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Now you get your men together this is no time for sleeping. You ought to have men up at the Shawl now." "I've left one man at Kitely's cottage, sir, and another about Harborough's in case Harborough should come back during the night," said the sergeant. "We've two more constables close by the station. I'll get them up." "Do it just now," commanded Mallalieu. "I'll be back in a while."
"If you know it, get it out and be done with it. We've had enough trouble already. If you can clear things up " "Listen!" interrupted Cotherstone. "I'll tell you all I know privately. If you think good, it can be put into proper form. Very well, then! You remember the night of Kitely's murder?" "Aye, I should think so!" said the superintendent. "Good reason to!"
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.
He was always seeing that queer, sinister look in Kitely's knowing eyes: it suggested that as long as Kitely lived there would be no safety. Even if Kitely kept his word, kept any compact made with him, he would always have the two partners under his thumb. And for thirty years Cotherstone had been under no man's thumb, and the fear of having a master was hateful to him.
Who, then, struck the blow which killed Stoner, or, if it did not actually kill him, caused his death by bringing about the fall which broke his neck? Was it Mallalieu? or was it Cotherstone? That one or other, or both, were guilty of Kitely's murder, and possibly of Stoner's, Brereton was by that time absolutely certain.
So much for Stoner's memorandum. But did it refer to the same event to which Kitely made reference in his memorandum? It seemed highly probable that it did. It seemed highly probable, too, that the M. & C. of Kitely's entry were the Mallows & Chidforth of Stoner's.
"Well," replied the superintendent, reluctantly, "of course I get to hear everything. If you must have it, the prevailing notion is that both you and Mr. Mallalieu had a hand in Kitely's death. They think his murder's at your doors, and that what happened to Stoner was a by-chance.
"I wish he'd tell us privately, as I say why he paid that money the day after Kitely's murder. Why, Mr. Cotherstone?" Cotherstone, ready enough to answer and to speak until then, flushed angrily and shook his head.
There were the initials M. & C. There was a date if it was a date 81. What in Kitely's memorandum the initials S. B. might mean, it was useless to guess at. His memorandum, indeed, was as cryptic as an Egyptian hieroglyph. But Stoner's memorandum was fuller, more explicit. The M. & C. of the Kitely entry had been expanded to Mallows and Chidforth.
There were books enough on the shelves of his prison-parlour, but the late Kitely's taste had been of a purely professional nature, and just then Mallalieu had no liking for murder cases, criminal trials, and that sort of gruesomeness.
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