Rutledge said wearily, “Arthur killed his wife, didn’t he? And you, Lord Sedgwick, killed Father James. But it was Edwin who killed Walsh. Arthur’s back won’t allow him to ride that strenuously. And you were busy ordering your staff to search the house and grounds, the outbuildings and the sheepfolds.” He paused. He’d blended conjecture and experience and intuition in a unholy weave of truth. But he didn’t want to hear the answer to his last question. “In God’s name—why!”

“She was a pretty ninny who charmed the men around her,” Lord Sedgwick replied, “but couldn’t hold a fiveminute conversation with anyone. Much less conduct a household properly. She had the attention span of a ten-year-old. She had no idea that she could conceive a child just as half-witted as she was.” He shook his head. “Her mother swore to Arthur after the wedding that she’d had a fever as a child. I discovered later that there had been a cousin and an aunt who were also mentally deficient. It was a trick from the start—and Arthur here thought he’d discovered Guinevere!” Sedgwick’s voice was sour with anger. “Do you have any idea what it’s like, living every day of every year with someone as stupid as she was? The endless repetitions. The tantrums. The constant refrain of ‘But why can’t I?’ as if God had given her the keys to the bloody universe! Edwin or I kept an eye on her when Arthur was abroad. But even that was getting to be difficult. Arthur drew the short straw, as it were. He’d married her, after all. We never asked how or where it happened.”

“And,” said Edwin for the first time, “Baker didn’t know either. Only that she wouldn’t be going all the way. The day we buried that damned empty coffin, he promised my father he’d never speak of what happened. We expected him to carry whatever he thought he knew to his grave. Instead he made himself the laughingstock of Osterley when he died shriven by two clergymen! Too many people began to wonder why.”

Rutledge said, his mind working at speed, “When you were playing night games outside the vicarage windows, to keep Sims silent, did you see Walsh dragging his chains to the garden shed?”