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We took him into confidence, coached him up in everything, furnished him with all the papers in the pocket-book, and resolved to pass him off as the real Marston Greyle." Mr. Petherton stirred angrily in his chair and turned a protesting face on Sir Cresswell. "Apart from being irregular," he exclaimed, "this is altogether outrageous! This woman is openly boasting of conspiracy and "
"We might walk back by the canal," suggested Trivett. "It look zo zolemn by moonlight." Upon Mavis' assenting, they joined the canal where the tow-path is at one with the road by the railway bridge. "How long have you been in Pennington?" asked Mavis presently. "A matter o' ten years. We come from North Petherton, near Tarnton." "Then you didn't know my father?"
Both were wondering, as they went, about the same thing the evident anxiety and mental uneasiness of Marston Greyle. Copplestone saw little of his bed that night. At seven o'clock in the evening came a telegram from Sir Cresswell Oliver, saying that he and Petherton were leaving at once, would reach Norcaster soon after midnight, and would motor out to Scarhaven immediately on arrival.
"Did you think it was the man we know as the Squire?" asked Sir Cresswell. "We had a notion that he might be there," replied Vickers, with a glance at Copplestone. "Especially after what happened to Chatfield. Of course, we never saw him, or heard his voice, or saw a sign of him. Still, we fancied " Sir Cresswell rose from his chair and motioned to Petherton.
"Doesn't that show that I'm not afraid of the police. I came of my own free will to explain. And to ask you all to be merciful." "To whom?" demanded Mr. Petherton. "Well to my father, if you want to know," replied Addie, with another softening glance. "Come now, all of you, what's the good of being so down on an old man who, after all hasn't got so very long to live?
"And the first consequence is that I now formally demand an adjournment of this inquest, sine die." "On what grounds, sir?" demanded the Coroner. "To permit me to bring evidence from America," replied Petherton, with a side glance at Marston Greyle. "Evidence already being prepared." The Coroner hesitated, looked at Greyle's solicitor, and then turned sharply to the jury.
Lord Petherton was now before them, there being no one else on the terrace to speak to, and, with the odd look of an excess of physical power that almost blocked the way, he seemed to give them in the flare of his big teeth the benefit of a kind of brutal geniality.
Sir Cresswell tapped him on the shoulder. "I want you to do me a favour," he said. "I shall take it as a kindness if you will. I don't want to talk about certain ideas which Petherton and I have about this affair, yet, anyway not even to you but we have formed some ideas this afternoon. Now, do you think you could manage to stay where you are for a week or two?" "Here?" exclaimed Copplestone.
Gilling isn't an invalid curate at all! he's a private detective. Sir Cresswell Oliver and Petherton, the solicitor, sent him down here to watch Greyle the Squire, you know that's Gilling's job. They suspect Greyle have suspected him from the very first but of what I don't know. Not not of this, I think. Anyway, they do suspect him, and Gilling's had his eye on him ever since he came here.
"I expected that," answered Copplestone. "All right, sir. And my orders are just what you said." "Just what I said," agreed Sir Cresswell. "Carry on at that eyes and ears open; no fuss; everything quiet, unobtrusive, silent. Meanwhile Petherton will be at work. And I say if you want company, you know I think you'll find it across the bay there at Mrs. Greyle's eh?"
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