"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 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?"