She turned on him, saying, “the wolves are gathering!”

“Listen to me! This can matter more than your wolves. Does the name Betty Cooper mean anything to you?”

Something stirred in her eyes. Curiosity? Calculation? He couldn’t be sure in the dim light that reached the hall from the parlor.

“She was a serving girl, if that’s the one you mean. Simon suggested we might consider finding her a place in London. We’d lost two of the younger maids to other positions, he must have known.”

“And so he sent her to you from here?”

“Well, we expected her to come to us on a trial basis, but she never arrived. I don’t see what this has to do with anything! There isn’t time!”

“When was that?”

“Nearly six months ago. Just after Simon came back from France and opened the house here in Charlbury. That’s not important, I tell you—”

“Yes, it is,” he answered her. “If Betty Cooper didn’t arrive at your door, where did she go?” And why hadn’t she taken up Simon’s proposal that she work for the Napiers? It was a position beyond the dreams of a country girl who wanted to make her way in London. Nor did it explain why the body was only three months dead. Mrs. Prescott was wrong; his questions led him nowhere.

“How should I know? Girls go to London every day, I can’t be responsible for the fate of any of them!”

But what if Betty had gone to London after all, avoided the Napiers for whatever reasons, spent three months there in the city, found it not to her liking, and come back to Dorset?

That was possible—but was it likely that in coming back, she’d meet her death here before anyone had seen her?

Unless her return threatened someone? But that wouldn’t take into account the fate of Margaret Tarlton.… The two women had nothing in common.

There was a connection somewhere. There had to be. Or else they were all wrong, Mowbray had killed Margaret and Betty Cooper was a separate crime altogether. There was only the doctor’s suggestion that the murders were similar.

He was aware of Elizabeth expostulating, telling him she wanted him to help Simon, to do something before Hildebrand made a grave mistake.

He put his hands on her shoulders to silence her and said, “Look, I’ve got to go. But I’ll be back before Hildebrand comes tomorrow. Is that fair enough?”

“Fair—” she began, but he was already out the door, speaking to Shaw, giving him the same promise.