The handcart had been recently set down in and wheeled across a patch of yellow clay. This almost certainly had been done on the last occasion it had been used, otherwise the clay would have been knocked off on subsequent journeys. For the same reason the place must have been close to Starvel. There was no exposed clay near Starvel, but it was to be found at a depth of some three feet below ground level. From this it surely followed that some one had dug a hole near Starvel and wheeled the handcart to the edge before it was filled in. French went a step farther. If he was correct that the body of Markham Giles had been brought to Starvel on that tragic night it was almost certain that the handcart had been used, as there was no other way, so far as he could see, in which the terrible burden could have been carried. But so long a journey would have knocked the clay off the wheel; therefore the journey to the hole had been made _after_ that with the body. Further, the handcart could scarcely have been used since the fire: the tragedy was then over and the surviving actor had left the district. Did these considerations not suggest that Roper, having brought the man’s body to Starvel, had loaded up his booty on the handcart—possibly there were old silver or valuable ornaments as well as the bank notes—wheeled it out on the moor and buried it so as to hide it safely until he could come back and remove it? French recalled his reasons for thinking that the booty might have been so hidden. All those notes—assuming there was nothing else—would have had a certain bulk. Probably a suitcase would have been necessary to carry them. A man with a suitcase is a more noticeable figure than one without. Would it not have been wise for a criminal fleeing from justice to hide the stuff, provided he could find a safe place in which to do so? Moreover—and this was the strongest point—had Roper been arrested without the notes nothing could have been proved against him. He could say he had escaped from the fire by the merest piece of good fortune or he could simulate loss of memory from the shock. Or again he could explain that he had feared to come forward lest he should be suspected. No matter what might have been thought, he was safe. But let him be found with the notes in his possession and he was as good as hanged. French, looking round him there in the centre of the great Hollow, felt his spirits rising as he wondered if he were about to make the greatest _coup_ of the whole case. His question now was: Where would Roper make his cache? Not near the road where the disturbed earth would be visible to a chance passerby. Not near the house in case some of the crowds attracted by the fire should make an unexpected find. But not too far away from either lest he himself might have difficulty in locating the place.