Rutledge was trying to test the information that Satterthwaite had given him. Had all the evidence pointing to Peter Teller been circumstantial? The man was on the scene. He’d been spotted by an independent witness. His cane had been used as the murder weapon. But there was an equally strong case now against Lawrence Cobb. Furthermore, it fit the facts—that Teller had indeed come to Hobson and spoken to Florence Teller. His cane had been missing since then. And he’d left in a hurry, according to the witness, Benjamin Larkin. It also explained why Lawrence Cobb had possession of the cane’s knob.

He knew the decision that Chief Superintendent Bowles would come to: charge Cobb and leave the Tellers out of it—they’d suffered enough, and Peter Teller was now out of reach of the law. Guilty or not. If a jury found Cobb guilty, then he was.

But Florence Teller deserved to have her killer punished. And not a surrogate.

Rutledge took a deep breath. Somehow he’d been very sure of Cobb’s innocence.

As if the constable had heard his thoughts, he said, “Remember? Larkin heard no shouting, no one crying out when the Teller motorcar was there.”

“Because by the time Larkin came down the hill, she was already dead.”

“I never could understand why Teller broke up that cane,” Satterthwaite went on. “If he’d taken it with him, we’d been none the wiser. Two minutes under a pump or dangled in a stream, and it would have been clean. But I can see Cobb killing her and then destroying the cane afterward. The cane was Teller’s, and he’d have liked to break it over the man himself. But he couldn’t. So he took his frustration and anger out on Teller’s possession. And Cobb is strong enough, he could have snapped off that knob.”

And that was the irrefutable fact. As Hamish was pointing out, even if Teller had hated himself for what he’d done, even if he’d broken his own cane out of self-loathing, he’d surely have had the sense to take the head of the cane with him. Even the drunken Peter Teller was far from stupid.

“Ye said yoursel’, it’s damning,” Hamish told him.

He should have been satisfied. But he wasn’t.

“Why did Cobb leave the rest of the cane for us to find?”

“To protect himself, if suspicion fell on him.” Satterthwaite stood up, collecting his own cup, intending to wash up. “I’ve had hours to think, waiting for you to come back. Hours.”

Fighting a rearguard action, Rutledge said, “And the box of letters?”