Текст книги "The Broken Bell"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

Chapter Thirteen

There’s no way to get a cab in Rannit after Curfew. But a man in a hurry with a pocketful of coin can get a horse and saddle, if he manages to rouse Mr. Flemmons out of his bed without beating down his door in the process.

I managed it. Which meant I not only had the advantage granted by an intimate knowledge of Rannit’s highways and byways but the added speed of four talented hooves. The saddle rubbed my ass raw, and I drew the stares of a couple of halfdead out on the prowl, but I made it to the Docks unpunctured and well in advance of any short, fat hayseeds fleeing Cambrit on foot.

I helped myself to a barn near the Bargewright and made sure my mighty steed Rosie had water and hay. Then I made my way down the pitch-dark street toward the flickering candlelit windows of the Bargewright.

Places like the Bargewright cater to lumberjacks and cattle ranchers and everyone else who has reason to float cargo down the Brown but lacks the funds to end their journey downtown in the clean inns. No, the Bargewright had a leaky roof and thin walls and, if they supplied anything with generosity, it was the cheap booze and the day-old stew.

I walked around the place to find all the doors. Turned out there was only one that wasn’t chained and locked, and it was the front door, so I grinned and ambled inside.

The common room was dim and smoky. A fire that wanted tending was smoldering in a crumbling fireplace. Flies buzzed about, feasting on pools of spilled beer and the remains of abandoned meals.

There were three men and two women scattered about the room when I opened the door. By the time I’d taken two steps inside, they were gone.

“Wise choice.” I took a moment and dabbed the doorframe with Mama’s hex goo. I loosened my coat. I poked up the fire before I choked on the smoke.

Then I turned a chair so that it faced the door and I waited to surprise my out-of-town friend.

I figured a fat man, on foot, would need a good forty-five minutes to make it from Cambrit to the docks, even at a steady run.

An hour and half passed, banged out by the Big Bell’s smaller sibling, before I heard boots and heavy breathing outside.

A man dove inside and slammed the door behind him.

His beady little eyes were wild. His bald, round head was bathed in sweat and streaked with dirt. He was gasping for air and trying to mouth words but couldn’t get them out at first. He stank of hex-brew and to a lesser extent of pig manure.

He saw me. But whatever he’d seen outside was occupying all his mind.

“Vampires,” he managed to gasp. “Outside. Chasing.”

“Well, you can relax. They won’t beat down the door. Curfew says you’re fair game if they catch you outdoors, but once you cross a threshold the chase is done.”

He gobbled air and regarded me with eyes going wary.

I pushed my hat back.

“Of course, there’s no telling who might be waiting for you inside, is there?”

He knew, then. I’m sure he’d seen me before, even followed me. While he stood there panting and sweating, it dawned on him who I was, and I watched his little brain piece together the events he knew must have led me here, and what that meant for his next few moments.

I had him. I had him, and he knew it. He had nowhere to run. Halfdead behind and finders before. I braced myself for the begging and the denials.

The last thing I expected that fat turnip-herder to do was open the door and charge back into the dark.

But that’s just what he did.

I leaped to my feet and charged after him.

I didn’t even hear him scream. I saw a blur of movement, black shadows whipping within blacker shadows, and as I drew Toadsticker the fat man’s body slumped to the street and a pair of halfdead were suddenly standing before me.

Their mouths were red and wet. Their dead pale eyes were fixed upon me.

“I’m with Avalante,” I said. I tapped my silver House pin. “Evis Prestley is a friend of mine.”

“The finder,” said one.

“How amusing,” said the other. A trickle of blood ran down his chin. “Was that a friend of yours?”

“Hardly. He tried to kill me earlier. I was hoping to ask him why.”

“Apologies.”

“Regrets.”

I didn’t like the way they kept smiling.

“Evis is, in fact, a very good friend of mine.”

They laughed high, hissing laughs before turning and gliding away.

I went to the fat man’s side, felt for a pulse at his neck.

I felt no beating of a heart. When I pulled my hand away, it was wet.

I cussed a bit and turned him over and searched him for pockets and papers. I found a key, a last meal in the form of a half-eaten biscuit he had probably consumed in that alley across from my place, a couple of copper coins, and a short length of wood carved with what felt like mystical symbols.

I cleaned my hand on his shirt and left him for the dead wagons. He no longer stank of Mama’s hex-brew. I guess that departed with his heartbeat.

An ogre passed, pulling an empty cart. He sent the dead man flying up onto the sidewalk with a single casual kick.

Hell of a way to end a life.

The dead man’s room was much like his corpse-it reeked of body odor, and the only thing that could cleanse it now was a hot fire.

I used Toadsticker’s point to move clothing and suspect bits of trash around. He hadn’t come to Rannit with anything except a burlap bag and an extra pair of boots, but he’d somehow managed to collect quite a few articles of used clothing, most of them filthy and probably housing legions of lice and fleas. What he intended to do with a load of filthy clothes is not something I’ll ponder.

I didn’t see the tiny chest of drawers at first. It was stuck in a corner and covered with rags. But Toadsticker’s point found it, and I scraped the debris away and there it was-three legs and leaning, but sporting three closed drawers.

The bottom two were empty. The top one held a sweat-stained paper envelope. Inside were two folded sheets of Army-issue yellow paper, and scrawled on one was my name, my address and a largely inaccurate map of Rannit and the Docks. Gertriss was mentioned as well, though listed as living at my place.

Scrawled below her name was the notation Get her first.

The next page was a map. It was drawn in a different ink and with a different hand. It started at a point north of Mama’s hereditary village of Pot Lockney and then wandered through the Northwoods to a point just south of Prince. Then it led straight to Rannit via the Brown.

No names, no brief but informative narration of dastardly plots, no hastily scrawled confessions by the hex-caster.

I folded it all and stuffed it in my jacket pocket and spent a few minutes poking around to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I hadn’t, so I locked the door behind me, left the key in the lock and tipped my hat to the lady in the next room who peeped out at me through her door.

“You know him?” I asked.

She slammed her door shut and locked it.

I tossed the dead man’s wand into the dying fire and watched it for a moment. It burned just fine. Whatever power it might have held was as dead as its last owner.

I shrugged and saddled up and headed home. The sky turned pink. I met a dead wagon, and I yelled to the driver he had one in front of the Bargewright.

He just shrugged and spat.

Another day dawning, in Rannit.

Darla was sitting on my stoop. A basket sat beside her, and so did Three-leg Cat.

Darla smiled. She didn’t mention Curfew or the breaking thereof. She did rise and hug me wordlessly and let me smell her fresh-washed hair.

“Hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

“Not at all. Three-leg kept me company. I know you’ve been worried about him.”

“Worried? Me? I knew the fleabag would show up when he got hungry.”

Darla laughed and let me go. She stayed close, though, and kept hold of my hands.

“He said the same thing about you.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“There’s blood on your jacket.”

It had been dark. I hadn’t noticed.

“It isn’t mine.”

“That is perhaps not as comforting as you think it is.” She gave me a quick kiss and grabbed the basket. I went to my door, didn’t bother with the key and opened it.

“I’ll be damned.”

Grist had stacked the bricks neatly in a corner.

Darla surveyed the bricks and the remains of my brick-dropping apparatus.

“Darling, what happened here?”

“Had a gentleman come calling,” I said. “He meant to surprise me. I surprised him first. He cleaned before he left, though. I wasn’t expecting that.”

Darla held up her hand for silence and then set about opening the basket and dispensing the contents atop my desk.

“Did your visitor have anything to do with Tamar’s missing groom?”

She’d brought a jar of strawberry jam. I have a considerable weakness for strawberry jam.

“He was part of the crew after Gertriss. By the way, Mama has flown the coop. Gone to Pot Lockney to confront the hex-caster.” I grabbed a biscuit. “Still warm.”

“Coffee too.” She poured.

I ate and drank, speaking between swallows. I told her about Pratt, about the attempt to snag Tamar. I told her a man died, but I didn’t specify who killed him, and she didn’t ask.

“You should either stay at Avalante or at my place,” said Darla while I prepared another biscuit with jam. “You can’t drop bricks on everyone who comes to see you.”

“True. I’d soon run out of bricks. I don’t think there will be any more hexed callers for a while, though. The blood on my jacket? That was the last of them, I think. Halfdead got to him before I did.”

Darla shivered. I put my biscuit down and took her hand.

“Enough about that. You asked about Tamar. I do have a thought or two in her regard.”

She eyed me over a slice of toast. “Pray tell.”

“Let’s say the same bunch that grabbed Carris was also after Tamar.”

“Seems likely, doesn’t it?”

“It does, oh light of my life. Which leads me to believe that the Lethways and the Fields have something more in common than just a pair of kids in love.”

“What?”

“I have no idea. But look. Tamar said someone came to see her father a few weeks ago. Shouting ensued. Aside from me I don’t think Mr. Fields shouts at many people. Have you met him?”

“A few times. He seemed very…baker-ish.”

“Exactly. Now, Pratt tells me he’s not sure what the people who grabbed Carris want. What if it’s not money at all?”

“What else could it be?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Yet. Aside from their kids, the Lethways and the Fields don’t have much in common. Lethway runs a mining outfit. Fields pounds dough into donuts. Mrs. Lethway drinks to excess. Mrs. Fields prefers imported coffee. They don’t move in the same social circles. They don’t live in the same neighborhood. They don’t even travel the same streets.”

Darla swallowed. “So where do you start?”

“As far back as I can. They both served. Both in the Sixth, but not together.”

“You think they’re lying.”

“Somebody always is.”

She poured herself a fresh cup of coffee. “So you’ll go to the Barracks and look through old payroll records?”

I grinned. “You’ve been hanging around me too long.”

“I think I’ll come with you. I have the day off. Martha’s been wanting Mary to try handling the front. Will they let a woman in the Barracks, or will I need a false moustache and a hat?”

I thought of old Burris, the Barracks caretaker.

“Not only will they let you in, dear, I’ll probably be forced to resort to arms just to get you out.” I drained my cup. “Are you sure, hon? It’s dusty, and the rats are so big they’ve taken to wearing pants and shoes.”

She laughed. “Then I’ll see their outfits are fitted properly. Will you want to bathe before we go?”

She didn’t mention the blood specifically.

“Only if you wait in a cab,” I said. “Might not be safe here.”

“You just said the last hexed man was gone.”

“I said I think so. Better you wait in a cab. Oh, and thank you for breakfast.”

She smiled. “I’m always going to worry, you know.”

“I know. I wish that wasn’t so.”

“You are who you are.”

Three-leg leaped onto my desk, sniffed dismissively at my breakfast, and emitted the kind of odor only the prolonged ingestion of diseased sewer rats can generate.

We scrambled for my room behind the office. I grabbed clothes and shaving kit and we darted out, leaving Three-leg perched atop my desk, casually surveying the remains of our meal.

He meowed in triumph as I shut the door.

Bathed and shaved, with Darla at my side, I bade the cabbie head toward the Barracks.

I hoped we’d find answers. Or at least rule out a couple of questions. Maybe we’d find absolutely nothing but rat-chewed payroll ledgers, but trying is part of this business, and it’s not a part you can treat lightly.

Darla quizzed me on the way, mainly about how the payroll ledgers were entered, balanced and maintained. I laid it out as best as I could. Judging by her lifted eyebrows and snickering, my layman’s description of how a military payroll was disbursed and recorded was lacking to the ear of a highly skilled former accountant.

The Barracks is just that-barracks. Forty-seven long, low-roofed troop lodges, spread over five city blocks. When the War ended, the Regent ordered every record maintained by the Army brought back to the Barracks, where’d they’d simply been dumped. In the eleven years since the end of the War, a small dwindling army of former paymasters and clerks has doddered from stack to stack, trying to put them in some semblance of order deep in the Barracks.

It was there, amid the crumbling, moldering heaps of yellow-green papers that I would start finding in earnest. If you know a name, and you have the patience, you can often trace the history of any soldier from his pay. Even if you can’t find the full story from the old records, you can find other names, names of soldiers who’d lived and come home and who might remember the things I was paid to find out.

“We’re here,” I said as the cab rolled to a halt. Darla peeped out and wrinkled her nose in mock distaste.

“Are you sure? This looks more barn than barracks.”

“Barns are more luxurious.” I paid the cabbie and Darla let me help her out of the cab, and then we were alone on the street.

I tried and failed to bite back a yawn. The only sleep I’d gotten had been in the back of my borrowed Avalante carriage, and even four cups of coffee wasn’t keeping the cobwebs from forming.

“That’s what you get for carousing all night. Where’s the front door?”

“In typical Army fashion, the front door is on the side.” I started walking. She fell into step behind me, all business. Somehow she produced a smallish writing pad and a fancy brass pen. I hadn’t seen either in the cab.

“So we’re looking for any record concerning Lethway or Mr. Fields.”

“Right. We find them, mark them and gather them together. Then we trudge through them, looking for whatever is it we happen to find. That’s the door. Charming, isn’t it?”

The doors to the Barracks are old garrison gates tall and wide enough to admit a ten-horse wagon. Painted across them to let taxpaying citizens know where they stand are the words NO ADMITTANCE REGENCY BUSINESS ONLY.

I marched us up to them and was poised to start raising a ruckus when the hinges groaned and the right door swung inward enough for Burris the caretaker to appear, blinking in the sun.

Burris might be as old as Mama claims to be. He might once have been a tall man, but now he is set in a permanent stoop so profound he’d tip over if you took his cane. His eyebrows would make wonderful moustaches. The only other hair left is nested about his ears, giving him the appearance of a gap-toothed gnome.

“How can we be of service to you today, Miss?”

So much for Darla’s worries about sexism in the Barracks.

“We’d like to look through your payroll records, if we might,” said Darla. She smiled as she spoke. Nothing too big, nothing too obvious, but if she’d asked Burris for his false teeth and a handful of sunshine he’d have scrambled to hand them over.

“And good morning to you, Master Sergeant Burris. Remember me? Markhat, the finder?”

Burris snorted. “I remember you. Come right in, Miss. I’ll get you a table, a lamp and a nice comfy chair.”

He motioned us inside.

“Do I get a comfy chair too?”

“You’ll get a knock upside your head, any more smart talk.”

Darla laughed. “Yes, behave yourself, Mr. Markhat.” She grabbed my elbow. “I just can’t take him anywhere.”

Burris chuckled and led us down a dark, narrow hallway that stank of mothballs. “Now, Miss, what kind of payroll records ’ere ye after? We’ve got everything more or less separated by theatre. You got yer northern divisions in Barracks One. Yer western divisions in Two and Three. Yer eastern in Four, and yer southern in Five.”

“We want the western ones, then. The Sixth, specifically, isn’t that right, hon?”

I nodded an affirmative. If Burris was mesmerized by Darla’s presence into being helpful I wasn’t going to break the spell by speaking.

“Well now. The Sixth. Big one, the Sixth. We ain’t got all them filed yet.” Old Burris risked a half-turn toward Darla and grinned at her. “But don’t you worry none, Miss. We’ll find what yer lookin’ for. Yes, we will.”

Turned out Master Sergeant Burris was a poor prophet.

Not that I blame him much. When we finally traversed the many halls and passed through the numerous rooms that lay between the front door and Barracks Two, we were greeted by crates stacked upon crates stacked upon crates, sixteen crates high in places, in heaps and mounds that stretched as far as the eye could see.

“Oh.” That was all Darla said. But she covered her heart with her right hand, a sure sign of distress.

A pigeon fluttered and another cooed, somewhere amid the crates.

I rolled up my sleeves. Burris set about finding chairs and lighting lamps. Darla lowered her hand and walked up to the first open crate she saw and started reading.

I slipped up behind her and put my hand on her shoulder. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said. “The crates with the actual ledgers will be marked in red. The ones with troop rosters will say rosters. The rest we can ignore.”

“That narrows it down to only a few thousand.”

“And you wonder why I yawn so frequently.”

She managed a smile. “This is actually part of an expense account.”

“Then we don’t need it. Over there. That one. Let’s start there.”

I pointed to a red crate, sitting alone at the edge of a teetering stack of ten. The lid was already pried off. We made our way to it, each grabbed a side, and hauled it over to the rickety old table Burris managed to push away from the wall.

I grabbed a fistful of papers. Darla did the same. Dust flew.

“This ought to be our best date ever.”

“Shush. Darling. Where are the dates?”

“Upper left corner. They write them all backwards.” I shrugged at her raised eyebrow. “It’s the Army. Don’t ask.”

She laughed, settled into her chair, and we plowed into our first red crate.

By mid-morning, I had sorted through two entire crates. Aside from disturbing a family of mice and raising a substantial cloud of dust, my efforts were for naught as far as finding any connection between Lethway and Fields.

Darla, on the other hand, was so engrossed she’d stopped speaking. She had covered the table and built another table out of empty crates and then she’d started just stacking papers on the floor while she darted between them, staring and muttering. Her notebook was filled with page after page of scribbles. They were in some accountant’s shorthand, so my peek at them told me nothing.

When Darla gets immersed in numbers, she might as well be out West. I handed her heaps of papers when she appeared to run low and Burris kept her supplied with coffee and freshly-sharpened pencils.

Noon came and went. Burris sent his clerk out for sandwiches. Darla ate hers on the move. I emptied another pair of crates before I found my first glimmer of a clue-a disbursement entry made out to one H. Fields, who bore the rank of private first class, and who was listed as officer’s cook.

Another half-hour of searching matched that ledger with another, and that one with yet another, and with that I was able to establish that Tamar’s father had indeed served as a cook in the eighth regiment of the Kingery Division of the second battalion of the Sixth Army of the West.

“Hurrah,” I said, leaning back in my chair and stretching. “I just confirmed what we already knew. Mr. Fields was a cook in the Sixth. I’d promote myself, if I weren’t already the boss.”

Burris snorted. He had an armload of papers and was waiting patiently for Darla to notice and take them from him.

Darla took the papers and smiled at Burris.

“Is there anything else you’ll be wantin’, Miss?”

“Another pot of coffee would be lovely,” said Darla. I swear she even batted her eyes.

She needn’t have done so. Burris was already shuffling off toward the kitchen, promising not only coffee but biscuits and honey as well.

“You’re going to give the old boy a stroke.” I rose and caught her from behind in a hug. “Now then. Care to tell me what it is that’s got you so excited?”

I nuzzled her neck. It’s a nice neck for nuzzling.

She laughed and settled back against me.

“I’m about to make you a very happy man,” she said.

“You do that here and we’ll have to haul old Burris out in a box.”

She turned in my embrace and draped her arms around my neck.

“Your Mr. Fields not just a cook in the eighth regiment of the Kingery Division of the second battalion of the Sixth Army of the West. He was a private cook, for an officer.” She rubbed the tip of her nose against mine. “Care to guess the name of that officer?”

“You don’t say.”

“I don’t. The records do. They knew each other well, my bleary-eyed intended. Didn’t you say they both denied ever meeting the other?”

“I did. They did.”

“Then you were right. Everybody lies.”

“You don’t.”

She smiled and kissed me.

A door down the hall slammed. We separated.

“There’s more.” Darla nodded toward the maze of papers she’d spread across the floor. “Someone was cooking the books. Nothing balances. Supplies were being bought and paid for, but weren’t being delivered. Dead soldiers were being paid after being buried. Someone in the Sixth was robbing the Kingdom blind.”

“Any idea who?”

She sighed. “Not yet. Maybe not ever. So much is missing. But they weren’t even trying, Markhat. Was no one reading anything?”

“I doubt it. The War wasn’t going well. And then it ended, the Kingdom collapsed and…” I shrugged. “Well, they put old Burris on the case. How much are we talking, just guessing?”

“Tens of thousands. Hundreds, perhaps.”

“Enough to set yourself up in style after the War.”

“Weren’t the Lethways already rich?”

“That’s a post-War house they’re in.”

“The Fields too.”

“Could just be coincidence. But why lie about serving together?”

Darla glared at the mountain of papers. “I’ll need more time. Lots more time.”

I chuckled and took her hand. “You’ve got a business to run, young woman. We’ll stick around until Burris locks the doors. But I don’t want to catch you hanging around here tomorrow. I think the Master Sergeant has designs on your person.”

She giggled. “I do like older men.”

Burris emerged down the hall, bearing a platter of biscuits and coffee.

“Well, don’t let me stand in the way of true love.”

She rushed down the hall to help Burris with the platter. I watched her go, then turned back to yet another box of forgotten scribbles and useless ciphers.

Damned if Darla and I didn’t spend the entire day and a good part of the evening in the Barracks.

When we finally emerged, dusty and bleary-eyed, we had established that Lethway and Fields were lying about their service together. And Darla was convinced that the Sixth was used as a private bankroll by someone high in the chain of command.

They’d been sloppy enough to leave plenty of tracks. Darla explained it to me, but most of the details just smiled and waved in passing. But what I did have a firm grasp of was the concept that money had been taken in for Army expenses that were never actually paid.

Darla was sure she could eventually lay the blame at the embezzler’s feet, if she had the time and access to the Barracks.

I reminded her such a feat might take months, even years, if the records were there in the first place. And, I pointed out, there were more direct means to find the answers that related to Lethway and Fields.

I planned to just show up and ask. And when they denied everything, I’d suggest that the Regency might conduct its own review of the records, if, for instance, someone from House Avalante suggested such an investigation.

Kicking a finder to the curb is one thing. Giving the Regency the boot is quite another.

For the first time since that morning Darla had bribed me with sticky buns, I felt like I was working the case.

I dropped Darla off at her place, and kissed her goodnight beneath her tiny yellow porch. I knew she was hoping I’d ask her to come with me on my visit to Mr. Fields, but knowing the reception I was going to get, I didn’t ask.

The cab rolled away from Darla’s neat little house. I could see her standing in the window, watching me go.

“Where to, pal?” called down the cabbie.

I gave him the address to the bakery. I was hoping Fields would still be there, even though it must be closing. Normally I don’t like to bother a man at his work, but I didn’t think he’d be any happier to find me on his doorstep at home.

My sleepless the night before was catching up with me. I put my face in the cab’s window and let the cool evening air rush past. Rannit stinks in my neighborhood, but closer to the bakery, it smelled of meals cooking and fresh-cut grass.

I wasn’t exactly revived when we arrived, but I felt a bit more coherent. The cab pulled right in front of the bakery, and I clambered out and paid the cabbie and sauntered to the doors.

They weren’t locked yet. The CLOSED sign was nowhere to be seen.

But neither was Mr. Fields, or anyone else.

Call it a sixth sense. Call it a touch of Mama Hog’s Sight. Call it what you want. But the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and a cemetery chill scampered down my spine. When I opened the door, I did so slowly, and as it opened I slipped my hand inside and caught that cheery little bell and I put my pinkie finger inside it to silence its cheery little ring.

Then I darted in and closed the door carefully behind me.

Voices. I heard voices, from the kitchen. Male and low and angry. In no way did they suggest a discussion about cinnamon was taking place.

I moved gingerly across the tile floor, thanking the Angels it hadn’t rained. My shoes would have squeaked, had they been wet. And if my hunch was right, squeaky shoes and tinkling bells were a good way to get killed, in that place and at that time.

The closer I moved to the swinging gate that led behind the counter, the better I could hear.

One of the speakers was Mr. Fields. There were two others. One did most of the talking. The other added occasional grunts or snorts to the conversation.

“…going to tell us what we want to know,” said a voice.

“I’ve told you I don’t know a damned thing,” replied Mr. Fields.

“He’s lying,” said the other voice.

“Could be,” said the first. “Maybe he needs reminding who it is he’s stalling.”

Then there came a crash and a rattle. Tin pots fell, glassware shattered, men grunted and cussed.

Outnumbered two to one, and with no assurances that Fields wouldn’t turn on me just out of spite, I did the only thing I could think of, which was go back to the door and yank it open and give that cheerful little bell a damned good shake.

The ruckus in the back abated, just a bit.

“Mr. Fields?” I called, good and loud. “Agent of the Regency. Time for your food service license inspection. Loomis, Charles, you two get started. Milton, take the back.”

Feet beat it, and a door slammed from somewhere in the kitchen.

I let out a sigh of relief. Assuming that every kitchen in Rannit has a back door that opens into the alley is a safe bet, unless it’s your life you’re betting.

Mr. Fields emerged. His nose was bloody and his shirt was untucked and missing most of its buttons. In his right hand was a long straight knife, and in his left was a wicked two-tined fork.

“What the Hell are you doing here?”

I plopped my butt onto a stool. “You’re welcome. Again. I dropped in for a cup of coffee. Are you going to stab me, poke me or pour me a cup?”

“Haven’t decided.”

“Want me to lock the door? Might be a good idea if your two friends from the kitchen head back. Also a good idea if you decide on stabbing me. Don’t want to scare off paying customers with violent acts of murder on the sales floor now, do we?”

“Do you ever shut that mouth of yours?”

“Hardly ever. It’s how I make my living. Take today, for instance. I spent all of it digging through old Army payroll records, Mr. Fields. Did you know most of them still exist? Well, they do.”

He glowered. He glared. But his hands were shaking and sweat was pouring off his fat little head. After a moment he threw the fork onto the floor and shoved the knife under his apron and stalked to the big brass coffee machine and set about pouring two cups of it.

“Two sugars, please. Hold the arsenic. But as I was saying. I spent all day going through these records, just to see if you and Mr. Lethway were not telling the entire truth about never having served directly with each other, during the War. Do you know what I found, Mr. Fields?”

He shoved the coffee cup at me and sat across from me. I took a sip. His cup never moved, and he didn’t meet my eyes.

“You were his personal cook. For two years, maybe longer. Why did you lie about that, Mr. Fields? Why did Lethway?”

“You’re going to get us both killed.”

“And if I just walk away, maybe take up turnip farming, is that going to keep those men from coming back? Is that going to keep them away from your daughter?”

He growled a curse word. But he didn’t reach for his knife.

I drank coffee and waited.

“I was the Colonel’s cook. Four years. Kept me off the front. Only Troll I ever saw was dead.”

“So you ran an officer’s kitchen. That’s nothing to lie about.”

“No.” He clutched his cup with both hands and stared down into it. “I wasn’t rich. Was just a kid. But I could read and write. I did my own requisitions. Handled the kitchen funds.”

It began to dawn on me.