“I’ve never been offered an answer to that.” McKinstry tugged at his earlobe, uncertain. He’d never considered the question himself. Orders were orders.

Rutledge had said, “After all, it began as a moral issue. Whether or not the accused was what she claimed to be, a decent widow with a child to raise on her own. And Mr. Elliot chose to do nothing about it. An admission that he had reason to believe the first letters were telling the truth?”

It would be damning.

McKinstry shook his head. “I can’t say. The Chief Constable summoned Inspector Oliver, and then Inspector Oliver sent me to search the premises, and I did. There was nothing out-of-the-way in the living quarters or the inn. The stables were a public place, I couldn’t see a body being buried out there, even in the dead of night. Any work would have been noticed straightaway by the handyman. But Inspector Oliver prides himself on being thorough, and he had the place apart. That’s when he found the bones in the back of a cupboard that had been walled up. It dumbfounded the lot of us, I can tell you!”

“And he believed he’d found the body of the child’s mother?”

“Oh, yes. There was long hair on the skull. I was sent to summon Dr. Murchison, and he came at once, then told Inspector Oliver he’d been brought out of his surgery on a wild-goose chase. The bones were not a woman’s. They belonged to a man. And they were all of a hundred years old!”

Chapter 8

8

WALKING BACK THROUGH DUNCARRICK’S MAIN SQUARE, Rutledge stopped and considered the shops and houses lining either side of the road. These townspeople were prosperous enough, as Hamish had pointed out, but without obvious signs of wealth. Surely a small inn on the outskirts of town would offer neither problem nor competition. If The Reivers provided extra rooms to people on market day, so much the better. As for competing with the only hotel, Rutledge doubted if it could hold a candle to the amenities offered there. It would have served a simpler class of person who couldn’t afford the grandness of The Ballantyne. And any success it had enjoyed would have been modest in comparison to this part of the town. A good living for the owners, yes, but hardly extravagant.

He moved on, watching people going about their daily lives. Women entering and leaving the shops, a nursemaid with a pram carefully maneuvering it through the door of a house, a woman sweeping her front step, a small boy playing with a top, men in dark suits coming out of offices, others in work clothes, carrying the tools of a trade, a crocodile of schoolgirls marching in the wake of a schoolmistress wearing a thick coat and unbecoming hat.