Morse is taken seriously ill at a muse um reception and is hospital ized. In the h ospital, Supt. Strange, visits Mor se to push him to tak e early ret irement , while Dr. Millicent 'Millie' Van Buren gi ves hi m her bo ok on a 140 year- old court case known as the Oxf ord Canal Murders. T he case invo lved the murde r and rape o f a yo ung woman, M rs Jo anna Franks, traveling b y can al boat from Coventry to Lond on. The case resulted in three boatmen bei ng s enten ced to de ath a nd two of them hanged. Morse starts to read Millie's b ook and dreams about it. He soon has a number of p roblems with the c ase. Why we ren't the three men also char ged with theft Why did Mrs Frank s take a boat instead of a train tha t wa s mu ch faster and comfortable and only slightly more expens ive Why didn't she aband on the boat after she complained about lewd beh avior of the crew at the sh ippi ng office in Ban bury Why did she then drink and 'socialise' with the crew W hat happened to her 'car pet bag' with which she arrive d on the b oat but whi ch was not men tioned i n the court case, nor was i t stored in the arch ives with her, almost emp ty, trunk The trunk was marked wit h init ials of h er first husband who had died. How did it happen that her shoes were found o n the boat but nobody saw her ret urn to the b oat fr om the forest PC Ad rian Kershaw does some brillia nt leg work for M orse. He studied history and has invaluable bac kground kn owledge. For insta nce, he mentions that th e boatmen had bad reput ation bec ause they worked on Sundays and did not atte nd churc h. Later a chapel was built for them in Oxford. The dead woma n's clothe s and t he shoes found on the boat are submitted to modern forensic inves tigation. The re sult is that the shoes di d not belong to the dead wom an found in the water because she was much t alle r.The shoes we re n ever us ed in the for est. Only Mrs Franks' husband, Charles Fra nks, was called to identify the bo dy of the dead woman. He claimed that, while her face was darken ed and disfigured, he found a birth ma rk behind he r ear. The prosecutor welco med that information that only a husband or a lover would know. The accused were not shown the body. The defen se attorney merely claimed th at the guilt of the thre e men was not proved. All three accu sed claimed to the end that they were innoce nt. One of them was not executed because he embraced Christianity in prison. Morse instructs Kersh aw to inves tigate if Charles Franks benefi ted fr om his wife 's death and , in deed, he p ocketed 300 pounds insurance mo ney. Case closed Charles Franks murd ered a tall women and dropped her in the canal after meeting Joanna in the forest. If Joanna Franks jum ped off the boat at the same t ime as the dead body hit the water, she swa m to the ba nk and joined her husband. The couple changed their names , in the case of 'Char les Franks' a second time after he 'died' as Joa nna's f irst husband. The fourth boatman, a you ngster who was not char ged, was probably paid by Joanna to giv e false testimony. Morse travels to Irela nd an d has a grave of Joanna 's first h usband exhumed. The coffin contains bags of s and and some stones.
精彩剧情/对白：“那奶就听囡囡的，就不计 较了，你 婶子那里，我就当没这个事情了，你叔那 里，我可没那么好， 不过当年他也还，被家里人惯了，才会那样想的， 我也不计较了 ，不过我可不会对他那么好。你爷那里， 就算了吧，那么多年，他袖手旁观，我心早就冷了，要不是为了你们这些孩子，我早就和他和离了。”
“但是，那三颗石头不能还。透明水晶和 冰玉可以，但是血晶是 万万不能的， 血晶这样罕见的东西，要成为镇店 之宝的，这实在太难得了，我要自己留着。但若是还两样 ，那位护国公主 的心眼，必然是不能接受的，所以还不如不还。”
“你到现在 还在嘴硬， 佩珊是在小时 候不懂事把你弄丢，她是 真的很后悔，十几年来一直活在愧疚和不安当中，你回来 后她也一直在用尽一切 弥补你，这两天她吃不下 睡不着，整个人都 要垮了，你已经把你姐姐毁了，你知道 吗？”
“顾多意 ，你个丑八怪，真 是给脸不要 脸，常山愿意给你妾 室的位置，那是他慈悲，这 慈悲，你不要也罢，你还让 他下不来台。难不成你还 想要白日做梦， 觊觎那正室的位置？常 山是秀才，迟早 要有个一官半职的，怎么可能让你这种丑八怪做正室 ？顾家，只有 莹莹才能配得上。”
“六文钱 一个，我们家可收 不起。我还是那句话，大 家桥归桥路归路，身为同村 人，你们拿着我们 家的花样子去做，我也不计 较，你们自己能卖是你们自己的事情，但别指望用了我 们家的花样子，挖了我 们家做工的人，还想高价卖给我们。”
