Phillip Pryce and Hugh Renaday were waiting for Tommy just inside the entrance to the British compound. Hugh, as always, was pacing about, almost making circles around their older friend, who wore his anticipation more subtly-in the lift of his eyebrows, the small upward turn at the corners of his mouth. Despite the fine morning that was rising around them, bright sunshine and advancing temperatures, he still draped a blanket across his shoulders, again giving him an antique, almost Victorian look. His cough seemed immune to the advantages of the spring weather, still punctuating much of what he said with dry, hacking sounds.

"Tommy," Pryce said, as the American quickly approached.

"Let us walk a bit on this excellent morning. Walk and talk.

I've always found that sometimes movement can stimulate one's imagination."

"More bad news, Phillip," Tommy replied.

"Well I have interesting news," Hugh replied.

"But you first. Tommy."

As the three men traveled around the perimeter, just inside the British camp's similar barbed-wire deadline and looming guard towers. Tommy filled them in on the discovery of the knife.

"Had to be planted there," he concluded.

"I mean, the whole show was orchestrated like some carnival magic act.

Poof!

The murder weapon. The alleged murder weapon. It made me furious, too, the way Clark baited Lincoln Scott into agreeing to the search. I would bet my GI insurance that they already knew the knife was there.

Then they make this little scene of searching his stuff, not that he has much, and then wham!

Bang! They pull back the bed and find a loose board. Scott probably didn't even know there was a hiding place underneath the flooring. Only the old boys in the camp know about those spaces. Totally transparent, the whole performance…"

"Yes," Pryce said, nodding, "but nastily effective. No one, of course, will see the transparency, but the word that the murder weapon has been discovered will likely further poison the atmosphere. And giving it all the veneer of legality, as well. The issue. Tommy, of course, is less how it was planted than why. Now, perhaps the how will provide us the why, but the reverse is often true, as well."

Tommy shook his head. He was a little embarrassed, but spoke quickly, so as not to display it. He had not yet made that particular leap of logic.

"I don't have an answer to that, Phillip. Other than the obvious: to close all the loopholes through which Lincoln Scott might manage to extricate himself."

"Correct," Pryce said, with a small flourish of his hand in the air.

"What I find most interesting is that we seem, once again, to be thrust into an unusual situation. Do you not see what has taken place, so far, with each aspect of this case, Tommy?"

"What?"

"The distinctions between truth and falsehood are very fine and narrow.

Almost imperceptible…"

"Go on, Phillip."

"Well, in every situation, with every piece of evidence that has surfaced so far, Lincoln Scott is pushed into the awkward position of providing an alternate explanation to the arrival of a fact. It is as if our young black flier must counter everything by saying, "Now see here, let me give you another reasonable explanation for this and for that and for this, too." But is this something that young Mr. Scott seems capable of?"

"Not very bloody likely." Hugh muttered.

"It wasn't hard for me to trip him up, and I'm on his bloody side. And it seems Clark only had to say, "If you have nothing to hide…" and Scott eagerly jumped into his trap."

"No," Tommy agreed rapidly.

"He is very intelligent and always at least a little bit angry and obviously goddamn headstrong.

He is a fighter, a boxer, and I think he's used to direct confrontation. Even violent ones. This is, I think, a poor combination of traits to have in an accused man."

"Quite so, quite so," Pryce said, nodding.

"Does this not make you think of a question, or two?"

Tommy Hart hesitated, then replied forcefully.

"Well, a man is murdered and the accused is black and a loner and unpopular, which makes him terribly convenient for most everyone involved, and there is a stack of decidedly obvious evidence against him that is difficult to counter."

"A perfect case, perhaps?"

"Very perfect, so far."

"Which should make one wonder. In my experience, perfect cases are rare."

"We need to create a less perfect scenario."

"Precisely. So, where does that leave us?"

"In trouble, I think," Tommy said, smiling wryly.

The older man grinned, as well.

"Yes, yes, that would seem so. But I am not completely sure of that.

Regardless, do you not think it is time to turn some of these disadvantages to our benefit? Especially Mr. Scott's aggressive behavior?"

"Sure. Okay But how?"

Pryce laughed out loud.

"Well, isn't that the eternal question?

Same for a lawyer. Tommy, as it is for a troop commander.

Now, listen to Hugh for a moment."

Tommy turned toward the Canadian, who was on the verge of laughing.

"Little bit of the old but unfamiliar and hardly common in Stalag Luft Thirteen sort of good news, Tommy, of which we've had so precious little. I found the man who examined Captain Bedford right where you said he'd be, in the medical services hut."

"Good. And he said?"

Hugh continued to smile.

"Most curious, what he had to say. He said he was ordered by Clark and MacNamara to prepare Bedford's body for burial. He was told not to perform any sort of even half-baked autopsy. But the fellow couldn't really help himself. You know why? He's a young guy, what you folks in the States call a real go-getter, a hotshot first lieutenant decorated in combat who doesn't particularly like taking damn fool orders and who has coincidentally spent the past three years working in his uncle's mortuary in Cleveland, Ohio, while putting money away to attend medical school. He got drafted after finishing a single semester. Gross anatomy, you know, right off the bat in medical school. So, there was this body and the lad was shall we say 'academically' curious.

About such delightful things as rigor mortis and lividity."

"Sounds good, so far."

"Well, he had the most intriguing observation."

"Which is?"

"It wasn't slicing his throat that killed Captain Bedford.

No great outpouring of blood from a slashed jugular."

"But the wound…"

"Oh, that was the wound that killed him. But it wasn't delivered like this…"

Hugh stopped, lifted his fist to his throat as if holding a blade, and then drew it across the front rapidly with a cutting motion.

"Or like this…" This time, Hugh stood facing Tommy and slashed the air between them, like a child playacting at a sword fight.

"But that's-" "That's what we thought. More or less. But no, our erstwhile doctor thinks the killing blow was, well, let me show you…"

Hugh moved behind Tommy and suddenly reached around him with his right arm, grasping the American underneath the chin with his thickly muscled forearm and partially lifting him into the air in the same second, using his hip for leverage, so that Tommy's toes abruptly reached for the earth. In the same movement, Hugh brought his left hand up firmly, again in a fist, as if grasping a knife, and jabbed it against the side of Tommy's neck, just beneath the jawbone. A single, sharp blow, not a slash as much as a punch with the fictional point of the blade.

The Canadian dropped Tommy back to the ground.

"Jesus," Tommy said.

"Just like that?"

"Correct. And did you notice which hand held the knife?"

"Left." Tommy smiled.

"And Lincoln Scott is right-handed.

At least, that was the hand he threw the punch at Hugh with.

Intriguing, gentlemen. In-fucking-triguing." Tommy snorted the obscenity, which made the others grin.