Each of the photographs had a story, but none of them appeared to have special significance. Mrs. Wainer moved on to the small treasures. “He liked pipes, although he never smoked, and he collected more than a dozen,” she reminisced as she touched each one. “And over there is the walking stick, in that Chinese umbrella stand, that he carried with him to Wales and the Lake District. Westmorland. The stand belonged to a great-aunt, it was a wedding gift to her, and I’ll be shipping that along to his sister. And the clock on the mantel there—”

There were books on the shelves that were Father James’s, his name inscribed in a fine copperplate hand, mixed among others that belonged in the rectory. Rutledge turned the pages briefly, but found nothing of interest tucked between the leaves.

“Hardly secret vices and dark crimes,” Hamish mocked.

When Rutledge turned to the stairs, the housekeeper said, as she had before, “Go on then. I’ll have a cup of tea ready, when you’ve done your work.” She had returned to the kitchen before he had reached the top step.

He went first to the small room where the ledgers of church and rectory business transactions were kept, and where the heavy, bound books with Church Records on their spines stood on a separate pair of shelves.

Looking through the ledgers first, Rutledge found, in various hands, the long list of repairs and improvements, wages and offerings that represented decades of activity. The roof of the rectory had been repaired after a storm in 1903, and there was a faded receipt in the rough, untutored hand of the man who had done the work. You could, Rutledge thought, identify with certainty every expenditure: when it was made, to whom, and for what purpose. And the name of the priest incumbent at the time. Every penny of income was noted, every payment of wages due. He found the entry, scrupulously made in Father James’s hand, of the sum earned at the bazaar: eleven pounds, three shillings, six pence. The last entry was wages paid to Mrs. Wainer, two days before the priest had died.

The great volumes of church records listed the names of priests and sextons, altar boys and gravediggers over the years; a compendium of who had served God and in what capacity. Later pages recorded baptisms by date, with the name given the child, the sponsoring godparents, and the parents. By accident Rutledge came across the name “Blevins,” and found the Inspector’s own baptism: pages later, that of his first child. Among the marriages were Blevins’s, Mrs. Wainer’s, and others whose names Rutledge recognized.