He was met with stony silence. Miss Drummond’s face had changed, the color shifting to a mottled red, as if some emotion had risen swiftly and as swiftly been stamped down. Anger? Or jealousy? After a few seconds, the woman before him, her voice very different, said tightly, as if the truth had been forced out of her, “They say still waters run deepest. I don’t know. Fiona’s not by nature a talkative woman, the kind you’d sit and gossip comfortably with. I never could tell what to make of her. I never got close to her. Men, on the other hand, they saw something else. I can’t put a name to what it was. They’d watch her, and wait for her to smile, and then their faces would light up. I’ve seen my own brother staring at her, mesmerized by something I couldn’t feel or understand. As if he thinks he’s found the core of her and wants it. If you ask me, Drummond’s besotted with her. And if you want the whole truth of it, Elliot is as well. He raves on about sin like a man who knows what it means to burn with desire at night!”

“But surely the police haven’t fallen under her spell—”

“Haven’t they now? McKinstry would save her if he could, he’s in hopes of marrying her. Oliver used to stop by the inn of an evening before he went home, sitting there like a suitor, and him with a wife. And what troubles the Chief Constable and the fiscal is that she refuses to bow her head and confess to what she’s done, and beg for mercy, the way a woman should. They see it as defiance of their authority, and it unsettles their faith in their own importance. I’m not surprised they all want her hanged. Don’t you see? It’s the best way to be free of her!”

WHEN RUTLEDGE WALKED into the hotel, the man at the desk said, “There’s been a telephone call for you, sir. From London.”

He took the message and read it.

Call Sergeant Gibson.

One of the best men at ferreting out information of any kind, Gibson had a reputation for being thorough as well.

Rutledge went into the telephone closet, set his hat on the little table there, and put in his call to the Yard.

Gibson came on very shortly to say, “Inspector Rutledge, sir?”

“Yes. I’m in need of good news. I hope you’re going to tell me you have found Eleanor Gray.”