He began with Constable Pringle. Rutledge found him still at his desk and put the question to him. Pringle considered. “There’s an Alexander out on the road to Jedburgh. But he wasn’t in the war, sir. He’s seventy if he’s a day.”

“Children?”

“Two daughters. That’s all I ever heard about. Old maids, both of them.”

Another dead end.

RUTLEDGE WENT OUT to walk, restless and angry.

Hamish said, “It’s no’ your fault!”

“Cold comfort!” he retorted, long strides eating up the distance to The Reivers. He passed it without looking and was well out the western road before turning and walking back to the town. “Fiona sits in that cell, waiting for trial, and there’s going to be a conviction. All I needed was a name. They’ve given me one. If Alexander doesn’t live in the neighborhood of Duncarrick, there’s no way to find him. Damn the man!” But it was useless to damn anyone. There were still other names to track down.

Nearing the main square, Rutledge came across Oliver.

He was not a happy man.

“You’ve been meddling again! You told me that you were wanting to see the glen. Instead you went to find the Lawlor girl. And she’s gone missing!” He made it sound like Rutledge’s fault.

“I did see the glen,” Rutledge told him. “And someone saw fit to shoot at me while I was there. Who did you tell that I was on my way to Glencoe?”

“What do you mean, someone shot at you?” He glared at Rutledge. “I called Inspector MacDougal as you’d asked. I don’t know who might have overheard the call. MacDougal wasn’t in his office when I tried from the station. So I waited until after my lunch and called again from the hotel.”

From that stuffy telephone closet. Where Oliver, not thinking about it, must have left the door ajar for air. And who had been in the police station on his earlier attempt to reach Glencoe? McKinstry? Pringle?

“Where was McKinstry most of yesterday?”

“It was his day off. You’ll have to ask him that.”

“There’s no way,” Hamish pointed out, “to be sure it was the telephone. You could ha’ been seen in Brae—or anywhere on the road—and followed.”

“And what’s this,” Oliver went on testily, “about the brooch not being in Betty’s hands for a year or more? That’s nonsense!”

“I don’t think it is.” He gave it a split second’s thought, then said, “I can tell you the name of a jeweler’s shop on a side street in Glasgow. Send McKinstry with the brooch to ask if the owner recognizes it.”

Oliver stared at him. “You’re trying to tell me that my chief bit of evidence is a hoax!”

“No. I’m telling you that it isn’t what it seems.”