“Yes, I’d take that into account. Of course I would. But it was more than that. God knows I’ve attended my share of deathbeds. Like a physician, I’m able to separate my emotions into tidy cubbyholes, in order to function. But not this time.” He looked down at his hands. “I grant you that to a poor man the sum collected at the bazaar must have seemed enormous. The blows, Inspector Blevins told me, were struck in rapid succession. A frenzy, if you will. A terrified man, caught out unexpectedly, might well have reacted in that fashion, hating what he was doing but driven to shield himself. And yet somehow I can’t accept that. If he had come openly—”

“There may have been reasons why the intruder couldn’t come openly. Or perhaps he’d convinced himself that theft was the easier way. That he couldn’t keep his promise to repay—or see that he worked out the money in time or kind.”

“Yes, I grant you that. But consider two things. The intruder must have known the pattern of Father James’s usual movements. Otherwise, why choose that time of day? And he must have known that the study was upstairs, and that that was where the money was being kept. He didn’t ransack the rest of the house. He went directly to the study! And surely the first place he’d have searched— the most logical choice—was a desk drawer. The money was in there. Why tear the room apart, if he’d got what he came for? In my opinion, if the thief had been more careful opening that drawer and had slipped away before Father James came back from hearing Confession, surely no one would have been able to say with any certainty just when the money went missing!”

“Logic seldom enters into it. A man robbing a house is usually in a hurry and not eager to be caught. If he’d just killed in a fit of panic, he might have wanted to make it seem he’d expected a better haul. To point a finger away from the fact that he was desperate enough for the little he’d found in the desk.”

Hamish said, “Ye ken yon priest’s been busy worrying ow’r it. Gnawing at it like a dog with a bone.”

Monsignor Holston was shaking his head. “I am trained to think about religious issues. When I apply the same logic to this murder, I find—questions. Not solutions.”

“No murder is simple,” Rutledge told him. “But if I understand what you are telling me, Father James must have been killed by one of his own parishioners. It’s not a pretty possibility, though a likely one. And surely the police have considered it.”