"The host," they cried; "what do you want with the host? Here is the hostess, and she's young and pretty. If you want to see the host you'll find him in the kitchen."
So he went into the kitchen to see the host; he found him a weak old man turning the spit.
"Oh! oh!" quoth Ivan, "I'll not lodge here, but will go next door."
"Not yet," said the merchants, "sup with us, and welcome."
Now it happened that the hostess had plotted with a certain monk in Market-Jew to murder the old man in his bed that night while the rest were asleep, and they agreed to lay it on the lodgers.
So while Ivan was in bed next door, there was a hole in the pine-end of the house, and he saw a light through it. So he got up and looked, and heard the monk speaking. "I had better cover this hole," said he, "or people in the next house may see our deeds." So he stood with his back against it while the hostess killed the old man.
But meanwhile Ivan out with his knife, and putting it through the hole, cut a round piece off the monk's robe. The very next morning the hostess raised the cry that her husband was murdered, and as there was neither man nor child in the house but the merchants, she declared they ought to be hanged for it.
So they were taken and carried to prison, till a last Ivan came to them. "Alas! alas! Ivan," cried they, "bad luck sticks to us; our host was killed last night, and we shall be hanged for it."
"Ah, tell the justices," said Ivan, "to summon the real murderers."
"Who knows," they replied, "who committed the crime?"