United States or Falkland Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Instead of going out of the station by the ordinary way, he got over the fence on the down line side, saying to me that he'd take a straight cut across the moor to Highmarket. I saw him going Highmarket way for some distance. And he'd be at Hobwick Quarry by 4.30 at the latest long before darkness." "Just about sunset, as a matter of fact," remarked the superintendent. "The sun sets about 4.18."
Look here!" exclaimed Cotherstone, again bringing his hand down heavily on the desk. "I went up there by Hobwick Quarry on Sunday afternoon to do a bit of thinking. As I got to that spinney at the edge of the quarry, I saw Mallalieu and our clerk. They were fratching quarrelling I could hear 'em as well as see 'em. And I slipped behind a big bush and waited and watched.
The warrants were issued an hour ago and we've got Mr. Mallalieu already. Come on, Mr. Cotherstone! there's no help for it." Twenty-four hours after he had seen Stoner fall headlong into Hobwick Quarry, Mallalieu made up his mind for flight.
That there had been a secret, that Stoner had come into possession of it, that Stoner was about to make profit of it, was no proof that he and Cotherstone, or either of them, had murdered Stoner. No if that was all.... But in another moment Mallalieu knew that it was not all. Up to that moment he had firmly believed that he had got away from Hobwick Quarry unobserved. Here he was wrong.
And when the superintendent and the two policemen who had been with him up to Hobwick Quarry had answered that they had found nothing at all, he had hard work to repress a sigh of relief.
After munching his sandwich and drinking his ale at the Highmarket Arms, Mallalieu had gone away to Hobwick Quarry and taken a careful look round. Just as he had expected, he found a policeman or two and a few gaping townsfolk there. He made no concealment of his own curiosity; he had come up, he said, to see what there was to be seen at the place where his clerk had come to this sad end.
He had now to learn that a young man from Norcaster had come over to Highmarket that Sunday afternoon to visit his sweetheart; that this couple had gone up the moors; that they were on the opposite side of Hobwick Quarry when he went down into it after Stoner's fall; that they had seen him move about and finally go away; what was more, they had seen Cotherstone descend into the quarry and recover the stick; Cotherstone had passed near them as they stood hidden in the bushes; they had seen the stick in his hand.
The Kitely affair faded into insignificance except amongst the cute and knowing few, who immediately began to ask if the Hobwick Quarry murder had anything to do with the murder on the Shawl.
"Well?" demanded Mallalieu, nerving himself for what he felt to be coming. "What about it?" "He's met with a bad accident," replied the superintendent. "In fact, sir, he's dead! A couple of men found his body an hour or so ago in Hobwick Quarry, up on the moor, and it's been brought down to the mortuary. You'd better come round, Mr. Mayor Mr. Cotherstone's there, now."
He had no knowledge whatever of Stoner's having found out the secret of the Wilchester affair. He knew nothing of Stoner's having gone over to Darlington. On the Sunday he himself had gone up the moors for a quiet stroll. At the spinney overhanging Hobwick Quarry he had seen Mallalieu and Stoner, and had at once noticed that something in the shape of a quarrel was afoot.
Word Of The Day