So he had. Rutledge thanked her and went out into the brisk wind that had arisen, thinking he ought to have brought his coat. But he didn’t have the energy to go back for it. Hamish warned him that he was in no shape to drive, either, and Rutledge said curtly, “I don’t have much choice!”

“You willna’ die. I’ll no’ let you die. Still—what if you kill someone else?”

It was not a pleasant thought.

He carried with him the directions that Mrs. Barnett had taken down from the man telephoning the hotel on behalf of Priscilla Connaught. The most direct route would have sent him back through Hurley, where Walsh had been found, but he chose instead to turn left out of Water Street and head east, then south and west again. He found himself wondering if this had—roughly—been the path Walsh had followed, too. It would explain to some degree why the man hadn’t got as far as Rutledge had expected. And on such an erratic course, it would have taken luck, a phenomenal amount of luck, for Priscilla Connaught to have caught up with him. . . .

Hamish said, “It wouldna’ do any harm to stop and see if the mare’s at the barn.”

Rutledge thought, “Let Blevins attend to it,” but as he neared the cottage he slowed and turned into the drive, bumping down the ruts to the barn.

The instinct that had served him so well in the past had been erratic since the War, as if deserting him and then finding him again. He tried not to turn his back on it when it stirred and woke.

A dog barked furiously at him, the yellow dog he’d seen the night before. It ran out of the barn, stiff-legged, its upper lip curled back from teeth that seemed to gleam in the pale light.

Rutledge stopped the motorcar some twenty feet from the barn, set the brake, and opened his door.

Hamish said something, but he ignored it.

Speaking to the animal quietly, his voice firm and ordinary, Rutledge said, “Good dog—good dog. There’s a good dog. Come here. That’s it, easy, my friend, no one means you any harm.” Matching his movements to the cadence of his speech, he got out to stand beside the car, slowly sinking to his haunches.

“Here, now, there’s a good dog. I won’t harm your master. Is he at home?”