“I don’t see how I can help you. I haven’t seen Eleanor since the middle of the war. I thought—Humphrey and I were quite convinced she’d gone to America when she couldn’t take up medicine here. It would have been so like her!”

“Why should she choose to go there? Did she have friends—someone who might put in a word for her?”

“As a matter of fact, there was someone.” She hesitated and then added, “I called Alice Morton after Sergeant Gibson left. She was in school with Eleanor and me. But her husband is an American—he’s at the embassy here. His brother John is a professor at Harvard. He’d written to Eleanor once, in the spring of 1916, at Alice’s request, laying out opportunities she might wish to consider over there. Alice told me John had never had a reply. Eleanor hadn’t contacted him at all.” Mrs. Atwood shrugged lightly. “She was always strong-minded. She might not have wished to be beholden, even to a friend.”

“Why did you call and ask about Miss Gray? If you hadn’t tried to find her for three years?”

Mrs. Atwood was disconcerted by the direct question. “I—I don’t know why. Not really. It was just—I wanted to be reassured, I suppose. We don’t often have the police asking about an acquaintance. It was—only that.”

Hamish demanded, “Was it?”

After a moment, Rutledge asked pleasantly, “Tell me about the last time you saw or spoke with Eleanor Gray.”

He had made his hostess uneasy. From reticence she had moved to explanations and now apology. “I’m sorry, there isn’t much to tell. Not really. She was to come down for the weekend and bring a friend. But she telephoned to say she’d changed her mind. The young man had more leave than she’d thought, and she wanted to go to Scotland with him.”

“I wasn’t aware that her family had a house there.” He deliberately misunderstood her.

“No, of course they didn’t! It was the pipers, you see—” Breaking off, she started again. “Eleanor was eager to do what she could for the wounded. I found it rather—depressing—being around them. But she did her best to try to cheer them. Brought in singers, performers, that sort of thing. She became convinced that hearing the pipes might encourage the wounded and help them endure their pain better. Perhaps remind them of the courage they’d shown at the Front.”

“She went to Scotland to find them?” Again he subtly twisted her words.