"You're the Chidforth mentioned there?" he asked quietly. "And your partner's the Mallows?"
"That's so," replied Cotherstone, so imperturbably that all three looked at him in astonishment. "That's quite so, Mr. Tallington."
"And this is an accurate report of what happened?" asked Tallington, trailing the pencil over the newspaper. "That is, as far as you can see at a glance?"
"Oh, I daresay it is," said Cotherstone, airily. "That was the best paper in the town--I daresay it's all right. Looks so, anyway."
"You know that Kitely was present at that trial?" suggested Tallington, who, like Brereton, was beginning to be mystified by Cotherstone's coolness.
"Well," answered Cotherstone, with a shake of his head, "I know now. But I never did know until that afternoon of the day on which the old man was murdered. If you're wanting the truth, he came into our office that afternoon to pay his rent to me, and he told me then. And--if you want more truth--he tried to blackmail me. He was to come next day--at four o'clock--to hear what me and Mallalieu 'ud offer him for hush-money."
"Then you told Mallalieu?" asked Tallington.
"Of course I told him!" replied Cotherstone. "Told him as soon as Kitely had gone. It was a facer for both of us--to be recognized, and to have all that thrown up against us, after thirty years' honest work!"
The three listeners looked silently at each other. A moment of suspence passed. Then Tallington put the question which all three were burning with eagerness to have answered.
"Mr. Cotherstone!--do you know who killed Kitely?"
"No!" answered Cotherstone. "But I know who I think killed him!"
"The man who killed Bert Stoner," said Cotherstone firmly. "And for the same reason."
Tallington left the question unfinished. For Cotherstone's alert face took a new and determined expression, and he raised himself a little in his chair and brought his lifted hand down heavily on the desk at his side.
"Mallalieu!" he exclaimed. "Mallalieu! I believe he killed Kitely. I suspicioned it from the first, and I came certain of it on Sunday night. Why? _Because I saw Mallalieu fell Stoner!_"
There was a dead silence in the room for a long, painful minute. Tallington broke it at last by repeating Cotherstone's last words.