The Borough Treasurer | Page 3

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 made a sudden exclamation and a sharp movement--both
checked by an equally sudden change of attitude and expression on the
part of the ex-detective. For Kitely sat straight up and looked the junior
partner squarely in the face.
"Better not, Mr. Cotherstone!" he said, with a grin that showed his
yellow teeth. "You can't very well choke the life out of me in your own
office, can you? You couldn't hide my old carcase as easily as you and
Mallalieu hid those Building Society funds, you know. So--be calm!
I'm a reasonable man--and getting an old man."
He accompanied the last words with a meaning smile, and Cotherstone
took a turn or two about the room, trying to steady himself. And Kitely
presently went on again, in the same monotonous tones:
"Think it all out--by all means," he said. "I don't suppose there's a soul
in all England but myself knows your secret--and Mallalieu's. It was
sheer accident, of course, that I ever discovered it. But--I know! Just
consider what I do know. Consider, too, what you stand to lose. There's
Mallalieu, so much respected that he's Mayor of this ancient borough
for the second time. There's