His tone of voice as much as Matthew’s name stopped her in her tracks, one hand outstretched as if to ward off the blow that was coming.

“He’s dead.” She said it so flatly that Constable Jordan stared at her.

“No, madam-”

The relief was almost more than she could bear. “No,” she repeated.

“Here!” For an instant he thought she was going to faint before his eyes, and he reached out for her arm. “Steady on! He’s badly injured, but he’s not dead.” Yet, he added to himself. “They’ve sent me to take you to him, I can drive if you like.”

“Drive. Yes, he doesn’t have the car, does he?” She was bewildered, trying to understand. “Where is he? At Dr. Granville’s surgery?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Stop calling me madam!” she told him irritably. “You know my name, I’m not a stranger! Wait, I was just getting my coat-”

“Where were you going, if I may ask?”

“To look for him, of course. He hasn’t been home since early morning.” And she was already on her way up the stairs, ignoring what Jordan was saying to her back. In a flash she was back with her coat, and it wasn’t until she stepped into the motorcar that she realized she’d forgotten her hat.

Inspector Bennett knocked on the door of the house that was set above the little stream meandering down to the town through a broad valley. It had once been a major river, this forlorn little stream, but over the centuries it had silted up, and farmers had taken advantage of the fertile soil to carve out pasture and tillage. More a pretty cottage than a house, really, Bennett found himself thinking as he stood there, left behind when one of the more prosperous farmers had built his family a grander home upstream. Restored in the 1890s by a man retiring from ser vice in India, it was what all ex-patriots seemed to dream of: wisteria-covered doorway, sweetly blooming in the spring, thatched roof hanging low, whitewashed stucco over stone, and behind a white fence, a front garden that in summer was filled with flowers that loved the cooler English weather-lupine and roses and sweet william and larkspur, with hollyhocks towering over the lot. The kind of garden his own grandmother had had, come to that.