Locked rooms - Laurie R. King [50]
“He was near despair when he could not find us among the crowd, but a neighbour saw him and told him that we had already made our way to the Presidio, where the Army had permitted us an area to shelter, and provided food. He finally caught up with us there, and wept when he found us safe, saying over and over that he should never have left. He told us that your house was damaged but standing, that you were all living under canvas in a nearby park, that he had helped your father move some valuables. And that was essentially all he told us, that day or ever.
“But whatever it was he had done with, or for, your father, made him uneasy. One might almost say it haunted him.”
“What do you mean? Was he frightened?”
“Frightened,” Long repeated, considering the word. “It is difficult to imagine one's father frightened. No, I don't believe so. It was, rather, as if he had done something without considering the results, and reflection made him wonder if he had made the right choice. Or as if he had begun to suspect that what he had been asked to do actually concealed another purpose.”
“As if he no longer trusted my father?”
“Not your father, but as if some underlying question threatened to betray them both.” He shrugged, wincing at the motion. “It is difficult to put into words, a vague impression such as that.”
“But you can't think what it was based upon? Was it something that happened to him, or that he saw, that he did?”
“Any of them. None.” His spectacles caught the light as he shook his head. “He would never talk about it.”
It was by now late, and I could see little sense in playing Twenty Questions with a man who could describe the object only by its outline. Holmes clearly felt the same, for he reached out to knock his pipe decisively into an ash-tray.
“Mr Long—” he began to say.
“There is one other thing,” Long interrupted, and Holmes obediently settled back. “Again I do not know what it means, but your father came to see mine in the middle of September 1914. Two weeks before he died. They talked for a long time, and when he left, my father was quiet, but somehow as if a burden had been lifted from him. And when they shook hands, they seemed friends again, as they had not for some time.”
“But you don't know what they talked about.”
“They walked across to the park and sat on a bench, going silent whenever another person came near.”
“Well, thank you, Mr Long,” I said, wishing I did not feel so dissatisfied.
“If we think of any questions, Mr Long,” Holmes said, “may we call on you in your shop?”
“Either I will be there, or my assistant will know where I have gone.”
“Let me go downstairs with you and arrange a motor to take you back. It is late, and your arm clearly troubles you.”
Long protested that it was but a short walk, but Holmes would not be swayed. He retrieved our guest's hat, standing at the ready should the man have any difficulty rising from his chair. He did not, although as Holmes had said, the wounded arm gave all indications of paining him. By way of support, Long gingerly worked his hand into the pocket of his jacket, but when he had done so, he paused, and drew the hand laboriously out again. In his fingers was a paper-wrapped object the shape of a very short cigar, secured in neatly tied twine, which he held out to me.
“In the turmoil of the past few hours, I forgot to give this to you. My father said that it was an object precious to your mother, and removed it for safe-keeping, lest vandals take it.”
I turned the object over in my hands and saw, in a precise, spidery hand:
Inside the paper lay the front door's mezuzah.
Whatever Long saw in my face caused him to take a half-step forward as if to grasp my arm, but he wavered,