“Did you tell the police about this?”

“I tried to, but they were convinced it was an accident. They had no reason to think otherwise.”

“What will you do now?”

“What would you like me to do?”

“Find out.”

“It won’t be easy,” George said. “There will be awkward questions. People won’t like it.”

“All the same,” Sandy said, “ we will find out.”

“I may be mistaken.”

“At least we will know.”

“Have you made a will?”

Sarah was as surprised by the last question as Sandy was. At first she thought he would refuse to answer. She expected him to tell George that it was none of his business.

“Yes,” Sandy said. “ I’ve made a will.”

“Could you tell me what provisions were contained in it?”

“I left Sandwick to Mary,” Sandy said slowly, “ the house and the croft would both belong to her. It seemed the best way to be sure that she was taken care of.”

“So that if either of your sons wished to farm Sandwick and live in this house, they would have to take responsibility for Mary.”

“Yes. Sandwick is her home. We didn’t want her moved out to an institution as soon as we died.”

“What was to happen if you were to retire?”

“The same thing. The boys knew that if they wanted to farm Sandwick they would have to take care of Mary.”

“Who will inherit Sandwick now?”

“Alec. He is the eldest son.” He was trying to answer the questions reasonably, but he was beginning to become angry. “ Mr. Palmer-Jones,” he said, “none of my family would murder a child for a house.”

George ignored the anger.

“I spoke to Mary at the harbour on Friday and she talked about a secret. Do you know what that secret might have been?”

“It will just have been child’s talk,” Sandy said impatiently.

“There’s nothing, no matter how trivial, which might have interested her, that I don’t want to know about. She seemed very excited when she spoke to me.”

He was appealing to Sandy and to Agnes. Sarah thought that Sandy was going to speak, but Agnes looked at her husband carefully, seemed to warn him.

“No,” he said. “ There’s nothing.”

They prepared to go.

“There’s just one thing,” George said. “Why do think it was Dance?”

Sandy said nothing, and it was Agnes who answered.

“Superstition,” she said, “ and a lack of Christian charity.”

When Sarah and George left Sandwick, they went to Tain, but the house was empty. George was surprised because Robert’s dog was tethered to a line outside and usually it went everywhere with the old man.