Yet Rutledge found himself thinking that Simon had been too obsessed with his museum to plot so clever a murder, so clever a way of convicting his wife. Or had that been another lie? Diabolical and cruel …

There was another possibility—that someone else had seen to it that the finger of guilt pointed at Aurore, and Simon was unwittingly suffering the same agonies of doubt and fear as she was. Had the first attempt to be rid of Aurore—killing Betty Cooper—misfired when the girl’s body was not discovered? And Margaret Tarlton, the next sacrifice, had nearly backfired too, when Mowbray took the blame for her death. Until Elizabeth Napier came to Charlbury and set Hildebrand straight … but could any of that be proved?

Rutledge said, “Very well. I’m arresting you, Aurore Wyatt, for the death by murder of Margaret Tarlton and Betty Cooper.” It was, after all, what she wanted. And it would forestall Hildebrand.

He could feel the tension drain out of her, a smothered sob of relief.

“I’m so very glad it’s over,” she said quietly. “You don’t know how hard it has been to live a lie.”

But he did—he lived one every day, he told himself as he took her arm and started for the car. His lie was that he was a competent policeman, an experienced and capable officer of Scotland Yard.

Hamish was reminding him of it with vitriolic pleasure.

Chapter Twenty Six

26

They had gotten no farther than the edge of the trees when a cry, cut short, rang through the night. Aurore stopped still, listening, her head turned toward the church. “I think it came from there!” she said anxiously.

“Wait here!” Rutledge ordered, already moving.

“No! I’m coming with you!” She was at his heels as he ran toward the front of the church. There were lights coming on in the nearer houses and a light moving down the path from the rectory.

But when they reached the church porch, all they found was Elizabeth Napier in a crumpled heap by the steps, her head buried in her arms. In the blackness of the night she seemed terribly small and vulnerable.

Aurore went quickly to her, touched her shoulder, said, “Help is here, what has happened?”

Elizabeth looked up, the whites of her eyes like half-moons in her pale face. She said roughly, her voice breaking on the words, “I was attacked—”

The lantern bobbing up the walk from the rectory reached them, and Joanna Daulton said with brisk calm, “What’s wrong? Can I help?”

Her lamplight fell on Elizabeth, on the dark hair spilling down in waves over her shoulders and the torn collar of her dress. There were red marks like bruises on her throat. Elizabeth put up her hand against the invasion of the light and said, “Oh, God, I was so frightened!”

Rutledge said, “Who was it? Did you see?”