But the barn yielded nothing, and he stood there in the loft, looking at the thick piles of hay, wondering if it was worth his while to dig through the lot. Hamish, tired and irritable, said, “You’ll no’ solve the riddle here.…”

And it was true, but he made the effort to look into the outbuildings and into overturned carts, startling a hen with a clutch of eggs under one. She squawked sharply at him, dashing off with wings flapping.

When he came back to where Jimson was finishing his work on the barrow, the old man said, “Well, you wanted to do it, didn’t you? And for what? You haven’t found what you was looking for.”

“No.” He turned to look at the sky. The sun was sinking toward the west, casting long shadows and golden stripes across the lawn and the fields behind the barn. It would be dark quite soon. Seven or eight heavily uddered cows were staring at him from the gate near the milking shed, and he could hear the lowing of others making their slow way home. Jimson wheeled the barrow toward the barn. Rutledge called his thanks but remembered that the man couldn’t hear his voice. Couldn’t hear a car or footsteps in the house at night.

He found himself wondering if Aurore might have entertained lovers there.

Feeling depressed, he got back into the car and drove to Charlbury.

“At least,” Hamish offered, “you did na’ find anything.”

“I was one man. Hildebrand will bring half a dozen. More.”

Henry Daulton was standing by the churchyard, his eyes on the rooks wheeling above the truncated tower, settling uneasily for the night. He waved as Rutledge passed. Then Mrs. Prescott was hailing him, and he stopped the car.

“I hear that there’s to be an arrest tomorrow. That Inspector Hildebrand is coming to do it himself. I thought you were in charge! The man from London.”

“No. It’s his investigation. I came to coordinate the search for the children. That’s finished.” He felt tired, his eyes gritty from the dusty barn and the staleness of the farm’s attics.

“But what about Mr. Simon? What’s to happen to him?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. He isn’t the person Hildebrand is after.”

“Why would anyone want to kill Betty Cooper,” she demanded, “much less a friend of the Wyatts! It makes no sense. That’s what you ought to be saying to the police in Singleton Magna, why would the Wyatts want to harm her? If you want to save Mrs. Wyatt from the gallows and her husband from a death of grief, that’s the question you ought to be asking!”