“Not beyond reason,” replied Miss Pett. “We’re not unreasonable people, our family. He’s a very sensible young man, is Christopher. The late Kitely had a very strong opinion of his abilities.”
Mallalieu had no doubt of Mr. Christopher Pett’s abilities in a certain direction after he had exchanged a few questions and answers with that young gentleman. For Christopher was shrewd, sharp, practical and judicial.
“It’s a very dangerous and—you’ll excuse plain speaking under the circumstances, sir—very foolish thing that you’ve done, Mr. Mallalieu,” he said, as he and the prisoner sat closeted together in the still shuttered and curtained parlour-bedroom. “The mere fact of your making your escape, sir, is what some would consider a proof of guilt—it is indeed! And of course my aunt—and myself, in my small way—we’re running great risks, Mr. Mallalieu—we really are—great risks!”
“Now then, you’ll not lose by me,” said Mallalieu. “I’m not a man of straw.”
“All very well, sir,” replied Christopher, “but even if you were a millionaire and recompensed us on what I may term a princely scale—not that we shall expect it, Mr. Mallalieu—the risks would be extraordinary—ahem! I mean will be extraordinary. For you see, Mr. Mallalieu, there’s two or three things that’s dead certain. To start with, sir, it’s absolutely impossible for you to get away from here by yourself—you can’t do it!”
“Why not?” growled Mallalieu. “I can get away at nightfall.”
“No, sir,” affirmed Christopher stoutly. “I saw the condition of the moors last night. Patrolled, Mr. Mallalieu, patrolled! By men with lights. That patrolling, sir, will go on for many a night. Make up your mind, Mr. Mallalieu, that if you set foot out of this house, you’ll see the inside of Norcaster Gaol before two hours is over!”
“What do you advise, then?” demanded Mallalieu. “Here!—I’m fairly in for it, so I’ll tell you what my notion was. If I can once get to a certain part of Norcaster, I’m safe. I can get away to the Continent from there.”
“Then, sir,” replied Christopher, “the thing is to devise a plan by which you can be conveyed to Norcaster without suspicion. That’ll have to be arranged between me and my aunt—hence our risks on your behalf.”
“Your aunt said she’d a plan,” remarked Mallalieu.
“Not quite matured, sir,” said Christopher. “It needs a little reflection and trimming, as it were. Now what I advise, Mr. Mallalieu, is this—you keep snug here, with my aunt as sentinel—she assures me that even if the police—don’t be frightened, sir!—did come here, she could hide you quite safely before ever she opened the door to them. As for me, I’ll go, casual-like, into the town, and do a bit of quiet looking and listening. I shall be able to find out how the land lies, sir—and when I return I’ll report to you, and the three of us will put our heads together.”
Leaving the captive in charge of Miss Pett, Christopher, having brushed his silk hat and his overcoat and fitted on a pair of black kid gloves, strolled solemnly into Highmarket. He was known to a few people there, and he took good care to let those of his acquaintance who met him hear that he had come down to arrange his aunt’s affairs, and to help in the removal of the household goods bequeathed to her by the deceased Kitely. In proof of this he called in at the furniture remover’s, to get an estimate of the cost of removal to Norcaster Docks—thence, said Christopher, the furniture could be taken by sea to London, where Miss Pett intended to reside in future. At the furniture remover’s, and in such other shops as he visited, and in the bar-parlour of the Highmarket Arms, where he stayed an hour or so, gossiping with the loungers, and sipping a glass or two of dry sherry, Christopher picked up a great deal of information. And at noon he returned to the cottage, having learned that the police and everybody in Highmarket firmly believed that Mallalieu had got clear and clean away the night before, and was already far beyond pursuit. The police theory was that there had been collusion, and that immediately on his escape he had been whirled off by some person to whose identity there was as yet no clue.
But Christopher Pett told a very different story to Mallalieu. The moors, he said, were being patrolled night and day: it was believed the fugitive was in hiding in one of the old quarries. Every road and entrance to Norcaster, and to all the adjacent towns and stations, was watched and guarded. There was no hope for Mallalieu but in the kindness and contrivance of the aunt and the nephew, and Mallalieu recognized the inevitable and was obliged to yield himself to their tender mercies.
XXV
No Further Evidence
While Mallalieu lay captive in the stronghold of Miss Pett, Cotherstone was experiencing a quite different sort of incarceration in the detention cells of Norcaster Gaol. Had he known where his partner was, and under what circumstances Mallalieu had obtained deliverance from official bolts and bars, Cotherstone would probably have laughed in his sleeve and sneered at him for a fool. He had been calling Mallalieu a fool, indeed, ever since the previous evening, when the police, conducting him to Norcaster, had told him of the Mayor’s escape from the Town Hall. Nobody but an absolute fool, a consummate idiot, thought Cotherstone, would have done a thing like that. The man who flies is the man who has reason to fly—that was Cotherstone’s opinion, and in his belief ninety-nine out of every hundred persons in Highmarket would share it. Mallalieu would now be set down as guilty—they would say he dared not face things, that he knew he was doomed, that his escape was the desperate act of a conscious criminal. Ass!—said Cotherstone, not without a certain amount of malicious delight: they should none of them have reason to
