"That'll do, guv'nor," responded Spurge. "I take your word as between gentlemen! Well, now, it's this here-you see me as I am, here in a cave, like one o' them old eremites that used to be in the ancient days. Why am I here! 'Cause just now it ain't quite convenient for me to show my face in Scarhaven. I'm wanted for poaching, guv'nor-that's the fact! This here is a safe retreat. If I was tracked here, I could make my way out at the back of this hole-there's a pa.s.sage here-before anybody could climb that rock. However, n.o.body suspects I'm here. They think-that is, that old devil Chatfield and the police-they think I'm off to sea. However, here I am-and last Sunday afternoon as ever was, I was in Scarhaven! In the wood I was, guv'nor, at the back of the Keep. Never mind what for-I was there. And at precisely ten minutes to three o'clock I saw Ba.s.sett Oliver."

"How did you know him?" demanded Copplestone.

"Cause I've had many a sixpenn'orth of him at both Northborough and Norcaster," answered Spurge. "Seen him a dozen times, I have, and knew him well enough, even if I'd only viewed him from the the-ayter gallery. Well, he come along up the path from the south quay. He pa.s.sed within a dozen yards of me, and went up to the door in the wall of the ruins, right opposite where I was lying doggo amongst some bushes. He poked the door with the point of his stick-it was ajar, that door, and it went open. And so he walks in-and disappears. Guv'nor!-I reckon that'ud be the last time as he was seen alive!-unless-unless-"

"Unless-what?" asked Copplestone eagerly.

"Unless one other man saw him," replied Spurge solemnly. "For there was another man there, guv'nor. Squire Greyle!"

Copplestone looked hard at Spurge; Spurge returned the stare, and nodded two or three times.

"Gospel truth!" he said. "I kept where I was-I'd reasons of my own. May be eight minutes or so-certainly not ten-after Ba.s.sett Oliver walked in there, Squire Greyle walked out. In a hurry, guv'nor. He come out quick. He looked a bit queer. Dazed, like. You know how quick a man can think, guv'nor, under certain circ.u.mstances? I thought quicker'n lightning. I says to myself 'Squire's seen somebody or something he hadn't no taste for!' Why, you could read it on his face! plain as print. It was there!"

"Well?" said Copplestone. "And then?"

"Then," continued Spurge. "Then he stood for just a second or two, looking right and left, up and down. There wasn't a soul in sight-n.o.body! But-he slunk off-sneaked off-same as a fox sneaks away from a farm-yard. He went down the side of the curtain-wall that shuts in the ruins, taking as much cover as ever he could find-at the end of the wall, he popped into the wood that stands between the ruins and his house. And then, of course, I lost all sight of him."

"And-Mr. Oliver?" said Copplestone. "Did you see him again?"

Spurge took a pull at his rum and water, and relighted his pipe.

"I did not," he answered. "I was there until a quarter-past three-then I went away. And no Oliver had come out o' that door when I left."

CHAPTER X

THE INVALID CURATE

Spurge and his visitor sat staring at each other in silence for a few minutes; the silence was eventually broken by Copplestone.

"Of course," he said reflectively, "if Mr. Oliver was looking round those ruins he could easily spend half an hour there."

"Just so," agreed Spurge. "He could spend an hour. If so be as he was one of these here antiquarian-minded gents, as loves to potter about old places like that, he could spend two hours, three hours, profitable-like. But he'd have come out in the end, and the evidence is, guv'nor, that he never did come out! Even if I am just now lying up, as it were, I'm fully what they term o-fay with matters, and, by all accounts, after Ba.s.sett Oliver went up that there path, subsequent to his bit of talk with Ewbank, he was never seen no more 'cepting by me, and possibly by Squire Greyle. Them as lives a good deal alone, like me guv'nor, develops what you may call logical faculties-they thinks-and thinks deep. I've thought. B.O.-that's Oliver-didn't go back by the way he'd come, or he'd ha' been seen. B.O. didn't go forward or through the woods to the headlands, or he'd ha' been seen, B.O. didn't go down to the sh.o.r.e, or he'd ha' been seen. 'Twixt you and me, guv'nor, B.O.'s dead body is in that there Keep!"

"Are you suggesting anything?" asked Copplestone.

"Nothing, guv'nor-no more than that," answered Spurge. "I'm making no suggestion and no accusation against n.o.body. I've seen a bit too much of life to do that. I've known more than one innocent man hanged there at Norcaster Gaol in my time all through what they call circ.u.mstantial evidence. Appearances is all very well-but appearances may be against a man to the very last degree, and yet him be as innocent as a new born baby! No-I make no suggestions. 'Cepting this here-which has no doubt occurred to you, or to B.O.'s brother. If I were the missing gentleman's friends I should want to know a lot! I should want to know precisely what he meant when he said to Dan'l Ewbank as how he'd known a man called Marston Greyle in America. 'Taint a common name, that, guv'nor."

Copplestone made no answer to these observations. His own train of thought was somewhat similar to his host's. And presently he turned to a different track.

"You saw no one else about there that afternoon?" he asked.

"No one, guv'nor," replied Spurge.

"And where did you go when you left the place?" inquired Copplestone.

"To tell you the truth, guv'nor, I was waiting there for that cousin o' mine-him as carried you the letter," answered Spurge. "It was a fixture between us-he was to meet me there about three o'clock that day. If he wasn't there, or in sight, by a quarter-past three I was to know he wasn't able to get away. So as he didn't come, I slipped back into the woods, and made my way back here, round by the moors."

"Are you going to stay in this place?" asked Copplestone.

"For a bit, guv'nor-till I see how things are," replied Spurge. "As I say, I'm wanted for poaching, and Chatfield's been watching to get his knife into me this long while. All the same, if more serious things drew his attention off, he might let it slide. What do you ask for, guv'nor?"

"I wanted to know where you could be found in case you were required to give evidence about seeing Mr. Oliver," replied Copplestone. "That evidence may be wanted."

"I've thought of that," observed Spurge. "And you can always find that much out from my cousin at the 'Admiral.' He keeps in touch with me-if it got too hot for me here, I should clear out to Norcaster-there's a spot there where I've laid low many a time. You can trust my cousin-Jim Spurge, that's his name. One eye, no mistaking of him-he's always about the yard there at Mrs. Wooler's."

"All right," said Copplestone. "If I want you, I'll tell him. By-the-bye, have you told this to anybody?"

"Not to a soul, guv'nor," replied Spurge. "Not even to Jim. No-I kept it dark till I could see you. Considering, of course, that you are left in charge of things, like."

Copplestone presently went away and returned slowly to Scarhaven, meditating deeply on what he had heard. He saw no reason to doubt the truth of Zachary Spurge's tale-it bore the marks of credibility. But what did it amount to? That Spurge saw Ba.s.sett Oliver enter the ruins of the Keep, by the one point of ingress; that a few moments later he saw Marston Greyle come away from the same place, evidently considerably upset, and sneak off in a manner which showed that he dreaded observation. That was all very suspicious, to say the least of it, taken in relation to Oliver's undoubted disappearance-but it was only suspicion; it afforded no direct proof. However, it gave material for a report to Sir Cresswell Oliver, and he determined to write out an account of his dealings with Spurge that afternoon, and to send it off at once by registered letter.

He was busily engaged in this task when Mrs. Wooler came into his sitting-room to lay the table for his lunch. Copplestone saw at once that she was full of news.

"Never rains but it pours!" she said with a smile. "Though, to be sure, it isn't a very heavy shower. I've got another visitor now, Mr. Copplestone."

"Oh?" responded Copplestone, not particularly interested. "Indeed!"

"A young clergyman from London-the Reverend Gilling," continued the landlady. "Been ill for some time, and his doctor has recommended him to try the north coast air. So he came down here, and he's going to stop awhile to see how it suits him."

"I should have thought the air of the north coast was a bit strong for an invalid," remarked Copplestone. "I'm not delicate, but I find it quite strong enough for me."

"I daresay it's a case of kill or cure," replied Mrs. Wooler. "Chest complaint, I should think. Not that the young gentleman looks particularly delicate, either, and he tells me that he's a very good appet.i.te and that his doctor says he's to live well and to eat as much as ever he can."

Copplestone got a view of his fellow-visitor that afternoon in the hall of the inn, and agreed with the landlady that he showed no evident signs of delicacy of health. He was a good type of the conventional curate, with a rather pale, good-humoured face set between his round collar and wide brimmed hat, and he glanced at Copplestone with friendly curiosity and something of a question in his eyes. And Copplestone, out of good neighbourliness, stopped and spoke to him.

"Mrs. Wooler tells me you're come here to pick up," he remarked. "Pretty strong air round this quarter of the globe!"

"Oh, that's all right!" said the new arrival. "The air of Scarhaven will do me good-it's full of just what I want." He gave Copplestone another look and then glanced at the letters which he held in his hand. "Are you going to the post-office?" he asked. "May I come?-I want to go there, too."

The two young men walked out of the inn, and Copplestone led the way down the road towards the northern quay. And once they were well out of earshot of the "Admiral's Arms," and the two or three men who lounged near the wall in front of it, the curate turned to his companion with a sly look.

"Of course you're Mr. Copplestone?" he remarked. "You can't be anybody else-besides, I heard the landlady call you so."

"Yes," replied Copplestone, distinctly puzzled by the other's manner.

"What then?"

The curate laughed quietly, and putting his fingers inside his heavy overcoat, produced a card which he handed over.

"My credentials!" he said.

Copplestone glanced at the card and read "Sir Cresswell Oliver," He turned wonderingly to his companion, who laughed again.

"Sir Cresswell told me to give you that as soon as I conveniently could," he said. "The fact is, I'm not a clergyman at all-not I! I'm a private detective, sent down here by him and Petherton. See?"

Copplestone stared for a moment at the wide-brimmed hat, the round collar, the eminently clerical countenance. Then he burst into laughter. "I congratulate you on your make-up, anyway!" he exclaimed. "Capital!"

"Oh, I've been on the stage in my time," responded the private detective. "I'm a good hand at fitting myself to various parts; besides I've played the conventional curate a score of times. Yes, I don't think anybody would see through me, and I'm very particular to avoid the clergy."

"And you left the stage-for this?" asked Copplestone. "Why, now?"