THE HAND IN THE DARKNESS
The Highmarket clocks were striking noon when Mallalieu was arrested.
For three hours he remained under lock and key, in a room in the Town
Hall--most of the time alone. His lunch was brought to him; every
consideration was shown him. The police wanted to send for his solicitor
from Norcaster; Mallalieu bade them mind their own business. He turned a
deaf ear to the superintendent's entreaties to him to see some friend;
let him mind his own business too, said Mallalieu. He himself would do
nothing until he saw the need to do something. Let him hear what could
be brought against him--time enough to speak and act then. He ate his
lunch, he smoked a cigar; he walked out of the room with defiant eye and
head erect when they came to fetch him before a specially summoned bench
of his fellow-magistrates. And it was not until he stepped into the
dock, in full view of a crowded court, and amidst quivering excitement,
that he and Cotherstone met.
The news of the partners' arrest had flown through the little town like
wildfire. There was no need to keep it secret; no reason why it should
be kept secret. It was necessary to bring the accused men before the
magistrates as quickly as possible, and the days of private inquiries
were long over. Before the Highmarket folk had well swallowed their
dinners, every street in the town, every shop, office, bar-parlour,
public-house, private house rang with the news--Mallalieu and
Cotherstone, the Mayor and the Borough Treasurer, had been arrested for
the murder of their clerk, and would be put before the magistrates at
three o'clock. The Kitely affair faded into insignificance--except
amongst the cute and knowing few, who immediately began to ask if the
Hobwick Quarry murder had anything to do with the murder on the Shawl.
If Mallalieu and Cotherstone could have looked out of the windows of the
court in the Town Hall, they would have seen the Market Square packed
with a restless and seething crowd of townsfolk, all clamouring for
whatever news could permeate from the packed chamber into which so few
had been able to fight a way. But the prisoners seemed strangely
indifferent to their surroundings. Those who watched them closely--as
Brereton and Tallington did--noticed that neither took any notice of the
other. Cotherstone had been placed in the dock first. When Mallalieu was
brought there, a moment later, the two exchanged one swift glance and no
more--Cotherstone immediately moved off to the far corner on the left
hand, Mallalieu remained in the opposite one, and placing his hands in
the pockets of his overcoat, he squared his shoulders and straitened his
big frame and took a calm and apparently contemptuous look round about
him.
Brereton, sitting at a corner of the solicitor's table, and having
nothing to do but play the part of spectator, watched these two men
carefully and with absorbed interest from first to last. He was soon
aware of the vastly different feelings with which they themselves
watched the proceedings. Cotherstone was eager and restless; he could
not keep still; he moved his position; he glanced about him; he looked
as if he were on the verge of bursting into indignant or explanatory
speech every now and then--though, as a matter of fact, he restrained
whatever instinct he had in that direction. But Mallalieu never moved,
never changed his attitude. His expression of disdainful, contemptuous
watchfulness never left him--after the first moments and the formalities
were over, he kept his eyes on the witness-box and on the people who
entered it. Brereton, since his first meeting with Mallalieu, had often
said to himself that the Mayor of Highmarket had the slyest eyes of any
man he had ever seen--but he was forced to admit now that, however sly
Mallalieu's eyes were, they could, on occasion, be extraordinarily
steady.
The truth was that Mallalieu was playing a part. He had outlined it,
unconsciously, when he said to the superintendent that it would be time
enough for him to do something when he knew what could be brought
against him. And now all his attention was given to the two or three
witnesses whom the prosecution thought it necessary to call. He wanted
to know who they were. He curbed his impatience while the formal
evidence of arrest was given, but his ears pricked a little when he
heard one of the police witnesses speak of the warrant having been
issued on information received. "What information? Received from whom?"
He half-turned as a sharp official voice called the name of the first
important witness.
"David Myler!"
Mallalieu stared at David Myler as if he would tear whatever secret he
had out of him with a searching glance. Who was David Myler? No
Highmarket man--that was certain. Who was he, then?--what did he
know?--was he some detective who had been privately working up this
case? A cool, quiet, determined-looking young fellow, anyway. Confound
him! But--what had he to do with this?
Those questions were speedily answered for Mallalieu. He kept his
immovable attitude, his immobile expression, while Myler told the story
of Stoner's visit to Darlington, and of the revelation which had
resulted. And nothing proved his extraordinary command over his temper
and his feelings better than the fact that as Myler narrated one damning
thing after another, he never showed the least concern or uneasiness.
But deep within himself Mallalieu was feeling a lot. He knew now that he
had been mistaken in thinking that Stoner had kept his knowledge to
himself. He also knew what line the prosecution was taking. It was
seeking to show that Stoner was murdered by Cotherstone and himself, or
by one or other, separately or in collusion, in order that he might be
silenced. But he knew more than that. Long practice and much natural
inclination had taught Mallalieu the art of thinking ahead, and he
could foresee as well as any man of his acquaintance. He foresaw the
trend of events in this affair. This was only a preliminary. The
prosecution was charging him and Cotherstone with the murder of Stoner
today: it would be charging them with the murder of Kitely tomorrow.
Myler's evidence caused a profound sensation in court--but there was
even more sensation and more excitement when Myler's father-in-law
followed him in the witness-box. It was literally in a breathless
silence that the old man told the story of the crime of thirty years
ago; it was a wonderfully dramatic moment when he declared that in spite
of the long time that had elapsed he recognized the Mallalieu and
Cotherstone of Highmarket as the Mallows and Chidforth whom he had known
at Wilchester.
Even then Mallalieu had not flinched. Cotherstone flushed, grew
restless, hung his head a little, looked as if he would like to explain.
But Mallalieu continued to stare fixedly across the court. He cared
nothing that the revelation had been made at last. Now that it had been
made, in full publicity, he did not care a brass farthing if every man
and woman in Highmarket knew that he was an ex-gaol-bird. That was far
away in the dead past--what he cared about was the present and the
future. And his sharp wits told him that if the evidence of Myler and of
old Pursey was all that the prosecution could bring against him, he was
safe. That there had been a secret, that Stoner had come into possession
of it, that Stoner was about to make profit of it, was no proof that he
and Cotherstone, or either of them, had murdered Stoner. No--if that
was all....
But in another moment Mallalieu knew that it was not all. Up to that
moment he had firmly believed that he had got away from Hobwick Quarry
unobserved. Here he was wrong. He had now to learn that a young man from
Norcaster had come over to Highmarket that Sunday afternoon to visit his
sweetheart; that this couple had gone up the moors; that they were on
the opposite side of Hobwick Quarry when he went down into it after
Stoner's fall; that they had seen him move about and finally go away;
what was more, they had seen Cotherstone descend into the quarry and
recover the stick; Cotherstone had passed near them as they stood hidden
in the bushes; they had seen the stick in his hand.
When Mallalieu heard all this and saw his stick produced and identified,
he ceased to take any further interest in that stage of the proceedings.
He knew the worst now, and he began to think of his plans and schemes.
And suddenly, all the evidence for that time being over, and the
magistrates and the officials being in the thick of some whispered
consultations about the adjournment, Mallalieu spoke for the first time.
"I shall have my answer about all this business at the right time and
place," he said loudly. "My partner can do what he likes. All I have to
say now is that I ask for bail. You can fix it at any amount you like.
You all know me."
The magistrates and the officials looked across the well of the court in
astonishment, and the chairman, a mild old gentleman who was obviously
much distressed by the revelation, shook his head deprecatingly.
"Impossible!" he remonstrated. "Quite impossible! We haven't the
power----"
"You're wrong!" retorted Mallalieu, masterful and insistent as ever.
"You have the power! D'ye think I've been a justice of the peace for
twelve years without knowing what law is? You've the power to admit to
bail in all charges of felony, at your discretion. So now then!"
The magistrates looked at their clerk, and the clerk smiled.
"Mr. Mallalieu's theory is correct," he said quietly. "But no magistrate
is obliged to admit to bail in felonies and misdemeanours, and in
practice bail is never allowed in cases where--as in this case--the
charge is one of murder. Such procedure is unheard of."
"Make a precedent, then!" sneered Mallalieu. "Here!--you can have twenty
thousand pounds security, if you like."
But this offer received no answer, and in five minutes more Mallalieu
heard the case adjourned for a week and himself and Cotherstone
committed to Norcaster Gaol in the meantime. Without a look at his
fellow-prisoner he turned out of the dock and was escorted back to the
private room in the Town Hall from which he had been brought.
"Hang 'em for a lot of fools!" he burst out to the superintendent, who
had accompanied him. "Do they think I'm going to run away? Likely
thing--on a trumped-up charge like this. Here!--how soon shall you be
wanting to start for yon place?"
The superintendent, who had cherished considerable respect for Mallalieu
in the past, and was much upset and very downcast about this sudden
change in the Mayor's fortunes, looked at his prisoner and shook his
head.
"There's a couple of cars ordered to be ready in half an hour, Mr.
Mallalieu," he answered. "One for you, and one for Mr. Cotherstone."
"With armed escorts in both, I suppose!" sneered Mallalieu. "Well, look
here--you've time to get me a cup of tea. Slip out and get one o' your
men to nip across to the Arms for it--good, strong tea, and a slice or
two of bread-and-butter. I can do with it."
He flung half a crown on the table, and the superintendent, suspecting
nothing, and willing to oblige a man who had always been friendly and
genial towards himself, went out of the room, with no further
precautions than the turning of the key in the lock when he had once got
outside the door. It never entered his head that the prisoner would try
to escape, never crossed his mind that Mallalieu had any chance of
escaping. He went away along the corridor to find one of his men who
could be dispatched to the Highmarket Arms.
But the instant Mallalieu was left alone he started into action. He had
not been Mayor of Highmarket for two years, a member of its Corporation
for nearly twenty, without knowing all the ins-and-outs of that old Town
Hall. And as soon as the superintendent had left him he drew from his
pocket a key, went across the room to a door which stood in a corner
behind a curtain, unlocked it, opened it gently, looked out, passed into
a lobby without, relocked the door behind him, and in another instant
was stealing quietly down a private staircase that led to an entrance
into the quaint old garden at the back of the premises. One further
moment of suspense and of looking round, and he was safely in that
garden and behind the thick shrubs which ran along one of its high
walls. Yet another and he was out of the garden, and in an old-fashioned
orchard which ran, thick with trees, to the very edge of the coppices at
the foot of the Shawl. Once in that orchard, screened by its
close-branched, low-spreading boughs, leafless though they were at that
period of the year, he paused to get his breath, and to chuckle over the
success of his scheme. What a mercy, what blessing, he thought, that
they had not searched him on his arrest!--that they had delayed that
interesting ceremony until his committal! The omission, he knew, had
been winked at--purposely--and it had left him with his precious
waistcoat, his revolver, and the key that had opened his prison door.
Dusk had fallen over Highmarket before the hearing came to an end, and
it was now dark. Mallalieu knew that he had little time to lose--but he
also knew that his pursuers would have hard work to catch him. He had
laid his plans while the last two witnesses were in the box: his
detailed knowledge of the town and its immediate neighbourhood stood in
good stead. Moreover, the geographical situation of the Town Hall was a
great help. He had nothing to do but steal out of the orchard into the
coppices, make his way cautiously through them into the deeper wood
which fringed the Shawl, pass through that to the ridge at the top, and
gain the moors. Once on those moors he would strike by devious way for
Norcaster--he knew a safe place in the Lower Town there where he could
be hidden for a month, three months, six months, without fear of
discovery, and from whence he could get away by ship.
All was quiet as he passed through a gap in the orchard hedge and stole
into the coppices. He kept stealthily but swiftly along through the pine
and fir until he came to the wood which covered the higher part of the
Shawl. The trees were much thicker there, the brakes and bushes were
thicker, and the darkness was greater. He was obliged to move at a
slower pace--and suddenly he heard men's voices on the lower slopes
beneath him. He paused catching his breath and listening. And then, just
as suddenly as he had heard the voices, he felt a hand, firm, steady,
sinewy, fasten on his wrist and stay there.