“Have you found your Eleanor Gray?”

“Not yet. But I shall. No, I’ve come about another matter. I was speaking with a Mrs. Cook. I can’t recall her first name. She’d stopped me on the street. A few days ago now. I must try to find her again. Can you help me?”

Ann Tait looked at him consideringly. “As far as I know, there isn’t a Mrs. Cook in Duncarrick. At any rate, she isn’t among my customers. There was a woman by that name I met in London. She was elderly and impossible. I didn’t like her.”

“Well, then,” he said helplessly, “who was I speaking with?”

“Was this a large woman? Overbearing in her manner?” He smiled as if relieved. In fact, he was. “Yes. I’m afraid so.”

“That was Mrs. Coldthwaite.”

“Yes, that’s it. Coldthwaite. I’m grateful. Or—should I be?”

Ann Tait nodded sympathetically. “Wretched woman. She comes in and tries on corsets half her size, then complains to me that my stock is ill-made. You’ll find her in the gabled house next but one to the baker’s shop. And I wish you joy of her!”

Outside on the street again, Hamish was roundly telling him that he had already broken his promise.

“No, I haven’t.”

“It’s no’ a name you can use with impunity here!”

“I have a feeling Ann Tait won’t repeat it to anyone.”

All the same, he paid a call on Mrs. Coldthwaite.

And paid the price for it. Once she had him in her parlor, her sole intent was to pry out of him whatever tidbits of potential gossip she could pass on. It was done graciously, in the name of concern for “dear Fiona.” But her eyes were cold and her mouth small, tight.

A “wretched woman,” Ann Tait had called her. Hamish preferred “vicious.”

She did, unintentionally, give Rutledge one piece of information he had not heard. The question was, should he treat it as dependable?

“We—my husband and I—were at a lovely dinner party in Jedburgh a week ago. The Chief Constable, Mr. Robson, and the fiscal, Mr. Burns, were there too. And I distinctly heard Mr. Burns saying to Mr. Robson that many of Fiona MacDonald’s sins would never come to light. ‘We shall try her for murder, and leave the other unpleasant facets of her character for God to judge.’ And when someone—Mr. Holden, I believe it was—asked Mr. Robson what was to be done with the child once the trial was over, Mr. Robson answered, ‘Mr. Elliot has spoken with an orphanage in Glasgow that trains children in various trades. He will go there if the victim’s family doesn’t care to take responsibility for him.’ It’s my understanding that they’re quite well-to-do and might find the child an—um—embarrassment.”

Rutledge silently swore. Hamish called Mrs. Coldthwaite “a gossiping auld besom.”