Rachel left before Rutledge did, and when he came out, shutting the door behind him, he found himself face to face with the old crone who’d given him the longer directions to the house on his first morning. She stared up at him and grinned. What had Rachel called her? He couldn’t remember.

“Ye found your way, I take it?”

“Both ways, actually.”

She cackled. “Is Miss Rachel still here?”

“No, she left some time ago.”

“And you’d not be knowing, would ye, of any old rags Miss Olivia was leaving for me? They’d not be in those boxes yonder in the hall?”

“No, Mrs. Ashford packed those this morning. She’s coming to fetch them in a cart later.”

“And none in the kitchen by the back door?”

“Not that I recall.”

She sighed. “I saw the devil yesterday, and wasn’t asking the likes of him for rags. But Miss Rachel’s a lady, she’d not turn me off.”

Rutledge smiled. She might seem sharp as a tack, but her mind wandered. “I’ll ask her when I see her next.”

The old woman leaned back and looked up at the house. “I was here the day Mr. Stephen fell.”

“You were what?”

“I was here,” she said irritably. “I’d helped Mrs. Trepol with the clothes she was taking for the church bazaar—bags of them, there were, and Miss Susannah asked if I’d like the rags. For my rugs.”

He looked at the gnarled hands. “You make rugs?”

“Are ye deaf, then, young as ye are?” she retorted tartly.

“Tell me about Mr. Stephen,” he suggested hastily.

“He was in the house, looking for something. Searching high and low. I don’t know what it twas, but he was in a taking over it. Said he’d find it or know the reason why. He shouted at Mrs. Trepol, asking her if she’d moved it. And she were near to crying, telling him she’d never touch his things. And then she was going out the back door, and I heard Mr. Stephen on the stairs, a racket, and him yelling ‘Damned foot!’ And I knew the Gabriel hounds were here again, riding high through the passages and down the stairs like the demons they are. I turned away, afeerd of ‘em.”

“What you heard was his fall, then? And he was alone?”

“Except for the hounds. They were baying at him, sharp and shrill and angry.”

“Did you say anything to Mrs. Trepol? Or anyone else?”

“There was naught to say! Outside Mrs. Trepol was marching along the path with her back stiff with hurt, and inside the family was crying out and making fuss enough without me. Mr. Cormac caught up with us, going for the doctor, but didn’t say what was amiss. I didn’t like the look on his face, I can tell you, cold and dark.”