her that the resources of Scotland Yard are now involved in finding her husband.”

The sister who had brought him had quietly shut the door behind him.

He found himself thinking that Matron had had a very difficult few hours, first searching the clinic and dealing with the police, and then answering the questions of Teller’s agitated family.

“Do you have any reason to think Mr. Teller was intending to do himself harm?” he asked her. “He’s been very ill, I’m told.”

“We haven’t been able to diagnose his illness,” she said. “But there’s reason to believe he was disturbed about something and his distress took a physical form. The fact that he recovered so quickly leads us to hope that his mental state was also restored to normal.”

She hadn’t answered his question. “Is he likely to kill himself?”

She looked at him directly. “We can’t answer that.”

The door behind him opened again, and the same probationer ushered in a tall, slim woman with fair hair who was wearing a dark blue walking dress. Her eyes were red with crying, her face pale.

Rutledge guessed at once who she was. Rising, he went to her and took her hand, identifying himself.

“Mrs. Teller? I’m so sorry to learn of your husband’s disappearance. The Yard will do everything in its power to return him to you as soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” Jenny Teller replied, her voice still thick with tears. He led her to the second chair, which was already placed to one side of Matron’s desk. In doing so, he glimpsed Matron’s face. She was not happy that he had so quickly taken the interview away from her.

Jenny Teller took a breath. “Has there been any news?” she asked, hope in her voice.

“That’s why I’m here, to collect more information to aid in our search.”

“But I’ve told the sergeant—”

“Sergeant Biggin has noted it in his report. But sometimes as we ask our questions, we are able to elicit new details that could be useful. Would you mind telling me a little more about your husband’s illness?”

She began haltingly to describe her husband’s journey to London and how it had ended, with their family doctor sending him to the Belvedere Clinic for further examination. “I didn’t want to go to London with him. We’d had words the night before—about Harry going to school so soon—and now I blame myself for not being there when he became ill. We might have found help for him sooner—and perhaps he would have recovered sooner—and none of this would have happened.” She found a handkerchief in her pocket and pressed it to her eyes, then took a deep breath, giving Rutledge a watery smile. “This has been the worst five days of my life—”

“And there was nothing wrong with your son? Then or later?”

“No, he was and is perfectly fine. I can’t imagine what the Montleighs thought of me, but I’d caught some of Walter’s fear, and I’m afraid I sounded rather—hovering.”

“Did you have any idea what was wrong with your husband?”

“My first thought was that his malaria was returning. But after I’d told him that Harry was all right, Walter tried to step out of the motorcar, and he couldn’t. It took three of us—my housekeeper was the third person—to get him into the house, where Dr. Fielding could examine him properly.”

“What was his opinion?”

“Walter’s heart was racing, and Dr. Fielding asked me if he’d had a shock or bad news—that sort of thing—but of course I didn’t know, and Walter couldn’t remember anything happening to him. And the motorcar was all right, there hadn’t been a crash.”

Rutledge turned to Matron. “And the doctors here examined him as soon as he was brought in?”

“Yes. Mr. Teller had a history of malaria, and he’d lived abroad. We had several specialists in to see him, and one was concerned about parasites. But Mr. Teller hadn’t returned to the field since before the war, and therefore parasites weren’t likely. Dr. Sheldon, an expert in tropical medicine, came to examine him, and he could find no evidence of disease.”

She glanced at Jenny Teller and then went on. “We asked another specialist to speak with Mr. Teller, to see if his problems were more likely to be the result of some illness of the mind. But Mr. Teller was quite rational in his answers. And then that night—the second day of his having come to the Belvedere—he refused his dinner, turned his face to the wall, and was unresponsive to the staff or to Mrs. Teller.