“I’d like to talk to her. Now that she’s seen the brooch.”

Feeling expansively generous, Oliver said, “Go ahead. I’ll give you as long as you need.”

He turned from the window, picked the key ring up from his desk, and passed it to Rutledge. And he repeated, “As long as you need.” But there was a final ring to it now.

“Thanks.” Rutledge took the ring and walked down the hall again.

Hamish said, “Oliver willna’ find it so easy to dismiss Lady Maude. The Yard willna’ either!”

Rutledge answered, “But Lady Maude doesn’t want to hear the truth about her daughter. She never has.”

As far as he could tell, Fiona MacDonald had not moved from where she had been standing when the three men had walked out of her cell a quarter of an hour earlier.

He closed the wooden door and stood with his back to it. She said almost at once, “Why did they take my mother’s brooch?”

“You’re sure it belonged to your mother?”

“Yes, of course I’m sure! My grandfather let me wear it on her birthday. To remember her. All day I could wear it, pinned to my dress. And I was always very careful, very proud. I felt close to her.”

He could see the small child, dressed in her best clothes, gingerly moving about the house so as not to tear her skirts or soil her sleeves. And the grandfather still mourning his dead daughter in his own fashion, instilling into Fiona the feeling that her mother was near—if only for this one day each year.

It was, in its way, a very sad picture.

“Where did you keep it? After you moved to Duncarrick.”

“It’s in a small sandalwood box with the bracelet Hamish gave me and the onyx studs that belonged to my father. Or it was—why did they go through my things and take my mother’s pin?” There was anguish in her face.

“Did you have the brooch with you in Brae?”

“Yes, of course I had it in Brae! You can ask Mrs. Davison.”

“And it came to Duncarrick with you?”

“Yes, I told you, it is—was—kept in the tall chest in my room at The Reivers. In the second drawer. I didn’t wear it often. I was afraid I might lose it working in the bar.”

Rutledge said, “Can you think of anyone in Duncarrick who might have seen you wear the brooch within the past year? Constable McKinstry, for one?”

She considered his question, then took a deep breath. “I remember now the last time I wore it. On my mother’s birthday in June of this year. Yes, and again in early July, when I attended church. Will that do?” She read the answer in his face. “But it was there. I swear it was there when I was arrested!”

“But you can’t be sure?”