unharmed, after giving his wife a hellish four days of worry.”

“Indeed. Well, this one—Captain Peter Teller—fell down the stairs, as you can see. He’s quite lame, I’m told, and wasn’t using his cane, as he should have done. Straightforward. Accidental death. A waste of the Yard’s time.”

Rutledge said nothing, kneeling by the dead man, close enough now to smell the stale whisky on his skin and in his hair.

“He was drinking. Last night, I should think. It wouldn’t have helped him manage the stairs,” he commented, straightening up. “What does the family have to say?”

“They’re in the breakfast room. I haven’t interviewed them. Mrs. Susannah Teller, the victim’s wife, insisted that we touch nothing until you’d arrived.” Rutledge could tell that Jessup wasn’t especially happy to be second-guessed by the Yard. Not in what he clearly believed was an accidental death on his patch.

And Rutledge would have agreed with him, if it weren’t for the other case in Lancashire. A fall down the stairs was easier to face than the hangman, and Teller had been drinking enough of late to indicate something was troubling him.

“I’d like to speak to Mrs. Susannah Teller in the study. Do you think that could be arranged? I’d like to know why she sent for me.”

Inspector Jessup said, “I’d like to be present.”

“Not immediately, if you don’t mind,” Rutledge said, keeping to the formalities of refusal. “She may speak more freely to me.”

He stood there looking down at Teller’s body, thinking that Constable Satterthwaite would be disappointed, and Lawrence Cobb jubilant. Then he nodded to Jessup. The body could be taken away.

Jessup went outside to find his men, and Rutledge waited until the door had closed behind him. Then he squatted by the body and lifted the legs of Teller’s trousers. But there was no mark that he could see to indicate that Teller had been tripped. And so, accident—or suicide.

Just as Rutledge was stepping back, Fielding came in, preparatory to the removal. He said, looking at Teller as Rutledge had done, “A tragedy, this. The leg he fought so hard to save betrayed him in the end. He might have been better off if he’d allowed them to take it.”

Rutledge said, “In a way you’re right. But I think, knowing Captain Teller as I did, I’d venture to say he’d have wanted it that way, even so.”

As a blanket was spread over the body before lifting it onto the stretcher, Fielding said, “Unless I find evidence to the contrary, gentlemen, I’ll consider this an accidental death.”

Jessup said, “I’d agree with that finding.”

And then Peter Teller was carried out into the gray morning, leaving only a small spot of blood to mark his passage. Rutledge, thinking about Monday morning’s expected arrest, was of two minds. When he closed this case, there would be very little justice for Florence Teller now.

In some fashion, it might be for the best. It would save the Teller family endless publicity and sorrow. Chief Superintendent Bowles would be pleased about that.

When the house door closed behind the dead man, Rutledge walked down the passage and into the study where once he’d spoken to Walter Teller about his brother.

Five minutes later, the study door opened and Susannah Teller was ushered in, her face pale with shock and grief, her eyes red from crying. She had tried very hard to protect her husband. Even knowing what he had done.

She looked Rutledge straight in the face and said as the door swung shut behind her, “You’re to treat this as a murder investigation, do you hear me? They killed him. With their unspoken accusations, their finger-pointing when Jenny wasn’t in the room, their snubs. He told them he hadn’t killed Florence Teller. He tried to explain. But the evidence was against him, and he drank himself into oblivion Friday night and last night. I told him we shouldn’t have come. But he said he must do it for Jenny’s sake. It’s always for Jenny’s sake, isn’t it? The innocent victim, Jenny Teller. Well, I’m having them pay for my losing Peter, do you understand me?” she ended fiercely.

“Mrs. Teller—”

“No, don’t tell me it was just a horrible accident because he’d been drinking and couldn’t find his cane. And don’t try to tell me he killed himself out of a guilty conscience. He didn’t murder that woman in Lancashire. If you want to know the truth, it was either Walter or Edwin. Take your pick. Because when Peter was there, when Peter just wanted