Anne Perry s Christmas Mysteries Page 0,56

signature in the corner.

She was glad the vicarage had been designed for a family, and was large enough that they had not needed to use this room. It belonged to the Reverend Wynter, and he should not have to move his belongings to make way for them. She looked around it with pleasure, amazed that she could feel such a liking for a man she had never met. People spoke so well of him, he was obviously a man of great compassion. But that might not be personal so much as part of his calling. It was the delicacy, the simple grace of his drawings, that showed his nature. He saw extraordinary beauty in a bare branch, the tiny twigs against the light, the strength of a trunk stripped of its summer glory, powerful in its nakedness.

She gazed around the walls at the other pictures. Each was different, and yet all had the same inner qualities. She wondered if he was busy now creating more. Was he out walking in the snow somewhere in East Anglia, selecting just the right scene under the wide Norfolk skies? Perhaps he would draw the bare coastline and the sea grasses, the wind-riven skies, clouds dragged out in long streamers above the line of the waves.

Reluctantly she made certain the windows were fastened securely and then went back downstairs. She was tidying the study when she came across a carefully sharpened soft-leaded pencil sitting on top of the chest of narrow drawers near the window. Her first thought was that Dominic had unintentionally sharpened one of the vicar's pencils before realizing what it was.

She should put it away. Perhaps it belonged in one of the drawers. She opened the top one to see, and found a dozen more pencils there, all sharpened. There were also charcoals of various thickness, white pencils, erasers, and a sharp blade-in fact, all one needed for drawing. Were they extras?

She closed the drawer and opened the one below. It was full of unused blocks of watercolor artist's paper. He must have a great deal if he had this much to leave behind! Without thinking she pulled open the cupboard door. With a sudden chill she saw an easel, neatly folded. How could he not have taken it with him? This, and his pencils, were the tools of his art!

Mystified, she went back up to his bedroom and shamelessly opened the wardrobe door. There were only four pairs of boots inside: smart black boots for Sundays; a pair of brown boots; a second pair of black boots, definitely older; and stout walking boots for country wear, up to the ankles, thick-soled such as one would choose on a day like this.

There were winter clothes hanging on the rail as well, including an extremely nice woolen overcoat-not city wear, more casual-with a collar to turn up against the worst weather. It was just the sort of coat a man would like for walking in the country or by the sea.

Why had he not taken it with him? And the boots? And for that matter, the stout walking stick leaning against the wall in the corner? To forget the Bible might be an oversight, even the pencils, or paper, but not the winter clothes as well! There was something wrong. He had left in haste, and not for pleasure as he had said. Was it some family emergency, or bereavement? Would he be gone until the situation, whatever it was, had been resolved? Had he a brother or sister in some kind of trouble? Possibly it was a sudden and serious illness?

When Dominic returned home, late and cold to the bone, she started to tell him, then realized he was not listening to her. He heard her words, but not their meaning. He was too deep in his own fear that he could not find something new and powerful to say to the people of this village for him to hear the anxiety within her. And it would be Sunday in two days, and his first sermon here.

"They are good people," he said, standing in the sitting room with his back to the fire, which burned brightly, thawing the cold that chilled and numbed his flesh. "They know their scriptures at least as well as I do. The vicar has preached to them with passion and eloquence not only at Christmas but all through the year." There was a shadow in his eyes, a tightness across his cheeks. "What can I say