memory. Mainwaring had his torch and the lamp, and he was on his own. 'There.' It was Hamish speaking. A flash of light caught his eye and he went in that direction. Mainwaring nearly jumped out of his skin when Rut- ledge spoke from behind him. 'Found any bones?' 'Blast you, Rutledge! Did you catch whoever it was you were chasing?' 'Yes. Let's get on with it. This way.' It took him a few minutes to find the bones again, and he gently pushed aside the covering he'd drawn back over them. Mainwaring squatted at his heels. 'Interesting.'
'Saxon massacre victim?'
'Lord, no, not at all. Look at the condition. This wood isn't the Irish peat bogs, you know. The conditions here are deplorable. Here, let me get closer.'
They exchanged places, and Rutledge held the lantern while Mainwaring worked.
It took some time to clear enough of the skeleton to make a judgment. The small bones were gone, carried off long since to feed whatever animal had discovered them. But the skull was there, and the shoulders, part of the rib cage-and the pelvis.
Mainwaring whistled under his breath while he worked, as if to keep the spirits at bay. At one point, he said to Rut- ledge, 'I can see why the locals don't like this place. I don't much care for it myself. When I walked under the branches of the first trees, I felt as if I'd stepped back in time to something ugly. Do you believe in ghosts, Ian?'
'I could be persuaded to here. What are those, the thigh bones?'
'Yes. Best indicator of height. But the feet are gone.'
He continued to work, the lantern light shining on his face and on the bones that came to light under his careful prodding, his hands moving delicately as he cleared away rotting leaves and earth.
'That should do it,' he said, getting stiffly to his feet. 'You can have the local man-Inspector Cain, was it?- bring in people to finish the work. There's no point in keeping this business secret any longer.'
'You're telling me, then, that we've found what we came here to find.'
Rutledge felt depressed. It was a sad end for the pretty, lively girl he had pictured in his mind. Now the question was, who had brought her here and hidden her body?
And what was he going to tell Mary Ellison tomorrow morning?
This morning.
Mainwaring was cleaning his hands on his handkerchief. 'You were right to send for me. It wouldn't have done to pursue this case under the impression it explained Hensley's unfortunate wounding. He couldn't have had anything to do with our bones.'
Rutledge said, 'I'm sorry?'
'I've just poked a hole in your favorite theory. This isn't your lost Emma Mason. This is a man's body. Probably closer to thirty-five than to forty. But he didn't bury himself. Which says he was murdered. I can't tell you how, there's nothing on the remaining bones to show us.' Inspector Cain came with his team of workmen and watched them scour the area around the site of the burial, looking for more evidence.
The people of Dudlington clustered close by the church, watching silently but unwilling to come any nearer.
Rutledge had knocked on Mary Ellison's door as soon as he'd reached Dudlington, fairly certain she hadn't gone to bed.
She answered the door fully dressed and stood there staring at him, waiting for the blow to fall.
He said, 'We didn't find Emma. I don't know whether that's a comfort to you or not.'
He thought for an instant she was going to fall, for she swayed and then caught the edge of the door's frame with her hand.
'I can't tell you whether it is or not. At my age, there's not much time left to hope.' The body was brought out of Frith's Wood in a blanket and carried to Letherington.
Speculation was rife. Mrs. Melford and Mrs. Arundel had found an opportunity to speak to Rutledge, and Mrs. Channing had come down to Hensley's parlor, her face filled with sadness. 'I think I'm going to return to London,' she told Rut- ledge when there was a chance to speak to him privately. 'I don't like this place. It seems so bleak this morning, with everyone unsettled by what's happening in the wood.' 'I saw the rector go into Mrs. Ellison's house, hobbling on crutches. I would have taken my oath that I'd found her granddaughter. And I think she believed I had as well, although I didn't tell her what we'd discovered.' 'Just as well. She's a strong woman, she'll manage. Still, it brought everything back to her, I'm sure.' 'Yes.' 'Who is the young man who was working with you?' 'He's from London.' Mainwaring had gone up to Hensley's bed and fallen asleep there, not stirring for several hours. Rutledge wished he could have done the same. Two nights without rest had left him groggy. And the ankle that had plagued him for several days had begun to ache again like the very devil from stumbling over the grave in the churchyard. Hamish, withdrawn and silent, seemed tired as well. Mrs. Channing, her mind elsewhere, said thoughtfully, 'This exonerates Constable Hensley. The girl wasn't buried in the wood after all. Or so everyone is saying. But what happened to Emma Mason?' 'I don't know. I don't suppose anyone will.' 'I don't think I'd be very good at police work. It's dreadful sometimes, isn't it?' 'Dreadful, yes.' 'I took the liberty of making tea,' she told him. 'You'll find it on the dining room table.' 'Thank you. I don't seem to have much appetite this morning.' He walked into the dining room and poured himself a cup, adding sugar and a little milk. She followed him there and stood in the middle of the room, as if uncertain what to do, go or stay. 'Did you really want those bones to belong to the girl?'
He reached in his pocket for a telegram that Inspector Cain had handed him that morning, while waiting for his men to do their macabre work in the wood.
'I asked one of my best men in London to find what he could about Beatrice Ellison and her daughter, Emma Mason. He couldn't trace either of them. Mrs. Ellison believes her daughter died when the Germans marched through Belgium. It may be true. Even so, it doesn't explain what became of Emma.'
She took the telegram and scanned it. 'Yes, I see. This, then, was your last hope. The body in the wood.'
'It may still be there, of course. But I have a feeling it isn't.'
'I understand.'
She went back to the office to fetch her coat. 'Was there a young man involved in the girl's disappearance, do you think? If she's married and living elsewhere, she'd be hard to find.'
'There was a young man-he was set to marry someone else. Whether she got herself involved with him or not, I don't know. He died in the war. There's a memorial to him in the churchyard.'
'Then she disappeared by her own choice. Perhaps because of that someone else. It would be hard to live in a village this small with the other woman, so to speak.'
'For a time,' he said, 'I thought the other woman had killed her.'
Her eyebrows went up. 'It could still be true.'
'I'd dig up that rose bed, if I thought it would do any good,' he said, half to himself.
It was Hamish who answered him. 'Or look beneath yon wall.' Grace Letteridge came to call shortly after Mrs. Channing had gone back to The Oaks.
She stepped briskly into the office and said, 'I expect I owe Constable Hensley an apology. I always believed it was he who killed her. That he went to the wood time and again to see if anything had been disturbed. It made sense that he couldn't stay away, that he wasn't able to put it out of his mind. Out of guilt. But she's not there, after all.'
Rutledge said, 'Hensley isn't well. He may not live. Whoever shot him may be guilty of murder.'
'I didn't do it, if that's what you're accusing me of.'
'You told me once,' Rutledge said, taking the chair behind the desk and leaning back in it, 'that you would like to see him dead.'
She made a gesture with her hand, as if brushing away his words. 'I'm not a murderer. Although I do have a temper sometimes. I won't deny that.'
'We're back where we began, then. Tell me, how old is your rose garden?'
'If you're asking me if Emma is buried there, you're a fool.'
'We could dig it up and find out. Inspector Cain can bring his men back to do it, after they've finished in the wood.'
She turned to go. 'You'll have to get a warrant, first,' she told him. 'I won't let you touch it without one.' Rutledge was leafing through the file on Emma Mason when Mainwaring came in from conferring with the police in
