But he said aloud, “She needed a place of refuge for the next four or five months. Someone may have let her have the use of a house or flat.”

“I see what you’re getting at. If she’d stayed on in London, her little secret wouldn’t have been a secret very long.” Oliver gave the matter some thought. The people by the window got up to leave, distracting him. He said, “I had wondered, you know. How a woman like that could spend dreary months in some out-of-the-way Scottish village. Made no sense. Well, I saw the house she grew up in, it was a bloody palace! A flat now, in Edinburgh or Inverness, that’s more likely! But surely it would have been easier to find someone in London to rid her of the child.”

“She was too well known in London. She was too well known in medical circles particularly.”

“There are back streets where such things can be done discreetly.”

“At a price. She might have feared blackmail.”

“Then why not in Glasgow—Edinburgh—Carlisle? She’d not have given her right name or her direction. Easy enough if she’d had a mind for it. Such things went on in the war. She wouldn’t be the first—or the last.”

Rutledge thought of the clinic and Dr. Wilson but said, “Perhaps she wanted the child. Or, at the very least, wanted it to live. And as soon as that was accomplished, she walked away from it.”

“Then you’re saying that the accused had no need to kill the mother—the child was hers for the asking!” Mary came to take Oliver’s order, and he settled for the stew.

“Yes. It fits the timing.”

“Then why hasn’t she turned up since? You’re off the mark! Eleanor Gray is dead, and we’ve found her bones.” Oliver leaned back in his chair and scanned the room. Without looking at Rutledge, he asked, “What’s this I hear from the fiscal, that you want to take the accused to Glencoe?”

He had finally got to the subject that had brought him here.

“She knows the terrain far better than any of us do. I’d like to confront her with her crime. And watch what happens.” There were other reasons. He had not let himself think of them.

“Her lawyer will tell you it’s not on.”

“Then let him come as well.”

“A bloody circus!” Hamish put in.

“Then I’m telling you it’s not on! I see no purpose to be served,” Oliver said angrily.

McKinstry came through the door to the dining room and stood scanning the tables until he saw Oliver.

He crossed quickly to Oliver’s side, bent over, and said quietly, “You’d better come, sir. There’s a message from the police in Glencoe.”