the bird into darkness.

Even the frantic creaking of the swing stopped, and a blessed quiet descended over the kitchen.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” the constable said into the silence.

Mrs. Blaine stared from the covered cage to the man from London.

And then the bird said in a very human voice, “Good night, Peter. Wherever you may be.”

In a hushed whisper, Mrs. Blaine said, “That’s her voice. For all the world. As if she were still alive.”

“You’d never heard it speak?” Rutledge asked.

“Lord, no. Never in her house and not in mine, either. He was quiet as a lamb there, and here he’s done naught but to scream like a creature in pain.”

“I didn’t know you’d taken anything from the house—this bird,” the constable was saying accusingly. “I asked if you’d touched anything.”

“It’s a live bird, I thought it would be like a canary. I took it out of kindness,” she said, defending herself. “You’re not telling me it could name her murderer!”

“No, it’s just that you said—was there anything else?”

“Did she ever ask you to burn some letters for her, if something happened to her?” Rutledge asked. “Or take a photograph and post it to her late husband’s family? You were her nearest neighbor, she might have confided in you,” he added, though he couldn’t see a strong friendship springing up between two such different women. Still, needs must, and two widows alone on isolated farms could have turned to each other to carry out last wishes.

Incensed, Mrs. Blaine said, “Look here, I never touched a thing in that house. I took pity on this creature, as I would on a stray cat. And look how it’s repaid me, I ask you.”

“It could have been evidence,” Constable Satterthwaite pointed out, trying to keep his own temper.

“A bird’s not evidence,” she retorted. “I’ll wring its neck and be done with it, and bury it up there in her little graveyard. See if I don’t.” She marched around the table toward the cage.

Rutledge said, “Constable—”

“I’ve got a cat,” he said, as if that absolved him of all responsibility. Rutledge stepped forward. He could hear Hamish. It was clear that the voice in his head was trying to tell him something, but he reached for the cage and said, “I’ll take possession of it. The bird may not have seen who killed her, or watched if the killer searched the house. But until we know differently, it’s a ward of the court.”

Constable Satterthwaite turned to him as if he’d taken leave of his mind.

Mrs. Blaine said, “Ward or not, I’ll thank you to remove it from my house.”

“Did she have any enemies? Anyone who had had a falling-out with her, anyone who might have held a grudge against her?” he asked, gingerly lifting the bird—cage, cloth, and all.

“I’ll have my tablecloth back,” she told him. “As for enemies, you might as well ask if I have any. She wasn’t the sort to make people angry. She never asked for much, and it was just as well, she was never given much in this life but great sorrows to bear. She had nothing to steal, though she never lacked for what she needed. It was people who’d failed her. And I can’t think why anyone would have wished to see her dead.”

Rutledge looked around the kitchen and saw nothing he could use to cover the bird. He set the cage down again and took off his coat, wrapping it around the cage in place of the tablecloth. The bird had his head tucked under his wing, and hardly stirred.

“You’re a right fool,” Mrs. Blaine said to Rutledge as he handed her the tablecloth, “but I’ll thank you all the same for ridding my house of this nuisance.”

“What can you tell us about Mrs. Teller’s husband?” he asked.

“Only that he never came back from the war. They said there was a collection being taken up in London for a monument to the men gone missing. I’ve no doubt Lieutenant Teller’s name will be on it. I asked her if she was going to make a contribution, but she said that would be like walking over his grave. As long as she held him to be alive, he was. Though in the last months, I think even she had begun to give up all hope. She painted that door red to welcome him, and she’d set a dress aside for the day. Well, if he’s in heaven, she’s found him now and is at peace.”

She walked with them