Justice Hall

heavy-laden porcelain cabinets and assorted grim Hughenfort ancestors, to the room that had been the centre of the house for generations of Hughenforts, and for the monks before them. I walked into the thick-walled museum of arms, and looked around for what had so amused Holmes.

I spotted it immediately I faced the door: The sunburst of Saracen blades arranged against the wall was missing the small, decorative element in its hub. Mahmoud’s knife was gone from Justice Hall.

EPILOGUE

The following week, the day after Christmas, Holmes and I read in The Times that a body had been found on Saturday in the lake at Justice Hall, the day after we had walked with Iris to The Circles. The corpse had been identified as Mr Ivo Hughenfort, recently implicated in a disturbance at the Hall. Police were speculating that Mr Hughenfort had wandered in (without, unfortunately, having notified the Hall staff of his presence) to explore the temporarily drained bottom of Justice Pond, unaware that the repairs had only that morning been completed. He appeared to have become trapped in the sticky mud; when the Justice waters rolled down and flooded back into their bed, they had swept him away, drowning him.

There was, The Times reported, no suspicion of foul play.

Justice Stream continued on, ever-flowing.

And in England, no more was seen of Mahmoud Hazr and his cousin Ali.

EDITOR’S AFTERWORD

On June 21, 2001, the Shot at Dawn memorial was unveiled at the Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, England. It depicts a seventeen-year-old private who was condemned to death, without defence, in the summer of 1915. Behind the blindfolded figure stands a forest of 306 wooden stakes, each representing an executed Commonwealth soldier.

The death penalty for desertion and cowardice was abolished in 1930. In 1997 a review of the cases of the 306 Great War condemned men was begun. In 1998 it was suggested that the names of the executed soldiers might now be added to the country’s war memorials. On Remembrance Day 2000, relatives and supporters of the executed soldiers joined the march and the two minutes’ silence at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. However, the Secretary of State for Defence later stated that there would be no posthumous pardons for the men and boys who were shot at dawn.

Laurie R. King

Freedom, California

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

With her debut, A Grave Talent, Laurie R. King became the first novelist since Patricia Cornwell to win prizes for Best First Crime Novel on both sides of the Atlantic. She is the author of four contemporary novels featuring Kate Martinelli, five previous Mary Russell mysteries, and the bestselling novels A Darker Place and Folly. She lives in northern California, where she is at work on her next novel.

Other Mystery Novels by

LAURIE R. KING

Mary Russell Novels

THE BEEKEEPER’S APPRENTICE

A MONSTROUS REGIMENT OF WOMEN

A LETTER OF MARY

THE MOOR

O JERUSALEM

Kate Martinelli Novels

A GRAVE TALENT

TO PLAY THE FOOL

WITH CHILD

NIGHT WORK

And

A DARKER PLACE

FOLLY