“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 you—so much trusted that you’ve been Borough Treasurer for years. You can’t afford to let me tell the Highmarket folk that you two are ex-convicts! Besides, in your case there’s another thing—there’s your daughter.”
Cotherstone groaned—a deep, unmistakable groan of sheer torture. But Kitely went on remorselessly.
“Your daughter’s just about to marry the most promising young man in the place,” he said. “A young fellow with a career before him. Do you think he’d marry her if he knew that her father—even if it is thirty years ago—had been convicted of—”
“Look you here!” interrupted Cotherstone, through set teeth. “I’ve had enough! I’ve asked you once before if you’d any more to say—now I’ll put it in another fashion. For I see what you’re after—and it’s blackmail! How much do you want? Come on—give it a name!”
“Name nothing, till you’ve told Mallalieu,” answered Kitely. “There’s no hurry. You two can’t, and I shan’t, run away. Time enough—I’ve the whip hand. Tell your partner, the Mayor, all I’ve told you—then you can put your heads together, and see what you’re inclined to do. An annuity, now?—that would suit me.”
“You haven’t mentioned this to a soul?” asked Cotherstone anxiously.
“Bah!” sneered Kitely. “D’ye think I’m a fool? Not likely. Well—now you know. I’ll come in here again tomorrow afternoon. And—you’ll both be here, and ready with a proposal.”
He picked up his glass, leisurely drank off its remaining contents, and without a word of farewell opened the door and went quietly away.
II
Crime—and Success
For some moments after Kitely had left him, Cotherstone stood vacantly staring at the chair in which the blackmailer had sat. As yet he could not realize things. He was only filled with a queer, vague amazement about Kitely himself. He began to look back on his relations with Kitely. They were recent—very recent, only of yesterday, as you might say. Kitely had come to him, one day about three months previously, told him that he had come to these parts for a bit of a holiday, taken a fancy to a cottage which he, Cotherstone, had to let, and inquired its rent. He had mentioned, casually, that he had just retired from business, and wanted a quiet place wherein to spend the rest of his days. He had taken the cottage, and given his landlord satisfactory references as to his ability to pay the rent—and Cotherstone, always a busy man, had thought no more about him. Certainly he had never anticipated such an announcement as that which Kitely had just made to him—never dreamed that Kitely had recognized him and Mallalieu as men he had known thirty years ago.
It had been Cotherstone’s lifelong endeavour to forget all about the event of thirty years ago, and to a large extent he had succeeded in dulling his memory. But Kitely had brought it all back—and now everything was fresh to him. His brows knitted and his face grew dark as he thought of one thing in his past of which Kitely had spoken so easily and glibly—the dock. He saw himself in that dock again—and Mallalieu standing by him. They were not called Mallalieu and Cotherstone then, of course. He remembered what their real names were—he remembered, too, that, until a few minutes before, he had certainly not repeated them, even to himself, for many a long year. Oh, yes—he remembered everything—he saw it all again. The case had excited plenty of attention in Wilchester at
