Smith almost ran at his heels on their way to the door. 'The boy can't pay for the damages to your windscreen,' he said, huffing with the effort. 'I've already spoken with his mother. There's no money-'
'I'm not interested in money,' Rutledge answered as he reached his motorcar in the yard behind The Three Feathers. 'Where is he now? Have you charged him?'
'I wasn't intending-I was going to hold him overnight to put the fear of God into him, in the hope he'd show me where he tossed that revolver. But his mother begged me-'
'Then take me to where they live!'
Smith cranked the motorcar for Rutledge and then climbed into the passenger's seat. 'A mile from the Massingham estate, there's a lane that turns down to the east. Follow that another mile or so, and I'll tell you where to stop.'
Rutledge drove out of Hertford, back the way he'd come, and found the lane with no difficulty. It was rutted, and the motorcar bounced unpleasantly for some distance before the row of cottages came into view, smoke from their chimneys wreathing the roofs in the cold night air.
Smith indicated the third house on the left, and Rutledge came to a halt. 'Let me speak to the mother. You'll terrify her, Scotland Yard invading her sitting room.'
He got out and knocked at the door. A worn woman of perhaps forty answered, and then stared in alarm over his shoulder at the tall man behind Smith, dressed in a London- made coat and hat. 'You're not going back on your word?' she began accusingly. 'I promised I'd keep him to home.'
'There's nothing to worry you, Mrs. Crowell. I'd just like to speak with Tommy for a bit. This is Mr. Rutledge. It was his car that was damaged, but he hasn't come about repayment.'
They stepped under the low lintel and into a small, cluttered room. It was apparent that Mrs. Crowell took in laundry. There were baskets of neatly folded clothes and bed linens set in every available space, and the odors of hot irons and strong soap permeated the house.
Apprehensive, her eyes on Rutledge, she called Tommy from his room under the eaves. He came clattering down the steps, a big, rawboned child of about sixteen, his face changing from open curiosity to frowning uncertainty as he saw his mother's guests.
Stopping short, he looked from his mother to Inspector Smith, his expression shifting with every thought that passed through his head.
Before Smith could speak, Rutledge stepped forward and held out his hand. 'Hallo, Tommy. My name's Rut- ledge. I'm from London. You're quite a good shot, you know. Hit the windscreen dead center!'
Tommy Crowell burst into shy smiles at the praise as he shook Rutledge's hand. 'Thank you, sir. I've had a good deal of practice.'
'Ever thought about the Army?' Men hardly more than a year or so older than Tommy had served under him, as Hamish was reminding him.
Mrs. Crowell began to protest, but Rutledge sent her a warning glance.
'The Army?' Tommy hesitated. 'Ma wouldn't allow it.'
'What do you prefer, when you're hunting? Shotgun? Revolver?'
A wariness crossed the boy's face. Rutledge noted it, and added, 'I'm a better shot with a revolver myself.' And as the words came out of his mouth, he saw himself standing over the body of Corporal Hamish MacLeod, and drawing his service revolver to deliver the coup de grace, looking down into the pain-ridden eyes begging for release. The cottage room suddenly seemed small, airless, sending an instant of panic through him.
'Fiona…' Rutledge could hear the name as clearly as he had that night on the Somme, as the improvised firing squad stood there watching.
A hand touched his arm, and Rutledge nearly leapt out of his skin.
It was Smith, and for an instant he couldn't remember where he was, or why.
'I'm sorry?' he said, swallowing hard. He'd missed the boy's answer.
Tommy said, repeating his answer nervously, 'I've never fired a real weapon.' He turned to his mother, and she nodded. 'I'm better at this.' He reached on a shelf by the mantel and took down a slingshot. It was strong and well made. And someone had carved and stained it to look like horn. He held it out with a mixture of pride and anxiety. 'You won't take it, will you? Ma won't let me use it anymore, but I like to look at it.'
Rutledge examined it, turning it in his hands, asking, 'And you shot out my windscreen with this?'
Tommy nodded. 'I must have done. It's what I was shooting.'
But Rutledge had dug a bullet out of the frame of his motorcar where it had buried itself after narrowly missing him. 'Then where's the revolver?'
He shook his head in confusion. 'I don't know, sir, truly I don't. I must have lost it!'
Smith started to speak, but Rutledge was there before him. 'Did you lose it in the pasture? Where the horse was grazing? Were you lying by the hedgerow, and dropped it after firing at my car? Where the road bends,' Rutledge added, as Tommy seemed unable to grasp the exact location.
'That's the Upper Pasture, where the road bends.' The boy's face changed. 'Inspector Smith didn't say it was the Upper Pasture-I-he said where the horses are, and that's the home paddock. I don't go to the Upper Pasture, not anymore.' The vehemence in his voice was unmistakable, and his face had paled, making him look even younger than his years.
'Why? Because of what you'd done there?'
'No, sir, no-I don't like the dead soldier there. I'm afraid of him.'
Rutledge had quartered every foot of that ground, and there had been no dead soldier. Nor even the makings of a grave.
But it was clear that Tommy had seen someone there. Or something. In spite of Rutledge's efforts, he got no other information from the Crowell boy. Whatever had caused his terror had emptied his mind of details, and he shook his head over and over again, saying, 'I don't-I don't know.'
In the end, Rutledge handed back the slingshot and said, 'That's a nice piece of workmanship, and I think your mother ought to allow you to have it again.' With Smith at his heels, blustering, Rutledge went out to the motorcar and cranked it himself. The night had turned cold, with frost, surely, by morning. Pulling on his gloves, he got behind the wheel.
Smith was still protesting.
Rutledge said, 'I don't believe he ever touched a revolver. Whatever you ask him, he agrees with. 'Where is the revolver?' 'I don't know where it is, sir.' That's the literal truth-he doesn't. Because he never had it. You've asked him a direct question and he gives you the best answer he knows how. But whatever-whoever-was in that Upper Pasture must have done the firing.'
'A dead soldier? That I knew nothing about? You didn't buy that cock-and-bull tale, did you?'
But then, Hamish was saying, Smith knew nothing about the.303 casings.
'Not even a suicide?'
Smith answered, 'Look, if the boy is lying about the revolver, he's lying about the dead man as well. It's a matter of self-preservation. He doesn't remember what he did with the weapon, and so he gives you a corpse instead. You're a policeman, and corpses are what you deal with. Even Tommy Crowell understands that.'
'He doesn't lie. Simple people seldom do. He told you he didn't know where the revolver is, and he doesn't. If he saw a dead man in that pasture, he described him in terms he could understand.'
He recalled Tommy's exact description. 'He was dead, buried. I saw him and I didn't like it. And I ran.'
'Buried, as in a churchyard?'
'No, not in a churchyard. There were no flowers, and no tombstone. Still, he was lying there, buried.'
'I can hardly scour Hertfordshire for a dead soldier! It's a waste of my time and the time of my men.'
'No. Whoever was in that pasture couldn't have been a local man.'
'You can't be sure of that.'
Rutledge glanced at him, saw the angry face etched by the motorcar's headlamps, and answered him carefully. 'It's your patch. You know it best. If you find out anything, you know where to reach me in London.'
'If it's not a local man,' Smith said, pursuing the issue doggedly, 'it was no accidental shooting, was it? He knew where he was aiming.' When Rutledge said nothing, he fell silent, thinking it through. Where the rutted lane met the main road and the motorcar's tires fought for a grip in the icy mud as Rutledge turned, Smith went on. 'You have an enemy out there, then. I'd not care to be in your shoes.' He turned his head to look behind Rutledge, as if searching out Hamish. 'I'll thank you to take your troubles out of Hertfordshire as soon as you can. We don't need
