“Yes, ma’am, although I don’t understand why Mr. Dobble is—well, he’s—well, you’ll see,” Stanley said. “Would you come with us, Mrs. Bright?”

Of course she would come with them, she replied, and rather grateful to no longer have to sit and talk over yet again the details of her fledgling investigation, Phyllida hurried along with her staff.

She found Mr. Dobble in the rectory kitchen, sitting in much the same way he’d been this morning when she found him in his pantry: looking into the distance at nothing. A cup of coffee—not tea—sat next to him, which also indicated something greatly amiss.

“All right, off with you,” Phyllida said to the others. “I’m certain there’s work to be done—see to the stragglers in the church. Perhaps the rain will stop in short order and we can resume the festival.”

Having thus cleared the others out of the kitchen, Phyllida took a seat across from Mr. Dobble.

“What’s happened?” she asked, although she had a niggling suspicion she already knew.

He started and looked up at her, his expression shifting from surprise to irritation to glumness. “The inspector has arrested Mr. Billdop for the murder of Father Tooley and the attempted murder of Alastair Whittlesby.”

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 11

PHYLLIDA WAS FULLY AWARE OF THE CLOSE FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN Mr. Dobble and Mr. Billdop. She’d suspected for some time that it might be something more than mere chess-playing on a weekly basis, and Mr. Dobble’s reaction certainly supported such a possibility.

Having been on the front lines with the troops—terrified and lonely men who’d done whatever they had to do to survive, remain sane, and find love and affection during the horrors of war—Phyllida had seen and experienced many things that would have appalled or scandalized her prim and proper Victorian ancestors. However, she herself had always lived by the tenet that what happened privately between two individuals was their business, as long as no one was hurt or injured.

With this knowledge and experience weighing upon her, along with her collaboration and association with Mr. Dobble, she chose her approach carefully. “Inspector Cork is wrong, of course. The vicar is not the least bit capable of doing such a thing. Surely you agree.”

Mr. Dobble shrugged, and that concerned Phyllida even more than his morose, vacant expression. A shrug coming from such a staid, stiff, unbending person seemed like a dismissal, a surrender.

“Harvey,” she said, doing the impermissible and using his given name in an effort to yank him from his stupor, “surely you don’t believe it.”

As she had intended, the butler’s attention snapped to her. “That is quite impertinent of you, Mrs. Bright.”

She merely smiled at him, albeit a little sadly. “Mr. Dobble, put yourself at ease. Mrs. Agatha has asked me to investigate the situation, and I have everything well in hand.”