Scarhaven Keep by J. S. Fletcher (best value ebook reader TXT) 📕

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 two, looking right and left, up and down. There wasn’t a soul in sight⁠—nobody! But⁠—he slunk off⁠—sneaked off⁠—same as a fox sneaks away from a farmyard. 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.”

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 oh fay with matters, and, by all accounts, after Bassett 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 shore, 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 nobody. 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 circumstantial 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 by, 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 Bassett 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.