They chose a night as like the murder night as possible. The weather obliged: a low sky, no moon, a fine, penetrating drizzle that turned stone treacherous.

By half–past eight, the Cathedral had emptied after Compline. The vergers had put out the extra candles. Only a few lamps burned, guttering in their glass.

In the south–east corner of the cloister, Lomas, Makepeace, Barker, Goulburn, Tuttle, and four choristers—Julien Couper, Freddy Polkinghorne, Ivor Handl, and Hainsbridge the monitor—huddled like conspirators.

“I feel,” Barker muttered, “as if we are rehearsing some vulgar melodrama.”

“Better to rehearse than improvise,” Lomas said. “We will recreate the movements as far as we can. Tuttle, you will do as you did that night:...

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