The Borough Treasurer. J. S. Fletcher
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Mallalieu'll have to see those," said Cotherstone. He lighted the gas above his desk, put the decanter and the glasses aside, and took the letters. "I'll sign these, anyhow," he said, "and then you can post 'em as you go home. The other papers'll do tomorrow morning."
The clerk stood slightly behind his master as Cotherstone signed one letter after the other, glancing quickly through each. He was a young man of twenty-two or three, with quick, observant manners, a keen eye, and a not handsome face, and as he stood there the face was bent on Cotherstone with a surmising look. Stoner had noticed his employer's thoughtful attitude, the gloom in which Cotherstone sat, the decanter on the table, the glass in Cotherstone's hand, and he knew that Cotherstone was telling a fib when he said he had been asleep. He noticed, too, the six sovereigns and the two or three silver coins lying on the desk, and he wondered what had made his master so abstracted that he had forgotten to pocket them. For he knew Cotherstone well, and Cotherstone was so particular about money that he never allowed even a penny to lie out of place.
"There!" said Cotherstone, handing back the batch of letters. "You'll be going now, I suppose. Put those in the post. I'm not going just yet, so I'll lock up the office. Leave the outer door open—Mr. Mallalieu's coming back."
He pulled down the blinds of the private room when Stoner had gone, and that done he fell to walking up and down, awaiting his partner. And presently Mallalieu came, smoking a cigar, and evidently in as good humour as usual.
"Oh, you're still here?" he said as he entered. "I—what's up?"
He had come to a sudden halt close to his partner, and he now stood staring at him. And Cotherstone, glancing past Mallalieu's broad shoulder at a mirror, saw that he himself had become startlingly pale and haggard. He looked twenty years older than he had looked when he shaved himself that morning.
"Aren't you well?" demanded Mallalieu. "What is it?"
Cotherstone made no answer. He walked past Mallalieu and looked into the outer office. The clerk had gone, and the place was only half-lighted. But Cotherstone closed the door with great care, and when he went back to Mallalieu he sank his voice to a whisper.
"Bad news!" he said. "Bad—bad news!"
"What about?" asked Mallalieu. "Private? Business?"
Cotherstone put his lips almost close to Mallalieu's ear.
"That man Kitely—my new tenant," he whispered. "He's met us—you and me—before!"
Mallalieu's rosy cheeks paled, and he turned sharply on his companion.
"Met—us!" he exclaimed. "Him! Where?—when?"
Cotherstone got his lips still closer.
"Wilchester!" he answered. "Thirty years ago. He—knows!"
Mallalieu dropped into the nearest chair: dropped as if he had been shot. His face, full of colour from the keen air outside, became as pale as his partner's; his jaw fell, his mouth opened; a strained look came into his small eyes.
"Gad!" he muttered hoarsely. "You—you don't say so!"
"It's a fact," answered Cotherstone. "He knows everything. He's an ex-detective. He was there—that day."
"Tracked us down?" asked Mallalieu. "That it?"
"No," said Cotherstone. "Sheer chance—pure accident. Recognized us—after he came here. Aye—after all these years! Thirty years!"
Mallalieu's eyes, roving about the room, fell on the decanter. He pulled himself out of his chair, found a clean glass, and took a stiff drink. And his partner, watching him, saw that his hands, too, were shaking.
"That's a facer!" said Mallalieu. His voice had grown stronger, and the colour came back to his cheeks. "A real facer! As you say—after thirty years! It's hard—it's blessed hard! And—what does he want? What's he going to do?"
"Wants to blackmail us, of course," replied Cotherstone, with a mirthless laugh. "What else should he do? What could he do? Why, he could tell all Highmarket who we are, and——"
"Aye, aye!—but the thing is here," interrupted Mallalieu.
"Supposing we do square him?—is there any reliance to be placed on him then? It 'ud only be the old game—he'd only want more."
"He said an annuity," remarked Cotherstone, thoughtfully. "And he added significantly, that he was getting an old man."
"How old?" demanded Mallalieu.
"Between sixty and seventy," said Cotherstone. "I'm under the impression that he could be squared, could be satisfied. He'll have to be! We can't let it get out—I can't, any way. There's my daughter to think of."
"D'ye think I'd let it get out?" asked Mallalieu. "No!—all I'm thinking of is if we really can silence him. I've heard of cases where a man's paid blackmail for years and years, and been no better for it in the end."
"Well—he's coming here tomorrow afternoon some time," said Cotherstone. "We'd better see him—together. After all, a hundred a year—a couple of hundred a year—'ud be better than—exposure."
Mallalieu drank off his whisky and pushed the glass aside.
"I'll consider it," he remarked. "What's certain sure is that he'll have to be quietened. I must go—I've an appointment. Are you coming out?"
"Not yet," replied Cotherstone. "I've all these papers to go through. Well, think it well over. He's a man to be feared."
Mallalieu made no answer. He, like Kitely, went off without a word of farewell, and Cotherstone was once more left alone.
CHAPTER III
MURDER
When Mallalieu had gone, Cotherstone gathered up the papers which his clerk had brought in, and sitting down at his desk tried to give his attention to them. The effort was not altogether a success. He had hoped that the sharing of the bad news with his partner would bring some relief to him, but his anxieties were still there. He was always seeing that queer, sinister look in Kitely's knowing eyes: it suggested that as long as Kitely lived there would be no safety. Even if Kitely kept his word, kept any compact made with him, he would always have the two partners under his thumb. And for thirty years Cotherstone had been under no man's thumb, and the fear of having a master was hateful to him. He heartily wished that Kitely was dead—dead and buried, and his secret with him; he wished that it had been anywise possible to have crushed the life out of him where he sat in that easy chair as soon as he had shown himself the reptile that he was. A man might kill any poisonous insect, any noxious reptile at pleasure—why not a human blood-sucker like that?
He sat there a long time, striving to give his attention to his papers, and making a poor show of it. The figures danced about before him; he could make neither head nor tail of the technicalities in the specifications and estimates; every now and then fits of abstraction came over him, and he sat drumming the tips of his fingers on his blotting-pad, staring vacantly at the shadows in the far depths of the room, and always thinking—thinking of the terrible danger of revelation. And always, as an under-current, he was saying that for himself he cared naught—Kitely could do what he liked, or would have done what he liked, had there only been himself to think for. But—Lettie! All his life was now centred in her, and in her happiness, and Lettie's happiness, he knew, was centred in the man she was going to marry. And Cotherstone, though he believed that he knew men pretty well, was not sure that he knew Windle Bent sufficiently to feel sure that he would endure a stiff test. Bent was ambitious—he was resolved on a career. Was he the sort of man to stand the knowledge which Kitely might give him? For there was