The two men looked at each other in silence for a time. Then the bank-manager shook his head again.
"You wouldn't think that a man who has a five-pound note of his own to change would be likely, to murder another man for what he could get," he went on. "But Kitely had a nice bit of money to carry away, and he wore a very valuable gold watch and chain, which he was rather fond of showing in the town, and——eh?"
"It's a suspicious business," said Mallalieu. "You say Harborough saw Kitely take his money?"
"Couldn't fail," replied the bank-manager. "He was standing by him. The old man put it—notes and gold—in a pocket that he had inside his waistcoat."
Mallalieu lingered, as if in thought, rubbing his chin and staring at the carpet. "Well, that's a sort of additional clue," he remarked at last. "It looks very black against Harborough."
"We've the numbers of the notes that I handed to Kitely," observed the bank-manager. "They may be useful if there's any attempt to change any note, you know."
Mallalieu shook his head.
"Aye, just so," he answered. "But I should say there won't be—just yet. It's a queer business, isn't it—but, as I say, there's evidence against this fellow, and we must try to get him."
He went out then and crossed the street to the doctor's house—while he was about it, he wanted to know all he could. And with the doctor he stopped much longer than he had stopped at the bank, and when he left him he was puzzled. For the doctor said to him what he had said to Cotherstone and to Bent and to the rest of the group in the wood—that whoever had strangled Kitely had had experience in that sort of grim work before—or else he was a sailorman who had expert knowledge of tying knots. Now Mallalieu was by that time more certain than ever that Cotherstone was the murderer, and he felt sure that Cotherstone had no experience of that sort of thing.
"Done with a single twist and a turn!" he muttered to himself as he walked back to the police-station. "Aye—aye!—that seems to show knowledge. But it's not my business to follow that up just now—I know what my business is—nobody better."