man flinched and drew in a hissing breath. “I do wish you’d take that dram of whisky Keir poured for you.”
“Ransom wouldn’t like it,” Duffy said. “I’m still on the job.”
Merritt nudged the glass toward him. “I won’t tell.”
Duffy reached for it gratefully. After a bracing swallow, he let Merritt press a cold compress to his forehead. “I should be handling the situation,” he said. “Where’s Mr. MacRae?”
“He’s gone to fetch MacTaggart,” she said.
“The suspect—where is he?”
“We left him in the rackhouse, after we bound him up with baler twine.”
The stranger had been dazed and battered, putting up only a feeble struggle before Keir had subdued him. After the man’s hands had been fastened behind his back and his legs tied together, Keir had searched his pockets and found a revolver and a set of brass knuckle dusters. Merritt had pulled out a knife from a sewn-in sheath in the shaft of his boot.
She’d been perplexed by how ordinary the hired assassin’s appearance was. There was nothing of the stage villain about him, nor did he seem mad, desperate, impoverished, or any of the things that might drive a man to crime. He was a well-dressed man in his twenties, with a face that could have belonged to a shopkeeper or a business clerk.
As the man sat propped up against a wine cask, his hard, empty eyes had unnerved Merritt. He’d refused to speak, only stared at them with that emotionless gaze, as if he were turning to stone in front of them.
“Whether you tell us or no’,” Keir had said wryly, “’tis no great mystery about who sent you, and what you were after doing.” As the stranger maintained his cold silence, Keir had stared at him with curiosity and a hint of pity. “I dinna know what made you so broken, but life must have gone hard for you. Why kill a man you have no quarrel with? Only for money? Had you come to me as a stranger needful of work, I’d have offered you a good honest job.”
That had provoked a reaction, the calcified façade cracking to reveal molten scorn. “I’d never work for a sheep-shagging Scot.”
Outraged, Merritt had been about to tell him exactly what she thought of him, but Keir had smiled at the insult and rose to his feet, pulling her up with him. “Is that the best you can come up with?” he’d asked. “My friends and I call each other much worse after a round at the local tavern.”
Merritt’s thoughts returned to the present and Duffy as he gingerly gripped his sandy head in his hands and stared down at the table. “I’m not cut out for this kind of work,” he said glumly. “I should have stayed with teaching.”
She looked at him alertly. “You’re a teacher?”
“Assistant master of science at Cheltenham College. And I was good at it.”
“Why did you go into law enforcement?” Merritt asked.
“I thought it was more exciting. And important.”
“Dear boy, there’s nothing more exciting or important than teaching.”
“Platitudes,” he muttered.
“Not at all,” she said earnestly. “Teaching makes people who they are. Perhaps it even shows them who they are. If done well, it’s … magical. A good teacher is a guide to the wonderments of life.”
Duffy folded his arms and lowered his head to them. “It doesn’t matter now,” came his muffled voice. “The position at Cheltenham has long since been filled.”
Merritt leaned forward to reposition the compress against his forehead. “If that’s what you want, I’ll see what I can do to help.” She smiled. “Or perhaps a new opportunity will present itself.”
Keir returned with Sheriff MacTaggart and a deputy, and Duffy went with them to the distillery rackhouse. In the meantime, as dawn approached, the small house was overrun by friendly strangers, some of them neighbors, some distillery workers and their wives, and some of them friends of Keir’s since childhood. They were all excited and outraged by the news of an intruder having been caught at the MacRae distillery, and were full of colorful opinions about what to do with him.
Even if Merritt had been well-rested and prepared for visitors, the deluge would have been overwhelming. As it was, she found herself wandering distractedly among the crowd, smiling and nodding, and repeating names in an effort to remember them. Someone brought a basket of hot morning rolls directly from the baker and began handing them out. Someone else filled the tea kettle and set it on the hot stove plate.
Amid all the bustle,