The Borough Treasurer. J. S. Fletcher

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ continued his checking until it was finished, entered the figures on his list, and went briskly back to the counting-house near the gateway. There he bustled into a room kept sacred to himself and Mallalieu, with a cheery greeting to his visitor—an elderly man who had recently rented from him a small house on the outskirts of the town.

      "Afternoon, Mr. Kitely," he said. "Glad to see you, sir—always glad to see anybody with a bit of money, eh? Take a chair, sir—I hope you're satisfied with the little place, Mr. Kitely?"

      The visitor took the offered elbow-chair, folded his hands on the top of his old-fashioned walking-cane, and glanced at his landlord with a half-humorous, half-quizzical expression. He was an elderly, clean-shaven, grey-haired man, spare of figure, dressed in rusty black; a wisp of white neckcloth at his throat gave him something of a clerical appearance: Cotherstone, who knew next to nothing about him, except that he was able to pay his rent and taxes, had already set him down as a retired verger of some cathedral.

      "I should think you and Mr. Mallalieu are in no need of a bit of money, Mr. Cotherstone," he said quietly. "Business seems to be good with you, sir."

      "Oh, so-so," replied Cotherstone, off-handedly. "Naught to complain of, of course. I'll give you a receipt, Mr. Kitely," he went on, seating himself at his desk and taking up a book of forms. "Let's see—twenty-five pounds a year is six pound five a quarter—there you are, sir. Will you have a drop of whisky?"

      Kitely laid a handful of gold and silver on the desk, took the receipt, and nodded his head, still watching Cotherstone with the same half-humorous expression.

      "Thank you," he said. "I shouldn't mind."

      He watched Cotherstone produce a decanter and glasses, watched him fetch fresh water from a filter in the corner of the room, watched him mix the drinks, and took his own with no more than a polite nod of thanks. And Cotherstone, murmuring an expression of good wishes, took a drink himself, and sat down with his desk-chair turned towards his visitor.

      "Aught you'd like doing at the house, Mr. Kitely?" he asked.

      "No," answered Kitely, "no, I can't say that there is."

      There was something odd, almost taciturn, in his manner, and Cotherstone glanced at him a little wonderingly.

      "And how do you like Highmarket, now you've had a spell of it?" he inquired. "Got settled down, I suppose, now?"

      "It's all that I expected," replied Kitely. "Quiet—peaceful. How do you like it?"

      "Me!" exclaimed Cotherstone, surprised. "Me?—why, I've had—yes, five-and-twenty years of it!"

      Kitely took another sip from his glass and set it down. He gave Cotherstone a sharp look.

      "Yes," he said, "yes—five-and-twenty years. You and your partner, both. Yes—it'll be just about thirty years since I first saw you. But—you've forgotten."

      Cotherstone, who had been lounging forward, warming his hands at the fire, suddenly sat straight up in his chair. His face, always sharp seemed to grow sharper as he turned to his visitor with a questioning look.

      "Since—what?" he demanded.

      "Since I first saw you—and Mr. Mallalieu," replied Kitely. "As I say, you've forgotten. But—I haven't."

      Cotherstone sat staring at his tenant for a full minute of speechlessness. Then he slowly rose, walked over to the door, looked at it to see that it was closed, and returning to the hearth, fixed his eyes on Kitely.

      "What do you mean?" he asked.

      "Just what I say," answered Kitely, with a dry laugh. "It's thirty years since I first saw you and Mallalieu. That's all."

      "Where?" demanded Cotherstone.

      Kitely motioned his landlord to sit down. And Cotherstone sat down—trembling. His arm shook when Kitely laid a hand on it.

      "Do you want to know where?" he asked, bending close to Cotherstone. "I'll tell you. In the dock—at Wilchester Assizes. Eh?"

      Cotherstone made no answer. He had put the tips of his fingers together, and now he was tapping the nails of one hand against the nails of the other. And he stared and stared at the face so close to his own—as if it had been the face of a man resurrected from the grave. Within him there was a feeling of extraordinary physical sickness; it was quickly followed by one of inertia, just as extraordinary. He felt as if he had been mesmerized; as if he could neither move nor speak. And Kitely sat there, a hand on his victim's arm, his face sinister and purposeful, close to his.

      "Fact!" he murmured. "Absolute fact! I remember everything. It's come on me bit by bit, though. I thought I knew you when I first came here—then I had a feeling that I knew Mallalieu. And—in time—I remembered—everything! Of course, when I saw you both—where I did see you—you weren't Mallalieu & Cotherstone. You were——"

      Cotherstone suddenly made an effort, and shook off the thin fingers which lay on his sleeve. His pale face grew crimson, and the veins swelled on his forehead.

      "Confound you!" he said in a low, concentrated voice. "Who are you?"

      Kitely shook his head and smiled quietly.

      "No need to grow warm," he answered. "Of course, it's excusable in you. Who am I? Well, if you really want to know, I've been employed in the police line for thirty-five years—until lately."

      "A detective!" exclaimed Cotherstone.

      "Not when I was present at Wilchester—that time," replied Kitely. "But afterwards—in due course. Ah!—do you know, I often was curious as to what became of you both! But I never dreamed of meeting you—here. Of course, you came up North after you'd done your time? Changed your names, started a new life—and here you are! Clever!"

      Cotherstone was recovering his wits. He had got out of his chair by that time, and had taken up a position on the hearthrug, his back to the fire, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on his visitor. He was thinking—and for the moment he let Kitely talk.

      "Yes—clever!" continued Kitely in the same level, subdued tones, "very clever indeed! I suppose you'd carefully planted some of that money you—got hold of? Must have done, of course—you'd want money to start this business. Well, you've done all this on the straight, anyhow. And you've done well, too. Odd, isn't it, that I should come to live down here, right away in the far North of England, and find you in such good circumstances, too! Mr. Mallalieu, Mayor of Highmarket—his second term of office! Mr. Cotherstone, Borough Treasurer of Highmarket—now in his sixth year of that important post! I say again—you've both done uncommonly well—uncommonly!"

      "Have you got any more to say?" asked Cotherstone.

      But Kitely evidently intended to say what he had to say in his own fashion. He took no notice of Cotherstone's question, and presently, as if he were amusing himself with reminiscences of a long dead past, he spoke again, quietly and slowly.

      "Yes," he murmured, "uncommonly well! And of course you'd have capital. Put safely away, of course, while you were doing your time. Let's see—it was a Building Society that you defrauded, wasn't it? Mallalieu was treasurer, and you were secretary. Yes—I remember now. The amount was two thous——"

      Cotherstone СКАЧАТЬ