the floor, his feet heavy on the boards as he traced the same line back and forth, back and forth.

Then he stopped and looked at Rutledge. “It all fits together. I must say it does. But in spite of what I feel about the bastard—begging your pardon, sir—it’s hard to believe, isn’t it? That someone could be that cruel? I never got to know Teller well, of course, but I wouldn’t have put him down as that cold-blooded. Selfish, yes, he was that.” He shook his head. “It’ull take a little getting used to. You’ll bring him back to Hobson to face charges?”

“Yes. On Monday.”

“I’d like to be with you when you take him to Thielwald.”

“I’ll see that it’s arranged.”

“Thank you, sir. And thank you for telling me. It means more than I can say. I’ll keep it to myself until you bring the man here.” He cleared his throat. “Will you be staying the night?”

“I might as well. And get an early start tomorrow.”

“Mrs. Greeley will be that pleased to see you. She was asking only yesterday if there was word of Jake.”

“He’s with my sister,” Rutledge told him. “In good hands.”

Satterthwaite nodded.

Rutledge went back to Sunrise Cottage in the late afternoon. He couldn’t have said why he was drawn there. Satterthwaite offered to go with him, but Rutledge thanked him and shook his head.

The day was fair, with a stiff breeze that cooled the air and made it feel more like early spring than June. Fat lambs followed slow-grazing ewes in the pastures along the road.

As he drove, he asked himself again, as he had on the journey to Lancashire, what had become of the cane’s head? It was the last piece of crucial evidence, and he wanted very badly to find it.

If it had been taken away and dropped from a bridge, as Satterthwaite had suggested, it would never come to light. Which meant that the rest of the evidence against Peter Teller had to be damning.

“He’ll have a verra’ good defense,” Hamish agreed.

The house was just ahead, first the roof and then the hedge coming into sight on its knoll. He left the motorcar on the road and walked through the gate, intending to dig around in the flower beds with his fingers, to see if the cane’s knob was there. It was hopeless, he knew that very well, but he had to try.

But someone had watered the plants, and pulled out any weeds that would mar their appearance. He bent down to touch a leaf.

It was still wet.

Instead of opening the door, he went out the gate again and walked around the house to the gardens by the kitchen door.

The man squatting beside one of the beds leapt to his feet with surprise as Rutledge suddenly appeared, braced for anything that might come at him.

It was Lawrence Cobb, his trousers stained from working the earth and pulling weeds. A pile of wilting debris lay on the grassy path next to his boots.

“Oh—it’s only you, then,” Cobb said in relief. “I’ve come here to keep the gardens for her. Until someone knows what’s to happen to this place. It’s the least I can do. Her flowers shouldn’t die too.”

Rutledge could read the unspoken words in his eyes—and it brings her closer, as if she were still alive and somewhere inside.

“I see nothing wrong with it,” Rutledge answered him. “A pity you weren’t out here working on the day she was attacked.”

“Don’t you think I dream about it at night?”

“If your wife hears of it, it will be on your head.”

Cobb said, “If I had been here, she might still be alive. But that’s hindsight. I hear you found that walker. Was he the man?”

“As it turned out, he was a witness and a very helpful one. He saw the motorcar by the hedge and the man who was driving it.”

Cobb dusted his hands, nodding. “I knew it. Someone from his family, most likely, with an eye to the property.”

“Someone from his family, yes, but I don’t think this property entered into it. I think he’d come to see her, and decide what to do about her. What I don’t know is whether or not she invited him in. It must have been a shock to her to see him there. She wouldn’t have known what to say.”

Cobb stared up at the bedroom windows, as if he could see the answer written there on the glass. “She stopped looking for him—waiting, listening for the door—over a year