Anne Perry s Christmas Mysteries Page 0,62

anger. "What did he go into the cellar for?" she asked.

"My dear Mrs. Corde, surely that is perfectly obvious?" Fitzpatrick snapped. "Exactly the same reason as you did yourself! For coal!"

She met his gaze steadily. "I took a lantern and a coal bucket, and I left the door open at the top," she replied.

"Then perhaps he went for some other reason," Fitzpatrick said. "Didn't you say something about the dog? He must have gone to look for it."

"Why would you go to look for anything in a cellar without a lantern?" Dominic pressed. "It doesn't make sense."

"He probably stood at the top and called." Fitzpatrick was becoming more and more annoyed. His face was tight, lips thin. "Reverend, you are a guest here. In view of poor Wynter's death, it will possibly be for far longer than you had originally intended. You are now required to guide the village through a sad and very trying time. As shepherd of the people, it is your calling to sustain, comfort, and uplift them, not indulge in what, I have to say, is idle and vicious speculation on the death of a deeply loved man. I am sorry that it falls to my lot to remind you of this. Don't make it necessary for me to take it further."

Dominic's face flamed, but he turned and left without retaliation. He could not afford it, as the doctor had reminded him.

Clarice went with him, not daring to meet Fitzpatrick's eyes in case he saw in hers the rage she also felt toward him. He had humiliated Dominic, and that she had no idea how to heal, so she could not forgive him for it. As she went out into the snow, she remembered her father telling her that if you sought wealth or fame, other people might dislike you for it, but if you sought only to do good, no one would be your enemy. How wrong he was! Good held a mirror to other people's hearts, and the reflection was too often unflattering. People could hate you for that more than for almost anything else.

She caught up with Dominic and linked her arm through his, holding on to him when he tried to pull back. He was ashamed because he had not found a way to stand up for the truth. She struggled for something to say that would make it better, not worse. If she were to sound superficial it would be worse than silence; it would be patronizing, as if she thought him not strong enough to face their failure. Yet she ached to comfort him. If she could not at least do that, what use was she?

"I'm sorry," she said a trifle abruptly. "I shouldn't have urged you to speak to him so quickly. Perhaps if we had waited until tomorrow, and thought harder, we might have persuaded him."

"No, we wouldn't," he said grimly. "He doesn't want to think that anyone would kill the Reverend Wynter."

"I don't want to, either!" she said hotly. "I hate thinking it. But I have to follow what my sense tells me. And I don't believe one goes into the cellar alone in the dark to fetch coal, to look for a cat or dog, or anything else. If he'd fallen down, then Mrs. Wellbeloved would have found him. The door would have been open-"

"Maybe when she came in the front door, the wind slammed the cellar door shut?" he suggested.

"It faces the other way," she pointed out. "It would have blown it wider open."

"Well, what do you think did happen?" he asked. They were walking side by side along the road, their feet making the only tracks in the new snow. In the east the sky was darkening.

"I think someone came in and said or did something to make him go into the cellar, then pushed him," she answered. "When he was at the bottom, perhaps crumpled over, stunned, they hit him on the back of the head, hard enough to kill him, whether they meant that or not. Although I can't see why they would do it unless they intended him to die. They could hardly explain it away." Her mind was racing. The rising wind was edged with ice, and she blinked against it. "Then they dragged him into the other cellar, so he wouldn't be found too soon-"

"Why?" he interrupted. "What difference would it make?"

"So nobody would know when it happened, of course." The ideas came to her as she spoke. "That