The sunlight flashed across the raised sail as Rutledge laid it with the others he had spread out on the wooden win-dowsill, and in spite of the warmth that poured through the glass panes, he felt cold.

He knew exactly what these were.

He had seen dozens of collections like them, in the trenches in France. A button from the greatcoat of a German officer, goggles from a downed airman, stripes from the sleeves of corporals and sergeants, collar tabs from officers, a battered Prussian helmet, a pistol taken from a corpse, an empty ammo belt from a machine gunner’s nest, whatever a man fancied ...

When his mind stubbornly refused to frame the words, Hamish did it for him.

“Trophies of the dead,” he said softly.

Small golden treasures, very personal and surely very precious, that marked each of Olivia Marlowe’s unwitting victims.

Chapter 10

10

Rutledge forced himself to walk away from the things he’d found, and instead to go through the motions required of him.

He began with the olive wood desk on its graceful, delicate legs. In the several drawers he found stationery in various sizes, engraved, and matching envelopes, bottles of ink, scissors, a box of visiting cards with Rosamund’s name on them, a book of accounts for shops in London and in Borcombe, a leather notebook with stamps and addresses—none of them of special interest—and the usual clutter of pens and pencils. The only truly personal item was a wooden pen holder, hand carved, in the shape of a monster fish, the kind drawn on ancient maps at the edge of the known world, where they waited to swallow unwary ships. On the bottom, following the curve of a tiny scale, he found the initials NMC/OAM. From Nicholas to Olivia. Or to O. A. Manning?

The bottom drawer on the left side was empty.

The dressing table, the tall chest, the bureau, and the bedside table yielded more personal things, perfume and cosmetics, combs and brushes, odds and ends of jewelry, filmy lingerie, silk scarves and stockings, lacy handkerchiefs, and a prayer book, candles, and matches. Nothing out of the ordinary in any way, though sometimes intimate and daunting.

He knew, from what Rachel had told him, that the family had already taken away the things that made a room personal and individual—pictures and photographs and possessions with a particular value that wouldn’t be put up for sale with the house. But perhaps out of respect for Stephen’s insistence, much of Olivia’s life still survived in this room.

Yet Olivia had been careful to leave nothing behind for either the police or her biographers that could be construed— or misconstrued—into the woman who’d lived in this room.