It required patience, and a mind focused and determined. Tiring, he stopped once and rubbed his eyes with cold fingers, wishing for a pot of tea and twenty minutes of rest. His nerves, tautly stretched to their limit, kept him awake at the same time they drained his reserves of energy.

And all the while, Hamish doubted Rutledge’s intuition and his decisions.

If Rutledge was wrong—if Walsh had gone directly south—then Blevins’s counterparts would be in need of every man available to widen their own search. But were they having any better luck?

And when full daylight came, what were Walsh’s chances then? How close would he be to Norwich, if that was his goal?

Thinking of Norwich brought Monsignor Holston to Rutledge’s mind. A priest who searched for shadows outside his window as night drew on, and listened to the creaking of his house, afraid of something he couldn’t identify.

Like Sims . . .

What would Monsignor Holston feel if he knew that the man accused of killing Father James was on his way to Norwich? Fear? Or acceptance—

But there were no horsemen riding out in the dawn in this part of the county, save for a farm boy kicking the sides of a horse twice his size as he made his way across a stream.

By breakfast, Rutledge had circled back as far as the Sherhams—now all too aware that he’d wasted the hours, wasted his energy, and for what? Nothing.

Had Walsh passed him just over the crest of a hill or behind a screen of trees, or lost in the shadows that collected in the mists along small streams bisecting the land?

A bitter thought. And Hamish, as tired and grim as Rutledge was, seconded this honest indictment of his abilities.

“You arena’ the man you once were. You havena’ come to terms with yoursel’, nor wi’ Scotland—”

And yet Rutledge would have sworn, if asked, that he’d been right in his decision to work back from the west.

Another thought struck him—had Walsh already been captured?

No. Rutledge had seen constables still guarding the roads west, and at the junctions running through villages. He’d seen men searching—

And Walsh would have seen them, too. As the day brightened, he might even go to ground.

The intuition he prized so highly was failing him. Rutledge accepted the truth: One man alone in a motorcar bound by the roads had no chance to work a miracle when Walsh had the flexibility of so much space.

And today luck was favoring a fleeing man who must be as weary as his pursuers, and as determined, but with Fortune—or Fate—on his side.

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 21

BETWEEN THE SHERHAMS AND OSTERLEY, RUTLEDGE’S fatigue swept over him like a heavy blanket.