“Matched set.” Blevins leaned back in his chair. “The doctor in Hurley tells me Walsh was probably kicked by the horse and died where he stood. The loose shoe fits rather roughly into the wound in his skull, even though it wasn’t the one that did the damage. The doctor’s not sure what the angle was, of course, when the kick was delivered. What matters was a luck of the strike. Delivered just exactly at the wrong place for any chance of survival. Death by misadventure.”

Rutledge said easily, “Any sign of other injuries? A fall—running into something in the dark?”

Blevins laughed. “You don’t give up, do you? London told me that, when I asked for you. All right, just for the hell of it, why should there be?”

“The searchers seemed to have had a rough night of it,” Rutledge answered, taking the other chair and sitting down. He hadn’t had breakfast, he remembered. Only the sandwiches that Mrs. Barnett had put up for him when he’d gone to find Priscilla Connaught. “Does Walsh have any family? Have you notified anyone that he’s dead?”

“There’s the scissor sharpener. I doubt he’d walk to the corner to help Walsh, now that he’s dead. What’s in it for him? With no real proof that he was the lookout while Walsh riffled the study, he’s home free.”

“There’s Iris Kenneth. She might know if Walsh had any family.”

“Yes. Well, do you want the task of going to London to fetch her? She’s not likely to come north on her own!”

“I suppose you’re right. Still—”

“If you’re on your way there,” Blevins said, watching Rutledge’s face, “you might do me the courtesy of calling on her yourself.”

After a moment, Rutledge made a last effort to break through the emotional barriers that Inspector Blevins had set up.

“Put aside your personal feelings about Walsh—and about the death of Father James. If you’d walked into the study of a stranger that morning, how would you have described the body lying by the window?”

“The same way. An intruder had struck hard and fast, out of fear of being recognized. Matthew Walsh won’t be giving us the answer to why he did it—but I don’t suppose, in the scheme of things, it makes much difference. He ran. That’s guilt.”

Rutledge said quietly, thinking it through, “The killer— Walsh, if you like—didn’t strike once, looking to buy time for an escape. He meant to kill.”

“Yes. It was deliberate. Makes me sick to think about it!”

“On the other hand, if there hadn’t been any money in the tin box in the desk—if it had been spent or given away by that time—how would you have decided on the motive for murder?”

Blevins said impatiently, “The same way.”