Rutledge took a moment to look around him. It was a friendly room, painted a very pale green, like early spring leaves, and the curtains at the windows were a rose pink. Feminine, in a way, but not exclusively so. Had Mrs. Wainer had a voice in choosing the colors? Most certainly she had a hand in its care. The great iron stove was polished like rare furniture, the table well scrubbed beneath the hanging lamp, the stone sink empty of unwashed dishes. A small rag rug lay by the door, for wiping feet. It, too, was spotless.

She was saying to him, “Father always came in by the back. He left his bicycle in the shed, then stood his boots there by the door, on the little rug, and hung his coat on a peg if it was wet. I’ve known him to walk through the house in his stockinged feet, rather than dirty my floors. He was that thoughtful! And then he’d go up to his room, to wash up if he needed to or to leave his coat if it was dry. If the meal wasn’t ready, he’d work at his desk, or if there were visitors, he’d come back down to the parlor to speak with them.”

“Other people would know this was his habit? To come in through the kitchen door?”

She smiled. “I shouldn’t wonder if half the village did the same. Tradesmen come to the kitchen door, and a neighbor bringing over an extra loaf from her baking or a jar of pickles or jam she’d just put up. A man would never think of walking into the front hall with muck on his shoes, or children running in from the rain. I daresay there’s not a kitchen door in Osterley that’s ever locked, though there’s the key on the nail just beside it. There was no need—”

Without warning her face crumpled, the smile dissolving into a grimace of pain. “He was like my own son. I’ve such grief I don’t know how to cope with it.” Turning away, she fought to keep her voice steady. “If that’s everything, I’ll go home now. I shouldn’t have stayed this long. . . .”

Rutledge thanked her gently and walked back through the house to let himself out the front door. Halfway down the passage he heard a sob and hesitated. But her grief was private. There was nothing he could do or say to assuage it.

And his place in Osterley was clearly marked out—he came and went a stranger by the door at the front of the house.

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 9