“It’s the clinic, Mrs. Teller. I told them you were resting, but they said it was urgent.”

She rushed past Rose, nearly tripping over her untied laces as she raced down the stairs. At the door to the telephone closet, she paused, trying to catch her breath, then she snatched up the receiver and leaned toward the mouthpiece. “Mrs. Teller here.”

She listened, her mouth so dry she couldn’t speak.

“I’ll be there. I’m on my way.”

Putting up the receiver, she called, “Edwin? Where are you?”

He opened the study door, and she hurried down the passage to meet him. And then to her surprise she saw over his shoulder that the family was gathered there. Amy, of course; Peter and his wife; Leticia, Walter’s sister. Their faces, turned toward her, were strained, as if they already knew.

But of course they couldn’t. She’d only just been informed herself.

“It’s Walter,” she told them baldly, and then, unable to say the words, afraid that to do so would make them real, she added, “Oh, please hurry, we must go—!”

There was a deafening silence, and then everyone was moving at once, and someone, Amy, she thought distractedly, was kneeling to tie her shoelaces for her.

She stood there, waiting for the motorcars to be brought around, counting the minutes, refusing to answer their questions. Her mind was filled with only one thought: what she must say to Harry, how she was going to explain.

Chapter 7

Rutledge was walking out of his office at the end of the day when he encountered Bowles bearing down on him.

The Chief Superintendent waved Rutledge back into his office and sourly regarded the stack of folders beside his blotter.

“Something has come up,” he said, taking the chair and forcing Rutledge to sit again behind his desk.

“Walter Teller has gone missing,” he went on, as if the name should mean something to Rutledge. “Teller? Author of that book in 1914 on the reality of the missionary’s life in the field?”

But Rutledge had been on the point of joining his regiment in France when the book had come out to critical acclaim. There had been no time to read it. In fact, if asked, he would have been hard-pressed to supply the name of the author.

“Gone missing? In West Africa, was it?” he asked, dredging up a memory.

“No, thank the Lord God. Here in London. He was being treated in the Belvedere Clinic. Some sort of nervous condition, as far as I can judge from what Sergeant Biggin was saying. They’ve searched the place from top to bottom, and there’s no sign of him. They even searched among the cadavers. Ghoulish thing to have to do, but thorough.”

“Sergeant Biggin is a good man.”

“Yes, yes. But this is a matter for the Yard. Important man, shows we’re on top of it, results quickly, and all that. If you take my meaning.”

Rutledge did. He would not fail to bring in his man, this time.