Surveying the windows again, Rutledge went on. “If it was nearly dark, with no lamps burning, Father James might have drawn the drapes before lighting one. And if the damage was done after the murder, there would have been nothing to alarm the priest as he walked in here. The desk drawer would have been out of his line of sight. Which would mean that the killer was surprised . . . not the priest.”

“There’s another way it could ha’ happened. If the killer was waiting for the priest.”

“Which puts an entirely different complexion on it, doesn’t it?” Rutledge replied thoughtfully.

Monsignor Holston was right about one thing. There was something odd about this murder scene. It told conflicting stories about the sequence of events. Were the drapes open—or closed? Was the lamp on the desk burning? Where had the killer been standing? And when had the room been torn apart? Had the priest seen his killer? Or had he been struck down before he was aware that he was in danger? Had the murderer come here for the money in the desk—or for something else altogether?

A sieve through which a defense lawyer could walk at will . . .

Rutledge found Mrs. Wainer in the kitchen, staring out the window that looked out onto a stand of lilacs, the back garden, and beyond that, to the churchyard.

She turned as he came in.

He asked her to show him where the footprint had been found, and she pointed to the largest lilac bush on one side of the lawn. Its branches arched and then dipped nearly to a grown man’s waist. And there was a bare spot where the grass didn’t grow, just by it. The shadows of the bush would have made an excellent place to watch the house. . . .

Rutledge asked the housekeeper if she left the lamp in the study lit when she went home each evening.

“No, not that night, if that’s what you’re asking me. And I think about it time and again. I wasn’t sure, you see, when he might be coming back, and I didn’t want to leave it burning untended if he was going to be very late.” She hesitated and then said anxiously, “Do you suppose it made any difference?”

“No, I’m sure it didn’t. A policeman makes an effort to be thorough, when picturing the scene in his mind. And the draperies. Were they left open or were they shut?”

“They were shut,” she replied firmly. “That’s what I do when I leave of an evening, except in the summer when there’s light well past nine.”

“What did Father James generally do when he came in? Did he walk in this way or through the door at the front of the house?”