"He got out of his van, and walked over to what lay in the road, getting in the way of his own headlamps and having to step aside. Now he had no doubt the man was dead. His eyes were open, and there was a great deal of blood around his neck. At first Black believed that the man had cut his own throat. Unwilling to leave him there, Black finally decided to protect his body by leaving the van in the road, and he walked back into Eastfield to find the police station."
He turned to Constable Walker. "Have I got that right, Constable?"
"Yes, sir. It's exactly what he'd written in the statement he signed."
"Then perhaps you'd like to take up the account at this point."
"I sometimes sleep on a cot in the room above the station, Mr. Rutledge, my wife being dead for some years. I heard Mr. Black banging on the door, as I had only just gone to bed. I opened the window and called out to him, asking what the problem might be. He told me he'd just discovered a dead man in the road and would I come at once? I asked if he was certain the man was dead. He told me he'd seen enough dead men in the war, and he was certain. All the same, I took the time to summon Dr. Gooding, and he brought his trap with him, in the event we needed it. We reached the body, and Mr. Black drew his van to one side. Both Dr. Gooding and I had brought a lamp with us, and we could see fairly clearly. Mr. Black was right, the man was dead, and as the light reached his face, both of us recognized him at the same time. Dr. Gooding leaned closer, and then straightened up, looking up at me. 'He's been garroted,' he said, shock in his voice, and I bent over to see for myself. It was the only explanation-the wire had cut deep and yet it was clear from Jeffers's face that he had been strangled. Mr. Black at this point had gone back to his van, and I believe he was sick by some bushes along the verge. Knowing that this was a heavily traveled route from about four o'clock in the morning until first light, we cast about to see if we could find anything of importance. Dr. Gooding in particular wanted to find the ligature that had been used. But there was nothing to find. Just the body in the middle of the road. The doctor did say that Mr. Jeffers had been dead for some time, an hour or more at a guess."
His account had been vivid, where Pierce's had been factual, without personal feelings coloring it. But Rutledge could see that Walker, whose quiet village must seldom produce violence of any kind, had been appalled by the brutality of Jeffers's death.
"Dr. Gooding had brought a blanket, and we wrapped the body in it and I helped to set it in the cart. I drove back with Mr. Black, and the doctor took the body to his surgery. Mr. Black gave me his statement, and I found that Mrs. Sanders, across from the hotel, had spent a restless night and had seen the goods van come down the street just when Mr. Black had said it came, and it was very likely that his statement of finding the body when he did was true. I went back to the scene later and still found nothing that would tell me who or why murder had been committed."
Walker paused. Rutledge thought that if the constable had been in his own office he would have got to his feet and begun to pace. There was more on his mind than the death, and Rutledge waited patiently to hear the rest of the story.
"Dr. Gooding came to see me at half past ten," Walker went on reluctantly. "He asked me to come with him to the surgery. I found that he'd removed the victim's clothing, and it was obvious that he had been garroted, although neither Dr. Gooding nor I had ever seen a case before. But that was not what he wanted me to see. He had probed the mouth of the victim and found that inside it, almost dried to his tongue, was an identity disc."
Rutledge turned to stare at him. "From the war?" he asked in surprise.
"Yes, sir. From the war. I recognized it. But it wasn't Mr. Jeffers's disc, if he ever had one. There was another name on it. One I didn't know-" He reached into his pocket and brought out an oiled cloth, setting it on the low table in front of the hearth before unwrapping it.
Inside were three flat fiberboard discs. In the war, both the Army and soldiers themselves had come up with ways to identify the dead and wounded, but none of them had been successful enough to see widespread use. Some men had simply sewn their names in their uniforms, a time-honored method. A variety of discs had been introduced as well, some on string, some on thin rope. These particular discs had an interesting history.
Stamped from thin layers of compressed wood fibers, they came in pairs and were worn around the neck on a thin length of rope. If a man was killed, one of the discs was placed in his mouth for the burial detail to use in marking his grave. The other of the pair was collected and sent back with his kit, eventually ending up with his family.
But the war had been over for nearly two years. Why would such a disc be placed in the mouth of a murder victim?
Hamish, who had been quiet for a time, said quite clearly, "Revenge."
Rutledge suppressed a start, for it seemed that the soft Scots voice had echoed around the room, obvious to everyone. But when neither of the other men responded to it, he said after a moment, "There are three discs here."
"One was also found in the mouth of Jimmy Roper, who was sitting with a cow suffering from colic when he was killed. There was no one else in the barn, no sign of forced entry, and no one in the house-Roper's father or the maid who kept house and cooked for the two men-had heard anything," Pierce answered. "As for my son, he was discovered on the ground floor of the brewery, just by the stairs. Dr. Gooding examined his mouth there and then, and found the third one." Rutledge could hear the undercurrent of rage in the quiet voice.
Rutledge looked closely at the names on the discs. One belonged to a corporal in a Yorkshire regiment, the second to a Welsh sapper, and the third to a private from Cheshire. Turning to Pierce, he asked, "Was your son an officer?"
"Yes, of course."
"Officers weren't issued identity discs," he pointed out. "I wonder if these men survived the war?" He shook his head. "Three different regiments. What could these three soldiers have had in common with three men living quietly here in Sussex?"
"That's precisely why I asked the Yard to step in. We need to learn what we can about these soldiers if we're to answer the question. I'm sure you must know someone in the War Office who can find out for us. Where they served, and if their paths ever crossed."
Rutledge did know such a man but had no intention of applying to him for answers. But Sergeant Gibson would have his own way of looking into the matter.
"Tell me about their war records-Jeffers's, Roper's, and your son's. Were they ever involved in any trouble during the fighting? Discipline, misconduct, brawling?"
"Nothing of the kind," Pierce retorted curtly. "They all served honorably. My son was an officer in the same regiment as a company of men who enlisted together from Eastfield, but he never commanded them. As it happened, they were in two different sectors of the Front."
"Their paths never crossed?"
"I can't say never with complete certainty, but I don't recall my son ever speaking of encountering them. He'd have said something in his letters, asking me to relay the message to their families. He was that sort, thoughtful and responsible. There are others of that same company still alive, we could ask them."
"Two of the company died in France," Walker added. "One missing. And the rest came home."
It was not the case generally. Men who served together as a rule died together. The Eastfield Company had been very lucky.
Rutledge turned back to the discs. What were they intended to represent? Hamish had called it revenge, but how? Why?
Pierce was saying, "I know regiments were split up-sometimes sent to bring up the strength of other regiments. But it seems unlikely that there's a military connection. Still, these discs say otherwise."