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her voice. “You mustn’t worry. What brings you into the garden on such a morning, anyway?”
    “The window,” I replied, motioning up toward the bedroom. “I thought I heard something there last night. You don’t know anything about rodents or birds on the roof, do you?”
    “Heavens, no. Though the house belonged to my husband, and I’ve only taken it over since he died. I don’t know much of anything about those sorts of things at all. I don’t even come out here often, as it’s so far at the end of the road. Was it very bad?”
    “Halloo!” came another voice over the wall.
    We all turned. Edward Bruton came through the gate carrying a paper sack in each hand. “I knocked at the front, miss,” he said to me, “but no one answered, and when I heard voices, I came ’round. I thought you could do with some supplies from town.”
    I tried to decline, but he waved me away and said he had a few things in his cart anyway, which he may as well give to me, as they were entirely extra and he had no idea what he would do with them otherwise. I could do nothing but accept in the end, as he would have it no other way, though I did manage to convince him that I could light the stove myself. No, he hadn’t heard of any rodents on the roof, though if I needed him to do so, he could check in a jiffy. He’d done some light work around Barrow House when Mrs. Kates needed it, hadn’t he?
    Mrs. Kates agreed with this, though she had notably ceased talking. Julia, predictably, said nothing. And after Edward Bruton had gone—kindly without mention of my horrid appearance—Mrs. Kates turned to me with a new look in her eye, that of the gossip who had been waiting for her subject to leave.
    “And how did you meet Edward already?” she asked me.
    “Last night, on the road into town. He gave me directions.”
    “I see. He’s had a hard time since the war, you know. His father left the business in a terrible state—he had health problems, and he got taken in by some sort of phony investment scheme, not that I understand such things. In any case, poor Edward came home to financial ruin. But he’s been working hard since then, and I think things have turned around. He hasn’t taken a wife yet, but I believe he has an eye on my Julia.”
    “Mother!” Julia cried in anguish, the first word I’d heard her say.
    “I see,” I said, wondering madly what was expected. “He seems very kind.”
    “Yes, he is. My dear, we simply must be on our way. It’s been a pleasure. Julia, come with me.”
    I watched them go, the girl slouching with embarrassment as she followed her mother. Mrs. Kates stopped and turned. “By the way, it’s a strange thing. I don’t have a key to the house. I set it down when I was in the house last, and I forgot it. Have you seen it lying about?”
    “I’m afraid I haven’t,” I said. “I have the one given me by the solicitor.”
    “Yes, that was your uncle’s. I kept my own—until I misplaced it, that is. You haven’t seen it?”
    “Sorry, no.”
    “Well. Do keep an eye for it, if you would. I really will need both sets of keys back at the end of the month.”
    “I understand.”
    Inside, I finally lit the stove and put on tea—Edward Bruton, bless him, had brought some—grateful for the silence again. As kind as they were, I could see how small-town neighbors could be exhausting.
    As I poured the tea, I looked at the watch and the book on the table again. In the mundane light of day, they were less unsettling. It was strange to find the book in the stove, certainly—but it wasn’t inexplicable. Toby could have put it there in an absent moment. As for the watch, it had been left on the table; that was all. The sounds outside my window last night were made by some sort of rodent, and I’d turned the sounds into nightmares because of my grim, depressed mood. The experience in Barnstaple had made me see things, feel things that weren’t there.
An accident. It was an accident; that