CRIME--AND SUCCESS
For some moments after Kitely had left him, Cotherstone stood vacantly
staring at the chair in which the blackmailer had sat. As yet he could
not realize things. He was only filled with a queer, vague amazement
about Kitely himself. He began to look back on his relations with
Kitely. They were recent--very recent, only of yesterday, as you might
say. Kitely had come to him, one day about three months previously, told
him that he had come to these parts for a bit of a holiday, taken a
fancy to a cottage which he, Cotherstone, had to let, and inquired its
rent. He had mentioned, casually, that he had just retired from
business, and wanted a quiet place wherein to spend the rest of his
days. He had taken the cottage, and given his landlord satisfactory
references as to his ability to pay the rent--and Cotherstone, always a
busy man, had thought no more about him. Certainly he had never
anticipated such an announcement as that which Kitely had just made to
him--never dreamed that Kitely had recognized him and Mallalieu as men
he had known thirty years ago.
It had been Cotherstone's life-long endeavour to forget all about the
event of thirty years ago, and to a large extent he had succeeded in
dulling his memory. But Kitely had brought it all back--and now
everything was fresh to him. His brows knitted and his face grew dark as
he thought of one thing in his past of which Kitely had spoken so easily
and glibly--the dock. He saw himself in that dock again--and Mallalieu
standing by him. They were not called Mallalieu and Cotherstone then, of
course. He remembered what their real names were--he remembered, too,
that, until a few minutes before, he had certainly not repeated them,
even to himself, for many a long year. Oh, yes--he remembered
everything--he saw it all again. The case had excited plenty of
attention in Wilchester at the time--Wilchester, that for thirty years
had been so far away in thought and in actual distance that it might
have been some place in the Antipodes. It was not a nice case--even now,
looking back upon it from his present standpoint, it made him blush to
think of. Two better-class young working-men, charged with embezzling
the funds of a building society to which they had acted as treasurer and
secretary!--a bad case. The Court had thought it a bad case, and the
culprits had been sentenced to two years' imprisonment. And now
Cotherstone only remembered that imprisonment as one remembers a
particularly bad dream. Yes--it had been real.
His eyes, moody and brooding, suddenly shifted their gaze from the easy
chair to his own hands--they were shaking. Mechanically he took up the
whisky decanter from his desk, and poured some of its contents into his
glass--the rim of the glass tinkled against the neck of the decanter.
Yes--that had been a shock, right enough, he muttered to himself, and
not all the whisky in the world would drive it out of him. But a
drink--neat and stiff--would pull his nerves up to pitch, and so he
drank, once, twice, and sat down with the glass in his hand--to think
still more.
That old Kitely was shrewd--shrewd! He had at once hit on a fact which
those Wilchester folk of thirty years ago had never suspected. It had
been said at the time that the two offenders had lost the building
society's money in gambling and speculation, and there had been grounds
for such a belief. But that was not so. Most of the money had been
skilfully and carefully put where the two conspirators could lay hands
on it as soon as it was wanted, and when the term of imprisonment was
over they had nothing to do but take possession of it for their own
purposes. They had engineered everything very well--Cotherstone's
essentially constructive mind, regarding their doings from the vantage
ground of thirty years' difference, acknowledged that they had been
cute, crafty, and cautious to an admirable degree of perfection. Quietly
and unobtrusively they had completely disappeared from their own
district in the extreme South of England, when their punishment was
over. They had let it get abroad that they were going to another
continent, to retrieve the past and start a new life; it was even known
that they repaired to Liverpool, to take ship for America. But in
Liverpool they had shuffled off everything of the past--names,
relations, antecedents. There was no reason why any one should watch
them out of the country, but they had adopted precautions against such
watching. They separated, disappeared, met again in the far North, in a
sparsely-populated, lonely country of hill and dale, led there by an
advertisement which they had seen in a local newspaper, met with by
sheer chance in a Liverpool hotel. There was an old-established business
to sell as a going concern, in the dale town of Highmarket: the two
ex-convicts bought it. From that time they were Anthony Mallalieu and
Milford Cotherstone, and the past was dead.
During the thirty years in which that past had been dead, Cotherstone
had often heard men remark that this world of ours is a very small one,
and he had secretly laughed at them. To him and to his partner the world
had been wide and big enough. They were now four hundred miles away from
the scene of their crime. There was nothing whatever to bring Wilchester
people into that northern country, nothing to take Highmarket folk
anywhere near Wilchester. Neither he nor Mallalieu ever went far
afield--London they avoided with particular care, lest they should meet
any one there who had known them in the old days. They had stopped at
home, and minded their business, year in and year out. Naturally, they
had prospered. They had speedily become known as hard-working young men;
then as good employers of labour; finally as men of considerable
standing in a town of which there were only some five thousand
inhabitants. They had been invited to join in public matters--Mallalieu
had gone into the Town Council first; Cotherstone had followed him
later. They had been as successful in administering the affairs of the
little town as in conducting their own, and in time both had attained
high honours: Mallalieu was now wearing the mayoral chain for the second
time; Cotherstone, as Borough Treasurer, had governed the financial
matters of Highmarket for several years. And as he sat there, staring at
the red embers of the office fire, he remembered that there were no two
men in the whole town who were more trusted and respected than he and
his partner--his partner in success ... and in crime.
But that was not all. Both men had married within a few years of their
coming to Highmarket. They had married young women of good standing in
the neighbourhood; it was perhaps well, reflected Cotherstone, that
their wives were dead, and that Mallalieu had never been blessed with
children. But Cotherstone had a daughter, of whom he was as fond as he
was proud; for her he had toiled and contrived, always intending her to
be a rich woman. He had seen to it that she was well educated; he had
even allowed himself to be deprived of her company for two years while
she went to an expensive school, far away; since she had grown up, he
had surrounded her with every comfort. And now, as Kitely had reminded
him, she was engaged to be married to the most promising young man in
Highmarket, Windle Bent, a rich manufacturer, who had succeeded to and
greatly developed a fine business, who had already made his mark on the
Town Council, and was known to cherish Parliamentary ambitions.
Everybody knew that Bent had a big career before him; he had all the
necessary gifts; all the proper stuff in him for such a career. He would
succeed; he would probably win a title for himself--a baronetcy, perhaps
a peerage. This was just the marriage which Cotherstone desired for
Lettie; he would die more than happy if he could once hear her called
Your Ladyship. And now here was--this!
Cotherstone sat there a long time, thinking, reflecting, reckoning up
things. The dusk had come; the darkness followed; he made no movement
towards the gas bracket. Nothing mattered but his trouble. That must be
dealt with. At all costs, Kitely's silence must be purchased--aye, even
if it cost him and Mallalieu one-half of what they had. And, of course,
Mallalieu must be told--at once.
A tap of somebody's knuckles on the door of the private room roused him
at last, and he sprang up and seized a box of matches as he bade the
person without to enter. The clerk came in, carrying a sheaf of papers,
and Cotherstone bustled to the gas.
"Dear me!" he exclaimed. "I've dropped off into a nod over this warm
fire, Stoner. What's that--letters?"
"There's all these letters to sign, Mr. Cotherstone, and these three
contracts to go through," answered the clerk. "And there are those
specifications to examine, as well."
"Mr. 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.