How does a policeman make pleasant conversation with a near-fainting woman? He said, “I’ve admired the pele tower. The way it was constructed. I understand it’s on your property. I’d be interested in hearing its story. What role it played in the days of the Border raids.”

She smiled a little. “My father is the person you should have spoken to.”

“Did he write a history of Duncarrick?” It was often the retired gentleman or rector who collected the legends and tales passed down by word of mouth for generations and turned them into a chronicle of sorts.

“He never got around to it, I’m afraid.”

A few sentences more and he’d exhausted the subject of the tower. Rutledge cast about for a new topic. “The name of the inn we’re just passing. The Reivers. I wonder who chose that. Did the MacCallums have riders in their ancestry?” Riders—reivers—raiders, he thought. Euphemisms for the same bloody trade of Border warfare.

Drummond was just coming out of the inn with Ian MacLeod, returning from feeding the cat. The child looked up, eyes shining, and pointed with excitement to the car. Rutledge waved but didn’t stop.

Drummond was glaring after him with murder in his face.

The woman, staring ahead with unseeing eyes, bit her lip. She was in no shape to answer his trivial questions.

“Hold on,” Rutledge said gently, touching her hands where they lay trembling in her lap. “We’re nearly there.”

But he had to carry her into Dr. Murchison’s office, her head against his shoulder and her body so light, it was like a feather in his arms.

The nurse came to meet him, having seen them arrive. To Mrs. Holden, trying to smile as she apologized for all the trouble she’d caused, she was all warmth and sympathy.

“My dear!” she said, half scolding, half crooning, as though to a child. “Have we overdone our strength again? Come lie down for a bit and then the doctor will take you home again.”

She led Rutledge down a passage, not into the sitting room he could just glimpse through a door that stood slightly ajar. Opening another door, she gestured to an elderly sofa that stood under the back windows. While the nurse fetched a pillow, Rutledge settled Mrs. Holden gently among its cushions, then took the light blanket that had been folded across the high back and spread it over her feet and limbs. As the nurse lifted her head and slipped the pillow beneath it, Mrs. Holden smiled. A wavering smile, and rueful as well.

“I’m so sorry—” she began again.

Rutledge took one of her hands and held it in both of his. “Nonsense. Feel better.”

He turned and walked out of the room. The nurse, after a word to Mrs. Holden, followed. She thanked the Inspector for being a Good Samaritan and opened the outer door for him.