“Dorothea is a silly goose who never did any harm to anyone, and all he can think of is whether she has unconfessed sin on her soul. On the subject of sin, he’s worse than the Inquisition, that man! And she’s driven to despair thinking that nothing she does is worthy of him. That’s why I offered her a room here—I thought it would be the ultimate cruelty for her to live under Elliot’s roof. It has been an inconvenience and a hardship, but I take great satisfaction from the fact that when she’s here, she isn’t scrubbing and hauling coal and cooking and washing up and fetching the laundry back from Mrs. Turnbull’s, not to speak of the other heavy tasks he puts on her. All because he’s too miserly to hire another girl. He took her in, you see, when she had no work, and he never lets her forget the duty owed him for that kindness!” Her eyes blazed.

He was on the point of asking if Fiona MacDonald’s child could have been Dorothea MacIntyre’s, and then stopped himself. Mr. Elliot’s housekeeper was no guardian of secrets, her own or anyone else’s.

Chapter 12

12

THE BEDROCK OF POLICE WORK WAS THE STATEMENT, A record of every witness questioned, scrupulously preserved in evidence.

Rutledge walked back to the station and asked Constable Pringle if he might read statements taken down when Inspector Oliver interviewed everyone who had received one of the letters denouncing Fiona MacDonald.

Pringle handed him a thick file box and said tentatively, “They’re in proper form, sir.”

“I’m sure they are.” He smiled, took the box, and moved one of the chairs nearer the door, giving himself a semblance of private space. Sitting down, he untied the red string. Pringle went back to his own work, glancing up from time to time. As if, Hamish growled, Rutledge were not to be trusted.

Ignoring that, Rutledge lifted out the papers inside and began going through them.

Mrs. Turnbull, laundress. “I’m a respectable woman. I don’t have anything to do with the likes of her.” Question: Have you ever done her washing? “No, I have not, and I thank God for it!” Question: Why, then, would someone send you such a letter? “Because they know I’m a good Christian, that’s why. And I’d lose custom if it got around that I was taking in washing from whores!”

Hamish, incensed, swore.