“He may know the name of the man who did accompany her. He may have introduced them, he may have been a friend of both.” Rutledge thought about it. “She wasn’t traveling alone. But she went of her own free will. She was alive when she left London.”

“Ye canna’ know that!”

“But I do—she told Mrs. Atwood where she was going, and with whom. It was planned. It was something she wanted to do.”

Yet her mood had been unsettled. “I could die—” From happiness—or despair? Had this been just after Eleanor’s quarrel with Lady Maude?

Rutledge had asked Mrs. Atwood to put a date to that conversation. It was early in 1916. Spring. The timing fit. If Eleanor was pregnant, she could still conceal it. If her mother had refused to help her, she could still make other plans.

A small house in the Trossachs. A place to hide?

A place to start, most certainly.

Rutledge stopped long enough in London to pack another case. He didn’t contact the Yard.

But back on the road, heading north again, he decided it was time to report to Lady Maude Gray.

Chapter 17

17

LADY MAUDE RECEIVED RUTLEDGE WITH COOL DISINTEREST, as if he had come to report on the state of her drains or her roofs.

She again conducted the interview in the library, but this time had seen to it that tea arrived shortly after he did.

Pouring his cup, she said, “I knew nothing would come of this ridiculous business. There is nothing in your face that tells me you have been successful.”

“On the contrary, there have been a number of small successes. Not yet a whole. But enough to be going on with.”

She smiled, lighting the remarkable violet eyes from within.

“Then tell me. I shall be the judge.”

“Your daughter did not go to America to study medicine. We have that on the authority of a professor who had been advising her.” It was only a patchwork of truth and fiction. But he saw the small flicker of surprise in her face.

Like Mrs. Atwood, Lady Maude must also have soothed her conscience with the notion that Eleanor Gray had gone abroad to study. Against her mother’s wishes—but surely safely accounted for. Lady Maude had even closed her ears to Inspector Oliver, so certain was she. And then Rutledge had somehow raised niggling doubts. This was news she had not expected to hear. Hamish, who did not care for Lady Maude, was pleased.

“Go on,” she said curtly.

“She was last heard from on her way to Scotland with a young officer by the name of Burns. He had a small house in the Trossachs and enough leave to go there.”

Her voice was cold. “You are mistaken. Eleanor would not have gone anywhere with a strange man.”