can have twenty
thousand pounds security, if you like."

But this offer received no answer, and in five minutes more Mallalieu
heard the case adjourned for a week and himself and Cotherstone
committed to Norcaster Gaol in the meantime. Without a look at his
fellow-prisoner he turned out of the dock and was escorted back to the
private room in the Town Hall from which he had been brought.

"Hang 'em for a lot of fools!" he burst out to the superintendent, who
had accompanied him. "Do they think I'm going to run away? Likely
thing--on a trumped-up charge like this. Here!--how soon shall you be
wanting to start for yon place?"

The superintendent, who had cherished considerable respect for Mallalieu
in the past, and was much upset and very downcast about this sudden
change in the Mayor's fortunes, looked at his prisoner and shook his
head.

"There's a couple of cars ordered to be ready in half an hour, Mr.
Mallalieu," he answered. "One for you, and one for Mr. Cotherstone."

"With armed escorts in both, I suppose!" sneered Mallalieu. "Well, look
here--you've time to get me a cup of tea. Slip out and get one o' your
men to nip across to the Arms for it--good, strong tea, and a slice or
two of bread-and-butter. I can do with it."

He flung half a crown on the table, and the superintendent, suspecting
nothing, and willing to oblige a man who had always been friendly and
genial towards himself, went out of the room, with no further
precautions than the turning of the key in the lock when he had once got
outside the door. It never entered his head that the prisoner would try
to escape, never crossed his mind that Mallalieu had any chance of
escaping. He went away along the corridor to find one of his men who
could be dispatched to the Highmarket Arms.

But the instant Mallalieu was left alone he started into action. He had
not been Mayor of Highmarket for two years, a member of its Corporation
for nearly twenty, without knowing all the ins-and-outs of that old Town
Hall. And as soon as the superintendent had left him he drew from his
pocket a key, went across the room to a door which stood in a corner
behind a curtain, unlocked it, opened it gently, looked out, passed into
a lobby without, relocked the door behind him, and in another instant
was stealing quietly down a private staircase that led to an entrance
into the quaint old garden at the back of the premises. One further
moment of suspense and of looking round, a