Pett half-closed his eyes as he turned them on his questioner.
“Too early!” he replied, with a shake of his head. “Much too early. I shall—in due course. Meantime, there’s another little commission I have to discharge, and I may as well do it at once. There are two or three trifling bequests in this will, gentlemen—one of ’em’s to you, Mr. Bent. It wasn’t in the original will—that was made before Kitely came to these parts. It’s in a codicil—made when I came down here a few weeks ago, on the only visit I ever paid to the old gentleman. He desired, in case of his death, to leave you something—said you’d been very friendly to him.”
“Very good of him, I’m sure,” said Bent with a glance of surprise. “I’m rather astonished to hear of it, though.”
“Oh, it’s nothing much,” remarked Pett, with a laugh as he drew from the brief bag what looked like an old quarto account book, fastened by a brass clasp. “It’s a scrap-book that the old man kept—a sort of album in which he pasted up all sorts of odds and ends. He thought you’d find ’em interesting. And knowing of this bequest, sir, I thought I’d bring the book down. You might just give me a formal receipt for its delivery, Mr. Bent.”
Bent took his curious legacy and led Mr. Pett away to a writing-desk to dictate a former of receipt. And as they turned away, the superintendent signed to Brereton to step into a corner of the room with him.
“You know what you said about that electric torch notion this afternoon, sir?” he whispered. “Well, after you left me, I just made an inquiry—absolutely secret, you know—myself. I went to Rellit, the ironmonger—I knew that if such things had ever come into the town, it ’ud be through him, for he’s the only man that’s at all up-to-date. And—I heard more than I expected to hear!”
“What?” asked Brereton.
“I think there may be something in what you said,” answered the superintendent. “But, listen here—Rellit says he’d swear a solemn oath that nobody but himself ever sold an electric torch in Highmarket. And he’s only sold to three persons—to the Vicar’s son; to Mr. Mallalieu; and to Jack Harborough!”
XII
Parental Anxiety
For a moment Brereton and the superintendent looked at each other in silence. Then Bent got up from his desk at the other side of the room, and he and the little solicitor came towards them.
“Keep that to yourself, then,” muttered Brereton. “We’ll talk of it later. It may be of importance.”
“Well, there’s this much to bear in mind,” whispered the superintendent, drawing back a little with an eye on the others. “Nothing of that sort was found on your client! And he’d been out all night. That’s worth considering—from his standpoint, Mr. Brereton.”
Brereton nodded his assent and turned away with another warning glance. And presently Pett and the superintendent went off, and Bent dropped into his easy chair with a laugh.
“Queer sort of unexpected legacy!” he said. “I wonder if the old man really thought I should be interested in his scrap-book?”
“There may be a great deal that’s interesting in it,” remarked Brereton, with a glance at the book, which Bent had laid aside on top of a bookcase. “Take care of it. Well, what did you think of Mr. Christopher Pett?”
“Cool hand, I should say,” answered Bent. “But—what did you think of him?”
“Oh, I’ve met Mr. Christopher Pett’s sort before,” said Brereton, drily. “The Dodson & Fogg type of legal practitioner is by no means extinct. I should much like to know a good deal more about his various dealings with Kitely. We shall see and hear more about them, however—later on. For the present there are—other matters.”
He changed the subject then—to something utterly apart from the murder and its mystery. For the one topic which filled his own mind was also the very one which he could not discuss with Bent. Had Cotherstone, had Mallalieu anything to do with Kitely’s death? That question was beginning to engross all his attention: he thought more about it than about his schemes for a successful defence of Harborough, well knowing that his best way of proving Harborough’s innocence lay in establishing another man’s guilt.
“One would give a good deal,” he said to himself, as he went to bed that night, “if one could get a moment’s look into Cotherstone’s mind—or into Mallalieu’s either! For I’ll swear that these two know something—possibly congratulating themselves that it will never be known to anybody else!”
If Brereton could have looked into the minds of either of the partners at this particular juncture he would have found much opportunity for thought and reflection, of a curious nature. For both were keeping a double watch—on the course of events on one hand; on each other, on the other hand. They watched the police-court proceedings against Harborough and saw, with infinite relief, that nothing transpired which seemed inimical to themselves. They watched the proceedings at the inquest held on Kitely; they, too, yielded nothing that could attract attention in the way they dreaded. When several days had gone by and the police investigations seemed to have settled down into a concentrated purpose against the suspected man, both Mallalieu and Cotherstone believed themselves safe from discovery—their joint secret appeared to be well buried with the old detective. But the secret was keenly and vividly alive in their own hearts, and when Mallalieu faced the truth he knew that he suspected Cotherstone, and when Cotherstone put things squarely to himself he knew that he suspected Mallalieu. And the two men got to eyeing each other furtively, and to addressing each other curtly, and when they happened to be alone there was a heavy atmosphere of mutual dislike and suspicion between them.
It was a strange psychological fact that though these men had been partners for a period covering the most important part of their lives, they
