The rector nodded and rose heavily to his feet.

"Go on ahead, Walter, and you, Richard," he said. "I will be with you in a few moments. After I have spoken to the men I am going to impose a curfew. Everyone is to remain in his rooms this evening, until we have had a chance to search the college."

"Guests included, I presume?" Slythurst said, wrapping his arms around his torso.

"Everyone," said the rector firmly. "Now, I would have a word with Doctor Bruno alone."

Reluctantly, Slythurst followed Godwyn through the door. Underhill turned to face me, slowly, as if the effort cost him dearly, and I saw utter desolation inscribed in the lines of his face.

"My daughter has not yet come home, Bruno."

There was such finality in his voice that I too felt momentarily as though I would buckle under his despair, but I shook my head.

"She must have gone to the house of a friend, perhaps. Is there no one you can think of?"

He passed both hands over his face very slowly, then raised his eyes to mine.

"Sophia did not have friends in the usual way. She refused the company of other young ladies of her age. If you had asked me a few days ago about her friends, I would have answered you that she had none I could name. But now-" He broke off and turned back to the window, as if something were luring him through the glass.

"Now what? You have discovered something?"

"I have been blind, Bruno. I failed both my children, just as I have failed the college."

Though I could not help feeling that this was probably true, the sight of the man's distress moved me to cross the room and lay a hand on his shoulder.

"You cannot blame yourself for these deaths. And Sophia will be found safe and well, you will see-even if I have to ride all night myself to find her."

I had not meant to speak with quite so much passion; Underhill looked up at me with mild curiosity before the expression of misery returned.

"It is kind of you to say so," he said, patting the hand I had placed on his shoulder as if to thank me for the gesture. "But you are wrong. When she did not return this afternoon I made a search of her room. Sewn into her mattress, I found this."

He reached inside his doublet and retrieved a small book with a worn leather cover, which he handed to me. I flicked through a few pages and saw at once that it was a little Book of Hours, similar to the one I had seen in Jenkes's workshop, of a comparable age and workmanship though smaller and plainer. The pages were in good condition, and I could not see that any of the images of the saints or indulgences had been defaced. My heart grew heavier. For Sophia to have such an obviously Catholic book in her possession, guarded closely from her parents, could only signify one thing.

"Look at the flyleaf," Underhill said, nodding toward the book.

I turned to the inside front cover. On the flyleaf was a handwritten dedication of a verse from the Bible: "For wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her." Beneath this, the inscription read, in an elaborate, curlicued hand, "Ora pro nobis. Yours in Christ, J."

Underhill watched me expectantly.

"The verse is from Proverbs, is it not?" I said.

"Do you not see?" he burst out, impatiently. "What is the Greek for wisdom? Sophia! A papist prayer book, with a dedication written for her. They have converted her, right under my nose, while I buried myself in my Foxe and strove to keep the peace here for Leicester!" He shook his head again and looked at the floor.

"Rector Underhill-who has converted her?" I said sharply. "Who is this J-do you know? Whom are you protecting?"

"No one but myself," he said sorrowfully, in a voice barely audible. "And my family-or so I thought. I could not have believed it would come to this."

Jenkes, I thought grimly. Only he could have got his hands on such a beautiful French Book of Hours, and he had all but given himself away with his initial. I felt my hands clench around the book as I read the dedication again; the biblical verse was innocent enough, but there was something unpleasantly lascivious in the implication, if you substituted Sophia's name for the word "wisdom." The thought of Jenkes, with his pitted face and his scarred, earless head, giving Sophia such a private, intimate gift-which did indeed imply that she shared some sympathy for his faith-made my teeth clench. Then another thought struck me, freezing my heart for a moment: What if Jenkes was the danger of which she had spoken? What if she had been involved with him in some way and he had ended up threatening her? And was any of this connected to the mutilated corpse lying at the foot of the altar? My hand strayed to my belt, where I had tucked the little silver-handled knife he had given me; that night, I determined, I would have the truth from Jenkes, even if it meant he had to find himself on the wrong end of his own weapon. Underhill was looking up at me with sad, expectant eyes, as if waiting for me to prescribe a course of action.

"Was James Coverdale a Catholic?" I asked abruptly.

Underhill squeezed his hands together and nodded.

"And you knew? Was that why you could not leave the sign of the Catherine Wheel there for the coroner to see?"

The rector struggled with a sigh so great it threatened to burst his ribs, then looked at me with something like resignation.

"I have always believed that if a man can hold his faith privately without it touching his politics or his work, that is a matter between him and God. I fear that is not a view held by many on the Privy Council, but I flatter myself it is closer to Her Majesty's own feelings." He leaned in toward me and lowered his voice. "But the rules are changing. Lord Burghley every day introduces new legislation regarding Catholics, so that it is now an offence to withhold information about known papists. A man can lose his property or find himself in gaol simply for failing to tell the authorities what he knows about his neighbours or colleagues, and everyone lives in fear of his friends." He shivered, and folded his hands.

"So," I said slowly, trying to piece together his reasoning, "you do not want the truth about these murders to be made public because you are afraid someone is targeting the known Catholics in Lincoln College, and if this is discovered, Leicester may ask how so many could have remained here unmolested on your watch?" I said, my sympathy for him fast ebbing away. "You preferred to send the magistrate and the coroner chasing after stories of robbers and stray dogs so that the real killer was free to strike again." I gestured at Ned's body. "Perhaps you are secretly hoping he will finish the job and rid Lincoln of its stubborn Catholics without your losing face?"

"God, no, Bruno-how could you think such a thing?" he cried, looking genuinely appalled. "You cannot think I would wish for any man's death? Why do you think I have not simply reported those Catholics within the college long before now? Of course I know who they are," he hissed, dropping his voice, "and for the most part they are good men who work well here, to my knowledge they are not plotting to overthrow Her Majesty or her government, and I knew what I would be handing them over to. But by not doing so I have risked losing everything."

"And now someone is killing them off, one by one, according to the martyrdoms of the early church described by Foxe," I said, almost to myself, as I crossed the room to the fireplace. "But who-someone opposed to them, or one of their own? And why so elaborately, except to draw all eyes to Lincoln College and the punishment of its unrepentant Catholics? If we could only understand his motives, everything might become clear."

"I did not want to credit your Foxe theory at first," Underhill said softly, raising his head. "I could not believe that anyone could contemplate something so barbaric and blasphemous, and neither did I want to acknowledge that my sermons on Foxe could in any way have inspired such diabolical acts. But you are right-it cannot be ignored any longer."