and honed down the soft fullness of a child’s face to the harsher bone structure of maturity. Edwin, sheltered of necessity, had changed the least.

The resemblance didn’t make Walter Teller Timmy’s father. But it opened avenues of thought that gave Rutledge a different perspective on what he thought he’d understood unequivocally.

After a time, he put the frames back where he’d found them, and searched cursorily through Jenny Teller’s desk. There was little of interest to him. A few letters, stationery and envelopes, stamps, and a clipped packet of paid household accounts for May.

Satisfied, he went downstairs to the study.

Walter wasn’t there. Rutledge locked the door, crossed to the desk, and methodically went through it.

Nothing there to shed light on what he was asking himself.

And then he found, among folders of mission travel records and other related material, a single folder marked simply wills.

He took that out, opened it, and scanned Jenny Teller’s last will and testament. It was, as he would have expected, very straightforward. Money inherited from her family was to be held in trust for her son, her jewelry for his wife on their wedding day, and a sum for servants past and present, another for the church in Repton. The remainder of her estate went to her husband.

Rutledge set that aside and looked at Walter Teller’s will, though he had no right to do so. It too was straightforward. The greater part of his estate went to his son, with a sum set aside for his wife until she remarried or her death. Bequests to servants, to the Repton church, to the Alcock Society, and for the upkeep of the rose garden at Witch Hazel Farm in memory of his wife. But no mention of a woman in Lancashire or St. Bartholomew’s churchyard where she and her son lay buried.

Rutledge read the last bequest again. “For the perpetual upkeep of the rose garden at Witch Hazel Farm in memory of my wife.”

And in his mind he could hear the parrot, Jake, pleased with his new if temporary quarters in Frances Rutledge’s breakfast room, overlooking the garden. Roses . . .

He put the folder back where he found it, shut the desk, and unlocked the door.

Not a moment too soon. Mollie was there, telling him that breakfast was set out in the dining room, if he cared for any.

He walked with her into the passage. “There are lovely roses blooming by the drive. I’m surprised not to see them in arrangements indoors.” In fact, now that he was aware of it, there were no cut flowers in the house at all. None of the displays that country houses could produce in abundance from their own gardens.

“Mr. Teller wasn’t fond of cut flowers indoors. He said it reminded him of flowers for a funeral. He’d seen enough of them crowding the pulpits in churches where he preached.”

“And Mrs. Teller? Was she fond of roses?”

“I don’t know, sir. She never said. She did sometimes walk up to the garden by the drive. But for the most part she left the gardening to the gardener.”

He thanked her and let her go. And then he opened the drive door and looked out. Even in the rain, the heavy dew-wet scent wafting on the slight breeze was pleasant.

Closing the door again, he walked into the dining room. But Teller wasn’t there. A plate and silverware set to one side indicated that he’d come in and eaten a little, but the dishes were hardly touched.

Rutledge put food on a plate without thinking about what he had chosen.

He was remembering Captain Teller, when Rutledge asked about Walter Teller’s will during his disappearance, saying that it would be time enough to read it when they knew his brother was dead.

And Rutledge had never pursued the question, because Walter turned up alive and well.

He went to the telephone and gave instructions to the constable at the Yard who answered. He had just put up the telephone when there was the sound of a vehicle coming down the drive.

He waited outside for it to reach the steps. Leticia pulled up the hand brake, turned off the motor, and stepped out.

“You seem to bring trouble in your wake. I see Dr. Fielding is still here. Where is my brother?”

“I haven’t seen him this past half hour.”

“He’ll be with Jenny, then,” she said decisively and went briskly past him and up the stairs.

Fielding came down shortly afterward and said, “I asked if he’d like to speak to the rector. He