There was nothing more Rutledge could do that day about his promise to Nell Shaw. Nor the next, as he drove south of London and back into Kent.

But it was like a sore tooth nagging in the back of his mind. And after he had crossed Lambeth Bridge, he made his way south and east, to the part of south London where the Shaws-and the Cutters-lived. It was familiar ground, and yet as the motorcar turned down street after street, he could see that the once prosperous working-class houses were showing signs of neglect after nearly five years of war and shortages of manpower and materials. England had impoverished herself to win, and Rutledge found himself thinking that here was the invisible cost in human suffering and hardship.

Many of the factories had shut down, and the residential streets were grim in November’s gray chill. Not even a dog wandered in the gutters sniffing for scraps.

Those who could escape had done so long ago, especially those who had found a way of prospering from the war. Those who were doomed to finish out their lives here had fallen prey to despair and hopelessness.

Among them, Mrs. Shaw and, so it seemed, Henry Cutter…

Not for the first time, Rutledge asked himself how Henry Cutter’s wife had come by that missing locket.

“Ye canna’ be sure she did! There’s only one woman’s word for it.”

Rutledge replied grimly, “It wasn’t in the Shaw house when it was searched. I’d stake my career on that.”

“Aye, it’s what you’re doing.”

“The problem is, why would Shaw have given the locket to Cutter’s wife? For safekeeping when the police were crawling all over his house? It would have been safer to pitch it into the Thames.” He fell easily into the old habit of answering Hamish, of treating the voice in his head as though the dead man sat in the rear seat of the motorcar, his constant companion and a fearful presence. “Shaw wasn’t the sort to stray from home and hearth. But then no one thought he was the sort to commit murder, either.”