“Closer to seven than six, at a guess,” she said. “I wasn’t exactly keeping track of the time.”

“And they were still there talking when you last saw them?”

“Still there, on the corner. I couldn’t have said where either of them went after that. I find it so hard to believe that Theo is gone. He survived the war. The Germans couldn’t kill him, and then some murdering maniac takes his life. I shall go to the funeral, no matter what that husband of Peggy’s has to say. And I’ll bring her here as well,” she ended vigorously, and Rutledge had no doubt that she would do just that.

“Can you describe the other man?” he asked.

She pursed her lips, thinking. “Not as tall as you. Brown hair, slim. I had no particular reason to take note of him.”

All the same, it sounded like the man Rutledge had encountered at The White Swans Hotel. No certainty, of course, but still, very likely.

Hamish said, “Ye ken, it doesna’ mean he didna’ follow his victim and kill him when it was finally dark.”

And that was true as well.

“You were never near enough to hear any of their conversation?” Rutledge asked. “You couldn’t judge the other man’s accent, for instance?”

“No, not close enough by a long chalk,” Mrs. Griffith replied. “Are you thinking he might have been a foreigner, then?”

“Actually I wondered what class of man he might have been.”

“I can tell you, he was dressed more like a gentleman.”

Inspector Norman had turned to stare at Rutledge. “Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

He was a sharp man, and Rutledge had forgotten that.

“No one—that is to say, no one alive—has heard the killer speak. He could be a Scot as far as we know. Or from the Midlands. It would be helpful if we could place him.”

Norman grunted, then turned to Constable Petty. “If you’ll take Mrs. Griffith’s statement?” And to the woman, he added, “When the shop is closed, we’d like you to come in and read it over before signing it.”

“I don’t know that I’ve been any help,” she said doubtfully. “But yes, I shall come in and sign the paper.”

They left her, then, and on the street once more, Inspector Norman stopped by the motorcar, instead of getting in. “You think it was Daniel Pierce, don’t you?”

“I’ve been given no reason to suspect Pierce,” he said, keeping to the literal truth. There was only circumstance and conjecture so far, hardly evidence. “But I’m told you wouldn’t mind seeing him taken up for this crime or any other.”

“And you have a reason for thinking as much,” Norman went on relentlessly, ignoring the denial. “Don’t hold out on me, Rutledge!”