"Do it just now," commanded Mallalieu. "I'll be back in a while."
He hurried out again and went rapidly down the High Street to the old-fashioned building near the Town Hall in which the one bank of the little town did its business, and in which the bank manager lived. There was not a soul about in the street, and the ringing of the bell at the bank-house door, and the loud knock which Mallalieu gave in supplement to it, seemed to wake innumerable echoes. And proof as he believed himself to be against such slight things, the sudden opening of a window above his head made him jump.
The startled bank-manager, hurrying down to his midnight visitor in his dressing-gown and slippers, stood aghast when he had taken the Mayor within and learned his errand.
"Certainly!" he said. "Kitely was in the bank today, about noon—I attended to him myself. That's the second time he's been here since he came to the town. He called here a day or two after he first took that house from Mr. Cotherstone—to cash a draft for his quarter's pension. He told me then who he was. Do you know?"
"Not in the least," replied Mallalieu, telling the lie all the more readily because he had been fully prepared for the question to which it was an answer. "I knew naught about him."
"He was an ex-detective," said the bank-manager. "Pensioned off, of course: a nice pension. He told me he'd had—I believe it was getting on to forty years' service in the police force. Dear, dear, this is a sad business—and I'm afraid I can tell you a bit more about it."
"What?" demanded Mallalieu, showing surprise in spite of himself.
"You mentioned Harborough," said the bank-manager, shaking his head.
"Well?" said Mallalieu. "What then?"
"Harborough was at the counter when Kitely took his money," answered the bank-manager. "He had called in to change a five-pound note."