Startled, Rutledge repeated the name aloud.

“Yes! They called him Robbie!” she responded, turning back to him, her face brightening with a becoming flush. He couldn’t be sure whether it was relief at having the answer handed to her or chagrin that he had caught her out. “He had a small house in the Trossachs. That’s in Scotland, I’m told. Though heaven knows where it is. I remember he said he ought to have been named Walter Scott, because he lived in the wrong place for a Burns. How odd that I should recall that so clearly now!”

Rutledge felt a surge of hope. The Trossachs lay in central Scotland, almost halfway between Glasgow to the south and Glencoe to the north. There must be, Rutledge thought, a thousand men in Scotland called Robert Burns. Of every age and station and background. But a young officer with a house in the Trossachs—that could narrow the search enormously. Yes, and with a father in finance.

Finance—banking or— He tried to keep his voice level, his words without emphasis. Hamish was hammering at the back of his mind, almost drowning what he was saying. “Was his father by chance a procurator-fiscal?”

But her face was blank, as if she had never heard the title before. Shaking her head, she gestured to the chairs neither of them had taken. “Please, do sit down! May I offer you tea or a glass of something?”

Buying time, Rutledge said, “Yes, I’d like a cup of tea.”

She rang for the butler, who must have been hovering nearby, expecting shortly to show Rutledge out, and gave her instructions.

As Rutledge sat in the nearer chair, he said, “Tell me about Eleanor Gray. As you remember her.”

“She knew her worth. But she was never condescending. A dependable friend. Good company as a house guest. Independent. She told me once that she had no real hope of becoming a doctor—her mother would see to it that no one took her seriously. I think that’s why she was a suffragette. It seemed frightfully vulgar to me, but Eleanor laughed and called it an adventure. I think it made her mother furious, and that pleased Eleanor. They never saw eye to eye.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She adored her father and would have done anything he asked. But he never told her what to do or not do. He said she should please herself. It was odd how much she loved him. I thought he cared for her, but I could never quite see it as love. Some fathers dote on their only daughters, you know. Spoil them, that sort of thing. But Evelyn Gray was— fond of her. Merely—fond. Perhaps they had little in common. . . .”

She let the thought trail away as the butler arrived with tea. Hamish warned, “It’s no’ like her to talk so much.” Rutledge agreed.