Everyone told Rutledge that. Describing encounters they’d had—or someone they knew had had—with Mowbray. Believing in his anger and his intent to kill. The woman, on the other hand, was dead. They could tell him nothing about her. It was as if she had no other identity or reality than that of victim.

Even Harriet Mason, the woman who had arrived on the same train for a visit with her aunt, remembered nothing. “I was that sick from the journey, I didn’t know or care about anything but getting here to Auntie’s,” she said pointedly, looking at Rutledge through thin, pale lashes.

Mrs. Hindes, stiff with rheumatism and a strong dislike of being a burden on anyone, said, “The only person besides Harriet I noticed coming out of the station that day was the woman who was met by Mrs. Wyatt. The one in the fetching hat. But of course Harriet was feeling faint and I really didn’t have time to pay particular attention to anyone else, though there must have been half a dozen or so passengers arriving.” She smiled wryly, her strong face suddenly mischievous. “You must excuse us, Inspector, we are the lame and the halt, I fear.”

And she watched with quiet satisfaction as Harriet bristled.

Early the next morning Rutledge left the town to stop at every house near the main road, with no success. From there he drove on to Stoke Newton, the home of three passengers who had arrived on the noon train the day Mrs. Mowbray had been seen on the platform. The farmer, his wife, and their young daughter had been met by a tenant, “fetched home in the wagon,” Mrs. Tanner told him jovially in a parlor dominated by a giant aspidistra. To Rutledge it seemed to smother his chair with its broad leaves. “Like so many sides of beef!”

“You didn’t see Mrs. Mowbray on the train? Or the children with her?”

“Lord, Inspector, the train was that crowded leaving London! Holidaymakers, mostly, families with children any age between six months and ten years. Full of sauce, they were, but I don’t mind, a lively child’s a healthy child, I say. I’m sure we was lucky to find a seat!” Mrs. Tanner answered. “No, we’ve talked it over, amongst ourselves. If Mrs. Mowbray and her young ones was on that train, we took no notice of them—no reason to, one family among so many!”

In the afternoon he found himself in Charlbury again, asking Denton at the pub for the Wyatt house. It was, as he’d thought, near the church.

“Can’t miss it. Big, with that wing they added just before the war. That was to be Mr. Wyatt’s office, and Mr. Simon’s as well, when the time came. Now it’s being refurbished to house that museum Mr. Simon’s so set on.”