"I'll come, guv'nor," he said. "Of course. I'll come--and I'll trust to luck to get away, and it don't matter a deal if the luck's agen me--I've done a month in Norcaster before today, and it ain't half a bad rest-cure, if you only take it that way. But guv'nor--that old lawyer's making a mistake! You didn't ought to have my bit of evidence at this stage. It's too soon. You want to work up the case a bit. There's such a thing, guv'nor, in this world as being a bit previous. This here's too previous--you want to be surer of your facts. Because you know, guv'nor nobody'll believe my word agen Squire Greyle's. Guv'nor--this here inquest'll be naught but a blooming farce! Mark me! You ain't a native o' this part--I am. D'you think as how a Scarhaven jury's going to say aught agen its own Squire and landlord? Not it! I say, guv'nor--all a blooming farce! Mark my words!" "All the same, you'll come?" asked Copplestone, who was secretly of Spurge's opinion. "You won't lose by it in the long run." "Oh, I'll be there," responded Spurge. "Out of curiosity, if for nothing else. You mayn't see me at first, but, let the lawyer from London call my name out, and Zachary Spurge'll step forward." There was abundant cover for Zachary Spurge and for half-a-dozen like him in the village school-house when the inquest was opened at ten o'clock that morning. It seemed to Copplestone that it would have been a physical impossibility to crowd more people within the walls than had assembled when the coroner, a local solicitor, who was obviously testy, irritable, self-important and afflicted with deafness, took his seat and looked sourly on the crowd of faces. Copplestone had already seen him in conversation with the village doctor, the village police, Chatfield, and Marston Greyle's solicitor, and he began to see the force of Spurge's shrewd remarks. What, of course, was most desired was secrecy and privacy--the Scarhaven powers had no wish that the attention of all the world should be drawn to this quiet place. But outsiders were there in plenty. Stafford and several members of Bassett Oliver's company had motored over from Norcaster and had succeeded in getting good places: there were half-a-dozen reporters from Norcaster and Northborough, and plain-clothes police from both towns. And there, too, were all the principal folk of the neighbourhood, and Mrs. Greyle and her daughter, and, a little distance from Audrey, alert and keenly interested, was Addie Chatfield.