Sims swore. “To hurt her would be like hurting a child!”

May Trent said, “I shudder to think—it was so wild that night, when we went down. She’d have had no idea, what to do—” She stopped, waited until her voice was steady again, and went on. “But there had been a great deal of talk about the ship. She might have been attracted to the idea of sailing home on a famous ship. It would have made it easier for her to plan. . . .”

“Then what did Herbert Baker Confess?” Rutledge asked. “If he’d only helped her to find a train to London, he didn’t share in the guilt of her death.”

Hamish said morosely, “We’re back to who paid for the care of his ill wife?”

Baker had even asked the Vicar if it was possible to love someone too much—

The question was, if one of the Sedgwicks had plotted Virginia’s disappearance, which one had it been? Arthur? Edwin? Or Lord Sedgwick himself?

Rutledge could feel the weariness that dragged at him like an anchor.

When the story got out that Herbert Baker had sent for a priest as well as the Vicar, had someone been terrified that the past would come back to life if the priest delved too deeply in it?

It was a strong enough motive for murder. If you’d killed before.

When they neared Osterley, a low mist hung over the marshes and the dips and twists of the road, the verges vanishing and reappearing like links in a chain. The dampness in the air sometimes produced a passing squall.

Rutledge stopped again at the Randal farm, unwilling to leave that loose end unraveled. Over the protests of his weary passengers, he got out and went to hammer on the door.

A ragged and battered figure came stomping around the corner of the house, yelling obscenities.

Rutledge stared.

Randal was bloody from a dozen cuts and scratches on his face and hands. Bruises marked his jawline and his left arm was held close to his body.

“The mare’s run into the ground, damn you, and that bitch done her best to kill me! I’m flipping lucky to be able to walk!” The farmer’s anger was a live thing, too long pent up. He kicked out at the corner of the house, then kicked again. “I’ll be seeing that solicitor in the town. I’ll be wanting somebody to pay for last night’s piece of work!”

Rutledge said, “Walsh is dead. The mare killed him.”

“Good on her! So the constable told me when I rode home by way of West Sherham. It serves the bastard right, and I hope he rots in hell where he belongs, the son—”

He looked up and saw the woman in the car in the drive. “Is that the bitch—” He started forward.