The Borough Treasurer

Halfway along the north side of the main street of Highmarket an ancient stone gateway, imposing enough to suggest that it was originally the entrance to some castellated mansion or manor house, gave access to a square yard, flanked about by equally ancient buildings. What those buildings had been used for in other days was not obvious to the casual and careless observer, but to the least observant their present use was obvious enough. Here were piles of timber from Norway; there were stacks of slate from Wales; here was marble from Aberdeen, and there cement from Portland: the old chambers of the grey buildings were filled to overflowing with all the things that go towards making a house⁠—ironwork, zinc, lead, tiles, great coils of piping, stores of domestic appliances. And on a shining brass plate, set into the wall, just within the gateway, were deeply engraven the words: Mallalieu and Cotherstone, Builders and Contractors.

Whoever had walked into Mallalieu & Cotherstone’s yard one October afternoon a few years ago would have seen Mallalieu and Cotherstone in person. The two partners had come out of their office and gone down the yard to inspect half a dozen new carts, just finished, and now drawn up in all the glory of fresh paint. Mallalieu had designed those carts himself, and he was now pointing out their advantages to Cotherstone, who was more concerned with the bookkeeping and letter-writing side of the business than with its actual work.

“Yes,” he said, “yes⁠—five-and-twenty years. You and your partner, both. Yes⁠—it’ll be just about thirty years since I first saw you. But⁠—you’ve forgotten.”

Cotherstone, who had been lounging forward, warming his hands at the fire, suddenly sat straight up in his chair. His face, always sharp seemed to grow sharper as he turned to his visitor with a questioning look.

“Since⁠—what?” he demanded.

“Since I first saw you⁠—and Mr. Mallalieu,” replied Kitely. “As I say, you’ve forgotten. But⁠—I haven’t.”

Cotherstone sat staring at his tenant for a full minute of speechlessness. Then he slowly rose, walked over to the door, looked at it to see that it was closed, and returning to the hearth, fixed his eyes on Kitely.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Just what I say,” answered Kitely, with a dry laugh. “It’s thirty years since I first saw you and Mallalieu. That’s all.”

“Where?” demanded Cotherstone.

Kitely motioned his landlord to sit down. And Cotherstone sat down⁠—trembling. His arm shook when Kitely laid a hand on it.

“Do you want to know where?” he asked, bending close to Cotherstone. “I’ll tell you. In the dock⁠—at Wilchester Assizes. Eh?”

Cotherstone made no answer. He had put the tips of his fingers together, and now he was tapping the nails of one hand against the nails of the other. And he stared and stared at the face so close to his own⁠—as if it had been the face of a man resurrected from the grave.

Cotherstone set down the cigars and opened the dining-room door. A youngish, fresh-coloured man, who looked upset and startled, came out of the hall, glancing round him inquiringly.

“Sorry to intrude, Mr. Cotherstone,” he said. “I say!⁠—that old gentleman you let the cottage to⁠—Kitely, you know.”

“What of him?” demanded Cotherstone sharply.

“He’s lying there in the coppice above your house⁠—I stumbled over him coming through there just now,” replied Garthwaite. “He⁠—don’t be frightened, Miss Cotherstone⁠—he’s⁠—well, there’s no doubt of it⁠—he’s dead! And⁠—”

“And⁠—what?” asked Cotherstone. “What, man? Out with it!”

“And I should say, murdered!” said Garthwaite. “I⁠—yes, I just saw enough to say that. Murdered⁠—without a doubt!”

A tense silence fell⁠—broken by the crackling of the wood in the grate, which the charwoman had at last succeeded in stirring into a blaze, and by the rattling of the fire-irons which she now arranged in the fender. Everybody was watching the suspected man, and nobody as keenly as Brereton. And Brereton saw that a deadlock was at hand. A strange look of obstinacy and hardness came into Harborough’s eyes, and he shook his head.

“No!” he answered. “I shan’t say! The truth’ll come out in good time without that. It’s not necessary for me to say. Where I was during the night is my business⁠—nobody else’s.”

“You’ll not tell?” asked Mallalieu.

“I shan’t tell,” replied Harborough.

“You’re in danger, you know,” said Mallalieu.

“In your opinion,” responded Harborough, doggedly. “Not in mine! There’s law in this country. You can arrest me, if you like⁠—but you’ll have your work set to prove that I killed yon old man. No, sir! But⁠—” here he paused, and looking round him, laughed almost maliciously “⁠—but I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he went on. “I’ll tell you this, if it’ll do you any good⁠—if I liked to say the word, I could prove my innocence down to the ground! There!”

“And you won’t say that word?” asked Mallalieu.

But Miss Pett presently moved forward, holding Mallalieu as a nurse might hold an unwilling child. She led him cautiously through the trees, which there became thicker, she piloted him carefully down a path, and into a shrubbery⁠—she drew him through a gap in a hedgerow, and Mallalieu knew then that they were in the kitchen garden at the rear of old Kitely’s cottage. Quietly and stealthily, moving herself as if her feet were shod with velvet, Miss Pett made her way with her captive to the door; Mallalieu heard the rasping of a key in a lock, the lifting of a latch; then he was gently but firmly pushed into darkness. Behind him the door closed⁠—a bolt was shot home.

“This way!” whispered Miss Pett. She drew him after her along what he felt to be a passage, twisted him to the left through another doorway, and then, for the first time since she had assumed charge of him, released his wrist. “Wait!” she said. “We’ll have a light presently.”

Mallalieu stood where she had placed him, impatient of everything, but feeling powerless to move. He heard Miss Pett move about; he heard the drawing to and barring of shutters, the swish of curtains being pulled together; then the spurt and glare of a match⁠—in its feeble flame he saw Miss Pett’s queer countenance, framed in an odd-shaped, old-fashioned poke bonnet, bending towards a lamp. In the gradually increasing light of that lamp Mallalieu looked anxiously around him.