She looked at him directly, shading her eyes with her hand. “It was nearly a year ago that I found it. Summer anyway. I saw it in the sun. It was the first day it hadna’ stormed in a week or more. I didna’ like to think it might belong to— to whoever it was they found. Up there. It was pretty, and I wanted to keep it. But I’m afraid my father will find it and beat me for stealing. So I went to Inspector MacDougal to ask him to set it right!” She broke off, then asked anxiously, “You aren’t going to take it away, are you? You can’t be sure it’s hers!”

Oliver said magnanimously, “I’m afraid it must be taken in evidence. But when we’ve finished with it, I’ll see that you have it back again.” His eyes switched to Rutledge’s face. He didn’t have to put into words what was in both their minds. This was the first direct link between Fiona and the mountain. Between Fiona and the bones that might be Eleanor Gray’s.

Rutledge said nothing.

MacDougal asked Betty to take them to the place where she found the brooch, and she turned to spring up the hillside like one of the sheep she watched out for. Strong for all her thinness, and agile, she seemed to fly. Oliver, puffing in her wake, swore under his breath, but didn’t ask her to slow down. McKinstry turned back to stay with the vehicles.

Rutledge was just behind her, watching the new shoes, watching her almost intuitive knowledge of where there was enough stability to place a foot. She had learned from the sheep—

MacDougal, keeping pace but red-faced, said, “Fra’ the top are fine views. I used to climb here as a lad, with my brothers.”

“Did you know the MacDonalds?” Rutledge asked him.

“I knew one of them—brother of the accused, I’d guess. A good man. He lost his legs and bled to death before they could get him back over the wire. My brother died the same day. Machine-gun fire. I was lucky—shot three times but nothing that kept me from going back.” There was a quiet irony in his voice.

They had come some distance, cutting diagonally across the mountain’s face, slipping and sliding here or there, and Betty had begun to look around, as if trying to find landmarks.

Finally she paused and pointed to an area that was perhaps ten feet square. “About here, I’d guess,” she told them.

It was a rocky slope that seemed to be no different from any of its neighbors for a hundred yards in any direction.

“Why are you so sure?” Oliver demanded, mopping his face with a large handkerchief. “I can’t see any difference between this patch and that one—or that one over there.”