drawer, where apparently she kept messages for hotel guests.
There was one for him, but not from Old Bowels, as he’d expected.
It was a politely couched request for him to telephone Lady Maude.
She wanted a report of his progress.
And so far he had nothing to tell her.
Her voice came clearly down the line-imperious and cold. “I expected you to keep me apprised of your investigation,” Lady Maude said accusingly. “You have disappointed me.”
“I had only mundane details to report until today. Tell me, do you know a Mrs. Cook, Maude Cook?”
“And who is she?” Lady Maude parried.
“I can’t be sure,” he admitted. “I’m exploring every possibility, and her name has come up in the course of inquiries.”
“I have no interest in a Maude Cook!”
“Did your daughter have friends in Glasgow whom she might have visited for a period of time? People who would let her stay for several months?”
“Certainly not. I can’t think of any reason why my daughter might wish to go to Scotland at all. It’s very unlike her. But I’ve told you that before.”
He said, “Did your daughter know a Fiona MacDonald?”
“I think not. It isn’t a name I’m familiar with.” She paused, then made-for her-a difficult concession. “The war unsettled accepted social behavior. In London Eleanor must have met any number of people outside our own circle of friends. I can’t be expected to know all of them.” It was the closest she had come to admitting that for three years she had no knowledge at all of the people who might have been important in her daughter’s life. And then, behind the coldness, there appeared a brief glimmer of warmth. “Inspector. I am waiting for news of my daughter. Something that will prove that it’s impossible for her to be connected in any way with this sordid business of murder!”
“The police here are still convinced that the-er-remains that have been found must be your daughter’s. I’m not as sure, for a number of reasons. But it isn’t something I can prove in a matter of days. The woman accused of the murder has been less than helpful. We are having to trace her movements over a period of three years. Until that’s completed, I can’t promise you any news.”
She considered that in silence.
Then she said, “I shall expect regular reports.” It was as far as she could go, admitting that she was worried.
“I understand.”
He put down the phone and considered going into the saloon bar for a drink. But he thought better of it and climbed the stairs wearily to his room.
Hamish was a dull murmur in his ear as he fell deeply and dreamlessly asleep.
Oliver’s first question was “Did you learn anything?”
Rutledge hesitated and then decided on discretion. Oliver was protective of his own investigation, and any evidence that might conflict with his carefully constructed case would immediately be suspect. “Enough to convince me that if the accused met Eleanor Gray in Brae, there is no evidence to prove it.”
It was a cool morning, the kind of day that reminded people in the north that winter would be long and dark and dreary. Rutledge hadn’t finished his breakfast when Oliver strode in and joined him, going directly to the point.
He said now, “Well, I did tell you that we’d been thorough.” He studied Rutledge for a moment, rubbing the menu he’d been given against his freshly shaven chin. “If the movements of the accused are accounted for, then we’re left with the time it took her to travel from Brae to Duncarrick. And the road she took. It must have been there that the two women met. A matter of days, surely!’’
Rutledge weighed the fact that Fiona had not worked out her time in Brae, though she’d told her aunt she must do so.
Where had she gone for those few weeks? Back to the glen where she’d been born? Or down to Lanark to meet someone?
No, it couldn’t have been planned ahead. She hadn’t known she would be summoned to Duncarrick by her aunt.
But what if-what if she’d been aware for some time that she was to meet someone on or about a certain date- and the summons from her aunt had given her the perfect opportunity to leave Brae at the right moment, without excuses or explanations? She had loved the Davison children, she had cried when she left them-but leave them she did.
No lies told to Mrs. Davison. No lies told to her aunt. Just the simple fact that suddenly Fiona MacDonald had been given a gift of time.
And therein lay the mystery of Eleanor Gray and the child.
If she wouldn’t tell him what she knew, there might be another way of examining her past…
Rutledge said to Oliver, “I’d like to search the inn if I may. Can you arrange it?”
“What on earth for?” Oliver demanded.
“I don’t know. Yet. But it’s worth looking to see whether-for the boy’s protection if not her own-she left something there that might help us. A connection to the child’s background that might have been overlooked because at the time no one understood what it represented.”
Oliver shook his head. “I’ve been through the inn. Upstairs and down, the public and the family quarters. There’s nothing.”
But Rutledge knew more about Fiona MacDonald than Oliver did-and what he wanted to find, if they still existed, were any letters that Fiona had written to her aunt before she came to Duncarrick.
He was given the key and Constable McKinstry as an observer, and allowed to inspect the inn.
McKinstry moved with nervous apprehension, a man torn between two duties. He showed Rutledge the way the inn was laid out, and then hovered at his shoulder like a second Hamish, both of them carrying on a desultory conversation with him as he moved from room to room of the private wing. By the time they’d finished with the small parlor, then walked into the dining room behind it, and the kitchen beyond that, Rutledge said, “The boy’s room. Have you searched it thoroughly? If I were hiding anything, I’d put it in among his toys, or perhaps at the bottom of a drawer filled with outgrown clothes-”
“But what would she have been hiding?” McKinstry asked wretchedly. “If she’s not guilty, what is there to hide?”
Rutledge turned and started toward the stairs. “This way? Right! The boy’s proper heritage is what we’re after. If anything had happened to Miss MacDonald-illness-accident-she had no family of her own to come for him and take him in. Surely she’d have thought to leave some instructions for the child’s protection? A name, or how to go about reaching a solicitor, perhaps. Eleanor Gray had a solicitor who conducted her affairs for her.” But was Mr. Leeds courageous enough to take on Lady Maude’s displeasure a second time?
McKinstry said, “We’ve looked-”
“-but haven’t found anything. Yes, I know. Look again for that reason!”
McKinstry led the way up the stairs, where several doorways opened onto a central passage. Rutledge followed him. The private wing, as he had noted, was small and old but well-kept and comfortable. It spoke well for Fiona’s sense of duty to the inn and the child in her care.
Hardly, he thought, a den of iniquity, as some had imagined it!
A white cat came out of the room at the head of the stairs, friendly and curious. She was well-fed, Rutledge saw, and not frightened. Someone was looking after her He went into the room and saw that it must be Fiona’s. There was a round depression on the pillow at the head of the bed and a thin carpeting of white hairs. This was where the cat slept.
Besides the bed, which boasted a coverlet trimmed in eyelet, there was a chest, a dressing table, and a desk. Two chairs stood beneath the windows, both cushioned in a rose print. He went to the desk first, but left it after a cursory examination. It would be the first place anyone looked. Oliver, for instance, would have gone through it with great care. All that appeared to be left were bills, unused stationery, a penknife, ink, pencils, envelopes, a large book of accounts for the household, and other ordinary items.
Hamish was no happier about his task than McKinstry had been, and reminded Rutledge that he had no right
