“Your simile is not a good one, Mr. Pett,” retorted Brereton. “Cats are said to have nine lives.”
“Cat, rat, mouse, dog—no chance whatever, sir,” said Pett, cheerfully. “I know what a country jury’ll say. If I were a betting man, Mr. Brereton—which I ain’t, being a regular church attendant—I’d lay you ten to one the jury’ll never leave the box, sir!”
“No—I don’t think they will—when the right man is put in the dock, Mr. Pett,” replied Brereton.
Pett drew back and looked the young barrister in the face with an expression that was half quizzical and half serious.
“You don’t mean to say that you really believe this fellow to be innocent, Mr. Brereton?” he exclaimed. “You!—with your knowledge of criminal proceedings! Oh, come now, Mr. Brereton—it’s very kind of you, very quixotic, as I call it, but—”
“You shall see,” said Brereton and turned off. He had no mind to be more than civil to Pett, and he frowned when Pett, in his eagerness, laid a detaining hand on his gown. “I’m not going to discuss it, Mr. Pett,” he added, a little warmly. “I’ve my own view of the case.”
“But, but, Mr. Brereton—a moment!” urged Pett. “Just between ourselves as—well, not as lawyers but as—as one gentleman to another. Do you think it possible it was some other person? Do you now, really?”
“Didn’t your estimable female relative, as you call her, say that I suggested she might be the guilty person?” demanded Brereton, maliciously. “Come, now, Mr. Pett! You don’t know all that I know!”
Pett fell back, staring doubtfully at Brereton’s curled lip, and wondering whether to take him seriously or not. And Brereton laughed and went off—to reflect, five minutes later, that this was no laughing matter for Harborough and his daughter, and to plunge again into the maze of thought out of which it was so difficult to drag anything that seemed likely to be helpful.
He interviewed Harborough again before he was taken back to Norcaster, and again he pressed him to speak, and again Harborough gave him a point-blank refusal.
“Not unless it comes to the very worst, sir,” he said firmly, “and only then if I see there’s no other way—and even then it would only be for my daughter’s sake. But it won’t come to that! There’s three weeks yet—good—and if somebody can’t find out the truth in three weeks—”
“Man alive!” exclaimed Brereton. “Your own common sense ought to tell you that in cases like this three years isn’t enough to get at the truth! What can I do in three weeks?”
“There’s not only you, sir,” replied Harborough. “There’s the police—there’s the detectives—there’s—”
“The police and the detectives are all doing their best to fasten the crime on you!” retorted Brereton. “Of course they are! That’s their way. When they’ve safely got one man, do you think they’re going to look for another? If you won’t tell me what you were doing, and where you were that night, well, I’ll have to find out for myself.”
Harborough gave his counsel a peculiar look which Brereton could not understand.
“Oh, well!” he said. “If you found it out—”
He broke off at that, and would say no more, and Brereton presently left him and walked thoughtfully homeward, reflecting on the prisoner’s last words.
“He admits there is something to be found out,” he mused. “And by that very admission he implies that it could be found out. Now—how? Egad!—I’d give something for even the least notion!”
Bent’s parlourmaid, opening the door to Brereton, turned to a locked drawer in the old-fashioned clothespress which stood in Bent’s hall, and took from it a registered letter.
“For you, sir,” she said, handing it to Brereton. “Came by the noon post, sir. The housekeeper signed for it.”
Brereton took the letter into the smoking-room and looked at it with a sudden surmise that it might have something to do with the matter which was uppermost in his thoughts. He had had no expectation of any registered letter, no idea of anything that could cause any correspondent of his to send him any communication by registered post. There was no possibility of recognizing the handwriting of the sender, for there was no handwriting to recognize: the address was typewritten. And the postmark was London.
Brereton carefully cut open the flap of the envelope and drew out the enclosure—a square sheet of typewriting paper folded about a thin wad of Bank of England notes. He detached these at once and glanced quickly at them. There were six of them: all new and crisp—and each was for a hundred and fifty pounds.
Brereton laid this money aside and opened the letter. This, too, was typewritten: a mere glance at its termination showed that it was anonymous. He sat down at Bent’s desk and carefully read it through.
There was no address: there was nothing beyond the postmark on the envelope to show where the letter came from; there was absolutely nothing in the contents to give any clue to the sender. But the wording was clear and plain.
Mr. Gifford Brereton—Having learnt from the newspapers that you are acting as counsel for John Harborough, charged with the murder of a man named Kitely at Highmarket, I send you the enclosed £900 to be used in furthering Harborough’s defence. You will use it precisely as you think fit. You are not to spare it nor any endeavour to prove Harborough’s innocence—which is known to the sender. Whenever further funds are needed, all you need do is to insert an advertisement in the personal column of The Times newspaper in these words: “Highmarket Exchequer needs replenishing,” with your initials added. Allow
