“She was an intelligent woman. She tried to believe he’d been taken away—or run away and been lost, then found and not returned. It kept hope alive in her heart, and she told James the boy would turn up, wait and see! That he’d gone off to join the army, and some farmer or carter would be bringing him back soon enough, tired and hungry.”

“And Miss Olivia?”

Dr. Penrith frowned. “Now there was an odd thing, you know. Miss Olivia never cried. She went out with the searchers, riding a pony because of her bad leg, and was gone all that day and the next, until I met her on one of the roads and sent her home. I’ve never seen a child look so tired; I thought she’d made herself ill again. But she stared at me, then said, ‘Richard wanted a tombstone with an angel on it. He told me so. I want to buy one, just a small one, to remember him by. Can you tell me how much it will cost?’ “

“How did you answer her?” Rutledge asked, intrigued.

“That they don’t put up tombstones until they have the body, and she said, quite seriously, ‘But that’s not true. There are markers in the churchyard for any man lost at sea.’ She had a raging fever by the time they got her home, and I heard no more about angels and tombstones.”

Rutledge found himself thinking of a poem in one of the earlier volumes. It began,

They stood an angel in the churchyard for the man they

lost at sea,

But for him I loved so dearly, there was never place for me

To come and mourn his passing, touch the earth beneath

my hand,

Or bring him blood-red roses ...

He tried to recall the last lines and failed.

But Hamish, the soft Scottish burr clear in his voice, provided them for him.

Alas, a frailer angel watches where you sleep

With pansies—for remembrance—lying at your feet.

Olivia herself had known where Richard lay—find him there, and the case was made!

When tea was brought, Rutledge asked about James Cheney’s death, and Dr. Penrith shook his head sadly. “I couldn’t tell Rosamund how he died. And at least he’d had sense enough to put the barrel to his temple and not in his mouth, for all the world to know what he’d been about! But who can say whether it was accidental or not, whether the thought came to him suddenly and he hadn’t the will to turn it aside. One round was all he had put in the cylinder, and he used it. To end the pain. That was my guess.”

“Who was in the house that day?”