"Why did he think you might know this man?"
"When he was in hospital, there were days when Theo was barely conscious. He thought I might be able to put a name to the face. He said it was important to know." He finished peeling the potatoes and set them aside.
Rutledge said, "He was hoping it was someone from the hospital? Or not?"
"He was hoping it was. He said he'd feel better if it was."
"Did the man seem to recognize Hartle?"
"I don't know. Theo didn't say anything about that. He just didn't want it to be the father."
"Whose father?"
The cook's hands were shaking. He put aside the carrot he was trying to scrape and clutched the edge of the table with taut fingers, his head down. "Just go away. Now. I can't-you're pushing too hard. Please."
Rutledge could hear his own voice saying, "Lives depend on this. Whose father?" But he was watching the color drain from Mason's face, and the way his eyes were blinking, as if he couldn't focus them properly.
Hamish's voice was loud between them, warning Rutledge to stop. And Rutledge could feel himself losing control, blackness sweeping through his mind, the sound of the guns so loud he wanted to press his hands over his ears and hide from it.
But he was here for a reason, and he gripped that the way most men would grip sanity, and said again, "Whose?"
He could hardly hear the reply. It was a whisper lost in the roar of guns that wouldn't stop.
"He wouldn't tell me. For God's sake, he wouldn't tell me. And I let him go hunting for that man alone, because I'm a coward."
Rutledge reached out and clapped Mason on the shoulder, a comradely gesture, but the man shrunk from him, cringing until he was lying on the floor in a tight knot, protecting his body.
"He wouldn't tell me. For God's sake, he wouldn't tell me. And I let him go looking for the man alone."
Ashamed, Rutledge stumbled out of the kitchen, somehow found his way to the door and into the street. He leaned against the wing of the motorcar, sick. The sounds slowly receded, and after a time, the darkness also withdrew. He straightened up, ignoring Hamish still raving in his mind.
9
L eaving the motorcar where it was, Rutledge began walking, heading nowhere, one street after another, left and then right and then left again.
After a while, he found he was standing in front of a small shop, its black-and-white-striped awning affording a little shade from the now warm sun. Gradually he noticed that he was staring at a display of porcelain figures, jeweled fans, small dolls in colorful costumes, enameled silver snuffboxes, and ornate black lacquerware with scenes from fairy tales fancifully painted across the tops.
He had no idea where he was. Looking up at the scrolled letters on the shop window, he realized that this was where Russian emigres had put their personal belongings up for sale.
Turning away, he tried to get his bearings. There was the distant headland, green now in the sunlight, where Hartle's body had been found. Using that as his guide, he walked in an easterly direction until he realized that he was coming out of a side street that ended near the water.
The pub was several streets over. Glancing at his watch, he realized that he'd been walking for more than an hour. He swore and was about to turn up toward the pub and his motorcar when another shop window caught his eye.
The display was of all things military. Gold braided tricorns, an assortment of swords, and a polished table where tiny lead soldiers fought pitched battles. There was a rusty halberd, books on military tactics from wars long past, a pistol with a split barrel, and even a well-used Kaiser Wilhelm helmet with its pointed spike, and a long spear that appeared to be East African.
On the spur of the moment, he went inside. The proprietor was an elderly man with streaks of gray in his fair hair, and bright blue eyes. He glanced up from a sock he was mending as the bell over the door jingled, and smiled at Rutledge. "Looking for anything in particular?" he asked in a deep, gruff voice.
"Identity discs from the war. Do you ever see them? Or have them for sale?"
The crinkles around the blue eyes deepened. "There's no market for that sort of thing. They were rather flimsily made, as a rule. Buttons, now, and uniforms-they turn up. I have a button hook, from the Grenadier Guards. Any number of shell casings, some of them with trench art, others plain. An officer's whistle, well-polished riding boots with gilt spurs-even several pairs of field glasses."
Hamish had subsided in his mind, and Rutledge was about to turn away when something caught his eye in the glass display case where he was standing. It contained smaller and more expensive objects kept under lock and key. There were an ivory pipe, a cigarette case made from what appeared to be tortoiseshell, a flint knife, a few American Civil War lead soldiers, and assorted buttons, watches, rings, and other pieces of jewelry inscribed with military insignia.
He pointed to the knife. "What can you tell me about that?"
"It's said to be quite old. Struck from a single large flint. The gentleman who brought it in told me his grandfather had turned it up while working in his garden. It set him off on a search for an ancient burial site, thinking there might be funeral goods. But to no end." The proprietor took the object out of the case. "You can see how the blows were struck to shape the blade. Careful," he added as he passed it to Rutledge. "It's sharp enough to cut hide."
Rutledge took the blade. "How was it used?"
"According to a Dr. Butler who comes in from time to time, it would have had a handle, a length of wood with a fork at one end, into which the blade would have been inserted." He pointed to the blunt end. "See how it's notched? Rawhide would be wrapped tightly around wood and blade, and perhaps soaked, for a tight fit. If you knew what you were about, you could flense a hide just with the blade, but if you were of a mind to stab a woolly mammoth, you'd need the handle for a sure grip. Short handle for jabbing, longer piece of wood for throwing. Of course, if this is as old as it's said to be, the wood and the rawhide have long since rotted away. A pity, but there you are."
"Yes, I see." Rutledge gingerly tested an edge, and could see that it was quite remarkably sharp still. "Where did you say it was found?"
"I didn't. But from what I was told, the old grandfather lived in East Anglia. There's flint there, along the north coast." He reached into the case again and drew out two or three unprepossessing round gray stones, and with them half of a stone, showing the shiny black surface of the flint inside. Rutledge was well aware of what flint looked like. But he let the proprietor continue his explanation of how flint tools could be made. "Stone Age or not, but whoever discovered how to do this sort of work must have had a monopoly in his day. Everyone came to him for their blades. Until someone else learned how to do it a little better or a little faster. Striking the blow in the right place to make a sharp edge rather than break the edge off-that's the skill right there."
Rutledge said after a moment, "A long way to come, to sell you this find."
"I was of the same opinion." The man shrugged. "But it's a fine piece of its kind. Only it never sold. There's not much call for something this old. I've kept it more as a curiosity than anything else. What's a military shop without what must have been one of the first tools of war?"