“It’s likely,” Rutledge said harshly, “that he used that cane to kill Florence Teller. His motorcar was seen outside the house that same day. We’ve found that cane. And we have a witness who can describe both the driver and the vehicle.”

Teller said, “Peter would have no reason to kill the woman. What’s she to him?” He went back to the roses, his face turned away.

“His first wife, very likely,” Rutledge said. “I think you’ve suspected that all along. She had a child, you know. A boy. If Timmy had lived, he would have displaced your son as heir.”

“This is arrant supposition. My brother was in love with Susannah, and it was three years before he could win the family’s approval to wed her. Why would he take another wife in the meantime?”

“Lawrence Cobb wanted to marry Florence Teller. I’ve told you. And when he couldn’t, he married Mrs. Blaine’s daughter. Your brother may have acted in haste and disappointment and then lived to regret it.”

The strain on Teller’s face was plain to see as he looked up. “Do you think I’d have countenanced that? Do you think I’d have let him wed Susannah, if I’d known there was an impediment to the marriage?”

“I don’t know. Did you attend their wedding?”

“I was in West Africa. I didn’t learn of it until months later.”

“And so you let it stand by default. But he continued to visit Hobson, in fact. Even after his marriage. I have witnesses to that too. After the war, when his leg was so badly damaged he couldn’t travel north, he let her believe he was dead. An easy solution.”

“I won’t listen to any more of this. It’s a hodgepodge of wishful thinking and make-believe. There’s not a grain of truth in it!” It was more a cry of pain than of denial.

Rutledge nodded and walked back to his motorcar. He turned it and then drove back up the drive. When he was nearly out of sight of the rose bed, he glanced in his rearview mirror.

Walter Teller was bent over, his arms wrapped around his body, as if he were in pain, his head down. Rutledge was too far away to see his face, but he carried with him the image of a man in agony.

He decided to drive on to Leticia Teller’s house, and when he got there, he found that once more Mary Brittingham was ahead of him.

When the maid showed him into the garden, he realized that the two women had been having words. They hadn’t heard his approach.

Their faces flushed, their eyes bright, they were confronting each other, standing several feet apart, as if any closer might lead to blows.