The Borough Treasurer

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Fletcher Joseph Smith. The Borough Treasurer

CHAPTER I. BLACKMAIL

CHAPTER II. CRIME—AND SUCCESS

CHAPTER III. MURDER

CHAPTER IV. THE PINE WOOD

CHAPTER V. THE CORD

CHAPTER VI. THE MAYOR

CHAPTER VII. NIGHT WORK

CHAPTER VIII. RETAINED FOR THE DEFENCE

CHAPTER IX. ANTECEDENTS

CHAPTER X. THE HOLE IN THE THATCH

CHAPTER XI. CHRISTOPHER PETT

CHAPTER XII. PARENTAL ANXIETY

CHAPTER XIII. THE ANONYMOUS LETTER

CHAPTER XIV. THE SHEET OF FIGURES

CHAPTER XV. ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER

CHAPTER XVI. THE LONELY MOOR

CHAPTER XVII. THE MEDICAL OPINION

CHAPTER XVIII. THE SCRAP BOOK

CHAPTER XIX. A TALL MAN IN GREY CLOTHES

CHAPTER XX. AT BAY

CHAPTER XXI. THE INTERRUPTED FLIGHT

CHAPTER XXII. THE HAND IN THE DARKNESS

CHAPTER XXIII. COMFORTABLE CAPTIVITY

CHAPTER XXIV. STRICT BUSINESS LINES

CHAPTER XXV. NO FURTHER EVIDENCE

CHAPTER XXVI. THE VIRTUES OF SUSPICION

CHAPTER XXVII. MR. WRAYTHWAITE OF WRAYE

CHAPTER XXVIII. PAGES FROM THE PAST

CHAPTER XXIX. WITHOUT THOUGHT OF CONSEQUENCE

CHAPTER XXX. COTHERSTONE

CHAPTER XXXI. THE BARRISTER'S FEE

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It had been Cotherstone's life-long endeavour to forget all about the event of thirty years ago, and to a large extent he had succeeded in dulling his memory. But Kitely had brought it all back—and now everything was fresh to him. His brows knitted and his face grew dark as he thought of one thing in his past of which Kitely had spoken so easily and glibly—the dock. He saw himself in that dock again—and Mallalieu standing by him. They were not called Mallalieu and Cotherstone then, of course. He remembered what their real names were—he remembered, too, that, until a few minutes before, he had certainly not repeated them, even to himself, for many a long year. Oh, yes—he remembered everything—he saw it all again. The case had excited plenty of attention in Wilchester at the time—Wilchester, that for thirty years had been so far away in thought and in actual distance that it might have been some place in the Antipodes. It was not a nice case—even now, looking back upon it from his present standpoint, it made him blush to think of. Two better-class young working-men, charged with embezzling the funds of a building society to which they had acted as treasurer and secretary!—a bad case. The Court had thought it a bad case, and the culprits had been sentenced to two years' imprisonment. And now Cotherstone only remembered that imprisonment as one remembers a particularly bad dream. Yes—it had been real.

His eyes, moody and brooding, suddenly shifted their gaze from the easy chair to his own hands—they were shaking. Mechanically he took up the whisky decanter from his desk, and poured some of its contents into his glass—the rim of the glass tinkled against the neck of the decanter. Yes—that had been a shock, right enough, he muttered to himself, and not all the whisky in the world would drive it out of him. But a drink—neat and stiff—would pull his nerves up to pitch, and so he drank, once, twice, and sat down with the glass in his hand—to think still more.

.....

"That's a facer!" said Mallalieu. His voice had grown stronger, and the colour came back to his cheeks. "A real facer! As you say—after thirty years! It's hard—it's blessed hard! And—what does he want? What's he going to do?"

"Wants to blackmail us, of course," replied Cotherstone, with a mirthless laugh. "What else should he do? What could he do? Why, he could tell all Highmarket who we are, and–"

.....