He had been so sure of his evidence and Nettle’s. So thoroughly convinced of the man’s guilt was he that his certainty was palpable in the courtroom. A well-thought-out investigation, the judge had applauded in his summation to the jury. For there had been no reason to connect the Cutters with the three women. Certainly, no evidence in that direction!

What could have been Henry Cutter’s motive for murder? His style of living hadn’t altered, but the Shaws’ had.

After the sudden death of Inspector Nettle, Rutledge had interviewed the neighbors again, including Henry and Janet Cutter. Nettle had been in increasingly severe pain for several days, covering it with wry humor and massive doses of cathartics. He often scrawled his notes in a shaking hand that was hard to follow. Rutledge had left nothing to chance. He had backtracked to substantiate each fact.

Mrs. Cutter had not had kind words to say for Mrs. Shaw (“a nosy and overbearing woman with few saving graces”), but she claimed that Mr. Shaw had never demonstrated any vicious tendencies that would account for his killing elderly women. “Kind to animals, and all that,” she’d said to Rutledge, bewildered. “A good father, too, and he put up with that wife of his when no one else would. Always after him to do better with his life, provide for his family. It doesn’t seem right that the smallest sign of wickedness didn’t show in his face or his ways! How are we to know, I ask you, if there’s no sign to warn us?”

And then she had added, almost as an afterthought, that last damning sentence. “And he did provide for his children. It hasn’t been six months since they were put in better schools, never mind the cost!” She had repeated it for Rutledge’s edification. “Not six months!”

The first murder had occurred just seven months before…