The rector glanced at him with a smile. “So gossip was right this morning. And you’d hardly set foot in the place.”

“Yes, but the questions I’m about to ask you aren’t for the ears of gossips. Good intentioned or ill. I want to know about the people who died. The woman and the two men. What they were like, how they lived, why they should die, so close together.”

The rector’s back was to Rutledge now, as he turned to come down the other row. “Ah. Well, that’s a long story. Do you know much about the family?”

“About the grandfather who owned the Hall. About the daughter who had three husbands and six children, only one of whom is still living. About the cousin. And about the stepson who lives in London and made his fortune. I could have learned all this from the shopkeepers and the housewives on their way to market. I need more. To satisfy London that all’s well.”

“And why should London doubt that?”

“The Home Office has been going through reports. They like to be thorough. Three deaths in one family in such a short time raises ... doubts?”

“None of those here, I can tell you that much! I don’t know of any questions raised when Olivia and Nicholas were discovered, nor any gossip that’s flown about since. And in a village like this, it’s your surest sign that all’s well. As for the death of Stephen FitzHugh, the man fell in an empty house, all the members of his party outside and accounted for. Unless you believe in ghosts, I don’t suppose there’s much to be suspicious of in that.”

“Strange that you should mention ghosts,” Rutledge said idly. “I’m told the Hall is haunted. And not by anything that can be exorcised by the church.”

The rector straightened again and looked at him. “Who has told you these tales?”

“A Scotsman, for one,” Rutledge answered.

The rector smiled. “They’re great ones for the Sight, the Scots. Has he also told you whether murder has been done?”

Touché.

“Has murder been done? Now—or in the far past?”

“Not to my knowledge,” the rector said. “And I include the confessional in that answer. No one has confessed to me, and no gossip has reached me. The house has seen a good deal of sorrow in its time. But show me a house that hasn’t been touched by grief. Especially not with the war and the influenza epidemic. You’ll see the wounded for yourself. We were spared the sickness here—the worst of it, anyway. We lost only three souls to it. But even three is too many in a village this size.”

“Tell me if you will how a woman like Olivia Marlowe, who was reclusive and knew very little of the outside world, could write such poetry?”