The Borough Treasurer Part 10

"I expected nothing else," replied Harborough. "I'm not blaming you--nor anybody. Mr. Bent," he continued, turning to where Bent and Brereton stood a little apart. "I'd be obliged to you if you'd do something for me. Go and tell my daughter about this, if you please! You see, I came straight down here--I didn't go into my house when I got back. If you'd just step up and tell her--and bid her not be afraid--there's naught to be afraid of, as she'll find--as everybody'll find."

"Certainly," said Bent. "I'll go at once." He tapped Brereton on the arm, and led him out into the street. "Well?" he asked, when they were outside. "What do you think of that, now?"

"That man gives one all the suggestion of innocence," remarked Brereton, thoughtfully, "and from a merely superficial observation of him, I, personally, should say he is innocent. But then, you know, I've known the most hardened and crafty criminals a.s.sume an air of innocence, and keep it up, to the very end. However, we aren't concerned about that just now--the critical point here, for Harborough, at any rate, is the evidence against him."

"And what do you think of that?" asked Bent.

"There's enough to warrant his arrest," answered Brereton, "and he'll be committed on it, and he'll go for trial. All that's certain--unless he's a sensible man, and tells what he was doing with himself between eight and ten o'clock last night."

"Ah, and why doesn't he?" said Bent. "He must have some good reason. I wonder if his daughter can persuade him?"

"Isn't that his daughter coming towards us?" inquired Brereton.

Bent glanced along the road and saw Avice Harborough at a little distance, hastening in their direction and talking earnestly to a middle-aged man who was evidently listening with grave concern to what she said.

"Yes, that's she," he replied, "and that's Northrop with her--the man that Mallalieu was playing cards with last night. She's governess to Northrop's two younger children--I expect she's heard about her father, and has been to get Northrop to come down with her--he's a magistrate."

Avice listened with ill-concealed impatience while Bent delivered his message. He twice repeated Harborough's injunction that she was not to be afraid, and her impatience increased.

"I'm not afraid," she answered. "That is, afraid of nothing but my father's obstinacy! I know him. And I know that if he's said he won't tell anything about his whereabouts last night, he won't! And if you want to help him--as you seem to do--you must recognize that."

"Wouldn't he tell you?" suggested Brereton.

The girl shook her head.

"Once or twice a year," she answered, "he goes away for a night, like that, and I never know--never have known--where he goes. There's some mystery about it--I know there is. He won't tell--he'll let things go to the last, and even then he won't tell. You won't be able to help him that way--there's only one way you can help."

"What way?" asked Bent.

"Find the murderer!" exclaimed Avice with a quick flash of her eyes in Brereton's direction. "My father is as innocent as I am--find the man who did it and clear him that way. Don't wait for what these police people do--they'll waste time over my father. Do something! They're all on the wrong track--let somebody get on the right one!"

"She's right!" said Northrop, a shrewd-faced little man, who looked genuinely disturbed. "You know what police are, Mr. Bent--if they get hold of one notion they're deaf to all others. While they're concentrating on Harborough, you know, the real man'll be going free--laughing in his sleeve, very like."

"But--what are we to do?" asked Bent. "What are we to start on?"

"Find out about Kitely himself!" exclaimed Avice. "Who knows anything about him? He may have had enemies--he may have been tracked here. Find out if there was any motive!" She paused and looked half appealingly, half-searchingly at Brereton. "I heard you're a barrister--a clever one," she went on, hesitating a little. "Can't--can't you suggest anything?"

"There's something I'll suggest at once," responded Brereton impulsively. "Whatever else is done, your father's got to be defended.

I'll defend him--to the best of my ability--if you'll let me--and at no cost to him."

"Well spoken, sir!" exclaimed Northrop. "That's the style!"

"But we must keep to legal etiquette," continued Brereton, smiling at the little man's enthusiasm. "You must go to a solicitor and tell him to instruct me--it's a mere form. Mr. Bent will take you to his solicitor, and he'll see me. Then I can appear in due form when they bring your father before the magistrates. Look here, Bent," he went on, wis.h.i.+ng to stop any expression of grat.i.tude from the girl, "you take Miss Harborough to your solicitor--if he isn't up, rouse him out. Tell him what I propose to do, and make an appointment with him for me. Now run along, both of you--I want to speak to this gentleman a minute."

He took Northrop's arm, turned him in the direction of the Shawl, walked him a few paces, and then asked him a direct question.

"Now, what do you know of this man Harborough?"

"He's a queer chap--a mystery man, sir," answered Northrop. "A sort of jack-of-all-trades. He's a better sort--you'd say, to hear him talk, he'd been a gentleman. You can see what his daughter is--he educated her well. He's means of some sort--apart from what he earns. Yes, there's some mystery about that man, sir--but I'll never believe he did this job. No, sir!"

"Then we must act on the daughter's suggestion and find out who did,"

observed Brereton. "There is as much mystery about that as about Harborough."

"All mystery, sir!" agreed Northrop. "It's odd--I came through them woods on the Shawl there about a quarter to ten last night: I'd been across to the other side to see a man of mine that's poorly in bed. Now, I never heard aught, never saw aught--but then, it's true I was hurrying--I'd made an appointment for a hand at whist with the Mayor at my house at ten o'clock, and I thought I was late. I never heard a sound--not so much as a dead twig snap! But then, it would ha' been before that--at some time."

"Yes, at some time," agreed Brereton. "Well,--I'll see you in court, no doubt."

He turned back, and followed Bent and Avice at a distance, watching them thoughtfully.

"At some time?" he mused. "Um! Well, I'm now conversant with the movements of two inhabitants of Highmarket at a critical period of last night. Mallalieu didn't go to cards with Northrop until ten o'clock, and at ten o'clock Cotherstone returned to his house after being absent--one hour."

CHAPTER IX

ANTECEDENTS

During the interval which elapsed between these early morning proceedings and the bringing up of Harborough before the borough magistrates in a densely-packed court, Brereton made up his mind as to what he would do. He would act on Avice Harborough's suggestion, and, while watching the trend of affairs on behalf of the suspected man, would find out all he could about the murdered one. At that moment--so far as Brereton knew--there was only one person in Highmarket who was likely to know anything about Kitely: that person, of course, was the queer-looking housekeeper. He accordingly determined, even at that early stage of the proceedings, to have Miss Pett in the witness-box.

Harborough, who had been formally arrested and charged by the police after the conversation at the police-station, was not produced in court until eleven o'clock, by which time the whole town and neighbourhood were astir with excitement. Somewhat to Brereton's surprise, the prosecuting counsel, who had been hastily fetched from Norcaster and instructed on the way, went more fully into the case than was usual.

Brereton had expected that the police would ask for an adjournment after the usual evidence of the superficial facts, and of the prisoner's arrest, had been offered; instead of that, the prosecution brought forward several witnesses, and amongst them the bank-manager, who said that when he cashed Kitely's draft for him the previous morning, in Harborough's presence, he gave Kitely the one half of the money in gold.

The significance of this evidence immediately transpired: a constable succeeded the bank-manager and testified that after searching the prisoner after his arrest he found on him over twenty pounds in sovereigns and half-sovereigns, placed in a wash-leather bag.

Brereton immediately recognized the impression which this evidence made.

He saw that it weighed with the half-dozen solid and slow-thinking men who sat on one side or the other of Mallalieu on the magisterial bench; he felt the atmosphere of suspicion which it engendered in the court.

But he did nothing: he had already learned sufficient from Avice in a consultation with her and Bent's solicitor to know that it would be very easy to prove to a jury that it was no unusual thing for Harborough to carry twenty or thirty pounds in gold on him. Of all these witnesses Brereton asked scarcely anything--but he made it clear that when Harborough was met near his cottage at daybreak that morning by two constables who informed him of what had happened, he expressed great astonishment, jeered at the notion that he had had anything to do with the murder, and, without going on to his own door, offered voluntarily to walk straight to the police-station.

But when Miss Pett--who had discarded her red and yellow turban, and appeared in rusty black garments which accentuated the old-ivory tint of her remarkable countenance--had come into the witness-box and answered a few common-place questions as to the dead man's movements on the previous evening, Brereton prepared himself for the episode which he knew to be important. Amidst a deep silence--something suggesting to everybody that Mr. Bent's sharp-looking London friend was about to get at things--he put his first question to Miss Pett.

"How long have you known Mr. Kitely?"

"Ever since I engaged with him as his housekeeper," answered Miss Pett.

"How long since is that?" asked Brereton.

"Nine to ten years--nearly ten."

"You have been with him, as housekeeper, nearly ten years--continuously?"

"Never left him since I first came to him."

"Where did you first come to him--where did he live then?"

"In London."

"Yes--and where, in London?"