“Most of my son’s friends were from his own unit, or men he met on leave.” Burns turned and looked out the window of his office. “A good many of them are dead.”

“This man was interested in the structure of the Atwood House stables. Medieval stonework.”

“In the building trade, then. But an officer, you said.”

“Or a student of medieval history.”

“A don.” He began to list his son’s friends, giving their names, their ranks, their pre-war occupations. Rutledge closed his notebook when Burns had finished.

Of the seventeen men Burns could name, nine were dead, three before 1916. Two others had died of wounds. None of them had served in Palestine, and none of them was a builder or a don. “Although as I think about it now, Tom Warren was interested in history. His father had been attached to the embassy in Turkey at one time, and the family had traveled widely in the Near East.”

A slim thread, Hamish pointed out as Rutledge took his leave.

It would have to do.

Rutledge drove on to Duncarrick to find a message waiting from Gibson. He had had no success in locating the engraver.

FINDING MAJOR THOMAS S. Warren proved to be easier than Rutledge had expected. A call to the Foreign Office had brought him the name of the father, who had in fact been a diplomat and had come out of retirement during the war to serve as an authority on the Turks.

Thomas Warren was a solicitor in Durham. Nearly in Lady Maude’s backyard, as Hamish put it.

Rutledge set out with a box of sandwiches and a flask of tea, courtesy of The Ballantyne, and arrived in Durham before the hotel clerk had come on duty at The Bishop’s Arms. A bath and a shave did much for his appearance, but not for the fatigue that was catching up with him.

Durham had been built by fighting bishops, both castle and cathedral sitting on a well-defended bluff above the winding River Wear. On the other hand, one of the earliest names in English literature was buried here: the Venerable Bede. Before the war, Rutledge had had several friends in the town, but they were gone now. It seemed odd to drive through the familiar streets and not call on one of them.

The law firm was in the center of town, second in a row of buildings that were Victorian Gothic, with even a gargoyle or two leering down at passersby. The street was busy, and Rutledge left his motorcar at The Bishop’s Arms, walking the few streets to his destination.

An elderly clerk admitted him and asked him to be seated until Mr. Warren was free. Rutledge took one of the high-backed chairs near the hearth and felt weariness wash over him. Hamish was much taken with the pair of grim-faced eighteenth-century portraits that flanked the clerk’s desk.