Walker smiled. “How would she think that? You weren’t in Eastfield that night.”

Had Walker said as much to Hubbard? Rutledge wondered.

“She claims she saw someone in a motorcar meet Mickelson by the churchyard and then take him up. If she’s right, then that someone owns a motorcar very much like mine.”

“Now that’s odd,” Walker said, the smile vanished. “As I remember, that’s what Daniel Pierce drives. Only it’s dark green. I didn’t know he’d come back to this part of the world.”

“It’s not an unusual motorcar,” Rutledge pointed out. “But I rather think Mrs. Farrell-Smith is afraid it did belong to Pierce.”

“I didn’t think she knew him.”

“How well do you remember Daniel as a child? Was he bullied by the older boys? Or was he spared because he was Pierce’s son?”

“If they did bully him, it never came to my ears. I do remember a time or two when Daniel came home from school bloodied, and his father was angry with Anthony for not protecting him. Anthony told his father that Daniel had deliberately started the fight.”

Daniel as the aggressor didn’t make sense. Rutledge said, “Did Pierce come to you?”

“I was young and green. I talked to Daniel, but he was stubborn even then. I got nowhere. But I told his father I thought he’d learned his lesson.”

“I want you to bring in two or three of the men we incarcerated. I’ll talk to them, see what they can tell me.”

“Now?”

“Before dark. I’ll see that they reach home safely afterward.”

He left Walker and went to the hotel, where he was given a room. He asked if Inspector Mickelson’s room was on the same floor, and the young woman behind the desk said, “He’s—he was—in number seventeen. Constable Petty and then a man named Hubbard were here, asking about it.”

“I’d expected as much,” he said, smiling. He took his key and went up the stairs two at a time. It didn’t take him long to discover that his key also fit number seventeen, after a little jiggling. He opened the door and stepped inside.

The bedclothes were turned down, but the bed hadn’t been slept in. Mickelson’s clothes were hung tidily in the wardrobe, and his razor, toothbrush, and soap were on the washstand. The towels on the side rack appeared to be fresh, untouched.

Where had Mickelson gone between his evening meal and that appointment at the rectory gates?

Rutledge opened the desk drawer. There was stationery inside, and a few sheets had been used to jot down notes. Rutledge read through them.

For the most part they consisted of brief references to what he, Rutledge, had done while in Eastfield: R to Pierce, R to rectory, R to F-S, K to R, as Mickelson retraced his predecessor’s steps.