“Is it, now?” She tilted her head to look up at him. “Father James was a family man, did they tell you? This past August his sister presented her husband with three little ones, and Father James was always helping out with the babes. What’s she to do now, with winter coming on and no one to come and stay a few days, when one’s sick of the croup and she’s up all the night? You might speak to Mrs. Wainer. She was Father James’s housekeeper, and a more decent woman you’ll never meet. Ask her about walking into the study and finding him there stiff and cold, blood all over the place. And for all she knew, the killer lurking in the bedroom, ready to strike her down as well! If you’ve set Monsignor’s mind at rest just now, it would be a kindness to reassure her, too. And only a few hours out of your way, mind!”

“Where will I find her?” He stepped through the doorway as she handed him his coat and hat. He could feel the blowing mist on his face, fine as silk against his skin.

“She’s at the rectory still, though I don’t know for the life of me how the poor woman can walk through the door. It’s her duty to be there, she says. Every day. Just as if Father James was still alive. Osterley is the name of the town. Surely they told you that in London? It’s closer to the sea in the north, and easy enough to get to from here.” Her eyes were shrewd. “Easier, of course, to go back to London satisfied you’ve done your duty by us. There’s many would do that. Somehow I don’t think you’re one of them!”

And with that she bade him a good day and closed the door.

Rutledge turned the crank and got into his motorcar, out of the rain. And then he surprised himself by sitting there, considering what Bryony had said, the motor idling under his gloved hands as they rested on the wheel.

He hadn’t anticipated being drawn into the life or the death of this man. It wasn’t the task that had been set him. . . .

Go to Norfolk to reassure the Bishop that the police are doing their job properly.

And instead he’d been expected, he thought wryly, to perform a small miracle or two. Find a true explanation for the murder of the priest—and then track down the killer.

He didn’t envy the local man, Blevins, struggling to conduct an investigation in a climate of disbelief that refused to accept simple murder for what it really was, a commonplace calamity, not the stuff of legends.