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Updated: June 21, 2025
I'll give him an extra strong nightcap tonight, and then...." But before the close of that evening came Mallalieu's notions underwent a change. He spent the afternoon in thinking. He knew that he was in the power of two people who, if they could, would skin him.
"Tracked us down?" asked Mallalieu. "That it?" "No," said Cotherstone. "Sheer chance pure accident. Recognized us after he came here. Aye after all these years! Thirty years!" Mallalieu's eyes, roving about the room, fell on the decanter. He pulled himself out of his chair, found a clean glass, and took a stiff drink. And his partner, watching him, saw that his hands, too, were shaking.
Mallalieu took a hasty glance at those unusual ornaments and hated them: they were pictures of famous judges in their robes, and of great criminal counsel in their wigs and over the chimney-piece, framed in black wood, was an old broad-sheet, printed in big, queer-shaped letters: Mallalieu's hasty glance caught the staring headline Dying Speech and Confession of the Famous Murderer....
Now that I am talking, I will talk! Bent!" he continued, turning to his future son-in-law. "What I'm going to say now is for your benefit. But these lawyers shall hear. This old Wilchester business has been raked up how, I don't know. Now then, you shall all know the truth about that! I did two years for what? For being Mallalieu's catspaw!"
No fencing, said this inward monitor, no circumlocution get to it, straight out. And Stoner thrust his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a copy of the reward bill. He opened it before his employer, watching Mallalieu's face. "That!" he said. "Just that, Mr. Mallalieu." Mallalieu glanced at the handbill, started a little, and looked half-sharply, half-angrily, at his clerk.
I could see and hear, even at thirty yards off, that Stoner was maddening Mallalieu, though of course I couldn't distinguish precise words. And all of a sudden Mallalieu's temper went, and he lets out with that heavy oak stick of his and fetches the lad a crack right over his forehead and with Stoner starting suddenly back the old railings gave way and down he went.
If you were in any other hands than ours, Mr. Mallalieu, I don't know what you'd do. We're running the most fearful risks on your behalf, we are indeed. Things is dismal!" Mallalieu's temper, never too good, and all the worse for his enforced confinement, blazed up. "Hang it! why don't you speak out plain?" he snarled. "Say what you mean, and be done with it! What's up now, like?
Deary me! it's wonderful how clever some young folks is! So you know who killed Kitely, do you, my lad? Ah! And who did kill Kitely, now? Let's be knowing! Or happen you'd rather keep such a grand secret to yourself till you can make something out of it?" "I can make something out of it now," retorted Stoner, who was sharp enough to see through Mallalieu's affectation of scorn.
"You're wrong!" retorted Mallalieu, masterful and insistent as ever. "You have the power! D'ye think I've been a justice of the peace for twelve years without knowing what law is? You've the power to admit to bail in all charges of felony, at your discretion. So now then!" The magistrates looked at their clerk, and the clerk smiled. "Mr. Mallalieu's theory is correct," he said quietly.
The superintendent was pale and trembling, and his eyes met Mallalieu's with a strange, deprecating expression. Before he could speak, two strangers emerged from a doorway and came close up. And a sudden sickening sense of danger came over Mallalieu, and his tongue failed him. "Mr. Mayor!" faltered the superintendent. "I I can't help it!
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