Part 20 (1/2)

And even as he stepped back in alarm, the pain-filled blue eyes stared back at him, recognition-and resignation-in them.

THE MAN STARTED to say something, shook his head, and then found the words in English. to say something, shook his head, and then found the words in English.

”A long way from France.” His voice was quiet, pitched so that Elizabeth couldn't hear him. Her soothing words to the spaniel had roused the puppies, and they were whimpering.

Rutledge, with Hamish hammering at the back of his mind, asked harshly, ”Who the h.e.l.l are you?” ”Who the h.e.l.l are you?” A dozen images pressed and overlapped and faded with such speed that he was unable to sort through them or comprehend their significance. He was on a road-a road filled with figures, men he didn't know-there were caissons and lorries, abandoned where they stood-voices he couldn't understand-confusion, and a blank, impenetrable haze. . . . A dozen images pressed and overlapped and faded with such speed that he was unable to sort through them or comprehend their significance. He was on a road-a road filled with figures, men he didn't know-there were caissons and lorries, abandoned where they stood-voices he couldn't understand-confusion, and a blank, impenetrable haze. . . .

”Don't you know? I've come-” The man winced, caught his breath, and went on, ”-I've come back from the dead.”

”You don't belong here-”

”True. Yes. I know that.”

Rutledge's mind was reeling, fighting shock and disbelief.

And then relief surfaced, the realization that what he'd seen on Guy Fawkes Day two weeks before had been no hallucination, no slippage of the mind into madness. The man was real. He was real. He was real.

Rutledge had no idea who he was-or where he had come from-except out of the darkness of war.

And Hamish was saying, ”But he's deid. You said yoursel' he's deid.” ”But he's deid. You said yoursel' he's deid.”

”I thought you were dead,” Rutledge found himself repeating aloud. ”I watched you die!”

”Yes. Well. I am hard to kill.” The man s.h.i.+vered, and Rutledge came back to the present, staring at the warm blood on his fingers, at the sweater thick with it. He reached out and fumbled for an instant, lifting the heavy wet wool, then found his pocket knife and began to cut it away. With his hands busy, his mind seemed to anchor itself, as if rejecting anything but the work that needed to be done.

He could hear Elizabeth walking back down the pa.s.sage, her feet hurrying.

The man cautioned hastily, ”We will talk about the war another time. Not now.”

She came into the hall, moving quickly to help Rutledge pull away the last of the ripped yarn, gasping at the dark wet blood all over the man's s.h.i.+rt.

Rutledge cut the s.h.i.+rt in its turn, saying to Elizabeth, ”Water. Hot if you can manage it, and cloths. Bandages. Then send someone for the doctor.” His voice sounded different in his ears, strained and brutal.

She went away quickly to do his bidding, but not before he'd seen the glance exchanged between the German and Elizabeth.

”Leave her out of this,” the German was saying. ”She has nothing to do with this. I will go with you to the doctor. You must not bring him to this house. It would cause-” He stopped and caught his breath again. ”-It will cause comment. Talk. What do you call it?”

”Gossip. You should have thought of that before pa.s.sing out on her doorstep.”

”I had very little choice. I was nearer this house than where-where I am living now.”

”You're a German national.” Rutledge was still trying to sort through it.

The man managed a smile. ”Even German nationals need a-need a roof when they travel. This hurts like the very devil!”

The knife blade had slashed down from the shoulder across another, older wound that had scarred over on the man's chest. Deep, but not dangerously so. Rutledge, working carefully, explored the wound.

”Someone didn't very much care whether they killed you or not,” he told the German. ”What had you done to him, to deserve this?”

”I had done nothing. I was walking along the road, my coat over my-over my arm. There was a man at the side of the road. As I came closer, he hobbled out and struck. Then he was-he was gone.”

Sweat was running down the man's face. His jaw, set now against another wave of pain, quivered with the effort to keep himself alert.

Elizabeth came back with the water in a kettle, and cloths with which to bathe the wound lying across a basin. She handed them to Rutledge and stood back, looking close to fainting herself.

”Go find the doctor,” Rutledge told her, pouring the water into the basin and dipping a cloth into it. Almost too warm, he thought; the stove must have just been banked for the night.

But she stood there, mesmerized, unable to move.

Rutledge cleaned up the wound as best he could, unable to staunch the bleeding even with the water and pads of cloths. In the end, he simply packed it and wound strips of linen around it. It reminded him, more than he cared to admit, of his own wound, hardly a month healed.

”The cook,” Hamish was saying, ”willna' know where her tea towels have got to.”

And Rutledge saw the embroidered initials on one of the strips. An absurdity in the nightmare. Like all nightmares, he thought to himself. . . .

”Give him something to drink. Whisky, with a little of the hot water to dilute it,” he said to Elizabeth, and like a sleepwalker, she turned away to do as he asked.

The German drank it down gratefully, when she handed him the crystal gla.s.s, and he gave it back to her with a wry smile. ”However will you explain this to the servants tomorrow?” he asked, glancing at the bloodied cloths and the basin full of dark red water.

It was as if he were trying to tell her to get rid of the evidence of his presence. Elizabeth, starting awake from her shock, said, ”I'll-I'll deal with it.” She bent down to lift the basin of water at Rutledge's feet and nearly dropped it as she looked into the b.l.o.o.d.y depths.

As she walked away to pour it out, forgetting the kettle sitting on the floor by the chair, the German said, ”You have a motorcar? I thought I heard one before you came.”

”Yes. It's in the drive.”

”Then if you will get me out of here, I will tell you whatever you want to know.”

”I'm taking you to the local doctor, and then to the police station.”

”No, I think you will not do eith-either of these things once you-once you have heard what I have to tell you.” He tried to stand, to pull his coat over his bare shoulders. But the effort was too much. He sank back in the chair, saying ruefully, ”I think you must help me again. I don't quite seem to know-to know where my feet are!”

Elizabeth came back, picked up the b.l.o.o.d.y towels and strips of clothing with distaste, and carried them away with the kettle.

She said, returning, ”I put the cloths in the stove. It's an awful smell! But they'll burn.” She looked up at Rutledge expectantly, as if waiting for him to solve all their problems.

Hamish said, ”She wants him to go. But she isna' happy with his going.”

Indeed, she seemed to be torn, her hands gripping each other tightly, the knuckles white as the silence in the hall lengthened.

Rutledge said peremptorily, ”Elizabeth, go to bed. I'll see to him. You look as if you'll fall down any minute. He's not dying. There's nothing more you can do. He needs better medical care than this-” He gestured to the rough bandaging.

Rousing herself with an effort, she said angrily, ”Just because you're a policeman-” And then she stopped, thoroughly ashamed.

”It's because I'm a policeman that I'm telling you to go to bed,” he answered without heat. ”Leave this to me. He will live, and I'll see to him.”