Closer, Rutledge could see the strain on the haggard face, etched by the bright sunlight into deep and defensive lines. The dark hair was threaded with gray. It was an odd time of the afternoon to see a man sitting idle. . . .

Rutledge passed him by, turning toward the hotel.

As he entered the lobby, Mrs. Barnett stuck her head out of the tiny cubicle that served as her office. She smiled and said, “Inspector? There’s been a telephone message from London for you. Would you care to return it now?”

It was a message from Sergeant Wilkerson, and after nearly three quarters of an hour of searching for the man, Wilkerson was located and instructed to contact Rutledge again.

Wilkerson’s rough voice came down the line with such a roar that Rutledge had to hold the receiver away from his ear. The Sergeant was of the school that believed that shouting compensated for any small insufficiencies in the telephone system.

“Chief Superintendent Bowles asked me to find you, sir. He wants you back in London as soon as may be.”

“I’m involved with the investigation here—” Rutledge began defensively.

“Yes, sir, he knows that. But we’ve found a body. Whether she’s connected with your murder or not, we can’t say. But the Chief Superintendent wants you to have a look.”

Rutledge felt cold. There was no clear reasoning behind his reaction. But he was afraid to ask the name, afraid he might already know what it was. He’d only just heard it himself.

Marianna Elizabeth Trent.

Another dead end . . .

Driving hard and fast, Rutledge reached London in the middle of the next morning. Stopping briefly at his flat to shave and change his clothes, he went in search of Sergeant Wilkerson at the Yard.

They had not worked together very often. Wilkerson was Inspector Joyce’s man, and seldom free for other assignments. Joyce, in his mid-fifties, was a plodding but thorough policeman with no expectation of advancement and no desire for any. He had said, often enough, that policework and not paperwork was his pleasure, and the higher one goes, the deeper the tonnage of paper.

Wilkerson greeted Rutledge with some surprise. “You must have driven all the night, sir. Would you care for a spot of tea brought up to your office?”

“I did.” Hamish was all that had kept him awake on the road, after Colchester. And even Hamish had lost his edge on the outskirts of London. “Yes, send someone for tea, and then come upstairs.”

The tea provided by the Yard was black and strong enough to cope with any man’s drowsiness, coating the stomach with an unspeakable sludge that held the body upright for hours.

A few minutes later, Wilkerson stepped into Rutledge’s office and took the chair by the door. He waited until the constable on his heels had delivered Rutledge’s tea before beginning his report.