"If one could find out whether it was man or woman! If one could divine how they got at the knowledge!" stamped Tod. "The pater does not look sure about us yet." "I wonder if it could have been Roger Monk?" I said, speaking out a thought that had been dimly creeping up in my mind by starts all day. "Roger Monk!" repeated Tod, "why pitch upon him?" "Only that it's just possible he might have got it out of Goody Picker." Away went Tod, in his straightforward fashion, to look for Roger Monk. He was in the hot-house, doing something to his plants. "Monk, did you play that trick last night?" "What trick, sir?" asked Monk, twitching a good-for-nothing leaf off a budding geranium. "What trick! As if there were more tricks than one played! I mean dressing yourself up like a dead man, and frightening Phoebe." "I have too much to do with my work, Mr. Todhetley, to find time to play tricks. I took no holiday at all yesterday, day or night, but was about my business till I went to bed. They were saying out here this morning that the Squire thought _you_ had done it." "Don't you be insolent, Monk. That won't answer with me." "Well, sir, it is not pleasant to be accused point-blank of a crime, as you've just accused me. I know nothing at all about the matter. 'Twasn't me. I had no grudge against Phoebe, that I should harm her." Tod was satisfied; I was not. He never once looked in either of our faces as he was speaking. We leaped the wire-fence and went across to Goody Picker's, bursting into her kitchen without ceremony. "I say, Mrs. Picker, we can't find out anything about that business last night," began Tod. "And you never will, gentlemen, as is my opinion," returned Mrs. Picker, getting up in a bustle and dusting two wooden chairs. "Whoever did that, have took himself off for a bit; never doubt it. 'Twas some one o' them village lads." "We have been wondering whether it was Roger Monk." "Lawk-a-mercy!" cried she, dropping a basin on the brick floor. And if ever I saw a woman change colour, she did. "What's the matter now?" "Why, you sent me into a tremble, gentlemen, saying that," she answered, stooping to pick up the broken crockery. "A young man lodging in my place, do such a villain's trick! I'd not like to think it; I shouldn't rest in my bed. The two servants having started right out from here for the churchyard have cowed-down my heart bad enough, without more ill news." "What time did Monk come in last night?" questioned Tod. "Do you remember?" "He come in after Mrs. Hannah and the other had gone," she replied, taking a moment's pause. "Close upon it; I'd hardly shut my door on them when I had to open it to him." "Did he go out again?" "Not he, sir. He eat his supper, telling me in a grumbling tone about the extra work he'd had to do in the greenhouses and places, because the other man had took holiday best part o' the day. And then he went up to bed. Right tired he seemed."