"Well?" demanded Avice.
"All right, misswe're going," said the sergeant. "But if your father comes in, just ask him to step down to the police-station, d'you see?I should like to have a word or two with him."
The girl made no answer to this gentle request, and when the sergeant had joined the others, she shut the door of the cottage, and Brereton heard it locked and bolted.
"That's about the strangest thing of all!" he said as he and Bent left the policemen and turned down a by-lane which led towards the town. "I haven't a doubt that the piece of cord with which Kitely was strangled was cut off that coil! Now what does it mean? Of course, to me it's the very surest proof that this man Harborough had nothing to do with the murder."
"Why?" asked Bent.
"Why? My dear fellow!" exclaimed Brereton. "Do you really think that any man who was in possession of his senses would do such a thing? Take a piece of cord from a coilleave the coil where anybody could find itstrangle a man with the severed piece and leave it round the victim's neck? Absurd! Noa thousand times no!"
"Welland what then?" asked Bent.
"Ah! Somebody cut that piece offfor the use it was put to," answered Brereton. "Butwho?"
Bent made no reply for a while. Then, as they reached the outskirts of the town, he clapped a hand on his companion's arm.
"You're forgetting somethingin spite of your legal mind," he said. "The murderer may have been interrupted before he could remove it. And in that case"
He stopped suddenly as a gate opened in the wall of a garden which they were just passing, and a tall man emerged. In the light of the adjacent lamp Bent recognized Mallalieu. Mallalieu, too, recognized him, and stopped.
"Oh, that you, Mr. Mayor!" exclaimed Bent. "I was just wondering whether to drop in on you as I passed. Have you heard what's happened tonight?"
"Heard naught," replied Mallalieu. "I've just been having a hand at whist with Councillor Northrop and his wife and daughter. What has happened, then?"
They were all three walking towards the town by that time, and Bent slipped between Brereton and Mallalieu and took the Mayor's arm.
"Murder's happened," he said. "That's the plain truth of it. You know old Kitelyyour partner's tenant? Well, somebody's killed him."
The effect of this announcement on Mallalieu was extraordinary. Bent felt the arm into which he had just slipped his own literally quiver with a spasmodic response to the astonished brain; the pipe which Mallalieu was smoking fell from his lips; out of his lips came something very like a cry of dismay.
"God bless me!" he exclaimed. "You don't say so?"
"It's a fact," said Bent. He stopped and picked up the fallen pipe. "Sorry I let it out so clumsilyI didn't think it would affect you like that. But there it isKitely's been murdered. Strangled!"
"Strangled!" echoed Mallalieu. "Deardeardear! When was this, now?"
"Within the hour," replied Bent. "Mr. Brereton herea friend of mine from Londonand I were spending the evening at your partner's, when that neighbour of his, Garthwaite, came running in to tell Mr. Cotherstone that Kitely was lying dead on the Shawl. Of course we all went up."
"Thenyou've seen him?" demanded Mallalieu. "There's no doubt about it?"
"Doubt!" exclaimed Bent. "I should think there is no doubt! As determined a murder as ever I heard of. Nothere's no doubt."
Mallalieu pausedat the gate of his own house.
"Come in, gentlemen," he said. "Come in just a minute, anyway. Iegad it's struck me all of a heap, has that news! Murder?there hasn't been such a thing in these parts ever since I came here, near thirty years ago. Come in and tell me a bit more about it."
He led the way up a gravelled drive, admitted himself and his visitors to the house with a latchkey, and turned into a parlour where a fire burned and a small supper-tray was set out on a table beneath a lamp.
"All my folks'll have gone to bed," he said. "They go and leave me a bite of something, you seeI'm often out late. Will you gentlemen have a sandwichor a dry biscuit? Well, you'll have a drink, then. And so," he went on, as he produced glasses from the sideboard, "and so you were spending the evening with Cotherstone, what?"
"Well, I can't say that we exactly spent all the evening with him," answered Bent, "because he had to go out for a good part of it, on business. But we were with himwe were at his housewhen the news came."
"Aye, he had to go out, had he?" asked Mallalieu, as if from mere curiosity. "What time would that be, like? I knew he'd business tonightbusiness of ours."
"Nine to ten, roughly speaking," replied Bent. "He'd just got in when Garthwaite came with the news."
"It 'ud shock him, of course," suggested Mallalieu. "His own tenant!"
"Yesit was a shock," agreed Bent. He took the glass which his host handed to him and sat down. "We'd better tell you all about it," he said. "It's a queer affairMr. Brereton here, who's a barrister, thinks it's a very queer affair."
Mallalieu nodded and sat down, too, glass in hand. He listened attentivelyand Brereton watched him while he listened. A sleek, sly, observant, watchful man, this, said Brereton to himselfthe sort that would take all in and give little out. And he waited expectantly to hear what Mallalieu would say when he had heard everything.
Mallalieu turned to him when Bent had finished.
"I agree with you, sir," he said. "Nobody but a fool would have cut that piece of cord off, left it round the man's neck, and left the coil hanging where anybody could find it. And that man Harborough's no fool! This isn't his job, Bent. No!"
"Whose, then?" asked Bent.
Mallalieu suddenly drank off the contents of his glass and rose.
"As I'm chief magistrate, I'd better go down to see the police," he said. "There's been a queer character or two hanging about the town of late. I'd better stir 'em up. You won't come down, I suppose?" he continued when they left the house together.
"Nowe can do no good," answered Bent.
His own house was just across the road from Mallalieu's, and he and Brereton said goodnight and turned towards it as the Mayor strode quickly off in the direction of the police-station.
CHAPTER VII
NIGHT WORK
From the little colony of new houses at the foot of the Shawl to the police station at the end of the High Street was only a few minutes' walk. Mallalieu was a quick walker, and he covered this distance at his top speed. But during those few minutes he came to a conclusion, for he was as quick of thought as in the use of his feet.
Of course, Cotherstone had killed Kitely. That was certain. He had begun to suspect that as soon as he heard of the murder; he became convinced of it as soon as young Bent mentioned that Cotherstone had left his guests for an hour after supper. Without a doubt Cotherstone had lost his head and done this foolish thing! And now Cotherstone must be protected, safe-guarded; heaven and earth must be moved lest suspicion should fall on him. For nothing could be done to Cotherstone without effect upon himselfand of himselfand of himself Mallalieu meant to take very good care. Never mind what innocent person suffered, Cotherstone must go free.
And the first thing to do was to assume direction of the police, to pull strings, to engineer matters. No matter how much he believed in Harborough's innocence, Harborough was the man to go forat present. Attention must be concentrated on him, and on him only. Anythinganything, at whatever cost of morals and honesty to divert suspicion from that fool of a Cotherstone!if it were not already too late. It was the desire to make sure that it was not too late, the desire to be beforehand, that made Mallalieu hasten to the police. He knew his own power, he had a supreme confidence in his ability to manage things, and he was determined to give up the night to the scheme already seething in his fertile brain rather than that justice should enter upon what he would consider a wrong course.
While he sat silently and intently listening to Bent's story of the crime, Mallalieu, who could think and listen and give full attention to both mental processes without letting either suffer at the expense of the other, had reconstructed the murder. He knew Cotherstonenobody knew him half as well. Cotherstone was what Mallalieu called deephe was ingenious, resourceful, inventive. Cotherstone, in the early hours of the evening, had doubtless thought the whole thing out. He would be well acquainted with his prospective victim's habits. He would know exactly when and where to waylay Kitely. The filching of the piece of cord from the wall of Harborough's shed was a clever thinginfernally clever, thought Mallalieu, who had a designing man's whole-hearted admiration for any sort of cleverness in his own particular line. It would be an easy thing to doand what a splendidly important thing! Of course Cotherstone knew all about Harborough's arrangementshe would often pass the pig-killer's housefrom the hedge of the garden he would have seen the coils of greased rope hanging from their nails under the verandah roof, aye, a thousand times. Nothing easier than to slip into Harborough's garden from the adjacent wood, cut off a length of the cord, use itand leave it as a first bit of evidence against a man whose public record was uncertain. Oh, very clever indeed!if only Cotherstone could carry things off, and not allow his conscience to write marks on his face. And he must helpand innocent as he felt Harborough to be, he must set things going against Harboroughhis life was as naught, against the Mallalieu-Cotherstone safety.
Mallalieu walked into the police-station, to find the sergeant just returned and in consultation with the superintendent, whom he had summoned to hear his report. Both turned inquiringly on the Mayor.
"I've heard all about it," said Mallalieu, bustling forward. "Mr. Bent told me. Now then, where's that cord they talk about?"
The sergeant pointed to the coil and the severed piece, which lay on a large sheet of brown paper on a side-table, preparatory to being sealed up. Mallalieu crossed over and made a short examination of these exhibits; then he turned to the superintendent with an air of decision.
"Aught been done?" he demanded.
"Not yet, Mr. Mayor," answered the superintendent. "We were just consulting as to what's best to be done."
"I should think that's obvious," replied Mallalieu. "You must get to work! Two things you want to do just now. Ring up Norcaster for one thing, and High Gill Junction for another. Give 'em a description of Harboroughhe'll probably have made for one place or another, to get away by train. And ask 'em at Norcaster to lend you a few plain-clothes men, and to send 'em along here at once by motorthere's no train till morning. Then, get all your own men outnow!and keep folk off the paths in that wood, and put a watch on Harborough's house, in case he should put a bold face on it and come backhe's impudence enoughand of course, if he comes, they'll take him. Get to all that nowat once!"
"You think it's Harborough, then?" said the superintendent.
"I think there's what the law folks call a prymer facy case against him," replied Mallalieu. "It's your duty to get him, anyway, and if he can clear himself, why, let him. Get busy with that telephone, and be particular about help from Norcasterwe're under-staffed here as it is."
The superintendent hurried out of his office and Mallalieu turned to the sergeant.
"I understood from Mr. Bent," he said, "that that housekeeper of Kitely's said the old fellow had been to the bank at noon today, to draw some money? That so?"
"So she said, your Worship," answered the sergeant. "Some allowance, or something of that sort, that he drew once a quarter. She didn't know how much."
"But she thought he'd have it on him when he was attacked?" asked Mallalieu.
"She said he was a man for carrying his money on him always," replied the sergeant. "We understood from her it was his habit. She says he always had a good bit on himas a rule. And of course, if he'd drawn more today, why, he might have a fair lot."
"We'll soon find that out," remarked Mallalieu. "I'll step round to the bank manager and rouse him. Now you get your men togetherthis is no time for sleeping. You ought to have men up at the Shawl now."
"I've left one man at Kitely's cottage, sir, and another about Harborough'sin case Harborough should come back during the night," said the sergeant. "We've two more constables close by the station. I'll get them up."
"Do it just now," commanded Mallalieu. "I'll be back in a while."
He hurried out again and went rapidly down the High Street to the old-fashioned building near the Town Hall in which the one bank of the little town did its business, and in which the bank manager lived. There was not a soul about in the street, and the ringing of the bell at the bank-house door, and the loud knock which Mallalieu gave in supplement to it, seemed to wake innumerable echoes. And proof as he believed himself to be against such slight things, the sudden opening of a window above his head made him jump.
The startled bank-manager, hurrying down to his midnight visitor in his dressing-gown and slippers, stood aghast when he had taken the Mayor within and learned his errand.
"Certainly!" he said. "Kitely was in the bank today, about noonI attended to him myself. That's the second time he's been here since he came to the town. He called here a day or two after he first took that house from Mr. Cotherstoneto cash a draft for his quarter's pension. He told me then who he was. Do you know?"
"Not in the least," replied Mallalieu, telling the lie all the more readily because he had been fully prepared for the question to which it was an answer. "I knew naught about him."
"He was an ex-detective," said the bank-manager. "Pensioned off, of course: a nice pension. He told me he'd hadI believe it was getting on to forty years' service in the police force. Dear, dear, this is a sad businessand I'm afraid I can tell you a bit more about it."
"What?" demanded Mallalieu, showing surprise in spite of himself.
"You mentioned Harborough," said the bank-manager, shaking his head.
"Well?" said Mallalieu. "What then?"
"Harborough was at the counter when Kitely took his money," answered the bank-manager. "He had called in to change a five-pound note."
The two men looked at each other in silence for a time. Then the bank-manager shook his head again.
"You wouldn't think that a man who has a five-pound note of his own to change would be likely, to murder another man for what he could get," he went on. "But Kitely had a nice bit of money to carry away, and he wore a very valuable gold watch and chain, which he was rather fond of showing in the town, andeh?"
"It's a suspicious business," said Mallalieu. "You say Harborough saw Kitely take his money?"
"Couldn't fail," replied the bank-manager. "He was standing by him. The old man put itnotes and goldin a pocket that he had inside his waistcoat."
Mallalieu lingered, as if in thought, rubbing his chin and staring at the carpet. "Well, that's a sort of additional clue," he remarked at last. "It looks very black against Harborough."
"We've the numbers of the notes that I handed to Kitely," observed the bank-manager. "They may be useful if there's any attempt to change any note, you know."
Mallalieu shook his head.
"Aye, just so," he answered. "But I should say there won't bejust yet. It's a queer business, isn't itbut, as I say, there's evidence against this fellow, and we must try to get him."
He went out then and crossed the street to the doctor's housewhile he was about it, he wanted to know all he could. And with the doctor he stopped much longer than he had stopped at the bank, and when he left him he was puzzled. For the doctor said to him what he had said to Cotherstone and to Bent and to the rest of the group in the woodthat whoever had strangled Kitely had had experience in that sort of grim work beforeor else he was a sailorman who had expert knowledge of tying knots. Now Mallalieu was by that time more certain than ever that Cotherstone was the murderer, and he felt sure that Cotherstone had no experience of that sort of thing.