The Borough Treasurer | Page 7

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.
CHAPTER III
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