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 always the risk that whatever he and Mallalieu
might do, Kitely, while there was breath in him, might split.
A sudden ringing at the bell of the telephone in the outer office made
Cotherstone jump in his chair as if the arresting hand of justice had
suddenly been laid on him. In spite of himself he rose trembling, and
there were beads of perspiration on his forehead as he walked across the
room.
"Nerves!" he muttered to himself. "I must be in a queer way to be taken
like that. It won't do!--especially at this turn. What is it?" he
demanded, going to the telephone. "Who is that?"
His daughter's voice, surprised and admonitory, came to him along the
wire.
"Is that you, father?" she exclaimed. "What are you doing? Don't you
remember you asked Windle, and his friend Mr. Brereton, to supper at
eight o'clock. It's a quarter to eight now. Do come home!"
Cotherstone let out an exclamation which signified annoyance. The event
of the late afternoon had completely driven it out of his recollection
that Windle Bent had an old school-friend, a young barrister from
London, staying with him, and that both had been asked to supper that
evening at Cotherstone's house. But Cotherstone's annoyance was not
because of his own forgetfulness, but because his present abstraction
made him dislike the notion of company.
"I'd forgotten--for the moment," he called. "I've been very busy. All
right, Lettie--I'm coming on at once. Shan't be long."
But when he had left the telephone he made no haste. He lingered by his
desk; he was slow in turning out the gas; slow in quitting and locking
up his office; he went slowly away through the town. Nothing could have
been further from his wishes than a desire to entertain company that
night--and especially a stranger. His footsteps dragged as he passed
through the market-place and turned into the outskirts beyond.
Some years previously to this, when they had both married and made
money, the two partners had built new houses for themselves. Outside
Highmarket, on its western boundary, rose a long, low hill called
Highmarket Shawl; the slope which overhung the town was thickly covered
with fir and pine, amidst which great masses of limestone crag jutted
out here and there. At the foot of this hill, certain plots of building
land had been sold, and Mallalieu had bought one and Cotherstone
another, and on these they had erected two solid stone houses, fitted up
with all the latest improvements known to the building trade. Each was
proud of his house; each delighted in welcoming friends and
acquaintances there--this was the first night Cotherstone could remember
on which it was hateful to him to cross his own threshold. The lighted
windows, the smell of good things cooked for supper, brought him no
sense of satisfaction; he had to make a distinct effort to enter and to
present a face of welcome to his two guests, who were already there,
awaiting him.
"Couldn't get in earlier," he said, replying to Lettie's half-anxious,
half-playful scoldings. "There was some awkward business turned up this
evening--and as it is, I shall have to run away for an hour after
supper--can't be helped. How do you do, sir?" he went on, giving his
hand to the stranger. "Glad to see you in these parts--you'll find this
a cold climate after London, I'm afraid."
He took a careful look at Bent's friend as they all sat down to
supper--out of sheer habit of inspecting any man who was new to him. And
after a glance or two he said to himself that this young limb of the law
was a sharp chap--a keen-eyed, alert, noticeable fellow, whose every
action and tone denoted great mental activity. He was sharper than Bent,
said Cotherstone, and in his opinion, that was saying a good deal.
Bent's ability was on the surface; he was an excellent specimen of the
business man of action, who had ideas out of the common but was not so
much given to deep and quiet thinking as to prompt doing of things
quickly decided on. He glanced from one to the other, mentally comparing
them. Bent was a tall, handsome man, blonde, blue-eyed, ready of word
and laugh; Brereton, a medium-sized, compact fellow, dark of hair and
eye, with an olive complexion that almost suggested foreign origin: the
sort, decided Cotherstone, that thought a lot and said little. And
forcing himself to talk he tried to draw the stranger out, watching him,
too, to see if he admired Lettie. For it was one of Cotherstone's
greatest joys in life to bring folk to his house and watch the effect
which his pretty daughter had on them, and he was rewarded now in seeing
that the young man from London evidently applauded his friend's choice
and paid polite tribute to Lettie's charm.
"And what might you have been doing with Mr. Brereton since he got down
yesterday?" asked Cotherstone. "Showing him round, of course?"
"I've been tormenting him chiefly with family history," answered Bent,
with a laughing glance at his sweetheart. "You didn't know I was raking
up everything I could get hold of about my forbears, did you? Oh, I've
been busy at that innocent amusement for a month past--old Kitely put me
up to it."
Cotherstone could barely repress an inclination to start in his chair;
he himself was not sure that he did not show undue surprise.
"What!" he exclaimed. "Kitely? My tenant? What does he know about your
family? A stranger!"
"Much more than I do," replied Bent. "The old chap's nothing to do, you
know, and since he took up his abode here he's been spending all his
time digging up local records--he's a good bit of an antiquary, and that
sort of thing. The Town Clerk tells me Kitely's been through nearly all
the old town documents--chests full of them! And Kitely told me one day
that if I liked he'd trace our pedigree back to I don't know when, and
as he seemed keen, I told him to go ahead. He's found out a lot of
interesting things in the borough records that I never heard of."
Cotherstone had kept his eyes on his plate while Bent was talking; he
spoke now without looking up.
"Oh?" he said, trying to speak unconcernedly. "Ah!--then you'll have
been seeing a good deal of Kitely lately?"
"Not so much," replied Bent. "He's brought me the result of his work now
and then--things he's copied out of old registers, and so on."
"And what good might it all amount to?" asked Cotherstone, more for the
sake of talking than for any interest he felt. "Will it come to aught?"
"Bent wants to trace his family history back to the Conquest," observed
Brereton, slyly. "He thinks the original Bent came over with the
Conqueror. But his old man hasn't got beyond the Tudor period yet."
"Never mind!" said Bent. "There were Bents in Highmarket in Henry the
Seventh's time, anyhow. And if one has a pedigree, why not have it
properly searched out? He's a keen old hand at that sort of thing,
Kitely. The Town Clerk says he can read some of our borough charters of
six hundred years ago as if they were newspaper articles."
Cotherstone made no remark on that. He was thinking. So Kitely was in
close communication with Bent, was he?--constantly seeing him, being
employed by him? Well, that cut two ways. It showed that up to now he
had taken no advantage of his secret knowledge and might therefore be
considered as likely to play straight if he were squared by the two
partners. But it also proved that Bent would probably believe anything
that Kitely might tell him. Certainly Kitely must be dealt with at once.
He knew too much, and was obviously too clever, to be allowed to go
about unfettered. Cost what it might, he must be attached to the
Mallalieu-Cotherstone interest. And what Cotherstone was concentrating
on just then, as he ate and drank, was--how to make that attachment in
such a fashion that Kitely would have no option but to keep silence. If
only he and Mallalieu could get a hold on Kitely, such as that which he
had on them----
"Well," he said as supper came to an end, "I'm sorry, but I'm forced to
leave you gentlemen for an hour, at any rate--can't be helped. Lettie,
you must try to amuse 'em until I come back. Sing Mr. Brereton some of
your new songs. Bent--you know where the whisky and the cigars are--help
yourselves--make yourselves at home."
"You won't be more than an hour, father?" asked Lettie.
"An hour'll finish what I've got to do," replied Cotherstone, "maybe
less--I'll be as quick as I can, anyway, my lass."
He hurried off without further ceremony; a moment later and he had
exchanged the warmth and brightness of his comfortable dining-room for
the chill night and the darkness. And as he turned out of his garden he
was thinking still further and harder. So Windle Bent was one of those
chaps who have what folk call family pride, was he? Actually proud of
the fact that he had a pedigree, and could say who his grandfather and
grandmother were?--things on which most people were as hazy as they were
indifferent. In that case, if he was really family-proud, all the more
reason why Kitely should be made to keep his tongue still. For if Windle
Bent was going on the game of making out that he was a man of family, he
certainly would not relish the prospect of uniting his ancient blood
with that of a man who had seen the inside of a prison.
Kitely!--promptly and definitely--and for _good_!--that was the ticket.
Cotherstone went off into the shadows of the night--and a good hour had
passed when he returned to his house. It was then ten o'clock; he
afterwards remembered that he glanced at the old grandfather clock in
his hall when he let himself in. All was very quiet in there; he opened
the drawing-room door to find the two young men and Lettie sitting over
a bright fire, and Brereton evidently telling the other two some story,
which he was just bringing to a conclusion.
" ... for it's a fact, in criminal practice," Brereton was saying, "that
there are no end of undiscovered crimes--there are any amount of guilty
men going about free as the air, and----"
"Hope you've been enjoying yourselves," said Cotherstone, going forward
to the group. "I've been as quick as I could."
"Mr. Brereton has been telling us most interesting stories about
criminals," said Lettie. "Facts--much stranger than fiction!"
"Then I'm sure it's time he'd something to refresh himself with," said
Cotherstone hospitably. "Come away, gentlemen, and we'll see if we can't
find a drop to drink and a cigar to smoke."
He led the way to the dining-room and busied himself in bringing out
some boxes of cigars from a cupboard while Lettie produced decanters and
glasses from the sideboard.
"So you're interested in criminal matters, sir?" observed Cotherstone as
he offered Brereton a cigar. "Going in for that line, eh?"
"What practice I've had has been in that line," answered Brereton, with
a quiet laugh. "One sort of gets pitchforked into these things, you
know, so----"
"What's that?" exclaimed Lettie, who was just then handing the young
barrister a tumbler of whisky and soda which Bent had mixed for him.
"Somebody running hurriedly up the drive--as if something had happened!
Surely you're not going to be fetched out again, father?"
A loud ringing of the bell prefaced the entrance of some visitor, whose
voice was heard in eager conversation with a parlourmaid in the hall.
"That's your neighbour--Mr. Garthwaite," said Bent.
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!"