"Not quite matured, sir," said Christopher. "It needs a little reflection and trimming, as it were. Now what I advise, Mr. Mallalieu, is this—you keep snug here, with my aunt as sentinel—she assures me that even if the police—don't be frightened, sir!—did come here, she could hide you quite safely before ever she opened the door to them. As for me, I'll go, casual-like, into the town, and do a bit of quiet looking and listening. I shall be able to find out how the land lies, sir—and when I return I'll report to you, and the three of us will put our heads together."
Leaving the captive in charge of Miss Pett, Christopher, having brushed his silk hat and his overcoat and fitted on a pair of black kid gloves, strolled solemnly into Highmarket. He was known to a few people there, and he took good care to let those of his acquaintance who met him hear that he had come down to arrange his aunt's affairs, and to help in the removal of the household goods bequeathed to her by the deceased Kitely. In proof of this he called in at the furniture remover's, to get an estimate of the cost of removal to Norcaster Docks—thence, said Christopher, the furniture could be taken by sea to London, where Miss Pett intended to reside in future. At the furniture remover's, and in such other shops as he visited, and in the bar-parlour of the Highmarket Arms, where he stayed an hour or so, gossiping with the loungers, and sipping a glass or two of dry sherry, Christopher picked up a great deal of information. And at noon he returned to the cottage, having learned that the police and everybody in Highmarket firmly believed that Mallalieu had got clear and clean away the night before, and was already far beyond pursuit. The police theory was that there had been collusion, and that immediately on his escape he had been whirled off by some person to whose identity there was as yet no clue.
But Christopher Pett told a very different story to Mallalieu. The moors, he said, were being patrolled night and day: it was believed the fugitive was in hiding in one of the old quarries. Every road and entrance to Norcaster, and to all the adjacent towns and stations, was watched and guarded. There was no hope for Mallalieu but in the kindness and contrivance of the aunt and the nephew, and Mallalieu recognized the inevitable and was obliged to yield himself to their tender mercies.
CHAPTER XXV
NO FURTHER EVIDENCE
While Mallalieu lay captive in the stronghold of Miss Pett, Cotherstone was experiencing a quite different sort of incarceration in the detention cells of Norcaster Gaol. Had he known where his partner was, and under what circumstances Mallalieu had obtained deliverance from official bolts and bars, Cotherstone would probably have laughed in his sleeve and sneered at him for a fool. He had been calling Mallalieu a fool, indeed, ever since the previous evening, when the police, conducting him to Norcaster, had told him of the Mayor's escape from the Town Hall. Nobody but an absolute fool, a consummate idiot, thought Cotherstone, would have done a thing like that. The man who flies is the man who has reason to fly—that was Cotherstone's opinion, and in his belief ninety-nine out of every hundred persons in Highmarket would share it. Mallalieu would now be set down as guilty—they would say he dared not face things, that he knew he was doomed, that his escape was the desperate act of a conscious criminal. Ass!—said Cotherstone, not without a certain amount of malicious delight: they should none of them have reason to say such things of him. He would make no attempt to fly—no, not if they left the gate of Norcaster Gaol wide open to him! It should be his particular care to have himself legally cleared—his acquittal should be as public as the proceedings which had just taken place. He went out of the dock with that resolve strong on him; he carried it away to his cell at Norcaster; he woke in the morning with it, stronger than ever. Cotherstone, instead of turning tail, was going to fight—for his own hand.
As a prisoner merely under detention, Cotherstone had privileges of which he took good care to avail himself. Four people he desired to see, and must see at once, on that first day in gaol—and he lost no time in making known his desires. One—and the most important—person was a certain solicitor in Norcaster who enjoyed a great reputation as a sharp man of affairs. Another—scarcely less important—was a barrister who resided in Norcaster, and had had it said of him for a whole generation that he had restored more criminals to society than any man of his profession then living. And the other two were his own daughter and Windle Bent. Them he must see—but the men of law first.
When the solicitor and the barrister came, Cotherstone talked to them as he had never talked to anybody in his life. He very soon let them see that he had two definite objects in sending for them: the first was to tell them in plain language that money was of no consideration in the matter of his defence; the second, that they had come there to hear him lay down the law as to what they were to do. Talk he did, and they listened—and Cotherstone had the satisfaction of seeing that they went away duly impressed with all that he had said to them. He went back to his cell from the room in which this interview had taken place congratulating himself on his ability.