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“That’s enough!” I yelled.

But she couldn’t resist a few more snips before she brushed the hair off his neck and held up a mirror for him to see the back.

“I like it,” said Casper. As if. He didn’t care what he looked like. Vanity was not something that was encouraged in a guardian angel.

I glanced at my watch. We had been here around an hour. Maybe it was safe for Anne to wake Stuart now.

When I posed the question, she said, “No bloody way. You wake him. I refuse to talk to the good-for-nothing.” She pointed down the hall. “He’s in the second room on the right.”

Should I wake him? Well, I was a paranormal investigator. I’d faced worse things that a man suffering from a hangover. I marched down the hall.

As I opened his door, the smell of stale alcohol made me pause. It was revolting but it wasn’t as bad as the Stink Spells my witch friend Wanda made for her clients. Resisting the urge to hold my nose, I entered the room.

Approaching the bed, I said, “Stuart,” very loudly.

No answer. He probably couldn’t hear me above his snores.

I moved to his side. “Stuart.” Bending over, I grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “Wake up.”

I think he said, “Please wait.” But it could just as easily have been “piss off.”

I glanced at Casper, who had followed me into the room. He was shaking his head, warning me that I would get no sense from Stuart.

I gave it one more try. “Stuart. Wake up.” Nope, this wasn’t going to work. I would have to speak to him later.

Leaving Stuart to sleep off his hangover, I thanked Anne for talking to us, but not for cutting Casper’s hair. I wasn’t that good a liar.

After leaving the MacDuffs’ cottage, Casper and I headed down Loch Road to visit McEwen’s other friend Malcolm Melville.

At least he was awake. Unfortunately he was also smoking his first cigarette of the day. He answered my questions between coughs.

“I liked McEwen on sight,” he said. “Most of the people who move here take a while to settle into village life but McEwen fit right in.”

I thought back to my first night in the village and McEwen’s drunken attempt to flirt with me. Frankly, I wouldn’t have described that as fitting in, but maybe he fit in better with the men of the village than the women. Reminding myself that I was listening to Malcolm’s opinion rather than a hard fact, I began writing in my notebook.

Malcolm told much the same story as Anne MacDuff. McEwen was divorced. He worked as a carpenter.

“For Sir Alastair,” I put in.

“Not only him.” Malcolm lit another cigarette. This time I was the one who coughed. “McEwen worked for anyone who needed him. He did jobs all around the loch.”

“Did he have a girlfriend?” I asked.

Malcolm looked uncomfortable. “For a while, but it didn’t last.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Bess MacGregor.”

I was genuinely shocked. It was hard to imagine Bess with a man like McEwen. She seemed too smart to fall for a man who drank too much. Still, I guess love makes us all a little crazy.

Making a mental note to ask her about the relationship, I asked, “When did McEwen and Bess break up?”

“A few months ago.”

“About the time Lady Justina arrived at Maitland House?”

“Aye,” he muttered.

“Was McEwen involved with Lady Justina?” I knew the answer but I wanted to see Malcolm’s reaction.

He stared at me as though I’d gone crazy. “Lady Justina was married.” The shocked morality of his answer surprised me.

Trying to provoke a reaction, I said, “That wouldn’t stop most men. Not if she was willing.”

Malcolm drew hard on his cigarette. “Sir Alastair would kill anyone who touched his wife. I mean that literally. Och—maybe that’s what happened to McEwen. Maybe he did have an affair with Lady Justina.”

Only in his dreams. Despite the best efforts of Hollywood to persuade us otherwise, in my experience women in their twenties rarely have affairs with fifty-eight-year-old men. Unless the men are billionaires. Some people will do anything for a buck.

Referring back to Malcolm’s suggestion that Sir Alastair might have killed McEwen, I said, “I saw McEwen’s body. It’s unlikely Sir Alastair