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face again, noting the tiredness, the thinness. Beneath them, she realized suddenly, was a will as strong as hers.
    Rutledge listened to Hamish for a moment, heeding the warning that patience was not Lady Maude’s long suit. A change of tactics was in order.
    “Very well. I accept that. Perhaps you can help us answer a puzzling question: Why has your daughter not contacted her solicitor to sign papers relating to her inheritance? I’ve read his statement. He expressed some concern that she failed to appear at the time set in 1918. In fact, his last correspondence with her was in 1916. He has made a concerted effort to locate her in the past year, and failed. It was his anxiety that was communicated to the local police, and this year, when a query about a missing person was circulated by the Scots, it seemed prudent for them to speak to Miss Gray. If only to reassure everyone that she could be safely struck off the list. If you could provide me with her direction, I have the authority to close this matter immediately.” His attitude was cool, as if Eleanor Gray was of concern to him only if she was dead.
    “I might have guessed it was Mr. Leeds’s vexatious passion for meddling that lay behind this business. He shall hear from me!” Anger flared in Lady Maude’s eyes, deepening the color to dark violet.
    “I’d no’ like to be in his shoes, then,” Hamish reflected.
    “He, too, is required by law to carry out his duties to the best of his ability.”
    “Indeed. Involving the police is an entirely unnecessary course of action.”
    “I cannot believe that a young woman of your daughter’s rank would neglect
her
duty.” Rutledge paused and then repeated, “It is cause for concern.”
    “Nonsense. Eleanor is young, contrary. She has had some ridiculous notion that she wanted to take up the study of medicine. It was the war; it unsettled all of us. But she insisted that she was well suited to it and that her goal was to become a physician. I hoped that with the Armistice and an end to the dying, this absurd dream would be seen in a different light. My daughter is something of a romantic, I must confess. Very like her late father.”
    Rutledge, still standing, thought to himself,
We’ll have to
contact the teaching hospitals
— Aloud, he asked, “Would she have settled for nurse’s training instead?”
    “A nursing sister? Hardly that!” Impatiently, Lady Maude said, “Sit down, young man! That chair, to your left.” She crossed to the desk and took the chair behind it. As if putting a solid barrier between them. “When my daughter sets her heart on something, she’s single-minded about it. And I must tell you that she doesn’t cope well with disappointment. Eleanor has always been rather impatient of impediments and usually finds a way around them.” Lady Maude gave Rutledge a space to digest that before continuing. “Now, as for this business of climbing in Scotland—or having an illegitimate child—it’s so out of character that I am at a loss to understand how your Scottish policeman arrived at such a conclusion. The man’s an idiot. I won’t allow him in this house. Nor the local man; he’s as great a fool as they come.”
    “Your daughter never expressed an interest in climbing?”
    “Not at all. She’s not one of these robust women with an enthusiasm for athletic pursuits. She enjoys a game of tennis. And she’s very fond of riding. Before the war, she spent some time at school in Switzerland, and never indicated then or afterward that she cared for climbing. As for the other business, she has far too much respect for herself and her family to find herself in trouble.”
    The words were spoken with absolute conviction. Women of Eleanor Gray’s class were taught from birth what was expected of them. They were to be married off to the greatest advantage, social and financial. Lovers taken after marriage—with absolute discretion—were another matter. Never before it.
    The more he