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Updated: May 20, 2025
You won't perhaps see why, and I won't explain just now, but this foolish running away of Mallalieu, who, of course, is sure to be caught, is very much in Cotherstone's favour. I shall be much surprised if you don't find Cotherstone in very good spirits, and if there aren't developments in this affair within a day or two which will impress the whole neighbourhood."
Bent laid a hand on Cotherstone's arm and turned him in the direction of his house. "Brereton and I'll go with the sergeant," he said. "You must go home Lettie'll be anxious about things. Go down with him, Mr. Garthwaite you'll both hear more later." To Brereton's great surprise, Cotherstone made no objection to this summary dismissal.
"Have you got any more to say?" asked Cotherstone. But Kitely evidently intended to say what he had to say in his own fashion. He took no notice of Cotherstone's question, and presently, as if he were amusing himself with reminiscences of a long dead past, he spoke again, quietly and slowly. "Yes," he murmured, "uncommonly well! And of course you'd have capital.
"Cotherstone's set on it," answered Bent. "He seems to be turning into a regular hypochondriac. I hope nothing is really seriously wrong with him. But anyway this day week. And you'll play your part of best man, of course." "Oh, of course!" agreed Brereton. "And then are you going away?" "Yes, but not for as long as we'd meant," said Bent.
"Mallalieu!" he exclaimed. "Mallalieu! I believe he killed Kitely. I suspicioned it from the first, and I came certain of it on Sunday night. Why? Because I saw Mallalieu fell Stoner!" There was a dead silence in the room for a long, painful minute. Tallington broke it at last by repeating Cotherstone's last words. "You saw Mallalieu fell Stoner? Yourself?" "With these eyes!
Mallalieu & Cotherstone's office was only a few yards away along the street; Tallington was back from it with Cotherstone in five minutes. And Brereton, looking closely at Cotherstone as he entered and saw who awaited him, was certain that Cotherstone was ready for anything.
So, at any rate, it seemed to him. For Cotherstone's mind was essentially a worldly one, and it was beyond him to believe that an ambitious young man like Windle Bent would care to ally himself with the daughter of an ex-convict. Bent would have the best of excuses for breaking off all relations with the Cotherstone family if the unpleasant truth came out.
"Not much they wouldn't. Cotherstone's let loose to give evidence against you. When you're caught!" Mallalieu's small eyes began to bulge, and a dull red to show on his cheek. He looked as if he were bursting with words which he could not get out, and Christopher Pett hastened to improve the occasion. "It's my opinion it's all a plant!" he said.
"That's the style!" said Cotherstone, pushing the barrister along. "Bring two bring three bottles," he cried to the waiter. "Big 'uns! and the best." An elderly man, one of Cotherstone's fellow-members of the Corporation, came forward and caught him by the arm. "Cotherstone!" he whispered. "Don't be a fool! Think of what's only just over. Go home, like a good fellow go quietly home.
But all these were forgotten when at last Cotherstone, having been duly warned by the coroner that he need not give any evidence at all, determinedly entered the witness-box to swear on oath that he was witness to his partner's crime. Nothing could shake Cotherstone's evidence. He told a plain, straightforward story from first to last.
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