He called to the woman staring down at him, pitching his voice so that it carried to her but didn’t rouse neighbors on either side.

“I’m looking for Constable Walker.”

“Come in,” Mrs. Sanders called after a moment. “I never lock my door.”

He turned and lifted the latch. The door swung open easily, and he stepped into a narrow dark passage. To one side, stairs climbed to the first floor. To the other, shut doors led into two rooms, and then a third door closed off the passage at the far end.

He took the stairs two at a time, and rounded the railing toward the open door of the room that overlooked the street.

A chair stood by the window, and in it sat the woman he’d glimpsed from below, cushioned and pillowed and covered with a quilted comforter.

She turned her head to smile at him, the wrinkles in her face smoothing across her withered cheeks. But the eyes in that face were neither clouded nor dim. They were the color of pansies, almost a purple they were so dark a blue. Her well-brushed white hair, drawn back into a smooth braid that lay over one shoulder, looked like a pale halo in the shadow of the curtain.

“Come in, young man. You must be the policeman from London. I’ve seen you come and go from the station with Constable Walker.”

“Yes, I’m Inspector Rutledge. Mrs. Sanders?”

“Indeed I am. There’s a chair behind you. Do sit down.”

He sat. “I’m trying to find the constable. Unaccountably, the station is locked.”

“So it is. He came out shortly after midnight and walked away. I think he locked the door as a precaution.”

“A precaution?”

“He was afraid those who were inside would try to leave.”

Rutledge felt a surge of sheer relief. “He’s kept the six men locked up inside?”

“Oh, yes, but it wasn’t an easy task. I could hear the yelling last night. My guess is, that’s why Constable Walker left. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes or my ears. Only my limbs have given out.”

“I believe you. Do you sit at that window every night?”

“And every day, except when I take my meals. I’m nosey, you see. And I have the world spread out before me here. I don’t need much sleep. I doze when I feel like it, and the rest of the time, I watch. It can be quite entertaining. Eventually the whole town passes beneath my window or across the street from me.”

“You gave Constable Walker a statement regarding the lorry driver—” He had been about to say, the driver who found the first body, but broke off.