search of Constable McKinstry.
Rutledge ran him to earth making his rounds, coming back from the east end of town with a clutch of small boys in his wake. Their faces were long, downcast. Truants by the look of them. McKinstry dropped them off at the school, where a stern school-master had been watching for him. The boys went in through the door with the air of the condemned, dragging their feet.
“Future criminals,” McKinstry said, catching sight of Rutledge standing in a shop doorway. “But they’re not bad, really, they just have no taste for learning. I probably didn’t either at that age. And they’re fatherless. It doesn’t help.”
“It’s an excuse they’ll hear until they believe it.”
“Still, we make allowances.” The constable grinned ruefully. “The headmaster, now, he won’t.” As the grin faded, he added, “I thought you’d finished with us.”
“Not finished, no.” They turned to walk along together. “Do you remember, when you came to ask Morag if you could speak to me, what you told me about solving crimes in Duncarrick? You said you knew the people, and that that was often the key to finding who had stolen a horse and why-who had killed a lamb and why.”
“Yes. It’s true-”
“But in Fiona’s case, you were at a loss. You couldn’t draw on your knowledge of this town to find out who was persecuting her.”
“That’s right. I don’t have the experience to put with the knowledge.”
They crossed the square and dodged a milk dray lumbering past. Rutledge said, “I’m working at a disadvantage also. Eleanor Gray is pulling me in one direction, and Fiona MacDonald is pulling me in another. I can’t find the link between them. In life, I mean. How they met, why they met, when and where they met.” He took a deep breath. “If Fiona didn’t murder Eleanor Gray, then whose bones do we have on a mountainside in Glencoe? And if those bones belong to Eleanor Gray, then how did she come to die there in a wilderness four or five months after she arrived in Scotland?”
“The brooch-”
“Yes.” Rutledge stopped outside the hotel. “The brooch. It’s damning. But it doesn’t put a name to the bones, does it? Only to the killer.”
McKinstry rubbed his eyes. “I lay awake at night and try to find an answer. Inspector Oliver says she admitted that the thing belonged to her mother. He came to me later and asked if I’d seen Fiona wearing it after she moved here to Duncarrick. And I can’t remember! ”
“Why not?” It was curt, accusing.
“Because I want so badly to remember that I can’t be sure it’s true. She wore a green dress, I remember that very well. But I can’t be sure if she had a scarf at her throat, or that damned brooch! And sometimes she wore her aunt’s pin. It wasn’t something a man would think was important, and I’m not much with women’s clothing anyway. The green dress was wonderful with her eyes. The rose one brought out the darkness of her hair. And in the summer there was a very soft cream-color affair with a wide collar and sprigs of some flower in a print. Lavender, like lilacs or heliotrope. I can’t tell you how they were cut or what she wore with them. Or whether she had on that one brooch-” There was anguish in his face.
“Then what did you tell Oliver?”
“I told him the truth-I couldn’t remember!”
“You might have lied, for her sake.”
“Yes,” McKinstry said with heavy sorrow. “I thought of that too. But I’m trained to duty.” He started to walk away, then turned around again. “Would you lie to save her?” Whatever he saw in Rutledge’s face, he continued, “If I have to, I’ll change my testimony in the courtroom. I’d hoped-I thought you might have looked into it. But you went away and did nothing. Damning as it was, you did nothing!”
“Oliver made it plain it was none of my business.” Rutledge smiled wryly. “And I’ve been occupied with Eleanor Gray. I told you.”
“Yes, well, if the Gray woman is dead, she’s well out of it. If she’s alive, I wish to God she’d show her face before it’s too late.”
This time he turned away and kept walking.
Rutledge looked after him. Hamish taunted, “You didna’ confront him with what you’ve learned about yon brooch!”
Passing through the lobby, Rutledge responded silently, “No. It was more useful to see if he’d bring up the brooch- and in what context. Persuasive, was he, do you think?”
“He left it sitting at your door. I wouldna’ call that a verra’ brave defense of the accused!”
“Well, then, if he didn’t put the brooch in the hands of Betty Lawlor, he must have come close to losing his own belief in Fiona’s innocence when he heard the story Betty had to tell! He didn’t have much to say on the drive back from the glen, and he didn’t have much to say just now.”
“If he’s behind yon business of the brooch, then it was clever of him to make the Yard an ally-as you pointed out the holes in the charges, he set about filling them in!”
Climbing the stairs, Rutledge answered: “Then he shouldn’t have given his own name to that Glasgow jeweler! Was it McKinstry who drove Eleanor Gray north?”
“He was in France in 1916.”
Rutledge stopped at the head of the stairs. “No. He told Morag that he had met me there. Until now I’ve had no reason to doubt what he’d said. It will have to be checked.”
“He had a verra’ good reason to fire at you in the glen. To prevent you from talking to Betty Lawlor.”
“That’s possible, yes.” He opened the door to his room and threw his hat on the chair beside the bed. Crossing to the window, he looked out at the clouds moving in from the west. “I don’t know. I’m a better judge of character, I think, than to be taken in by McKinstry-” He shook his head. “I haven’t finished it. It may never be finished.”
“Your meddling is no’ making someone happy.”
Rutledge turned from the window and took a deep breath. “If it isn’t Fiona who matters, and it isn’t the inn, where’s the pawn in all of this?”
“The boy.”
“Yes,” Rutledge said slowly. “The legacy of the dead. Why is that so very important?”
But Hamish had no answer to give him.
Rutledge ate a hurried lunch and then went to the police station, requesting to see Fiona MacDonald.
Pringle, on duty, protested, “I don’t know that I can give you the key, sir! Inspector Oliver says you’ve finished with this part of the investigation.”
“I thought I was,” Rutledge said easily. “I have here a list of names, men who might have known Eleanor Gray. We haven’t asked Miss MacDonald if any of them mean anything to her. If Oliver complains, send him to me.”
Pringle reached behind the desk for the key and handed it over.
Rutledge found Fiona standing, as if she’d been restlessly pacing her cell. Little enough exercise for a woman accustomed to having her days filled with activity at The Reivers. Prisoners often complained about that-the sheer, wasting boredom of waiting for trial.
He shut the door behind him and began by saying, “I saw the child the other day. He had been feeding the cat with Drummond.”
“Did he look well? Happy?” she asked anxiously. “I wonder often if he’s sleeping properly. Or if he has nightmares-”
“He seemed happy enough.” He took out his list of names and slowly read them to her, watching her face. But Fiona shook her head.
“I can’t identify any of them. I’m sorry.”
Closing his notebook, he said, “Fiona. If you didn’t kill the mother of that child-if you’re being persecuted for no reason that either of us can put a finger on-then I’m forced to ask myself what there is about that child that threatens someone’s peace enough to get at him through harming you.”
“How could such a small boy threaten anyone!” she parried, surprised.
“I don’t know. But the deeper I go into this mystery of yours, the more certain I am that he’s the key.”
“He’s only a little boy who thought he belonged to me. He doesn’t know or care who his real mother was-who
