The Borough Treasurer

by J. S. Fletcher

"Wait!" said the voice. "It's for your own good. It's me—Miss Pett. I saw you—against that patch of light between the trees there—I knew your big figure. You've got away, of course. Well, you'll not get much further if you don't trust to me. Wait till we hear which way them fellows go."

Mallalieu resigned himself. As his eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom of the wood, he made out that Miss Pett was standing just within an opening in the trees; presently, as the voices beneath them became fainter, she drew him into it.

"This way!" she whispered. "Come close behind me—the house is close by."

"No!" protested Mallalieu angrily. "None of your houses! Here, I want to be on the moors. What do you want—to keep your tongue still?"

Miss Pett paused and edged her thin figure close to Mallalieu's bulky one.

"It'll not be a question of my tongue if you once go out o' this wood," she said. "They'll search those moors first thing. Don't be a fool!—it'll be known all over the town by now! Come with me and I'll put you where all the police in the county can't find you. But of course, do as you like—only, I'm warning you. You haven't a cat's chance if you set foot on that moor. Lord bless you, man!—don't they know that there's only two places you could make for—Norcaster and Hexendale? Is there any way to either of 'em except across the moors? Come on, now—be sensible."

"Go on, then!" growled Mallalieu. Wholly suspicious by nature, he was wondering why this she-dragon, as he had so often called her, should be at all desirous of sheltering him. Already he suspected her of some design, some trick—and in the darkness he clapped his hand on the hip-pocket in which he had placed his revolver. That was safe enough—and again he thanked his stars that the police had not searched him. But however well he might be armed, he was for the time being in Miss Pett's power—he knew very well that if he tried to slip away Miss Pett had only to utter one shrill cry to attract attention. And so, much as he desired the freedom of the moors, he allowed himself to be taken captive by this gaoler who promised eventual liberty.

Miss Pett waited in the thickness of the trees until the voices at the foot of the Shawl became faint and far off; she herself knew well enough that they were not the voices of men who were searching for Mallalieu, but of country folk who had been into the town and were now returning home by the lower path in the wood. But it suited her purposes to create a spirit of impending danger in the Mayor, and so she kept him there, her hand still on his arm, until the last sound died away. And while she thus held him, Mallalieu, who had often observed Miss Pett in her peregrinations through the Market Place, and had been accustomed to speaking of her as a thread-paper, or as Mother Skin-and-Bones, because of her phenomenal thinness, wondered how it was that a woman of such extraordinary attenuation should possess such powerful fingers—her grip on his wrist was like that of a vice. And somehow, in a fashion for which he could not account, especially in the disturbed and anxious state of his mind, he became aware that here in this strange woman was some mental force which was superior to and was already dominating his own, and for a moment he was tempted to shake the steel-like fingers off and make a dash for the moorlands.

But Miss Pett presently moved forward, holding Mallalieu as a nurse might hold an unwilling child. She led him cautiously through the trees, which there became thicker, she piloted him carefully down a path, and into a shrubbery—she drew him through a gap in a hedgerow, and Mallalieu knew then that they were in the kitchen garden at the rear of old Kitely's cottage. Quietly and stealthily, moving herself as if her feet were shod with velvet, Miss Pett made her way with her captive to the door; Mallalieu heard the rasping of a key in a lock, the lifting of a latch; then he was gently but firmly pushed into darkness. Behind him the door closed—a bolt was shot home.

"This way!" whispered Miss Pett. She drew him after her along what he felt to be a passage, twisted him to the left through another doorway, and then, for the first time since she had assumed charge of him, released his wrist. "Wait!" she said. "We'll have a light presently."