Hamish, finding his voice, provided the answer. The Davison children had had a fog-gray cat by that name. And Fiona must have told Ian about the litter that Maude Cook had never seen. . . .

AS THEY WALKED back toward the hotel, Rutledge asked McKinstry who the man was.

“His name’s Drummond. He and his spinster sister live next to the inn, and Fiona chose to leave the boy with them. She said he’d be less frightened with people he knew.”

And people she trusted? It was worth bearing in mind. . . .

WHEN MCKINSTRY HAD gone on his way back to the station, Rutledge retraced his steps and came to a halt outside the house where the Drummonds lived.

It was the house he had noted before, the one with the extension in the rear and the windows with unexpected symmetry.

His instincts told him that Drummond and the child had not come back from feeding the cat. He wondered if Drummond allowed the boy to play with the toys in the chest, or sit on his mother’s bed and hold Clarence.

When Rutledge knocked at the door, a woman of middle age answered, her fair hair drawn back and tight curls adding a softness around her face. She brushed these back, as if afraid the caller on her front step might take them for a softness in her as well, and said, “If you’ve come to see Drummond, he’s not in.”

“Miss Drummond? My name is Rutledge, I’ve been sent by Scotland Yard to look into the matter of the parentage of the boy you have in your keeping.”

“Young Ian? And what interest has London got in a lad of three?” Her voice was sharp, indignant. But her pale eyes were wary, almost frightened. As if he’d come to carry the boy away.

“If his mother—the woman he calls his mother—is hanged for murder, it would be best if the child went to his own kin. I think you’d agree with me there.”

“I agree with nothing.” Her fear made her garrulous. “Ian wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t been given to us by his mother. And if Drummond hadn’t fought against that fool Elliot to keep the lad with us until—until it was all decided. He was all for sending him to the Forsters.”

“Did you know Miss MacDonald well?”

Hamish said, “She must have done, else the lad would never have been entrusted to her. Fiona would never set a child at risk!”