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now.’
    Mistress Trenowth gave a decided shake of her head. ‘Oh no! There’s no way Beric would have left the manor while she ’s still there. And she is still there. I know, because I’ve another sister who lives in Modbury, and she told me so.’
    I frowned. ‘Who are you talking about? Are you referring to Master Gifford’s sister?’
    ‘No, no! Although he and Berenice are close, and always have been. No, I was meaning Katherine Glover. She’s the reason Beric and Master Capstick had that terrible falling-out the day before he killed his uncle.’
    I drew a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid, Mistress Trenowth, that if I’m to understand this story, you’ll have to give me all the details of your master and his family, their past history and the events leading up to the murder. It would save me asking a lot of questions, which can only be a trial to both of us. Would you be agreeable?’
    She thought for a moment, then graciously inclined her head. ‘There isn’t, in any case, a great deal to tell,’ she said, ‘but such as there is, you’re welcome to know. Particularly,’ she added, her eyes filling with tears, ‘if it can help you bring Beric Gifford to justice.’
    *   *   *
    Oliver Capstick, Mistress Trenowth told me, had been the younger of two sons of a Plymouth vintner, owner of a flourishing business, importing wine from both Bordeaux and La Rochelle; wine that had subsequently been transshipped to Calais and the North Sea ports, as well as being supplied to London and the eastern counties. Those had been dangerous, but heady days, when dozens of vessels had sailed in convoy in order to beat off attacks from the Breton pirates, and when England had been the French vineyard owners’ most valued customer. All that had changed now, of course, but then there had been great fortunes to be made in the wine trade, and Jonathan Capstick had become a very wealthy man.
    The elder son, Henry, had followed in his father’s footsteps, but the younger, Oliver, had elected to go into hake fishing, and had bought himself three boats with money left to him by his mother.
    ‘As a foreigner to these parts,’ Mistress Trenowth condescended to inform me, ‘I must tell you that hake is in very plentiful supply in these waters.’ And she nodded towards the open window through which could be seen the sparkle of sunlight on the golden-blue haze of the sea. ‘Master Capstick once told me that the greater part of every catch is sent to Gascony, where it seems they have a partiality for hake when it’s dried and salted. Mind you, it’s very popular in this country, too. In fact, there’s nothing I like better, myself, than a nice bit of hake on a Friday.’
    ‘In short,’ I said, ‘hake fishing is a very profitable business.’
    ‘It certainly made Master Capstick wealthy,’ she conceded before resuming her story.
    The Capstick brothers had, in due course, married, but between them, had managed to produce only one offspring, Henry’s daughter, Veronica. Both couples had been fond of children, and so she had become the darling not only of her parents, but also of her uncle and aunt. And it had been the greatest desire of Oliver’s heart, far greater than that of his brother’s, that Veronica should marry well.
    ‘Judging by what Master Capstick let drop,’ Mistress Trenowth confided, settling down for a comfortable gossip, ‘and from what I’ve been able to gather from other people who knew them, Henry Capstick wished his daughter to marry for money and didn’t much care about pedigree. But Oliver had different ideas and wanted his niece to be a lady; so when Cornelius Gifford came courting Veronica, he was all for the match and wouldn’t hear a word against it.’ The Giffords, it appeared, were related by blood to the Champernownes, who had been lords of Modbury and its environs since the beginning of the previous century. ‘But the trouble was,’ my companion continued, ‘that this particular