Anne Perry s Christmas Mysteries Page 0,61

themselves, but when she licked her finger and touched it, it came away red. Was this where the vicar had stumbled, and then gone on down the rest of the way to the bottom? How could she find out?

She held the lantern so she could see the steps closely. They were dark with years of trodden-in coal dust, each bit dropped from a bucket or scuttle carried up full. No matter how closely she looked, all she could distinguish were the most recent marks, a heel dent, and the smear of a sole. They could have been anybody's: Dominic's, the doctor's, even Mrs. Wellbeloved's.

She went to the bottom and looked again, not expecting to find anything or knowing what it would mean even if she did.

Then she saw it: a small, neat pattern of marks she understood very easily-cat prints. Etta had been this way. She walked after the marks, for no real reason except that they led to the second cellar. They were easy to read because they were on plain ground, as if someone had swept all the old marks away with a broom. Why would anybody sweep just a single track, no more than eighteen or twenty inches wide? It was not even clean, just brushed once. Several times it was disturbed at the sides by footprints.

Then she understood. It was not swept-these were drag marks. Someone had pulled something heavy, covered in cloth, from the bottom of the stairs over into the second cellar.

Could the Reverend Wynter have fallen, struck his head and become confused, mistaken where he was and dragged himself in the wrong direction?

No. That was idiotic. There were no handprints in the dust. And his hands would have been filthy when they found him. They weren't: only smudges here and there-the backs as much as the palms.

She was in the second cellar now. When she had found him, he had been lying on his back. But his nose had been scraped, as if he had fallen forward. And there was coal dust on his front as well as his back. The hard, deep wound was on the back of his head.

"Somebody killed him, Harry," she said softly, putting her hand out to touch the dog's soft fur. "Somebody hit him on the head and dragged him in here, and then left him. Why would they do that? He was an old man whom almost everyone loved."

The dog whined and leaned his weight against her leg.

"I don't suppose you know, and even if you do, you can't tell me." She was talking to him because it was so much better not to feel alone. "I'll have to find out without you. We'll have to," she corrected. "I'll tell Dominic when he comes back. Right now, in case anybody calls, I think we should pretend that we don't know anything at all. Come on. It's cold down here, and we shouldn't stay anyway. It isn't safe."

***

When Dominic returned from his visits, tired and cold, she had no alternative but to tell him immediately. It was already midafternoon; there would be little more than an hour before the light began to fade and the ground froze even harder.

"What?" he said incredulously, sitting at the kitchen table, his hands thawing as he held the cup of tea she had made. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am sure," she said looking at him steadily. "I'm not being overimaginative, Dominic. Remember the marks on his face and head? Remember how little coal dust there was on his hands? Or on his knees? But there was a tear on the shin of his trousers, and dust where he had been dragged. Go down to the cellar and look. It's still there."

He hesitated.

"Please," she urged. "I don't want to be the only one who saw it. Anyway, I don't think the doctor is going to listen to me."

***

She was perfectly correct-Dr. Fitzpatrick did not believe either of them.

"That suggestion is preposterous," he said irritably, pulling on his mustache. "It is a perfectly ordinary domestic tragedy. An elderly man had a heart attack and fell down the cellar stairs. Or perhaps he simply tripped and then the shock of the fall brought on an attack. He was confused, naturally, perhaps hurt, and he mistakenly crawled in the wrong direction. You are trying to make a horror out of something that is merely sad. And if I may say so, that is a completely irresponsible thing to do."

Clarice took a deep breath, facing his