"Yes!" he said with some heat. "And don't you get any false ideas, Mr. Tallington. Bent!--I've paid that money back--I, myself. Each penny of it--two thousand pound, with four per cent. interest for thirty years! I've done it--Mallalieu knows naught about it. And here's the receipt. So now then!" "When did you pay it, Mr. Cotherstone?" asked Tallington, as Bent unwillingly took the paper which Cotherstone drew from a pocket-book and handed to him. "Some time ago, or lately?" "If you want to know," retorted Cotherstone, "it was the very day after old Kitely was killed. I sent it through a friend of mine who still lives in Wilchester. I wanted to be done with it--I didn't want to have it brought up against me that anybody lost aught through my fault. And so--I paid." "But--I'm only suggesting--you could have paid a long time before that, couldn't you?" said Tallington. "The longer you waited, the more you had to pay. Two thousand pounds, with thirty years' interest, at four per cent.--why, that's four thousand four hundred pounds altogether!" "That's what he paid," said Bent. "Here's the receipt." "Mr. Cotherstone is telling us--privately--everything," remarked Tallington, glancing at the receipt and passing it on to Brereton. "I wish he'd tell us--privately, as I say--why he paid that money the day after Kitely's murder. Why, Mr. Cotherstone?" Cotherstone, ready enough to answer and to speak until then, flushed angrily and shook his head. But he was about to speak when a gentle tap came at Tallington's door, and before the solicitor could make any response, the door was opened from without, and the police-superintendent walked in, accompanied by two men whom Brereton recognized as detectives from Norcaster. "Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Tallington," said the superintendent, "but I heard Mr. Cotherstone was here. Mr. Cotherstone!--I shall have to ask you to step across with me to the office. Will you come over now?--it'll be best." "Not until I know what I'm wanted for," answered Cotherstone determinedly. "What is it?" The superintendent sighed and shook his head. "Very well--it's not my fault, then," he answered. "The fact is we want both you and Mr. Mallalieu for this Stoner affair. That's the plain truth! The warrants were issued an hour ago--and we've got Mr. Mallalieu already. Come on, Mr. Cotherstone!--there's no help for it." CHAPTER XXI THE INTERRUPTED FLIGHT Twenty-four hours after he had seen Stoner fall headlong into Hobwick Quarry, Mallalieu made up his mind for flight. And as soon as he had come to that moment of definite decision, he proceeded to arrange for his disappearance with all the craft and subtlety of which he was a past master. He would go, once and for all, and since he was to go he would go in such a fashion that nobody should be able to trace him.