“How is the painting coming?” Rutledge asked, for the smell of wet paint was still pervasive.

“With greater speed than my persuasive powers. My sister is wary about changing schools this far into the year. Her children are sad to leave their friends. Her own friends are asking her if she’d be happy here in the Broads. I have run out of words for her, too.” The last was said on a sigh.

When they were seated in the study, with its dark paneling and almost grimly Victorian austerity, Hamish said, “This is no’ a place of inspiration!”

Rutledge had to agree. The gargoyles that surmounted the hearth, and the agony-stricken caryatids that supported it, two well-muscled monsters with their mouths twisted open with effort, were depressingly vivid.

Catching his expression as he glanced at them, Sims smiled. “I find this room most useful when I’m discussing appropriate behavior in church with small boys. They can’t take their eyes off the figures, and it drives home my message quite well.”

“I think I’d find it more comfortable writing with my back to them.” Rutledge’s voice was light. “Unless the subject was Judgment and Damnation.”

Sims laughed outright. “It never occurred to me. This was the study of the Vicar before me, and I’ve tried to follow his example.”

“Better, surely, to follow your own? There must be any number of rooms in this house that are more cheerful.”

Sims nodded. “Actually, there is a small office I’m fond of. Now, tell me how I can help you with your problems? Any news on the man Blevins is holding?”

“The police are still tracing his movements.” Rutledge gave the stock answer. He waited for a moment, and then asked, “You were there, when Father James left the bedside at Herbert Baker’s house?”

“Yes. He came into the parlor and the Bakers offered him a cup of tea. He was tired, but he sat down and—in my opinion—made the family feel a little more comfortable about what Baker had done, in sending for a priest.”

“Did he bring anything with him, that Baker might have given him? An envelope, a small package—” He left the sentence unfinished.

“No. He had his small case with him. With consecrated wafers and wine. If there was something Baker had wanted him to have, it was small enough to fit in there. Or his pocket. Why? Does the family think anything is missing? I can’t believe—”

“Nothing is missing,” Rutledge replied quickly. “I found myself wondering if perhaps Baker had given him a letter to post. It’s as likely an explanation as any for Baker’s whim.” He shrugged, as if it wasn’t important. “Put it down to curiosity—the besetting sin of a policeman’s mind. No, what actually brought me are these.”