A man came out of the lodge to let the car pass through, touching his cap to Sedgwick, who responded with a nod. They wound their way through a finely wooded park, nearly as handsome as that at Hatfield, and turned to the left before sweeping up in front of a lovely old brick manor house. The wings were set back from the main block, and Elizabethan chimney pots soared into the blue of the sky. The lawn, wide and still reasonably green, ran down to a low brick wall, and beyond that the park continued to a line of trees. In the distance, a small Greek temple sat on the rising ground beyond what appeared to be a landscaped stream at the southern edge of the park. There was a feeling of old money here, and a long lineage. Nothing ostentatious, nothing new. An ideal setting, perhaps, for a newcomer to the aristocracy eager to present an appearance of having deep roots in the land.

Evans pulled up and came around to open the door for Lord Sedgwick and Rutledge. Sedgwick thanked him and led the way across the short walk to the house. A housekeeper stood ready to greet them, alerted perhaps by a bell from the gatehouse. She was a trim woman in her late fifties, with a serene face and an air of competence. She nodded calmly when Sedgwick told her there was an unexpected guest, and said, “Luncheon will be ready in ten minutes, my lord. Shall I serve it on the terrace?”

“Yes. That would be fine.”

They entered a wide, flagstoned hall. A narrow stair of age-blackened oak on the left led up to the first floor. A massive hearth, which must have been a great comfort in the damp of a Norfolk winter, covered the wall to the right. Above Rutledge’s head, the high plastered ceiling was delicately carved with Tudor roses and garlands of fruit.

At the foot of the stairs a Turkey carpet covered the floor, and there were rare Elizabethan chairs on either side of a small Jacobean table. It was quite an attractive room, little changed, Rutledge thought, from the day it was built. They preceded the housekeeper down a passage and through a doorway that led into a drawing room where long French windows looked out onto a sunlit terrace. An ornate stone balustrade reached like arms to embrace the broad, shallow stone steps that gave access to the gardens. Urns shaped like Roman amphora stood at the bottom, and in the center of the garden beyond, an aged mossy fountain spilled water into a bowl shaped like a Tudor rose. The effect was very pretty.