“Dead?” asked the superintendent.
“Only just,” replied Cotherstone. “But he was dead—and I saw what had caused his death, for I struck a match to look at him. I saw that empty pocketbook lying by—I saw a scrap of folded newspaper, too, and I picked it up and later, when I’d read it, I put it in a safe place—I’ve taken it from that place tonight for the first time, and it’s here—you keep it. Well—I went on, up to the cottage. The door was open—I looked in. Yon woman, Miss Pett, was at the table by the lamp, turning over some papers—I saw Kitely’s writing on some of ’em. I stepped softly in and tapped her on the arm, and she screamed and started back. I looked at her. ‘Do you know that your master’s lying dead, murdered, down amongst those trees?’ I said. Then she pulled herself together, and she sort of got between me and the door. ‘No, I don’t!’ she says. ‘But if he is, I’m not surprised, for I’ve warned him many a time about going out after nightfall.’ I looked hard at her. ‘What’re you doing with his papers there?’ I says. ‘Papers!’ she says. ‘They’re naught but old bills and things that he gave me to sort.’ ‘That’s a lie!’ I says, ‘those aren’t bills and I believe you know something about this, and I’m off for the police—to tell!’ Then she pushed the door to behind her and folded her arms and looked at me. ‘You tell a word,’ she says, ‘and I’ll tell it all over the town that you and your partner’s a couple of ex-convicts! I know your tale—Kitely’d no secrets from me. You stir a step to tell anybody, and I’ll begin by going straight to young Bent—and I’ll not stop at that, neither.’ So you see where I was—I was frightened to death of that old affair getting out, and I knew then that Kitely was a liar and had told this old woman all about it, and—well, I hesitated. And she saw that she had me, and she went on, ‘You hold your tongue, and I’ll hold mine!’ she says. ‘Nobody’ll accuse me, I know—but if you speak one word, I’ll denounce you! You and your partner are much more likely to have killed Kitely than I am!’ Well, I still stood, hesitating. ‘What’s to be done?’ I asked at last. ‘Do naught,’ she said. ‘Go home, like a wise man, and know naught about it. Let him be found—and say naught. But if you do, you know what to expect.’ ‘Not a word that I came in here, then?’ I said at last. ‘Nobody’ll get no words from me beyond what I choose to give ’em,’ she says. ‘And—silence about the other?’ I said. ‘Just as long as you’re silent,’ she says. And with that I walked out—and I set off towards home by another way. And just as I was leaving the wood to turn into the path that leads into our lane I heard a man coming along and I shrank into some shrubs and watched for him till he came close up. He passed me and went on to the cottage—and I slipped back then and looked in through the window, and there he was, and they were both whispering together at the table. And it—was this woman’s nephew—Pett, the lawyer.”
The superintendent, whose face had assumed various expressions during this narrative, lifted his hands in amazement.
“But—but we were in and about that cottage most of that night—afterwards!” he exclaimed. “We never saw aught of him. I know he was supposed to come down from London the next night, but—”
“Tell you he was there that night!” insisted Cotherstone. “D’ye think I could mistake him? Well, I went home—and you know what happened afterwards: you know what she said and how she behaved when we went up—and of course I played my part. But—that bit of newspaper I’ve given you. I read it carefully that night, last thing. It’s a column cut out of a Woking newspaper of some years ago—it’s to do with an inquest in which this woman was concerned—there seems to be some evidence that she got rid of an employer of hers by poison. And d’ye know what I think, now?—I think that had been sent to Kitely, and he’d plagued her about it, or held it out as a threat to her—and—what is it?”
The superintendent had risen and was taking down his overcoat.
“Do you know that this woman’s leaving the town tomorrow?” he said. “And there’s her nephew with her, now—been here for a week? Of course, I understand why you’ve told me all this, Mr. Cotherstone—now that your old affair at Wilchester is common knowledge, far and wide, you don’t care, and you don’t see any reason for more secrecy?”
“My reason,” answered Cotherstone, with a grim smile, “is to show Highmarket folk that they aren’t so clever as they think. For the probability is that Kitely was killed by that woman, or her nephew, or both.”
“I’m going up there with a couple of my best men, anyway,” said the superintendent. “There’s no time to lose if they’re clearing out tomorrow.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Cotherstone. He waited, staring at the fire until the superintendent had been into the adjacent police-station and had come back to say that he and his men were ready. “What do you mean to do?” he asked
