“I can’t say. I wasn’t close enough to hear if there was. But no one was shouting, if that’s what you’re asking. Still, not the time to be knocking on doors or asking for a lift.”

“Did he have a cane? Or some sort of tool in his hand—did you see him toss anything into the motorcar, like a box?”

“I don’t know—no, actually I do.” Larkin squinted, as if bringing back the scene in his memory. “He was empty-handed when he went to crank the car. But if I’d seen a cane, I wouldn’t have been surprised, given the problem with his legs.”

“Describe the Rolls, if you will.”

“Black, well polished, 1914 Ghost, touring car. Rather like the one you drove up in, save for the color.”

And very like the one Edwin Teller had just driven away in.

Hamish said, “Do ye believe the lad?”

All things considered, Rutledge thought he did. Larkin needn’t have come forward, for one thing. He’d already disappeared into the landscape. But sometimes cases turned on unexpected evidence like this.

“Where are you studying?” Rutledge asked, curious.

“Cambridge,” Larkin answered and named his college. “Which is why this was a walking tour and not two weeks in Italy. I couldn’t afford it,” he added with a grin.

“Did you see anyone at the house? A woman? Or notice that the house had a red door?”

“I never saw the door. No one was in the kitchen yard. I don’t know about the front garden. There was the hedge, you see. Nearly as tall as I was.”

Rutledge turned to Hadden and Satterthwaite. “Anything else?”

They had no further questions. Rutledge thanked Larkin and told him he could go. And then he said as Larkin reached behind the desk and lifted his haversack, “Would you mind if I looked in that?”

Larkin slung it off his shoulder and said, “Help yourself. Mind the dirty wash.”

But there was nothing in the pack that could have been used for a weapon. And nothing that could have come from Florence Teller’s house. Only spare clothes, a tarp for wet weather, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, a comb, a block of soap, a razor, a book on English wildflowers and another on birds, a heavy bottle for water, and a small sack of dried fruit, biscuits, sweets, and a heel of cheese. Nothing, in fact, that a walker shouldn’t have, and everything he should.

Hamish said, “He could ha’ left behind anything he didna’ want you to see.”

It was true. But the very compactness of the haversack, intended to minimize weight and maximize comfort in a small space, didn’t allow for extras.

Rutledge nodded, asked for his address at Cambridge, and when that was done, thanked him again. Larkin went out the door.

“What do you think?” Inspector Hadden asked, echoing Hamish.