He found her shivering in her coat. “I’m so very glad to see you!” she exclaimed. “It’s been more than five minutes— I thought you weren’t coming at all.”

“I was safe enough.”

She laughed nervously. “It’s been frightful, out here in the dark. I’ve seen and heard all kinds of things! Mostly my overworked imagination, but that’s small comfort.”

He turned the crank, and when he took his place beside her, behind the wheel, she said, “Where’s Peter? We aren’t going to leave him, are we? It’s a long, wet walk back to Osterley.”

“Actually, he was outside the French windows. Just beyond the terrace. He knows where to meet me.”

He waited. The rain dripped from the trees as the wind stirred them. And somewhere, they could hear what sounded like a woman crying. It was a peacock, out on the grounds, but May Trent caught his arm. “I’m frightened. More frightened than I was in there!”

“You shouldn’t be. That was a very brave thing to do in there. Facing your demons in front of the Sedgwicks.”

“I didn’t face any demons. I lied, for Father James’s sake,” she confessed. “Listening to what was being said, I suddenly realized what it was that he’d actually expected me to remember. I did it for him. I think he’d already guessed that she wasn’t on board. She couldn’t have been, could she, if she was already dead? Father James had talked to Herbert Baker by that time, and he was nearly sure. But he hoped I could give him proof—”

Rutledge took out his watch, but couldn’t see the face in the darkness.

“Shouldn’t we return to Osterley soon?”

“It’s barely been a quarter of an hour. Give it a little longer.”

“Give what a little longer?” she said, her gloved hands snuggled into her coat pockets for warmth.

“I’m not sure.”

It was nearly forty-five minutes later when Hamish, behind him, heard something. Rutledge stiffened, straining to catch the direction of the footfalls.

Then Peter Henderson walked swiftly around the corner of the house and climbed into the rear seat. “He’s coming,” Henderson said.

“Who’s coming?” May Trent asked. “It’s Edwin you’re waiting for, isn’t it?”

Still they waited. And then the door of the house opened on a long rectangle of light that seemed to reach toward them. A man stepped out into the silvery path it made across the wet slate walk.

He seemed relieved to find Rutledge there. He came to stand beside the motorcar, looking in at Rutledge, the rain falling harder now, like tears on his face.

It was Arthur Sedgwick.