“How very morally upright of you, to set the record straight. And will we have a wax effigy of Olivia in the dock, when you present your evidence to the jury?”

“No,” he said tiredly. “We’ll have a living person.”

She stared at him, her mouth moving soundlessly, as if the words were there, but her voice had failed her.

Chapter 24

24

There was a pounding at the front door, the sound traveling up the stairs like thunder, and Rutledge brushed past Rachel without a word, going out of the door and closing it behind him before crossing the hall to find Inspector Harvey waiting impatiently outside. Rather than ushering him into the house, Rutledge went out to stand in the bright sunlight beside him.

“I’m told my constable is here. That you ordered him to call off the search on the moors this morning. And that you’ve got him taking statements from witnesses in the Trevelyan Hall drawing room, rather than his office.”

“Yes, I left a message for you, explaining. I’m returning to London—”

“So you said! And what use, pray, are these statements you’ve gone to such lengths to obtain?”

“To clear the record. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Not mollified at all, Harvey retorted, “Indeed. But I shouldn’t have thought that interviewing the good citizens of Borcombe would serve any better purpose now than it did at the time of the suicides.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Rutledge agreed, watching gulls wheeling over the shoreline. He chose his words with great care. He needed Harvey’s support, but not his suspicions. “They probably can’t shed any further light on the deaths of Miss Marlowe and Nicholas Cheney. What I’m hoping they might do is give me sufficient understanding of Miss Marlowe’s state of mind over the last few years. Family affairs were worrying her—at least I have reason to believe that may be true. It could explain why, in spite of her literary success, she felt she couldn’t face living. Would you mind very much giving Dawlish an account of your discussion with her, about what makes a murderer?”

“I’d feel a fool! That was a private conversation between you and me, what I told you!”

‘‘So it was. But if Miss Marlowe’s mind was already dwelling on such matters when you came here as a police officer, such evidence might provide additional weight. I feel she carried ... a sense of guilt, for want of a better word, about the misfortunes in her family. I found some confirmation of that in her poetry as well. Gifted imaginations are often sensitive and very impressionable. They sometimes see what we overlook.”

Harvey looked searchingly at him.

“Are you having me on?” he demanded.