“One story said the girl he was to marry had died. Another said that she’d chosen another man. Either way, she was lost to him, wasn’t she? And where there’s smoke, there must be fire.” He shoved the trunk back under the bed and got up, dusting off his hands. “Will there be anything else, Inspector?” he asked warily, as if the discs had been a trick to get Rutledge in the door and the truth was to come out now.

Preoccupied, Rutledge said, “No. Thank you. I’m satisfied that all is as it should be.”

But when he left, Jones was standing in the doorway, watching him go, as if to make sure Rutledge wasn’t playing some sort of game.

Rutledge could feel his gaze on the back of his neck and wondered what Jones had done that made the man so suspicious of a policeman’s visit. On the whole, Rutledge thought, his answers had appeared to be truthful.

It wasn’t his inquiry, and he let it go.

Hamish, in the back of his mind, said as the motorcar turned around and Rutledge headed for England, “He was verra’ careful of yon trunk. He brought back souvenirs he shouldna’ have had.”

And Jones wouldn’t have been the first to do that.

Coming through Gloucester, Rutledge realized he would pass not twenty miles from where Rosemary Hume lived. She had told him to go away, but that was in the heat of anger and heartbreak over her husband’s death. He debated, and then decided to stop and speak to her. She could have changed her mind, and he owed it to Max, he thought, to do what he could.

When he reached Chaswell, the first person he recognized was Max’s cousin Reginald, sitting in a motorcar outside a greengrocer’s.

He pulled alongside and Reginald looked up, greeting him with the warmth of a man doomed to boredom for a good half hour more.

“Inspector. What brings you back to Chaswell? You’re the last person I expected to see this afternoon.”

“I’ve been to Wales to interview a witness. I’m on my way back to London and thence to Sussex. How is Rosemary?”

“She’s taken it hard—but you know that. She hasn’t forgiven poor Max. And nothing I can say will change her mind. So I’ve given up trying. I’m surprised she wants me here. But she does. And in time that should help the healing.” He made a deprecating gesture. “Or possibly she’s afraid the journey back to Scotland will kill me, and she doesn’t want my death on her hands.”

Rutledge smiled, ignoring a lorry driver sounding his horn as he edged past the two motorcars half blocking the road. “Anything I can do?”