from Miss Greyle late this evening, asking me to meet you here when
the London train got in and to go on to Scarhaven with you at once. She
added the words _urgent business_ so--"

"Then in heaven's name, let's be off!" exclaimed Copplestone. "It'll take
us a good hour and a quarter as it is. Of course," he went on, as they
moved away through the Norcaster streets, "of course, you haven't any
notion of what this urgent business is?"

"None whatever!" replied Vickers. "But I'm quite sure that it is urgent,
or Miss Greyle wouldn't have said so. No--I don't know what her exact
meaning was, but of course, I know there's something wrong about the
whole thing at Scarhaven--seriously wrong!"

"You do, eh?" exclaimed Copplestone. "What now?"

"Ah, that I don't know!" replied Vickers, with a dry laugh. "I wish I
did. But--you know how people talk in these provincial places--ever since
that inquest there have been all sorts of rumours. Every club and public
place in Norcaster has been full of talk--gossip, surmise, speculation.
Naturally!"

"But--about what?" asked Copplestone.

"Squire Greyle, of course," said the young solicitor; "that inquest was
enough to set the whole country talking. Everybody thinks--they couldn't
think otherwise--that something is being hushed up. Everybody's agog to
know if Sir Cresswell Oliver and Mr. Petherton are applying for a
re-opening of the inquest. You've just come from town, I believe! Did you
hear anything?"

Copplestone was wondering whether he ought to tell his companion of his
own recent discoveries. Like all laymen, he had an idea that you can tell
anything to a lawyer, and he was half-minded to pour out the whole story
to Vickers, especially as he was Mrs. Greyle's solicitor. But on second
thoughts he decided to wait until he had ascertained the state of affairs
at Scarhaven.

"I didn't hear anything about that," he replied. "Of course, that inquest
was a mere travesty of what such an inquiry should have been."

"Oh, an utter farce!" agreed Vickers. "However, it produced just the
opposite effect to that which the wire-pullers wanted. Of course,
Chatfield had squared that jury! But he forgot the press--and the local
reporters were so glad to get hold of what was really spicy news that all
the Norcaster and Northborough papers have been full of it. Everybody's
talking of it, as I said--people are asking what this evidence from
America is; why was there such mystery about the whole