Rutledge said only, “We’ll see. Can Mickelson be questioned yet?”

“I don’t think he’s regained his senses. You’d better pray he doesn’t die.” Norman rose, preparing to take Rutledge to his cell when there was a flurry of voices from the sergeant’s desk in the front of the police station.

They paused where they were, Norman undoubtedly believing that Chief Inspector Hubbard had arrived.

But it was not Hubbard.

The flustered sergeant on the desk came to the door, saying, “I tried to stop her, sir. But she insists she has information on Inspector Mickelson’s murderer.”

And they looked beyond him to see Mrs. Farrell-Smith coming through the doorway behind him. She took in Rutledge standing there in the passage with Inspector Norman and said, “That’s the man I saw in Eastfield the night Inspector Mickelson was attacked. I saw him drive up, speak to that poor man, and then drive away with him. They were in front of the church, and my bedroom window looks out toward the gate to the rectory.” For emphasis, she pointed directly at Rutledge, as if she were already in the witness box.

Rutledge’s mouth tightened. And then he said, “Are you so certain that Daniel Pierce is the man we’re after, that you are willing to lie to shield him?”

She retorted, “I know nothing about Daniel Pierce.”

Rutledge turned to Inspector Norman. “This is Mrs. Farrell-Smith, headmistress at the Misses Tate Latin School. If she really wanted to protect someone, she could have looked back into the school’s records to see if anything happened in the past that could have some bearing on these murders. All the victims were together there for at least two or three years. If it isn’t the war, and it isn’t the present that caused someone to start killing, it could very likely lie in the distant past. I’d prefer to be escorted to my cell now.”

She opened her mouth, and then shut it again.

Inspector Norman nodded to the sergeant, and Rutledge went with him, already regretting his impatient request.

He said to the sergeant, trying to delay entering his cell, “Am I the only prisoner here?”

“No, sir. There’s another man at the end of the row. We were preparing for the inquest to be held this very week, but it must wait now for the Inspector to recover.”

This must be where Carl Hopkins was also being kept, as he’d thought, and he said under his breath, “Poor devil.”

He went into his cell and watched the door swing shut with a clang and the large key turn in the ancient lock. It sounded like a death knell.