Stone used in the killing

The Stone used in the killing is an egg-shaped stone recovered by Adam Dalgliesh from the shore below the sea cliffs and connected to Dan Padgett’s killing of Adrian Boyde. Its significance rests on two kinds of evidence: a reddish stain and a fragment of surgical glove found with it, and Padgett’s later account that he picked up a stone before following Boyde into the chapel. The object gives material form to the killing, but its discovery alone does not establish every detail of what happened.

Appearance and Recovery

While searching the otherwise untrodden shore below the cliffs, Dalgliesh noticed a pale scrap near the edge: what remained of a surgical glove. The fragment partly enclosed an egg-shaped stone. Most of the thin latex had apparently torn away as the stone fell, rolled in the receding tide, and was exposed to the wind; one finger and part of the palm remained intact.

A reddish mark on the stone appeared unlike its natural colour. Dalgliesh judged that it could be blood, but the discovery passage records that assessment as an urgent inference, not as a completed laboratory identification. He placed the stone and glove remnant in an exhibit bag, closed it, and tied it to the abseil rope so it could be hauled back up to Kate Miskin. The recovery turns the stone from an obscure object on a remote shore into evidence that could be examined and accounted for.

Connection to Boyde’s Killing

Later, Padgett described his actions before entering the chapel. He claimed that the killing was impulsive, saying that he removed his jacket and picked up the stone before following Boyde. He also said Boyde was on his knees, then rose to confront him, and did not try to escape or defend himself. Padgett interpreted this as meaning that Boyde wanted to die; that was Padgett’s claim about Boyde, not an independently established fact.

The account places the stone in Padgett’s possession before the confrontation and connects it to the killing. Its presence on the shore, partly wrapped in a glove fragment, gives the object a physical association with the attack. The reported location of other gloves among the nursing impedimenta in Padgett’s cottage further bears on his claim that he acted on impulse: the account notes that he came prepared with gloves. The evidence makes the stone part of a sequence of preparation and violence, rather than merely an object found near the scene.

Evidentiary Role and Limits

The stone’s recovery is presented as a breakthrough in Dalgliesh’s search, but the novel distinguishes finding an object from proving what it establishes. The reddish stain seemed to be blood; the cited evidence does not give a laboratory result identifying whose blood it was. Nor does the recovered glove fragment, by itself, identify its wearer. The circumstances of the find and Padgett’s account strengthen the stone’s connection to Boyde’s killing, while leaving forensic identification to evidence beyond the discovery itself.

The stone also belongs to a different evidentiary thread from the blood phial and hair sample later found concealed in butter at Puffin Cottage. Dalgliesh regarded those samples as crucial to making the case against Padgett for Nathan Oliver’s killing; the stone, by contrast, is linked through Padgett’s account to Boyde’s death. Keeping those objects and their roles distinct matters: the stone is a recovered weapon associated with one killing, while the concealed samples bear on the motive and proof in another.

Narrative Significance

The stone first appears as a striking piece of matter amid scraps of pale latex on a shore where Dalgliesh had nearly given up searching. Its shape, stain, and torn covering make it conspicuous, but none of those features speaks for itself. It becomes legible as evidence only through careful recovery, examination, and comparison with Padgett’s account. The scene’s moment of discovery therefore brings relief without making inference identical to proof: the object has been found, but its meaning depends on how it is connected to people, actions, and other evidence.