He called in more searchers from the nearest towns and outlying villages, telling constables and sergeants and inspectors that any men they could spare would be greatly appreciated. A thinly veiled order, couched in the politest terms. Then he and Hildebrand looked at a rough map of Singleton Magna and its environs, already quartered with lines showing where the search had scoured the landscape. Next Rutledge read reports from earlier parties, all of them ending with the same last line: “Nothing to report.”

Hamish, reflecting his tiredness, pointed out that it was useless to go back over the same ground again and again, but Rutledge knew the value of many pairs of eyes. What one had missed, another might see. It was harder to convince Hildebrand of that.

“I can’t grasp how a man in his state of mind could be so clever,” he said again, tossing his pencil back on the cluttered desk. “It’s not likely he knew more about this territory than we do. Stands to reason! And yet we’re fair flummoxed! I can’t understand how we’ve missed them.”

“I don’t know that it’s cleverness,” Rutledge said thoughtfully. “A small child can be buried in a field. Tucked under a hedge or loose stones by a wall. Stuffed in the hollow of a tree. He might have felt compelled to bury them, whether he remembers it or not. It’s the man whose body should have turned up by this time.”

“I’ve climbed up church bell towers,” Hildebrand told him defensively, “taken pitchforks to haystacks, walked the railway tracks for five miles in both directions, even looked down wells and run sticks up chimneys.”

“Very resourceful of you,” Rutledge applauded, sensing ruffled feathers. “What we need now, I think, is to try to follow in his footsteps. It might be helpful to send men back to every person Mowbray encountered, then use the time they saw him as a map to chart his movements. That could give us a better idea of where he might have gone when no one was looking.”

Grudgingly Hildebrand agreed. “If those extra men come in, I’ll see to it. I’ve looked into what gaps I discovered. But I suppose it won’t do any harm to go over those two days again.”