“Oh,” said I; for this unexpected clearing up of so many minor mysteries had rather taken me aback.  “Then Dr. Greefe is not popular?”

“Popular!” echoed the old man.

He drained his tankard and set it down on the table with a bang.

“He’s been the ruin o’ these parts, he has.  He’s worse than the turnip-fly.”

“But in what way is he responsible for these evils of which you complain?”

The old man peered into his empty mug with a glance of such eloquence that I could not mistake its import.  Accordingly, I caused it to be refilled, thus preventing any check in the flow of his eloquence, and: 

“In what way?” he asked, his voice raised in a high quavering note.  He laughed, and his laughter was pitched in the same time-worn key.  “That doctor is a blot on the country.  When Sir Burnham was alive—­and afore he went to Egypt—­it was different; although, mind you, it’s my belief—­oh, ah, it is indeed—­that him coming here had as much to do with Sir Burnham’s death as the loss of his son what I told you about.  That’s my belief.”

I took a sip from my replenished mug, and: 

“I cannot understand,” I said, “why the presence of Dr. Greefe should have brought about the death of Sir Burnham or the death of anybody else.”

“No,” said the old man, cunningly; “you can’t, eh?  Well, there be things none of us can understand and things some of us can.  If you ever clap eyes on that there black doctor, like enough this’ll be one of the things you’ll be able to understand.”

With the idea of drawing yet more intimate confidences: 

“You suggest that Dr. Greefe had some hold upon the late Sir Burnham?”

“I don’t suggest nothing.”

“Some hold upon Lady Burnham, then?”

“Oh, ah, like enough.”

“Don’t think,” I added solicitously, “that I doubt the truth of your statements in any way, but what could this black doctor, as you call him, have to gain by persecuting these people?”

“There be things,” replied my aged friend, “what none of us can understand, but there be things that all of us do.  Oh, ah, there be; and all of us in these parts knows as Upper Crossleys ain’t been the same since that black doctor settled here.  Besides, first Mr. Roger went, then Sir Burnham went.  Now I do read in this ’ere paper as another of ’em is gone.”

He held up two gnarled and twitching fingers crossed before him.

“Did you ever hear tell of the evil eye?” he asked, and peered at me cunningly.  He took a long drink from his mug.  “But maybe you’ll laugh at that,” he added.

“I am in no way disposed to laugh at anything you have told me,” I assured him; “and as to the evil eye, I have certainly heard of such a thing, although I must admit, and I am glad to admit, that I have never met with it.”