On her way home after Eliza Robbins's delivery, Martha Ballard stops at Pollard's Tavern because the smell of Abigail Pollard's food reminds Martha that she has barely eaten. While Moses Pollard serves Martha a hot meal, he shares new gossip: Joshua Burgess's cabin was found burned to the ground, though it seems to have happened weeks earlier. Amos Pollard suspects Joseph North hid there for a few days after the hearing because the barn remained standing and was full of dog tracks, suggesting Cicero was kept there before Joseph returned the dog to North Manor and left town.

Martha immediately focuses on the implications. If Joseph North burned the house, Martha reasons, he may have destroyed something incriminating inside. When Moses explains that Burgess's few remaining belongings were stored in the shed behind the tavern with Burgess's frozen body, Martha realizes she may still be able to find evidence. She asks Moses for a lantern and decides to investigate that same night.

Martha slips into the shed unnoticed. Inside, she finds an orderly storage space so cold that Burgess's corpse has no odor, hidden beneath hay in a back corner. Martha avoids reexamining the body and instead searches through the hay around it, locating Burgess's saddle, tack, rifle, hatchet, and finally a heavy saddlebag.

Inside the saddlebag, Martha finds Burgess's pistols, a coin purse, an empty whiskey bottle, and three opened letters. Most disturbing is a strip of lace, which matches Rebecca Foster's testimony that Burgess tore lace from her shift and used it to tie back his hair during the assault. The keepsake confirms for Martha that Burgess preserved evidence of the attack and strengthens Rebecca's account.

Martha then checks the letters and discovers they were addressed to Colonel Joseph North, the Kennebec Proprietors in Boston, and, most shockingly, Ephraim Ballard. Before Martha can open the letter addressed to her husband, she hears Amos Pollard approaching. Martha hastily stuffs everything back into the saddlebag and blows out the lantern, but Amos, muttering curses about a mistake by Moses, locks the shed from the outside without realizing Martha is inside. The chapter ends with Martha trapped overnight in the dark beside Burgess's body, holding unanswered questions about the hidden correspondence.