Rutledge winced but said, “If people told the truth the first time they were questioned, we’d have less need to pry. But lying shrouds what people say in layers of darkness. These have to be peeled away, and sifted, and verified, and even set aside as intentional misdirection.”

Playing with the bread beside her plate, she said, “I can’t believe that! Most people are honest enough, aren’t they?” She had rolled two small marbles of the bread before she realized what she was doing.

“Were you honest with me, earlier this evening?”

She flushed and said, “I was protecting my own secrets, not those of Father James.”

He hesitated. “If I come to you tomorrow and ask you if you killed Father James, will you tell me the truth?”

“Of course! Why should I not? I’m innocent.”

“Would you tell me the truth if you had—for reasons I couldn’t fathom—struck him down and left him to die on the floor in his own blood?”

Something stirred at the back of her eyes. “I’m not mad. I know you’d hang me, if I told you that. But that isn’t the same as prying! It isn’t the same as demanding the name of the woman in that photograph, when—when speaking of that ship digs into my shadows, not hers.”

She held up a hand to stop him from answering her. “How would you respond if I asked you about the War? You were in the fighting, weren’t you? You did see bodies blown apart and bones protruding from flesh, your friends cut in half by machine-gun fire, and nothing but blood where their chests used to be? You did kill people, didn’t you? How does it feel to watch a man die as you shoot him—?”

With a sharp intake of breath, Rutledge got up from the table, and went to the window. The street was dark, the last of the light gone, and the quay empty, save for a small marmalade cat, trotting along sniffing the air.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” she began, startled by his reaction. And then she lifted her chin, a little trick she had when she was defiant. “No, that’s not true! I did mean to hurt. I wanted you to know how your wretched questions tormented me!”

“Touché,” Rutledge told her quietly.

May Trent did not take her tea in the parlor with Rutledge. She went up the stairs without looking back.

But something in the set of her shoulders suggested that she was crying.

Unable to sleep, Rutledge walked out to the quay, to look up at the stars. A whiff of pipe smoke made him turn in time to see Dr. Stephenson coming in his direction.