He hesitated a bit, looked at me and back at his papers, and then, with a
glance at the coroner, sat down. And the coroner, nodding at him as if
there was some understanding between them, turned to the jury.

"It may seem without the scope of this inquiry, gentlemen," he said,
"but the presence of this man Gilverthwaite in the neighbourhood has
evidently so much to do with the death of the other man, whom we know as
John Phillips, that we must not neglect any pertinent evidence. There is
a gentleman present that can tell us something. Call the Reverend
Septimus Ridley."




CHAPTER VIII

THE PARISH REGISTERS


I had noticed the Reverend Mr. Ridley sitting in the room with some other
gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and had wondered what had brought him, a
clergyman, there. I knew him well enough by sight. He was a vicar of a
lonely parish away up in the hills--a tall, thin, student-looking man
that you might occasionally see in the Berwick streets, walking very fast
with his eyes on the ground, as if, as the youngsters say, he was seeking
sixpences; and I should not have thought him likely to be attracted to an
affair of that sort by mere curiosity. And, whatever he might be in his
pulpit, he looked very nervous and shy as he stood up between the coroner
and the jury to give his evidence.