--you shall be well paid. That do?"

"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 passage here--before anybody
could climb that rock. However, nobody 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 Bassett 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 passed 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 Bassett 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 circumstances? 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 tw