“Why should I frighten Sims?” Edwin demanded. “I reserved that for Holston, who knew Father James too well. It was very likely Peter Henderson who hung about the vicarage, not me. But yes, I was coming back from Cley on my motorcycle when I saw Walsh hurrying toward the church.” He glanced at his watch. “Your time is up. It doesn’t matter to us what you do with the knowledge you have. The risk is yours. Your medical history might be of interest in certain quarters. And prospects for publication of Miss Trent’s manuscript may be unexpectedly limited. What else lurks in your future is, of course, unforeseeable.”

“I spent four years in the trenches,” Rutledge answered contemptuously. “I daresay I shall survive the Sedgwick family. I’d set my house in order if I were you.”

He turned to look one last time through the rain-streaked panes of the French doors and across the wet lawns of the lovely unseen gardens. Then he walked unmolested between Edwin and Arthur and over the threshold.

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 29

BUT IT WAS ON THE THRESHOLD that Rutledge stopped, facing the elegant room and its three occupants. “Let me remind you, gentlemen, that there are many ways that a man can be judged. I leave you to the tender mercies of the Watchers out there in the dark. When you begin to feel them—and you will—you’ll start to turn on each other. It will happen. It’s only a matter of time.”

A stolid wall of baneful resistance met him. Sedgwick was flushed now, a look of frustration and malevolence in his face. Arthur was resigned, his eyes on the carpet, but there was no remorse in his stance. Edwin, first looking from his father to his brother, turned on Rutledge a hungry glance. He was already bringing to bear a formidable determination.

For an instant, Rutledge thought Edwin might be the first to break ranks.

But the moment passed.

Rutledge leaned against the closed door, feeling the cool rain, breathing in the damp, heavy air.

It wasn’t finished yet.

Concerted murder. It was, as Monsignor Holston had claimed, violent and primeval. This family cared for nothing but their power, their will. It had made them implacable, cold-blooded. Virginia Sedgwick had been doomed from the day her husband discovered he’d been deceived. Her family was to blame, too—for their selfishness in pushing a bewildered child into the ranks of Consuela Vanderbilt and Jennie Randolph: a fortune traded for a title, nevermind happiness.

Hamish said, of the night, “I didna’ think they would let you go.”

Rutledge answered, “They haven’t. They just didn’t want to dirty the carpets.”

A voice out of the rain called tentatively, “Inspector Rutledge?”

He had forgotten that May Trent was waiting in the motorcar.