The Borough Treasurer Part 28

"We'll settle all that when you've handed the money over," said Miss Pett. "I haven't counted it yet."

There was a certain unwillingness in Christopher Pett's manner as he slowly produced a stout pocket-book and took from it a thick wad of bank-notes. He pushed this across to his aunt, with a tiny heap of silver and copper.

"Well, I'm trusting to you, you know," he said a little doubtfully.

"Don't forget that I've done well for you."

Miss Pett made no answer. She had taken a pair of spectacles from her pocket, and with these perched on the bridge of her sharp nose she proceeded to count the notes, while her nephew alternately sipped at his toddy and stroked his chin, meanwhile eyeing his relative's proceedings with somewhat rueful looks.

"Three thousand, four hundred and seventeen pounds, five s.h.i.+llings and elevenpence," and Miss Pett calmly. "And them costs, now, and the expenses--how much do they come to, Chris?"

"Sixty-one, two, nine," answered Christopher, pa.s.sing one of his papers across the table with alacrity. "You'll find it quite right--I did it as cheap as possible for you."

Miss Pett set her elbow on her heap of bank-notes while she examined the statement. That done, she looked over the tops of her spectacles at the expectant Christopher.

"Well, about that commission," she said. "Of course, you know, Chris, you oughtn't to charge me what you'd charge other folks. You ought to do it very reasonable indeed for me. What were you thinking of, now?"

"I got the top price," remarked Christopher reflectively. "I got you quite four hundred more than the market price. How would--how would five per cent. be, now?"

Miss Pett threw up the gay turban with a toss of surprise.

"Five per cent!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Christopher Pett!--whatever are you talking about? Why, that 'ud be a hundred and seventy pound! Eh, dear!--nothing of the sort--it 'ud be as good as robbery. I'm astonished at you."

"Well, how much, then?" growled Christopher. "Hang it all!--don't be close with your own nephew."

"I'll give you a hundred pounds--to include the costs," said Miss Pett firmly. "Not a penny more--but," she added, bending forward and nodding her head towards that half of the cottage wherein Mallalieu slumbered so heavily, "I'll give you something to boot--an opportunity of feathering your nest out of--him!"

Christopher's face, which had clouded heavily, lightened somewhat at this, and he too glanced at the door.

"Will it be worth it?" he asked doubtfully. "What is there to be got out of him if he's flying from justice? He'll carry naught--and he can't get at anything that he has, either."

Miss Pett gave vent to a queer, dry chuckle; the sound of her laughter always made her nephew think of the clicking of machinery that badly wanted oiling.

"He's heaps o' money on him!" she whispered. "After he dropped off tonight I went through his pockets. We've only got to keep a tight hold on him to get as much as ever we like! So--put your hundred in your pocket, and we'll see about the other affair tomorrow."

"Oh, well, of course, in that case!" said Christopher. He picked up the banknote which his aunt pushed towards him and slipped it into his purse. "We shall have to play on his fears a bit, you know," he remarked.

"I think we shall be equal to it--between us," answered Miss Pett drily.

"Them big, flabby men's easy frightened."

Mallalieu was certainly frightened when he woke suddenly next morning to find Miss Pett standing at the side of his bed. He glared at her for one instant of wild alarm and started up on his pillows. Miss Pett laid one of her claw-like hands on his shoulder.

"Don't alarm yourself, mister," she said. "All's safe, and here's something that'll do you good--a cup of nice hot coffee--real Mocha, to which the late Kitely was partial--with a drop o'rum in it. Drink it--and you shall have your breakfast in half an hour. It's past nine o'clock."

"I must have slept very sound," said Mallalieu, following his gaoler's orders. "You say all's safe? Naught heard or seen?"

"All's safe, all's serene," replied Miss Pett. "And you're in luck's way, for there's my nephew Christopher arrived from London, to help me about settling my affairs and removing my effects from this place, and he's a lawyer and'll give you good advice."

Mallalieu growled a little. He had seen Mr. Christopher Pett and he was inclined to be doubtful of him.

"Is he to be trusted?" he muttered. "I expect he'll have to be squared, too!"

"Not beyond reason," replied Miss Pett. "We're not unreasonable people, our family. He's a very sensible young man, is Christopher. The late Kitely had a very strong opinion of his abilities."

Mallalieu had no doubt of Mr. Christopher Pett's abilities in a certain direction after he had exchanged a few questions and answers with that young gentleman. For Christopher was shrewd, sharp, practical and judicial.

"It's a very dangerous and--you'll excuse plain speaking under the circ.u.mstances, sir--very foolish thing that you've done, Mr. Mallalieu,"

he said, as he and the prisoner sat closeted together in the still shuttered and curtained parlour-bedroom. "The mere fact of your making your escape, sir, is what some would consider a proof of guilt--it is indeed! And of course my aunt--and myself, in my small way--we're running great risks, Mr. Mallalieu--we really are--great risks!"

"Now then, you'll not lose by me," said Mallalieu. "I'm not a man of straw."

"All very well, sir," replied Christopher, "but even if you were a millionaire and recompensed us on what I may term a princely scale--not that we shall expect it, Mr. Mallalieu--the risks would be extraordinary--ahem! I mean will be extraordinary. For you see, Mr.

Mallalieu, there's two or three things that's dead certain. To start with, sir, it's absolutely impossible for you to get away from here by yourself--you can't do it!"

"Why not?" growled Mallalieu. "I can get away at nightfall."

"No, sir," affirmed Christopher stoutly. "I saw the condition of the moors last night. Patrolled, Mr. Mallalieu, patrolled! By men with lights. That patrolling, sir, will go on for many a night. Make up your mind, Mr. Mallalieu, that if you set foot out of this house, you'll see the inside of Norcaster Gaol before two hours is over!"

"What do you advise, then?" demanded Mallalieu. "Here!--I'm fairly in for it, so I'll tell you what my notion was. If I can once get to a certain part of Norcaster, I'm safe. I can get away to the Continent from there."

"Then, sir," replied Christopher, "the thing is to devise a plan by which you can be conveyed to Norcaster without suspicion. That'll have to be arranged between me and my aunt--hence our risks on your behalf."

"Your aunt said she'd a plan," remarked Mallalieu.

"Not quite matured, sir," said Christopher. "It needs a little reflection and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, as it were. Now what I advise, Mr. Mallalieu, is this--you keep snug here, with my aunt as sentinel--she a.s.sures me that even if the police--don't be frightened, sir!--did come here, she could hide you quite safely before ever she opened the door to them. As for me, I'll go, casual-like, into the town, and do a bit of quiet looking and listening. I shall be able to find out how the land lies, sir--and when I return I'll report to you, and the three of us will put our heads together."

Leaving the captive in charge of Miss Pett, Christopher, having brushed his silk hat and his overcoat and fitted on a pair of black kid gloves, strolled solemnly into Highmarket. He was known to a few people there, and he took good care to let those of his acquaintance who met him hear that he had come down to arrange his aunt's affairs, and to help in the removal of the household goods bequeathed to her by the deceased Kitely.

In proof of this he called in at the furniture remover's, to get an estimate of the cost of removal to Norcaster Docks--thence, said Christopher, the furniture could be taken by sea to London, where Miss Pett intended to reside in future. At the furniture remover's, and in such other shops as he visited, and in the bar-parlour of the Highmarket Arms, where he stayed an hour or so, gossiping with the loungers, and sipping a gla.s.s or two of dry sherry, Christopher picked up a great deal of information. And at noon he returned to the cottage, having learned that the police and everybody in Highmarket firmly believed that Mallalieu had got clear and clean away the night before, and was already far beyond pursuit. The police theory was that there had been collusion, and that immediately on his escape he had been whirled off by some person to whose ident.i.ty there was as yet no clue.

But Christopher Pett told a very different story to Mallalieu. The moors, he said, were being patrolled night and day: it was believed the fugitive was in hiding in one of the old quarries. Every road and entrance to Norcaster, and to all the adjacent towns and stations, was watched and guarded. There was no hope for Mallalieu but in the kindness and contrivance of the aunt and the nephew, and Mallalieu recognized the inevitable and was obliged to yield himself to their tender mercies.

CHAPTER XXV

NO FURTHER EVIDENCE

While Mallalieu lay captive in the stronghold of Miss Pett, Cotherstone was experiencing a quite different sort of incarceration in the detention cells of Norcaster Gaol. Had he known where his partner was, and under what circ.u.mstances Mallalieu had obtained deliverance from official bolts and bars, Cotherstone would probably have laughed in his sleeve and sneered at him for a fool. He had been calling Mallalieu a fool, indeed, ever since the previous evening, when the police, conducting him to Norcaster, had told him of the Mayor's escape from the Town Hall. n.o.body but an absolute fool, a consummate idiot, thought Cotherstone, would have done a thing like that. The man who flies is the man who has reason to fly--that was Cotherstone's opinion, and in his belief ninety-nine out of every hundred persons in Highmarket would share it. Mallalieu would now be set down as guilty--they would say he dared not face things, that he knew he was doomed, that his escape was the desperate act of a conscious criminal. a.s.s!--said Cotherstone, not without a certain amount of malicious delight: they should none of them have reason to say such things of him. He would make no attempt to fly--no, not if they left the gate of Norcaster Gaol wide open to him!

It should be his particular care to have himself legally cleared--his acquittal should be as public as the proceedings which had just taken place. He went out of the dock with that resolve strong on him; he carried it away to his cell at Norcaster; he woke in the morning with it, stronger than ever. Cotherstone, instead of turning tail, was going to fight--for his own hand.

As a prisoner merely under detention, Cotherstone had privileges of which he took good care to avail himself. Four people he desired to see, and must see at once, on that first day in gaol--and he lost no time in making known his desires. One--and the most important--person was a certain solicitor in Norcaster who enjoyed a great reputation as a sharp man of affairs. Another--scarcely less important--was a barrister who resided in Norcaster, and had had it said of him for a whole generation that he had restored more criminals to society than any man of his profession then living. And the other two were his own daughter and Windle Bent. Them he must see--but the men of law first.

When the solicitor and the barrister came, Cotherstone talked to them as he had never talked to anybody in his life. He very soon let them see that he had two definite objects in sending for them: the first was to tell them in plain language that money was of no consideration in the matter of his defence; the second, that they had come there to hear him lay down the law as to what they were to do. Talk he did, and they listened--and Cotherstone had the satisfaction of seeing that they went away duly impressed with all that he had said to them. He went back to his cell from the room in which this interview had taken place congratulating himself on his ability.

"I shall be out of this, and all'll be clear, a week today!" he a.s.sured himself. "We'll see where that fool of a Mallalieu is by then! For he'll not get far, nor go hidden for thirty years, this time."

He waited with some anxiety to see his daughter, not because he must see her within the walls of a prison, but because he knew that by that time she would have learned the secrets of that past which he had kept so carefully hidden from her. Only child of his though she was, he felt that Lettie was not altogether of his sort; he had often realized that she was on a different mental plane from his own, and was also, in some respects, a little of a mystery to him. How would she take all this?--what would she say?--what effect would it have on her?--he pondered these questions uneasily while he waited for her visit.