By the time they had reached the vicarage, they could already see that all the lights had been turned on, giving it a strangely festive air, as if Sims was about to hold a party there.

The front door stood wide, and Rutledge could hear the station Sergeant moving about in the bushes near it, his torch flicking first this way and that. They found Sims and Blevins sitting in the study, like two wary bulldogs distrustful of each other.

Blevins said, “What took you so long?” His voice was querulous, tired.

Sims seemed to be happier to see Rutledge. He nodded, and then looked over his shoulder out the black window, as if he could probe the darkness in the tree-shadowed garden.

“I stopped by the station. To see how Walsh had played his trick. Quite clever.”

“Clever, hell. A child of six could have seen through it!” Blevins swore. “No, that’s not fair to Franklin. What matters, when you come down to it, is that the man’s got away.”

“There was a prowler here?” Rutledge asked the Vicar.

“I thought there was,” Sims said uneasily. “I awoke with a start to hear something downstairs. A banging. I thought it was a summons to a deathbed. I found my slippers and came down as quickly as I could. But there was no one at the door. I called out, to see if whoever it was had given up and was walking away. And I could have sworn I heard laughter—distant laughter!” He shivered involuntarily. “I stepped into the sitting room and picked up a poker by the hearth there, and went out to see if rowdy youngsters were having fun at my expense. But there was nothing. No one.” His voice changed on the last words, as if still unsure that there had been no one on the grounds. “I decided to fetch Blevins, here, to see if there was anything amiss in the church. It’s too large and dark to search on my own.”

Hamish said, “It wasna’ youngsters he feared—”

Rutledge said, “Do you often have problems with vandalism?”

“We’re more likely to find boys scaring themselves to death in the churchyard, daring each other to raise spirits. But before I could reach Blevins’s house, I ran into him on the road.”

Rutledge turned to the Inspector. “Do you think it was Walsh? Here at the vicarage?”

“I don’t know. He might have thought he could find something to sell, to get himself out of Norfolk as fast as possible. It appeared that one of the shed doors has been opened. He could have looked there for tools to strike off his chains.”

“That’s far more likely,” Rutledge agreed. “Did you search the church?”

“Not yet. Do you have another torch, Vicar?”

“Yes—there’s one in the kitchen.” He went to fetch it.