Ropati, on the other hand, could not have cared less about the thief’s opportune success. It was ‘forgotten’ as soon as Mr. Brennan spoke.

“He’s been in these parts longer than I have,” Ropati affirmed.

Malachi’s theory earned one blink, then two. Two St. Hilda’s?

“Who on Earth would need even more of the same church?” he asked with a skeptical look, then remembered he was talking to a priest.

Ropati cleared his throat, but made no apology. He took the soap back, made a slight face, then took out a stained white handkerchief to wrap the just-used, still-moist bar in.

“Best of luck, Mr. Brennan,” Ropati said.

Maybe he’d get lost in the tourist traps and have a spiritual … what was the opposite of a spiritual ‘awakening’? A spiritual sleep? A spiritual sleep, then, that Whitby might get a gap between one more priest in action.