“Even I have felt the emotions in that house! I was moved by O. A. Manning’s poetry, I was shocked by the manner of the poet’s death, I was personally involved in a way that an ordinary policeman wouldn’t have been. And I’m not by nature one to look for moods or—what is it that the crackpots call it?—vibrations? I don’t believe in ghosts, either. But Tre-velyan Hall is haunted, in a sense that you and I both accept.”

Chambers still didn’t answer, but his face was paler, strained.

“I survived in those hellholes they called trenches for four years. It seemed like forty—a lifetime. I learned to trust my intuition. Men who didn’t often died. I was lucky to possess it in the first place, and war honed it. I learned that it wasn’t a figment of my imagination. Nor was it a replacement for the God I’d lost. Whatever it was, you came to recognize it. An inkling, a warning, a sudden flash of caution, a split-second insight that saved your life. Indisputably real, however unorthodox the means of reaching you. It gave you an edge on death, and you were grateful. Then I lost it for a time, it doesn’t matter why. But it hasn’t failed me completely, and I can tell you why you’re afraid to go back to that house. You know that Rosamund’s death haunts you there. You can feed yourself lies down in Plymouth. But not here. Not in the house itself!”

Rutledge could see the clenched jaw. The desperate rejection. In his own head Hamish was clamoring for him to leave the man in peace—

“It was an accidental overdose!”

The words, when they finally came, seemed to be torn from the depths of Chambers’ soul.

“No.” Rutledge waited, relentless. “Rosamund didn’t make such mistakes. She was a strong woman. She was sunshine and light, not despair and darkness. It wasn’t suicide, and it wasn’t an accidental overdose.”

“I refuse to accept murder!”

“Because you believe that murder, if it was done, was your fault. For loving Rosamund. For wanting to marry her. For winning her love. Just as suicide could mean a rejection of your love, murder means someone wanted to prevent another stepfather in the house, another family. Another long wait for whatever it was he—or she—wanted badly enough to kill for.”

Hamish was saying in agitation, “Where did this notion come from? You never spoke of it before!”

In the tumult of his own emotions, Rutledge tersely answered the voice aloud. “I didn’t know before. But it makes sense now. I see the pattern!”