Stoner affair!"

CHAPTER XXII

THE HAND IN THE DARKNESS

The Highmarket clocks were striking noon when Mallalieu was arrested.
For three hours he remained under lock and key, in a room in the Town
Hall--most of the time alone. His lunch was brought to him; every
consideration was shown him. The police wanted to send for his solicitor
from Norcaster; Mallalieu bade them mind their own business. He turned a
deaf ear to the superintendent's entreaties to him to see some friend;
let him mind his own business too, said Mallalieu. He himself would do
nothing until he saw the need to do something. Let him hear what could
be brought against him--time enough to speak and act then. He ate his
lunch, he smoked a cigar; he walked out of the room with defiant eye and
head erect when they came to fetch him before a specially summoned bench
of his fellow-magistrates. And it was not until he stepped into the
dock, in full view of a crowded court, and amidst quivering excitement,
that he and Cotherstone met.

The news of the partners' arrest had flown through the little town like
wildfire. There was no need to keep it secret; no reason why it should
be kept secret. It was necessary to bring the accused men before the
magistrates as quickly as possible, and the days of private inquiries
were long over. Before the Highmarket folk had well swallowed their
dinners, every street in the town, every shop, office, bar-parlour,
public-house, private house rang with the news--Mallalieu and
Cotherstone, the Mayor and the Borough Treasurer, had been arrested for
the murder of their clerk, and would be put before the magistrates at
three o'clock. The Kitely affair faded into insignificance--except
amongst the cute and knowing few, who immediately began to ask if the
Hobwick Quarry murder had anything to do with the murder on the Shawl.

If Mallalieu and Cotherstone could have looked out of the windows of the
court in the Town Hall, they would have seen the Market Square packed
with a restless and seething crowd of townsfolk, all clamouring for
whatever news could permeate from the packed chamber into which so few
had been able to fight a way. But the prisoners seemed strangely
indifferent to their surroundings. Those who watched them closely--as
Brereton and Tallington did--noticed that neither took any notice of the
other. Cotherstone had been placed in the dock first. When Mallalieu was
brought there, a moment later, the two exchange