"Talk about coincidence!" he whispered. "This is the very man we'd just mentioned. Come back to my office and hear what he's got to tell. Follow me," he continued, beckoning the caller. "I'm much obliged to you for coming. Now," he continued, when all four of us were within his room. "What can you tell me about that? What do you know about the grave of the Netherfields?"
Beeman laughed, shaking his round head. Now that his old hat was removed, the fiery hue of his poll was almost alarming in its crudeness of hue.
"Nowt," he said. "Nowt at all! I'll tell you all about it—that's what I've comed here for, hearing as you were wondering who I was and what had come o' me. I come up here—yes, it were on t' sixth o' March—to see about some sheep stock for our maister, Mr. Dimbleby, and I put up for t' first night at a temp'rance i' Alnwick yonder. But of course, temp'rances is all right for sleeping and braikfasting, but nowt for owt else, so when I'd tea'd there, I went down t' street for a comfortable public, where I could smoke my pipe and have a glass or two. And while I was there, a man come in 'at, from his description i' t' papers, 'ud be this here fellow that were murdered. I didn't talk none to him, but, after a bit, I heard him talking to t' landlord. And, after a deal o' talk about fishing hereabouts, I heard him asking t' landlord, as seemed to be a gr't fisherman and knew all t' countryside, if he knew any places, churchyards, where there were Netherfields buried? He talked so much about 'em, 'at 't name got right fixed on my mind. T' next day I had business outside Alnwick, at one or two farms, and that night I made further north, to put up at Embleton. Now then, as I were walking that way, after dark I chanced in wi' a man near Lesbury, and walked wi' him a piece, and I asked him, finding he were a native, if he knew owt o' t' Netherfield graves. And that 'ud be t' man 'at tell'd you 'at he'd met such a person. All right!—I'm t' person.'
"Then you merely asked the question out of curiosity?" suggested the inspector.
"Aye—just 'cause I'd heard t' strange man inquire," assented Beeman. "I just wondered if it were some family o' what they call consequence."
"You never saw the man again whom you speak of as having seen at Alnwick?" the inspector asked. "And had no direct conversation with him yourself?"
"Never saw t' fellow again, nor had a word with him," replied Beeman. "He had his glass or two o' rum, and went away. But I reckon he was t' man who was murdered."
"And where have you been, yourself, since the time you tell us about?" asked the inspector.
"Right away across country," answered Beeman readily. "I went across to Chillingham and Wooler, then forrard to some farms i' t' Cheviots, and back by Alnham and Whittingham to Alnwick. And then I heard all about this affair, and so I thought good to come and tell you what bit I knew."
"I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Beeman," said the inspector. "You've cleared up something, at any rate. Are you going to stay longer in the neighbourhood?"