The maid offered him a chair and stood before him in her stiff black dress, hands cupped in front of her, feet together, like a child anticipating a reprimand. Worry drew her dark brows together and her face was strained, tired. He asked her name. It was Dorcas Williams. She had been employed as a second parlor maid by the Napiers before coming here to work for Miss Tarlton.

“I don’t know what I can say, sir! Scotland Yard has come twice, and still there’s no word from my mistress—I’ve told them all I can think of. There’s no news?” she asked diffidently. “Mr. Napier has been here this morning, asking!”

“Not yet. The fact is, I’m more interested in Miss Tarlton herself. Sometimes in searching for someone who’s gone missing, it helps to know more about the person. We have a better feeling for where to look.”

“Yes, sir.” She regarded him expectantly, as if prepared to cooperate in any way. But behind her eagerness, the shadow of fear still lurked.

“Let’s begin,” Rutledge said as if it had just occurred to him, “with her work for Miss Napier. Did she like what she did—did she get along well with her employers?”

“She liked her work well enough,” the girl answered willingly. “She was good at it, at organizing. Seeing to flowers and caterers and invitations being printed—finding the right musicians. Writing thank-you notes. Sometimes she’d say, ‘You’ll never guess, Dorcas, who’s coming to the luncheon on Thursday!’” She smiled. “Oftentimes I’d get it right too!”

“There was nothing she disliked about her work?”

The smiled faded. “I’ve heard her say she didn’t want to spend a lifetime planning parties in the houses of other people.”

“Did she get on well with Elizabeth Napier?”

“Yes, sir. Mostly. I think—I think there was some disagreement over her changing jobs. But I didn’t understand the rights of that. Miss Tarlton, she didn’t want it to be Dorset, and Miss Napier, she said it was just the thing.”

“Why was she against going to Dorset? Do you know?”

“No, sir.” Her face creased with the effort to remember. “I don’t think she ever spoke of that to me.”

“This house. Does it belong to Miss Tarlton? Or to her cousins?”

“Oh, it’s Miss Tarlton’s, right enough, sir. It was two years ago she moved here, and I was engaged along with the cook and an outside man.”

Two years ago, Rutledge repeated to himself. About the time Shaw was leaving England. …

“Who pays your wages?”

“Miss Tarlton, sir, of course, sir.”

“Does she have a private income? Apart from her salary from the Napiers.”