more good than this.” She nodded toward the glass in his hand.

“In a little while,” he said, still studying the stars, avoiding her eyes.

“You promised two hours ago. Please, won’t you see the doctor tomorrow, and ask him for drops or something to help with the pain? You can’t go on drinking to dull it. I blame Edwin if you want the truth, for not going himself.”

There were no drops to cure this pain, he answered her silently, and then aloud, “I expect the doctor will say what he always does. That I shouldn’t drive.”

She regarded him for a moment, and then asked, “What’s wrong, Peter? It’s eating away at you. Is there something you haven’t told me?”

“Go to bed, Susannah. I’ve had too much to drink to make any sense. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

She turned and walked back to the terrace door. There she paused and said, her voice carrying perfectly to him where he sat, “Did you kill her, Peter? Was all the rest of what you told us a lie?”

He pretended he didn’t hear. Reaching for the decanter again, he poured himself another measure, concentrating on not spilling it.

The terrace door closed behind his wife, and in a sudden fury, he flung the glass of whisky against the trunk of the ginkgo overhanging the iron rail fence. It shattered, but he was already regretting what he’d done and he shoved himself to his feet to cross the lawn and pick up the shards before someone found them in the morning and read more than anger in the glittering, whisky-soaked pieces.

Chapter 18

Rutledge finished his report and handed it to a constable to be typed for Chief Superintendent Bowles.

And still restless, he considered going to Frances’s house and spending the remainder of the afternoon with his godfather. Then he recalled that today was the grand excursion to Hampton Court by boat.

He stopped to speak to Chief Inspector Cummins, who had just returned from Paris, where he’d been persuading the French to allow him to bring a witness back to England to testify in regard to a killing in Surrey.

Cummins greeted him, then said, “Go away for four days and my desk grows papers like the French grow grapes. What sort of mood is his lordship in?”

Rutledge smiled. “Mercurial.”

“Damn. The French are being pigheaded. He’s not going to like that.”

Rutledge hesitated, and then in spite of himself asked, “Has the Front changed much?”

He had meant the France of the war years. The blackened ruin of a countryside. Cummins had not pretended to misunderstand him.

“Not very. It takes trees a while to grow back, although there’s more grass now. I found myself feeling depressed and turned around. But the French farmers are a hardy lot. They’ll not let good land go to waste for very long.”

“Blood-soaked land . . .”

Rutledge shivered at Hamish’s words.

They talked for several minutes, then Rutledge returned to his office.

A quarter of an hour later, Constable Ellis was at his door, saying quickly, “You’re wanted, sir. Chief Superintendent.”

Hamish said, “ ’Ware!” as Rutledge crossed the threshold, and he guessed that Cummins had been there before him with his own bad news. And Bowles had not taken it well.

He was muttering about the French under his breath, then he looked up and said, “What the hell kept you?” But before Rutledge could frame an answer, Bowles went on testily, “I thought we were finished with these Tellers.”

“Sir?”

The Chief Superintendent barked, “Now we have a request from a village in Lancashire to look into the death of a Mrs. Peter Teller. Seems she was murdered.”

It required a moment for Rutledge to digest the news.

“Sir?” he repeated. “I just saw the Captain’s wife. Yesterday. Surely there’s some mistake?”

“Are you deaf, or is your mind wandering? I’ve just told you, Peter Teller’s wife. Who said anything about Captain Teller? She’s just been found dead by the constable in Hobson. Unusual name, all the same. Might be a relation, though it’s unlikely. Lancashire?” He shook his head. In Bowles’s view, the farther from London, the more benighted the place. “You’ll have to deal with it, I can’t spare anyone else.” He closed the file and looked Rutledge in the face. “I’d counted on you to handle Walter Teller’s disappearance. It would have pleased a number of people to see us successful in that quarter. Instead he came back under his own power. You reported that he slept in a church. Why didn’t someone think to have a constable concealed there? Failure