She took off the brake, let in the gear and the car moved briskly off down the road. She didn’t look back. He watched her handle the car around the curve, his mind on her driving, judging whether he’d made the right decision to send her. But there was no one else who could have persuaded Susannah.

Hamish, lurking in the shadows, said only, “Play with witchcraft, and you’ll burn yourself.”

“It isn’t witchcraft,” Rutiedge answered harshly. “It’s the only way I can think of to get at the truth!”

There was an echo of the engine from the narrow hedgerows, although the car had long since vanished to sight. Rut-ledge started to turn back towards the inn, then looked up to find Mary Otley watching him from the doorway of the cottage.

“You haven’t put her in harm’s way, have you, sir?” she asked.

“No. With any luck, I’ve put her out of it,” he answered, and walked back to the inn for his breakfast.

“The constable’s still at his breakfast, sir,” Mrs. Dawlish said, opening her front door to the Inspector from London.

“I’ll just come through and have a word with him in the kitchen,” he said, gently pushing the door wider. “If you don’t mind.”

She did, but was too polite to say so, though he could read her face clearly enough.

The constable stood up hastily, napkin still stuck under his chin, as Rutledge came down the passage and turned into the kitchen. It was a large room, with windows on two sides and a door into the back passage at the rear, next to the great polished black stove. A table with the remains of breakfast and an unexpectedly bright bowl of zinnias stood in the very middle of the room. A vast Cornish dresser took up most of one wall, the pantry through a door beyond, and against the other wall the smaller, scraped wood top of the cooking table shone in the light from the east. The curtains at the windows, the pattern on the tablecloth, and the walls themselves were all a summer blue, as if somehow to bring the color of the sea into the house.

“Sir!” he said in alarm.

“It’s all right, Dawlish. I’ve just come to tell you that you can call off the search on the moors. This morning.”

The man’s face brightened. “Then you’ve given it up, sir? All this nonsense about the Trevelyan family? You’re going back to London?”

“There are some loose ends to tie up. Some statements I’ll need, to cover the questions I seem to have raised. You won’t mind helping with those?”

“No, sir, not in the least,” Dawlish said expansively, willing to do cartwheels if it got rid of the inconvenient man from London and put Inspector Harvey into a pleasanter mood. “Whatever you wish, I’ll be happy to help.”