Legacy of the Dead Part 4

McKinstry cleared his throat, unaware that he was standing behind Ross's chair, his hands touching the worn wood of the back, infringing on a memory.

"Inspector Oliver informed me late yesterday afternoon that there was a man coming from London to help us in the matter of Lady Maude Gray's daughter. Rutledge, the Inspector said the name was. I came this morning to ask Morag Gilchrist if it was one and the same man she knew. She said you were here on holiday, but if I was brief, I could ask-"

Rutledge, another scone halfway to his mouth, stared at the young constable. A man coming from London . . . Rutledge, he A man coming from London . . . Rutledge, he said the name was . . . said the name was . . . He turned sharply to look toward Morag, but she was working at the oven, her back to him. He turned sharply to look toward Morag, but she was working at the oven, her back to him.

When he'd spoken to the Yard Friday morning, nothing had been said about continuing to Duncarrick. Was he now expected to report his conversation with Lady Maude to the Scots in person? It would be very like Bowles to throw a subordinate to the wolves, if the Chief Superintendent saw unpleasantness ahead. The man had a knack for taking cover at the right time! Or had some new information come to light at the teaching hospitals? Whatever it was, Rutledge had a sudden nasty feeling that he was going to be the sacrificial lamb- He was aware that McKinstry was still talking. ". . . and it's what London may have given you that worries me, added to the fact she's incarcerated, awaiting trial-"

Who was incarcerated? Rutledge said, "We were speaking of Eleanor Gray-" was incarcerated? Rutledge said, "We were speaking of Eleanor Gray-"

"Yes, sir, that's true, but it's only circ.u.mstantial evidence at best. All the same, I've a feeling that's sufficient to hang her. In Duncarrick, any jury picked will be ready to vote guilty before they've heard a single word. Overturning public opinion is the hurdle, and I've not got the skill to do it," McKinstry told him earnestly, an undercurrent of severe strain in his voice. "But surely there's a way? I've come to ask you to keep an open mind, and search for it. To my way of thinking, if we fail her, we've failed ourselves as policemen!"

It was a heartfelt appeal, and very near to insubordination. The constable stood there, young and determined, knowing that he'd placed his job in jeopardy by questioning the decisions of his superiors in Duncarrick, but believing strongly enough in what he saw as duty to put his trust in a stranger. There were a number of people at the Yard who would have had McKinstry up on charges. A constable was not allowed opinions.

But his appeal was wasted on Rutledge, who knew only the English side of the investigation. "I haven't any idea what you're talking about," he said flatly. "So far London hasn't told me anything. I came north to speak to Lady Maude Gray, and I have had no orders to continue to Duncarrick." As Morag set a plate of eggs before him, he went on, "For G.o.d's sake, man, sit down and eat some breakfast, so that I can enjoy mine!"

McKinstry said, flushing, "I've had mine, sir, if it's all the same to you!"

"Then sit down and drink a cup of tea. And start at the beginning."

The constable pulled out a chair and glanced at Morag. She brought him a fresh cup and set it before him without a word. She didn't need words to convey the message that he had overstepped his bounds. He could read it clearly in her face.

Hamish, moved to comment, said, "He believes what he's come to say."

McKinstry poured himself a cup of tea, added milk and sugar like a condemned man determined to show courage eating his last meal, and then, without tasting it, began rather stiffly. "There's a woman in my district. A good woman-but she's been the subject of anonymous letters. Not mailed, you understand, just stuck in the corner of a door or left pinned to a clothesline, wherever they'd be noticed first thing in the morning."

"All right, anonymous. What did they say? There's usually a theme."

"Not to put too fine a point on it, sir, they called her a wh.o.r.e. And as word spread, the rumors followed. No one confronted her with the accusations. That's what I find hardest to accept. No one gave her a chance to explain. Instead they turned their backs on her. It appeared she'd lied to people, you see, and they saw it as a betrayal of trust." He stopped, frowning. "At least that's what they must have told themselves to excuse what they were doing. I can't see any other explanation. Then, to make matters worse, it came to light just after the letters began that she might have murdered the mother of a child she'd claimed was her own. She was taken up on that charge. Inspector Oliver will tell you the case against her, and about the bones. My concern is that the jury will hang her if they can, because it's human nature to want to believe you can't be fooled for long."

McKinstry recollected his tea, sipped it, and scalded his tongue. Then he said, desperate to make himself understood, "It reminds me of the days when people believed in witches. They sent innocent men and women to the stake or drowned them, in a mad effort to prove that witchcraft existed. A kind of hysteria that took the place of reason. Is that what's happening here? I don't know why I'm not infected by it myself-" But he did know, and couldn't bring himself to say it: he was in love with Fiona and saw her as a victim, not a killer. It was, perhaps, his own hysteria. . . . The thought frightened him suddenly.

"You were one of the investigating officers? Then you should know how sound the case is against her," Rutledge answered. "Does she have a good barrister? From what you're telling me, she needs one."

"Yes, she does-though I don't care for him myself. I've tried again and again to get to the bottom of this business, because I don't think anyone else has. We may have evidence that points in her direction, but is there more that points away from her? And I don't know how to go about searching for that properly. I don't even know where to begin. We don't have much in the way of crime in Duncarrick."

Rutledge said, "But that's what you're trained to do. What's difficult about it?"

McKinstry ran a finger through sugar that in his nervousness he'd spilled beside his teacup. "I can find a man wanted for robbery, I can stop a man from beating his wife, I can tell you who's the likely culprit when the MacGregors' house is broken into, and I can look at the old man out in the bothy by the stream and judge if he's killed himself somebody else's fat lamb and cooked it. That's work I know. This isn't. It's whispers and gossip spread in pa.s.sing, and n.o.body knows by whom. That's what sits ill with me, the way it began. It's a word dropped here, a look there, a shrug-and I can't find out who's behind it. Inspector Oliver claims it doesn't matter, that we've done our our work, and proved the fact of murder well enough for it to come to trial now. But to me it seems to be important to find out how and where the whole business began. The truth is, it appears to be having a life of its own! Like a ghost running about and whispering in people's ears. That's fanciful, too, but I can't explain it any better." work, and proved the fact of murder well enough for it to come to trial now. But to me it seems to be important to find out how and where the whole business began. The truth is, it appears to be having a life of its own! Like a ghost running about and whispering in people's ears. That's fanciful, too, but I can't explain it any better."

Fanciful or not, it evoked a clear image in Rutledge's mind.

"Rumor," Rutledge agreed, "can be deadly. Especially if people are prepared to believe it. But surely if there was no more to it than gossip, the fiscal and the Chief Constable would never have allowed the matter to come to trial!"

McKinstry shook his head mournfully. "I've lain awake nights asking myself that. I can't see the Chief Constable being taken in, he's not a gullible man. What does he know that makes him so certain there's a case?"

McKinstry gave the matter some thought. "Anonymous letters are a coward's tool. Keep that in mind. And find out who bears a secret grudge against this young woman. It might not be the kind of thing you or I would think to hold against her. It will be something petty. Personal, certainly. And it needn't be a sin of commission. Omission will do just as well."

"The worst complainer in Duncarrick is a neighbor of hers. An ill-tempered man, but he's not likely to go about writing anonymous letters. He's more the sort to use his fists than hide what he feels."

"Could he have taken a fancy to her-and been rebuffed? It may be that he believed she was giving favors to others and refusing him."

There was a comical expression on McKinstry's face. "Hugh Oliphant in the role of rejected lover? He's over seventy! His wife watches him like a cat at a mousehole, but he'd choose a pint over a pretty face any day!"

"Well, then, his wife. Or any other woman who might have suspected her husband of taking too great a personal interest in the accused."

"There's Molly Braddock. Well, Molly Sinclair, that was. Tommy Braddock's good with his hands, he'd done the odd job for the accused. Fixed a window sash when the weight rope broke, and cleaned the chimney when birds nested in it last spring. He's a happy-go-lucky man, the world's his best friend. But Molly is possessive." McKinstry shook his head. "I can give you names, that's easy enough. What I can't do is picture in my mind any of these people sitting down, day after day, to write such wicked nonsense."

Hamish said, "He's a conscientious policeman, aye, and a good man who doesna' ken hate."

Rutledge agreed. He b.u.t.tered the last of the scones. "Let's take another direction, then," he said aloud. "Were the letters Biblical in tone?"

"Yes, sir! How did you guess?"

"It isn't uncommon for anonymous letter writers to clothe their acts in Scripture. 'It's G.o.d chastising you, not me! His judgment of you, not mine.' "

McKinstry sighed. "That would fit half the town. We're a dour lot eager to spy sin around any corner. Aye, and find it as well."

"You do realize," Rutledge said, studying the young man, "that these letters may have had nothing to do with the crime she's accused of. It may simply be that the letters drew attention to facts no one had considered until then. And once the police took notice, the truth came out."

"No, sir," McKinstry said, torn between defending his own beliefs and possibly alienating the man from London he'd pinned his hopes on."I can't accept that without better evidence. Sometimes"-he hesitated, glancing at Morag-"sometimes there's such a fever pitch of belief in guilt that n.o.body looks for the fallacies fallacies in the evidence. I'm saying that because of the letters, Duncarrick was eager to see her blamed. That the letters set the stage for all that followed." in the evidence. I'm saying that because of the letters, Duncarrick was eager to see her blamed. That the letters set the stage for all that followed."

It was easy to shape evidence to fit a theory. . . .

"Yes, I understand," Rutledge answered patiently. "And that's the purpose of a trial-to weigh the evidence openly and fairly."

Hamish grunted, as if challenging Rutledge's words.

"If the jury listens," McKinstry argued. "Then it works. But what if the jury doesn't want to hear anything to the contrary because they've made up their minds? That's what I fear, sir, because I do know my people. And I'm ashamed to say I have no faith in a jury when the mind's shut." He took a deep breath. "And what's to become of the child? There's the other worry. As far as I know, it has no father." He looked out the window, not at Rutledge. "She's a good woman. She's a good mother. If she says the babe is hers, I want to believe it. But the police have said the contrary, that she killed the mother and took it, then told her aunt and the rest of the world that it was hers."

"The child isn't the law's responsibility," Rutledge replied, thinking of Lady Maude Gray. Would she claim it if there was any possibility that the child was her daughter's? Even though she refused to believe her daughter was dead? Stranger things had happened. He felt Morag's eyes on him and turned. The old woman shook her head, as if denying that she hadn't cared for his answer, but he knew she had been disappointed in it. So had Hamish.

His mind busy with Lady Maude, Rutledge said, "How did Oliver connect this young woman living in Duncarrick with a corpse found up in Glencoe? There's the problem of distance, if nothing else!"

McKinstry, much more comfortable with a straightforward report than his own feelings, lost some of his intensity. "Once it was clear the boy couldn't be hers, we went looking for the child's mother. We sent queries as far as Glasgow and Edinburgh, and across the border into England. The lad's going on three, we didn't expect it to be easy. It was Inspector Oliver's belief that we ought to search where the accused had come from, before coming to live in Duncarrick. That eventually led us to the glen. Human remains had been found there just last year, a woman's bones. And they hadn't been identified." He stopped, looked at his teacup, then met Rutledge's eyes. "The Glencoe police were nearly certain that she hadn't been there in March of 1916, when they'd scoured the glen searching for an old shepherd who'd gone off his head and disappeared. And the locals claim it must have been late summer or early autumn, as anybody moving sheep in the spring would have noticed the corbies collecting there. We sent around a description, adding what we suspected in Duncarrick to what little the Glencoe police had in their files. The next thing we knew, an inspector in Menton contacted us for more information. Duncarrick has eaten up the news, taking it as fact. And Inspector Oliver was not disposed to question the connection-" He stopped, suddenly uncomfortable.

Rutledge didn't press. After a moment, McKinstry went on.

"At any rate, the three jurisdictions accepted the possibility that the missing Eleanor Gray was the mother of the boy in Duncarrick and had died in suspicious circ.u.mstances in Glencoe. There's similarity in height, for one thing, and the timing fits. If she'd quarreled with her mother in the spring, and then carried a child to term, she'd have been delivered in late summer. And that's when the lad was born. What's more, none of the other inquiries Inspector Oliver received matched nearly as well." He drew a deep breath. Even he, convinced as he was that Fiona was innocent, saw that there was a logic about the evidence that was inescapable.

Rutledge said, "Even if I'm a.s.signed to the case, I can't see what I could accomplish that you haven't." And it was clear that McKinstry himself was not objective. Rutledge found himself wondering what his relationship was-had been-with the accused.

"Show me," McKinstry pleaded, "how to prove she's harmed no one. How to stop the whispers before this case comes to a trial. I'd not like to think my failure has sent her to the gallows. But it's going to happen. I'm helpless to prevent it."

WHEN MCKINSTRY HAD gone, Rutledge turned to Morag. "He shouldn't have come. It was wrong." gone, Rutledge turned to Morag. "He shouldn't have come. It was wrong."

He could hear Trevor running lightly down the stairs, opening the door, whistling for the dogs. The weekend had given his G.o.dfather a new energy.

"What harm did it do?" She reached for the frying pan. "Alistair's an honest lad with a wish to do what's right. Should I have sent him away without a hearing? As if I couldn't trust you to be just?"

"No. But it isn't my case, you see. It's Inspector Oliver's. And McKinstry doesn't know me. I could have made trouble for him, reported him for going over the head of his superior. Or put him in jeopardy for trying to influence my actions." Bowles would have done so, for one. Another thought occurred to him. "Could the child be his?"

"He was in France. And he does know you. He met you at an aid station behind the front lines. He'd been shot in the leg. He said you were one of the bravest men he'd ever met. You'd just brought in three men who'd been ga.s.sed and left for dead near a German outpost. Somehow you found them and got them out. Alistair was glad to shake your hand."

Trevor was striding down the pa.s.sage, speaking to his dogs. The big kitchen suddenly seemed small, close, and overheated. Hamish, alive in his mind, was as loud as a voice in the room. Rutledge could barely remember that day at the aid station, and certainly not the face of the soldier lying on a stretcher close by who had shaken his hand. As the doctors cleaned a cut on his wrist, he'd stood there grimly, unaware of pain. It had happened not too long after Hamish's death, and Rutledge had purposely taken risks, wanting to die. It hadn't been courage, it had been desperation-anything to silence the voice in his head. Even death.

Morag was talking, but her words failed to register. Trevor was greeting him, and the dogs frisked noisily about his feet.

Trevor said, "Ian, are you all right?"

Rutledge shook his head to clear it. "Yes, I'm fine. Morag was telling me about a relation of hers. It brought back some memories, that's all." To Morag he said, "I'm sorry. I don't seem to place him."

But afterward, as he walked down to a stream with Trevor, talking about his work, he found himself thinking again about McKinstry. What the young policeman had wanted from him was some semblance of hope. The promise that if he took over the case, he'd be objective, not swept up in the conclusions already drawn.

It didn't matter. There was no reason for him to be involved. He'd finished his business with Lady Maude, and the rest of the case would be in the hands of the courts. He didn't want to stay in Scotland.

ON MONDAY MORNING, Rutledge put in a telephone call to London from David Trevor's study.

Bowles, summoned to the telephone, answered brusquely, "Rutledge, is that you?"

"Yes." He quickly summarized his conversation with Lady Maude and ended with his own view. "It's hard to say. In my opinion, she doesn't know where her daughter is presently, and it's quite possible that she's at one of the teaching hospitals-"

"I've already had the report on that. There's no Eleanor Gray wanting to become a doctor."

"She might have used another name-"

"Yes, yes, I'm aware of that, but there's no one who matches the physical description you gave Sergeant Owens. I'd say at a guess that whatever the quarrel was about, it was not medicine that the young woman left home for. She might not have told her mother the truth." There was a pause. "One thing we did learn. She was a suffragette. Independent young miss, arrested a number of times for chaining herself to fences and making herself a public nuisance in whatever fashion got her the most notice. A young woman likely to find herself in trouble of one kind or another, I'd say. Sergeant Gibson remembered her from before the war, and he says she hasn't been in trouble with the police for some years now. Could mean she'd learned her lesson. Or that she is dead."

Bowles took a long breath, indicating a change of subject.

"We've had a call from Lady Maude. You're to go to Scotland and find out what you can about this corpse. She's insisting that you take over the case, and her family's not to be dragged into it, no speculation about her daughter, public or private, until you are absolutely certain that the corpse is Eleanor Gray's. What the h.e.l.l did you say to her?"

7.

BY TEN O'CLOCK THAT MORNING, RUTLEDGE HAD ASKED directions from Trevor, accepted the generous packet of sandwiches that Morag had put up for him, and turned south and west toward Jedburgh and Tweedesdale. It was a day of mixed sun and clouds, with a brief shower or two that raised the damp smell of earth. Long shadows were cast across the countryside when the sun came out, vanishing and reappearing like magic as the clouds shifted across the sky. There always seemed to be more sky in Scotland than in England, a different sky. Vast and empty, as if G.o.d weren't at home. directions from Trevor, accepted the generous packet of sandwiches that Morag had put up for him, and turned south and west toward Jedburgh and Tweedesdale. It was a day of mixed sun and clouds, with a brief shower or two that raised the damp smell of earth. Long shadows were cast across the countryside when the sun came out, vanishing and reappearing like magic as the clouds shifted across the sky. There always seemed to be more sky in Scotland than in England, a different sky. Vast and empty, as if G.o.d weren't at home.

He had come to Scotland for a weekend owed to his G.o.dfather, and now duty was keeping him here. He felt misgivings, his mind unsettled, the peace he'd found at Hadrian's Wall worn off. And Hamish, in his accustomed place behind the driver's shoulder, was as disturbed by the turn of events as Rutledge himself. He could hear the voice as clearly as if there were were a pa.s.senger. Blaming-stubbornly refusing to accept the change in plans. a pa.s.senger. Blaming-stubbornly refusing to accept the change in plans.

"And I'll no' go to the glen again-"

Rutledge tried to shut him out and then fell prey to another kind of haunting, awakened grief.

For the motorcar also carried the "ghost" of Ross Trevor. Rutledge had felt the dead man's presence so strongly at The Lodge. In France he had arrived at an acceptance of Ross's death, but in the house where Ross had spent every summer for twenty-five years or more, it seemed that he must surely be somewhere just out of sight-down the pa.s.sage-upstairs in his room-out riding and expected soon-talking to Morag in the kitchen. His laughter preceding him, his swift, energetic footsteps approaching the door. Ross Trevor had been a powerful presence, and Rutledge had found himself watching the doorways, listening over the ticking of the grandfather's clock or the wind in the eaves, for some sign of it. It seemed impossible that such a man had vanished so completely, swallowed by the sea- Over the last four months, Rutledge had begun for the first time to realize what the civilian population had endured during the long, dark days when casualties mounted and there seemed to be no end to the fighting. It was different from the way that soldiers saw the dying. But no less terrible. A time for mourning . . .

He wondered if David felt that same sense of antic.i.p.ation, and if he did, how he lived with it-and then realized that for Ross's father and for Morag, it might be oddly comforting.

Hamish said, as if picking up the thought, "They never saw him dead. They never closed the lid over his coffin and watched the earth shoveled down on it. Like me, he never came home. And so they're still waiting-"

JEDBURGH, LIKE ITS neighbors from Berwick to Dumfries, was not the Scotland of kilts and pipes and Bonnie Prince Charlie. These were the Marches that ran on either side of the frontier between Scotland and England, the border towns of the Lowlands, where a different kind of war had raged for centuries, raids into England for cattle and sheep and horses, shaping generations of hard men. neighbors from Berwick to Dumfries, was not the Scotland of kilts and pipes and Bonnie Prince Charlie. These were the Marches that ran on either side of the frontier between Scotland and England, the border towns of the Lowlands, where a different kind of war had raged for centuries, raids into England for cattle and sheep and horses, shaping generations of hard men.

The English had raided north too, with equal vigor and cunning. It had been a way of life until the 1600s, sometimes condoned and sometimes condemned, but always profitable enough to be a main local industry. Union between Scotland and England had finally put a stop to that.

And the legacy of John Knox had narrowed the Borderer's wild soul into a primmer mold where business and righteousness walked hand in hand: The Sabbath was holy, women knew their place, and the Kirk was a stronger influence in daily affairs than Edinburgh, much less far-off London.

Legends had grown up around raids and raiders. Ballads and tales celebrated reivers named Sim the Laird, Jock of the Side, and Kinmont Willie. After all, this was land where the shifting sands of policy, war, feuds, and alliances had often redrawn the border to suit the times. What was mine today might be yours tomorrow, and taking it back again became a popular sport.

Rutledge drove into Jedburgh through another shower and found the turning that led to Duncarrick. It was a small town in the green, rolling country between Air Water and the Tweed. A tall hedge of houses, shops, and one hotel formed an irregularly shaped nineteenth-century square with a worn monument at the top, commemorating the burning of the town three times in thirty years during the early 1500s. The pillar stood at the high end of the square, a lonely sentinel of the past surrounded by the town's newer image. Other houses, some much older, straggled west beyond the square, and there was a modest inn among them. The wooden sign over the door read THE REIVERS. Barely a dozen streets bracketed the heart of Duncarrick and gave it an isolated feeling, as if it had been stranded in the middle of nowhere, an agricultural community untouched by the woolen tweed industry that had crowded its neighbors.

"It's no' a Highland town," Hamish reflected, "but it's no' Sa.s.senach either." Not English. And he was right, there was indeed a different air here from the small English border towns no more than a hard ride away.

Where Jedburgh had once boasted walls, towers, a castle, and an abbey, Duncarrick had been burned to the ground so often that little of its past remained. A pele tower, the tall half-househalf-defensive-fortress of the raiding years, stood in a field about a mile past the last dwelling. It was little more than a tall rubble of stone and shadow now, with perhaps two floors still intact and the door slanted ajar. He pa.s.sed it and then turned around in the next farm lane.

Rutledge got out to stretch his legs, leaving the motorcar parked on the gra.s.sy verge some one hundred yards from the pele tower and going the rest of the way on foot.

Such towers were a part of Rutledge's own heritage, and he found them of absorbing interest-an architectural as well as a military solution to what must have been wretched years of constant danger. The Routledges, his own ancestors, had once been Borderers on the English side, raiding with the best of them, until a widow with three young sons had moved south in search of a more peaceful climate in which to raise them. Shrewd and capable, she'd found prosperity there as well. The Borderer had proved to be a match for clever, sophisticated Tudor London. In more ways than one.

There was a painting of her in the London house, with an impeccable ruff like a halo behind her head, a firm chin, and lively, intelligent eyes that the Elizabethan painter had captured so well that they seemed to follow the viewer about the room, staring directly, knowingly, at him wherever he stood. As a small child, Rutledge had understandably confused her with G.o.d.

He tramped across the fallow field that surrounded the tower base and heard the clamor of sheep somewhere in the distance, even before he smelled them on the damp air. Standing at the foot of the ma.s.sive stone walls, looking up at the broken top where birds had nested and wind whipped through the empty windows, he became aware of someone moving toward him. Turning, he saw a man in the rough clothes of a farmer, his face reddened by the sun, his hat jammed on his head like a fixture.

"Good morning!" he called as he saw Rutledge turn. "Looking for something?"

"No, just interested in the stonework." Rutledge waited until the man was nearer and added, "It's amazing, the craftsmanship of the people who built this. It's stood here what-four or five hundred years?"

"About that. Fine workmanship, I agree. Desperate times calling for desperate measures, if you like. It belonged to my wife's family. She knows the history of it better than I do." He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. "G.o.d, everything smells of sheep. I'm a horse breeder by preference. Draft horses. But the Army took nearly every animal I had, and I've got to start again. Meanwhile, the sheep are tiding me over." He grinned. "It's a near thing whether I'll kill them first or they'll be the death of me. Stupid beasts, they are. Even the dogs find them irritating."

He spoke well for a farmer. An educated man.

"I'd have as little to do with them as possible," Rutledge agreed.

"Here on holiday? There's some good walking in the district if you know where to look. The rule is, close gates you find closed and leave open gates you find open. There's a nasty-tempered ram here and there, but you'll see him before he sees you."

"Thanks, I'll keep it in mind."

The man nodded and walked on, whistling to his dogs, who ran, tongues lolling, some distance ahead. Their ears p.r.i.c.ked, and they obeyed his signals instantly. Rutledge watched them. Clever animals, he'd always admired their intelligence, their speed, and the way they could drop to the ground, nearly invisible, when the command came. Working dogs these, not pampered house pets, and very good at what they did. In the Highlands especially, sheep couldn't be run without them. He had met a man once who trained these dogs, an old rough-edged rogue who had taken his skills and his eye for instinct to New Zealand, where sheep were still king.

Rutledge went back to the motorcar and, starting the engine, headed into Duncarrick again.

HE DROVE SLOWLY through the main square, studying it, before he came back to the hotel and asked directions to the police station. The clerk told him, "But I doubt there's anyone there at this time of day. And Inspector Oliver is away to Jedburgh on business. Constable McKinstry's to home. It's his day off." through the main square, studying it, before he came back to the hotel and asked directions to the police station. The clerk told him, "But I doubt there's anyone there at this time of day. And Inspector Oliver is away to Jedburgh on business. Constable McKinstry's to home. It's his day off."

Rutledge left his motorcar at the hotel and walked the short distance, following the clerk's careful instructions.

McKinstry lived behind the square, a three-story house with a fresh coat of cream paint. The buckets and ladders stood to one side, in the narrow alley between it and its neighbor, waiting for the sun to reappear. Down the same street, some twelve or thirteen buildings to the left, was the police station, its sign affixed to the door, a neat black square with white letters. As the clerk had foretold, no one was there. Rutledge turned back to McKinstry's house. There was a fair amount of activity in the street-soberly dressed men and women going about their business. Two carters carried on a loud conversation at the next corner, then moved on as a lorry came rolling slowly past, looking to make a delivery at the apothecary's shop.