The Borough Treasurer

shillings and sixpence per week. In their opinion a young single man ought to have done very well on that: Mallalieu and Cotherstone had both done very well on less when they were clerks in that long vanished past of which they did not care to think. But Stoner was a young man of tastes. He liked to dress well. He liked to play cards and billiards. He liked to take a drink or two at the Highmarket taverns of an evening, and to be able to give his favourite barmaids boxes of chocolate or pairs of gloves now and then⁠—judiciously. And he found his salary not at all too great, and he was always on the lookout for a chance of increasing it.

Stoner emerged from Mallalieu & Cotherstone’s office at his usual hour of half-past five on the afternoon of the day on which the reward bills were put out. It was his practice to drop in at the Grey Mare Inn every evening on his way to his supper, there to drink a half-pint of bitter ale and hear the news of the day from various cronies who were to be met with in the bar-parlour. As he crossed the street on this errand on this particular evening, Postick, the local bill-poster, came hurrying out of the printer’s shop with a bundle of handbills under his arm, and as he sped past Stoner, thrust a couple of them into the clerk’s hand.

“Here y’are, Mr. Stoner!” he said without stopping. “Something for you to set your wits to work on. Five hundred reward⁠—for a bit o’ brain work!”

Stoner, who thought Postick was chaffing him, was about to throw the handbills, still damp from the press, into the gutter which he was stepping over. But in the light of an adjacent lamp he caught sight of the word Murder in big staring capitals at the top of them. Beneath it he caught further sight of familiar names⁠—and at that he folded up the bills, went into the Grey Mare, sat down in a quiet corner, and read carefully through the announcement. It was a very simple one, and plainly worded. Five hundred pounds would be paid by Mr. Tallington, solicitor, of Highmarket, to any person or persons who would afford information which would lead to the arrest and conviction of the murderer or murderers of the deceased Kitely.

No one was in the bar-parlour of the Grey Mare when Stoner first entered it, but by the time he had reread the handbill, two or three men of the town had come in, and he saw that each carried a copy. One of them, a small tradesman whose shop was in the centre of the Market Square, leaned against the bar and read the terms of the reward aloud.

“And whose money might that be?” he asked, half-sneeringly. “Who’s throwing brass round in that freehanded fashion? I should want to know if the money’s safe before I wasted my time in trying to get it.”

“Money’ll be all right,” observed one of the speaker’s companions. “There’s Lawyer Tallington’s name at the foot o’ that bill. He wouldn’t put his name to no offer o’ that sort if he hadn’t the brass in hand.”

“Whose money is it, then?” demanded the first speaker. “It’s not a Government reward. They say that Kitely had no relatives, so it can’t be them. And it can’t be that old housekeeper of his, because they say she’s satisfied enough that Jack Harborough’s the man, and they’ve got him. Queer do altogether, I call it!”

“It’s done in Harborough’s interest,” said a third man. “Either that, or there’s something very deep in it. Somebody’s not satisfied and somebody’s going to have a flutter with his brass over it.” He turned and glanced at Stoner, who had come to the bar for his customary half-pint of ale. “Your folks aught to do with this?” he asked. “Kitely was Mr. Cotherstone’s tenant, of course.”

Stoner laughed scornfully as he picked up his tankard.

“Yes, I don’t think!” he sneered. “Catch either of my governors wasting five hundred pence, or five pence, in that way! Not likely!”

“Well, there’s Tallington’s name to back it,” said one of the men. “We all know Tallington. What he says, he does. The money’ll be there⁠—if it’s earned.”

Then they all looked at each other silently, surmise and speculation in the eyes of each.

“Tell you what!” suddenly observed the little tradesman, as if struck with a clever idea. “It might be young Bent! Five hundred pound is naught to him. This here young London barrister that’s defending Harborough is stopping with Bent⁠—they’re old schoolmates. Happen he’s persuaded Bent to do the handsome: they say that this barrister chap’s right down convinced that Harborough’s innocent. It must be Bent’s brass!”

“What’s Popsie say?” asked one of the younger members of the party, winking at the barmaid, who, having supplied her customers’ needs, was leaning over a copy of the handbill which somebody had laid on the bar. “Whose brass can it be, Popsie?”

The barmaid stood up, seized a glass and a cloth, and began to polish the glass with vigor.

“What’s Popsie say?” she repeated. “Why, what she says is that you’re a lot of donkeys for wasting your time in wondering whose brass it is. What does it matter whose brass it is, so long as it’s safe? What you want to do is to try and earn it. You don’t pick up five hundred pounds every day!”

“She’s right!” said some man of the group. “But⁠—how does anybody start on to them games?”

“There’ll be plenty o’ starters, for all that, my lads!” observed the little tradesman. “Never you fear! There’ll be candidates.”

Stoner drank off his ale and went away. Usually, being given to gossip, he stopped chatting with anybody he chanced to meet until it was close upon his suppertime. But the last remark sent him off. For Stoner meant to be a starter, and he had no desire that anybody should get away in front