Taking the copy from McKinstry, Rutledge had scanned it. It was untutored, apparently the work of a woman who earnestly tried to defend—and instead unwittingly pointed a finger of guilt. If it was a hoax, it was very cleverly devised. There was a ring of sincerity in the simple wording.

I have heard horrid gossip about a young woman in Duncarrick . . . It is sad that no one has spoken a word in her defense . . . I will lose my place if I tell you how I met her . . . Her given name was Fiona . . . It was the late summer of 1916 . . . She was traveling with a very young baby and had no milk for him . . . It struck me that she could not be the mother, and indeed, I learned that the mother had just died and she had been given the baby to raise as her own . . . I was distressed for her, because she was unwed and had no family except for an elderly spinster aunt . . . When I asked her if the mother had any family who could help, she began to cry, and wouldn’t tell me how the poor creature had died or even where she had been buried . . . She told me fiercely that she would be a good mother and would not allow anyone to take the boy from her . . . I could see that she was very agitated . . . She was always looking over her shoulder as if expecting to see someone there. But there was no one . . . I soon gave up trying to reason with her . . . What struck me was her unshakable belief that she could bring up this poor orphan as her son . . . I cannot be convinced that she would turn wanton and betray the trust that had been placed in her . . . Please, do what you can on her behalf . . . It isn’t right for her to be tormented in this way . . . I would as soon believe that Fiona was a murderer as believe she has become a whore . . .

He had even read it a second time, finding the wording and the sense of it more interesting than the content. “And you never discovered who’d written this?”

“No, sir, though we made every effort. It came from Glasgow, but there’s no telling who had put it in the post box there. It doesn’t quite say that the mother of the boy was murdered, you see. But if the death was natural, surely there would have been a doctor in attendance—relatives notified? And Fiona should have been able to tell us where to find such witnesses! Instead there’s a mystery about where and how the child was born. She won’t say. She won’t tell us where the mother is buried, if it’s true that she’s dead.”

“But that’s knowledge after the fact. What convinced the Chief Constable that there ought to be some investigation into the matter? Merely the letter? Or was there more?”