He turned to Walter and said, “What was the real reason for not calling off the party?”

“I’ve told you. We didn’t, for Jenny’s sake. She was looking forward to it. It meant more to her than we realized. A family healing, if you will. After my disastrous disappearance.”

“I think,” Rutledge said, “you went ahead with the party to gauge just how much of my evidence was true. To shame your brother into telling you what happened in Hobson that day. He hadn’t, had he? He’d been tormented by his own knowledge—even I could see that he’d begun to drink heavily. And once I’d outlined my own evidence, you knew he was very likely to be taken into custody very soon. And you wanted to make him tell you before the police came, so that you could band together to protect him. Only he didn’t quite see it that way. I think he felt you’d abandoned him. In which case he might well have chosen to fall down the stairs. His only way to punish you for what you’d done to him.”

They stared at him, nothing in their gazes telling him whether his guesses were right or not.

“I can’t force any of you to confess. But I’d give a great deal to know why Peter Teller suddenly felt compelled to rectify the situation in Hobson in regard to Florence Teller after all these years. I want to know for her sake where all of this began.”

Amy Teller said, “You can’t expect us to answer that, when we were left not knowing the truth ourselves.”

“Was it suicide?” Edwin Teller asked. “Do you believe he killed himself?”

“There’s not sufficient evidence either way,” Rutledge said. “It will depend on what the police and the inquest have to say about his state of mind. There will be an inquest. Make no mistake about that.”

“Dear God,” Edwin said under his breath. “Will it have to come out that my brother was suspected of murder?”

“All the essential facts will have to be presented.”

“It was a fall,” Leticia said. “I know my brother. He would no more kill himself than Walter here would have done. It’s not in the nature of our family to run away from anything.”

“Oh, do shut up, Leticia,” Edwin said. “This is not the time to be pompous. Of course Peter didn’t kill himself. Walter?”

“No.”

“Then there you are, Inspector. The family, who knew Peter Teller better than anyone else, have given you their considered opinion. There was nothing on his conscience. Your so-called evidence was entirely circumstantial. Your witness can hardly identify a dead man. There is no case. There never was.”

“There’s still a dead woman in Lancashire. What about her?”

“I have no idea. I leave such matters to the police.”

There was a knock at the door.