Games of the Hangman Read Online Free

of the scene of the incident; there
was.   It lasted perhaps sixty seconds and
consisted of the sergeant's padding around the tree a couple of times, staring
up at the hanging body as he did so, his boots leaving a perfect trail of
cleated prints in the soft ground, obscuring with official finality any
previous marks.
    Fitzduane's
gaze drifted back to the body.   It's feet, limp and slightly parted, were shod in
surprisingly formal dark brown shoes polished to a military gloss.   He wondered if Rudolf had spit-shined his
shoes that morning — and if so, why?
    The ladder was
placed against the tree.   The sergeant
tested it a couple of times, placed the young guard at the foot to hold it
securely, and climbed.   He removed a
bone-handled folding knife from the pocket of his uniform raincoat and opened
the blade.
    Knife in hand,
he surveyed the gathering.   Silhouetted
in that way above the body, he reminded Fitzduane of a print he had seen of an
eighteenth-century execution.
    "Hugo,
give us a hand," said the sergeant.   "Let's cut the lad down."
    Automatically
Fitzduane moved forward and stood just under the corpse.   There was the brief sawing sound of the blade
against taut rope, and the body fell into his waiting arms.
    He clasped it
to him, suddenly more disturbed than he would have thought possible at the
absolute waste of it.   The torso was
still warm.   He held the broken body, the
head disfigured and hideous, flopping from the extended neck.   He would often think of that moment
afterward.   It seemed to him that it was
the physical contact with that once-so-promising young body that forced him
into the resolve not to be a bystander, not to treat this death as one more
item in a long catalog of observed violence, but to find out, if at all
possible, why.
    Other hands
joined him, and the moment when he had the dead boy in his arms alone was
over.   They prepared to set the body on
the ground; a thick plastic bag had already been laid out.   As Fitzduane lowered the shoulders onto the protecting
surface, a long moan emerged from the hanged boy's bloodstained mouth.
    They all
froze, shocked, unwilling to contemplate the same unpalatable thought:   Had Rudolf von Graffenlaub been quietly
strangling while they all stood around making awkward conversation and waiting
for the police?
    The long, low
moan died away.   It was a sound that
Fitzduane had heard before, thought it was nonetheless unsettling for
that.   "It's the air," he said
quickly.   "It's only the air being
squeezed out of his lungs as we move him."   He looked around at the circle of greenish white faces and hoped he was
right.

     
    *           *           *           *           *

     
    Half an hour later he sat in front of the sergeant in the library
of
Draker
College
, which had been commandeered as
an interview room for the occasion, and made his statement.   He looked at the mud drying on the guard's
heavy boots and the crisscrossing of muddy footprints on the inlaid floor.   Standards were dropping.
    "You
don't look great, Hugo," said the sergeant.   "I'd have thought you'd be used to this
kind of thing."
    Fitzduane
shrugged.   "So would I."   He smiled slightly.   "It seems that it's different on your
own doorstep."
    The sergeant
nodded.   "Or the
last straw."   He puffed at an
old black briar pipe with a silver top over the bowl to protect it from the
wind, and from it emanated the rich aroma of pipe tobacco.   He was a big, heavyset man, not many years
from retirement.
    "Tommy,"
said Fitzduane, "somehow I expected more of an investigation before the
body was cut down.   The
immediate area being roped off.   An examination by the forensic people.   That sort of thing."
    The sergeant
raised a grizzled eyebrow.   His reply was
measured.   "Hugo, if I didn't know
you so well, I might be thinking there was just the faintest tincture of
criticism in that remark."
    Fitzduane
spread his