A small locket, gold, the sort of thing little girls often wore. He took it over to the window, where the light was better. There were entwined initials on the outer face of the locket, and he made them out—MAM. Margaret Anne Marlowe? His fingers found the delicate catch and he opened the frame to two tiny portraits inside. They were in oil, lovely little miniatures of a man and a woman. After a moment he recognized them. Rosamund and her first husband, Captain George Marlowe. Anne’s parents. An exquisite gift to a child on her birthday or at Christmas, to be worn when she was dressed up, with special care.

How had it come to be hidden among Olivia’s things? Or had Olivia simply inherited it when her sister died, and lost track of it over the years?

Rutledge went back to the closet and brought the shelves out again, then the boxes and the shoes. On hands and knees, then standing, he searched every inch of the walls and the floor.

Nothing. Except for the half inch sliver of wood that had been knocked off the bottom shelf by his clumsiness.

He picked up the shelf, looking to see where the chip had come from, and if he could put it back where it belonged.

It was the end of a longer strip of wood that had been set very carefully into the back edge of the heavy shelf. With his penknife he gently pried that out of its slot, and when he did, another object tumbled out of the space hollowed out behind,

He picked up that and the shelf, and carried them both to the windows.

The second object was a man’s gold pipe cleaner, smooth from long use, but the initials engraved in it were still legible. JSC. James Cheney, Nicholas’s father? He set that on the sill beside the locket.

Holding the shelf up to the light, he looked into the carved-out hollow. Someone had stuffed cotton deep inside it, and embedded within the soft fibers he could see bits and pieces of other articles. The sun caught them in its brightness, as if pointing to them. He winkled them out, slowly and gently.

First came a small boy’s cuff buttons, heavy gold and again with initials engraved on them. RHC. Richard Cheney? Behind them was a lovely little signet ring, that looked as if it had been crafted for a child. And carved deeply into the face of the ring was a coat of arms. Inside, engraved in the band itself, were the initials REMT. Rosamund Trevelyan. A gold crucifix came out easily, finely wrought, with the figure a little worn. From the letters on the reverse, it had belonged to Brian FitzHugh. Finally, at the very back, a watch fob in the shape of a small boat, with the initials NMC. Nicholas.