He went through the door and found the room filled with other refugees from the rain. The atmosphere was muggy, as if the dampness each had brought with him had settled in a cloud around them, like fog. The smell of wet wool mingled with wood smoke. Someone had lit the fire on one side of the paneled room, and it struggled to assert itself, adding measurably to the gloom. But no one paid any heed, lively conversations holding their attention instead.

Rutledge found a table by the windows that overlooked the street. He could hear the laughter from the bar, rough and male, workmen who had taken advantage of the rain to stop in for a pint.

He wondered how many of them had once patronized The Reivers.

A man with a fierce mustache came in, looked around him, and saw Rutledge. He came striding across to the table, nodded, and said, “I’m Oliver.”

Rutledge got to his feet and offered his hand. Oliver’s grip was strong but brief. He took the other chair at the table and beckoned to one of the barmaids. She came over, took their orders, and was gone.

Oliver stretched his feet out, looked ruefully at his wet shoes, and sighed. Then he turned to Rutledge and said, “I won’t beat about the bush. It’s not my way. I don’t like London sending someone up here to mind my business. But it’s done. I’ll cooperate in any way I can.”

“I’m afraid this is not my doing either. But there we are. I’d like to discuss the evidence with you when you have the time.”

The barmaid brought their orders, and Oliver drank his ale, savoring it. Then he said, “The evidence isn’t the problem. It’s the bones. Did you learn anything at all from that termagant in Menton? I’ve need of it, if you have.”

“Lady Maude refused to acknowledge that she’d quarreled with her daughter,” Rutledge answered, “but if I were a betting man, I’d give you good odds she did. The question is, where is Eleanor Gray now? And no one seems to know. Lady Maude swears her daughter had no interest in or enthusiasm for walking in the Highlands, that there’s no explanation that might put Eleanor in Glencoe or anywhere else in Scotland during 1916.”

“Yes, well, mothers are like that, they shut their eyes to a good deal that they find it unpleasant to take notice of. Look at it this way—if a handsome young soldier told the daughter he’d like to spend his leave walking about in the Scottish hills, do you think she’d refuse to go? War does strange things to women—put a man in uniform, and they trust him with their virtue and their lives!”