“I’m sorry. Yes.”

“I thought—I thought perhaps there had been an accident on the road. He wasn’t feeling well, but he went to Hastings anyway yesterday, taking the van. The shipment of varnish from London hadn’t come. Mr. Kenton asked him to see if he could find a few tins to tide them over. He shouldn’t have been driving at all, but he wouldn’t tell Mr. Kenton that. I thought—I thought he might have taken his own life. Trying not to shame us.”

Her voice failed, and Rutledge found himself thinking of Rosemary Hume. Murder was sometimes not the worst news to reach a household.

“Why did you fear he might do himself a harm?” he asked, after giving her a moment to collect herself. In another room he could hear the rattle of cups and low voices as the two banished men talked quietly.

“His stomach. It hasn’t been the same. He was always one to like his food, but now he had to watch what he ate. No cheese or rich sauces, not even an occasional curry. Nothing with spices. And he did like his mulled cider of an evening when it was cold. He had to give it all up. Only the plainest of boiled meats and potatoes and vegetables. His favorite dish was parsnips roasted in goose drippings, but he couldn’t have it. Everything was tasteless, he said, and still his stomach would reject everything sometimes, and he’d be violently ill, you could hear him all over the house. Virgil said it kept him half nauseated as well, but I felt for Theo, and lay there in bed listening to him, and praying he wouldn’t begin those terrible dry heaves that went on for hours.”

“Your brother lived with you?”

“When he first came out of hospital. There was no one else. Mum and Dad were gone, and Mary and the baby died of the Spanish influenza before ever he was wounded. That must have broken his heart, but he never mentioned them when he came home. He went to the churchyard by himself, not even asking me to come and show him where they were. And as soon as he could, he went back to the farm and lived there alone. It wasn’t a working farm anymore, but it was our home. He felt comfortable with his memories. That’s what he said. Comfortable. As if he could talk to them somehow. Mum and Dad, Mary and the baby.”

“How was the relationship between your brother and your husband?”

“Not very good,” she told him with resignation in her voice. “Theo didn’t want me to marry Virgil, you see. He thought it was pity I felt, and not love.” She hesitated, and then asked, “Was it quick? How my brother died?” She waited, braced for his answer.

“Quickly enough,” Rutledge said. “You know about the other deaths?”

“Oh, yes, it’s all over Eastfield, that’s all anyone talks about. I expect they’ll be gossiping about poor Theo now. I feel guilty, I’ve done my share of the gossiping, and now I see it wasn’t right.”