap of folded newspaper, too, and Ipicked it up and later, when I'd read it, I put it in a safe place--I'vetaken it from that place tonight for the first time, and it's here--youkeep it. Well--I went on, up to the cottage. The door was open--I lookedin. Yon woman, Miss Pett, was at the table by the lamp, turning oversome papers--I saw Kitely's writing on some of 'em. I stepped softly inand tapped her on the arm, and she screamed and started back. I lookedat her. 'Do you know that your master's lying dead, murdered, downamongst those trees?' I said. Then she pulled herself together, and shesort of got between me and the door. 'No, I don't!' she says. 'But if heis, I'm not surprised, for I've warned him many a time about going outafter nightfall.' I looked hard at her. 'What're you doing with hispapers there?' I says. 'Papers!' she says. 'They're naught but old billsand things that he gave me to sort.' 'That's a lie!' I says, 'thosearen't bills and I believe you know something about this, and I'm offfor the police--to tell!' Then she pushed the door to behind her andfolded her arms and looked at me. 'You tell a word,' she says, 'and I'lltell it all over the town that you and your partner's a couple ofex-convicts! I know your tale--Kitely'd no secrets from me. You stir astep to tell anybody, and I'll begin by going straight to youngBent--and I'll not stop at that, neither.' So you see where I was--I wasfrightened to death of that old affair getting out, and I knew then thatKitely 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 holdyour tongue, and I'll hold mine!' she says. 'Nobody'll accuse me, Iknow--but if you speak one word, I'll denounce you! You and your partnerare much more likely to have killed Kitely than I am!' Well, I stillstood, 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 himbe found--and say naught. But if you do, you know what to expect.' 'Nota word that I came in here, then?' I said at last. 'Nobody'll get nowords from me beyond what I choose to give 'em', she says. 'And--silenceabout the other?' I said. 'Just as long as you're silent,' she says. Andwith that I walked out--and I set off towards home by another way. Andjust as I was leaving the wood to turn into the path that leads into ourlane I heard a man coming along and I shrank into some shrubs andwatched for him till he came close up. He passed me and went on to thecottage--and I slipped back then and looked in through the window, andthere he was, and they were both whispering together at the table. Andit--was this woman's nephew--Pett, the lawyer."

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

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

  "Tell you he was there _that_ night!" insisted Cotherstone. "D'ye thinkI could mistake him? Well, I went home--and you know what happenedafterwards: you know what she said and how she behaved when we wentup--and of course I played my part. But--that bit of newspaper I'vegiven you. I read it carefully that night, last thing. It's a column cutout of a Woking newspaper of some years ago--it's to do with an inquestin which this woman was concerned--there seems to be some evidence thatshe got rid of an employer of hers by poison. And d'ye know what Ithink, now?--I think that had been sent to Kitely, and he'd plagued herabout 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. "Andthere's her nephew with her, now--been here for a week? Of course, Iunderstand why you've told me all this, Mr. Cotherstone--now that yourold affair at Wilchester is common knowledge, far and wide, you don'tcare, and you don't see any reason for more secrecy?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "You keep back, Mr. Cotherstone, when I go to the door," he said. "Younever know--hullo, what's this?"

  Men were coming up the wood behind them, quietly bu
t quickly. One ofthem, ahead of the others, carried a bull's-eye lamp and in swinging itabout revealed himself as one of the superintendent's own officers. Hecaught 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 Ibrought them----"

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

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

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