"A sad story," said Master Nathaniel. "Well, we must leave him out of our calculations. All you've told me is very interesting--very interesting indeed. But there's still a great deal to be unravelled before we get to the rope I'm looking for. One thing I don't understand is Diggory Carp's story about the osiers. Was it a pure fabrication of his?" "Poor Diggory! He wasn't, of course, the sort of man whose word one would be very ready to take, for he did deserve his ten years--he was a born thief. But I don't think he would have had the wits to invent all that. I expect the story he told was true enough about his daughter selling the osiers, but that it was only for basket-making that she wanted them. Guilt's a funny thing--like a smell, and one often doesn't quite know where it comes from. I think Diggory's nose was not mistaken when it smelt out guilt, but it led him to the wrong clue. My father wasn't poisoned by osiers." "Can you think what it was, then?" She shook her head. "I've told you everything I know." "I wish you knew something more definite," said Master Nathaniel a little fretfully. "The Law dearly loves something it can touch--a blood-stained knife and that sort of thing. And there's another matter that puzzles me. Your father seems, on your showing, to have been a very indulgent sort of husband, and to have kept his jealousy to himself. What cause was there for the murder?" "Ah! that I think I can explain to you," she cried. "You see, our farm was very conveniently situated for ... well, for smuggling a certain thing that we don't mention. It stands in a sort of hollow between the marches and the west road, and smugglers like a friendly, quiet place where they can run their goods. And my poor father, though he may have sat like a dumb animal in pain when his young wife was gallivanting with her lover, all the same, if he had found out what was being stored in the granary, Pugwalker would have been kicked out of the house, and she could have whistled for him till she was black in the face. My father was easy-going enough in some ways, but there were places in him as hard as nails, and no woman, be she never so much of a fool (and, fair play to my stepmother, she was no fool), can live with a man without finding out where these places are." "Oh, ho! So what Diggory Carp said about the contents of that sack was true, was it?" And Master Nathaniel inwardly thanked his stars that no harm had come to Ranulph during his stay in such a dangerous place.