Oliver held on to his temper and said, “Which is exactly why you are here. We want to show it to the accused and ask her its history.”

“Ah, yes.” Armstrong handed back the glass and took off his spectacles. But he held on to the brooch. “I don’t think I can allow that. Her answer might be self-incriminating.”

“I should hope it might be,” Oliver retorted through clenched teeth. “That’s the intention of the police, to prove her guilt.”

“It’s no’ the place of a policeman to worry his head about innocence,” Hamish said. “Nor the church either!”

“You may show it to her,” Armstrong answered after letting Oliver stew for several minutes as he looked at the brooch with concentrated attention. “But I will not allow you to badger her. Do you understand?”

Oliver got to his feet and retrieved the key from behind his desk. “You’d better come as well, Rutledge. She might have something to say about the dead woman.”

They walked back to the cell and Oliver unlocked the door. As it swung open, Fiona rose from her chair to face them. She looked at the three men, then her eyes swung back to Rutledge’s.

He could read the silent message she had sent him: What has happened?

Armstrong went up to her and took her hand with unctuous courtesy, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. “There’s nothing to fear, my girl. The police want to ask if this object belongs to you. Please answer that question and that question only.”

He opened his palm, and the dim light in the cell caught the brightness of the gold but left the smoky stone dark.

Fiona stared at it. “It’s my mother’s brooch.”

“Not yours, then?”

“No, I—”

Armstrong cut her short. “There you are, Inspector. It does not belong to the accused.”

But Oliver could read faces too. He could see clearly that while the brooch had belonged to Fiona’s mother, at some time it had been in her possession.

“Is your mother alive?” he asked, already knowing the answer to that.

“She died when I was very young.”

“Do you remember her?”

“No. A shadowy figure. Someone with a sweet voice and soft hands. I think I remember that.”

“Then you were too young to be given the brooch?”

She glanced at Armstrong. “I was too young, yes.”

“Who took charge of it at her death?”

“My grandfather must have done. There was no one else.”

“Is your grandfather still living?”

“He died in 1915.”

“And you were the only daughter of the house?”

“I was.”

“Your mother’s brooch would by right pass to you, not to your brothers.”

Fiona nodded.

Hamish said, “The conclusion is plain! The brooch must have come into her possession in 1915. A year before the body was left up the glen. They’ve damned her now!”

But Armstrong had nothing to say in her defense.