The Borough Treasurer. Fletcher Joseph Smith
afoot, I came straight here. I put it to you, Mr. Mayor—if I'd killed this old man, do you think I'd have come back? Is it likely?"
"You might ha' done, you know," answered Mallalieu. "There's no accounting for what folks will do—in such cases. But—what else? Say aught you like—it's all informal, this."
"Very well," continued Harborough. "They tell me the old man was strangled by a piece of cord that was evidently cut off one of my coils. Now, is there any man in his common senses would believe that if I did that job, I should leave such a bit of clear evidence behind me? I'm not a fool!"
"You might ha' been interrupted before you could take that cord off his neck," suggested Mallalieu.
"Aye—but you'd have to reckon up the average chances of that!" exclaimed Harborough, with a sharp glance at the bystanders. "And the chances are in my favour. No, sir!—whoever did this job, cut that length of cord off my coil, which anybody could get at, and used it to throw suspicion on me! That's the truth—and you'll find it out some day, whatever happens now."
Mallalieu exchanged glances with the superintendent and then faced Harborough squarely, with an air of inviting confidence.
"Now, my lad!" he said, almost coaxingly. "There's a very simple thing to do, and it'll clear this up as far as you're concerned. Just answer a plain question. Where ha' you been all night?"
A tense silence fell—broken by the crackling of the wood in the grate, which the charwoman had at last succeeded in stirring into a blaze, and by the rattling of the fire-irons which she now arranged in the fender. Everybody was watching the suspected man, and nobody as keenly as Brereton. And Brereton saw that a deadlock was at hand. A strange look of obstinacy and hardness came into Harborough's eyes, and he shook his head.
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