Words trembled across us as if a bell had been struck; yet there was no bell on that sunlit hill—only the hush of low grass and a stray cry from a distant kestrel. I watched Ancaues, Lagrita, and Castor—three of them, august as if they were cannon, mute as if they were covenants—while the hill around them lay outstretched like a table set for argument; then he appeared, as though cut from the stagnant shadow beneath the lone hawthorn—which, I was certain, had not been there a moment before.
He stood half-turned, his posture the posture of someone arrested mid-motion, as if the wind had pushed him forward and an inward resolve had checked his step. His right hand rose—not in the heavy salute of a soldier nor in the flourish of an acrobat, but in the precise economy of a familiar gesture; his fingertips settled on the brim of his fedora—wide, shaded toward a dark violet, its crown reading like an ink line printed with stippled shading—and in that touch was the coolness of a mechanism, an old salute offered to the world. His left arm bent at the waist, fingers holding the edge of his coat; the stance gave him a poised balance, like one who listens and is about to answer.
The overall impression was a triad of tones: the faded purple of his long coat (heavy cloth, broad shoulders, exact, severe tailoring); gloves of a matching purple that blurred the tips of his fingers; and a shirt as black as a closed book beneath a tight collar. Then, discordantly, pale blue trousers with rippling stripes, cut in a manner that produced a deliciously jarring contrast with the rest. A black belt flashed with a square brass buckle bearing a single distinct scratch. Every fold of his coat caught the sun and held it; every shadow in his hat became a small terrain of intent.
But his face could not be read; where features should have been there was sheer absence—a blackness that swallowed light, no eyes, no nose, no mouth. It was not a shadow cast by the sun; it was an erasure that left the hat seeming to hang in suspension—a symbol, not a face. For a measured instant I felt what one feels upon finding a familiar notebook open to a blank page: disquiet, then a strange exhilaration at the onset of a riddle.
He tapped the brim of his hat twice with a gloved finger—two dainty, sharp taps, ritual in their precision. I marked the motion in my mind as a physician marks a pulse; a gesture that served as punctuation over that ground.
"Listen," he said again, his voice polished, his consonants clipped so that each syllable bore weight; and though the sun bathed the place, there was in his tone the suggestion of lamps and corridors, and the deliberate attention one accords a ledger before setting it on the scales.
He did not hurry toward speech; he took a step and stopped, studying the three with the patience of one who measures with a ruler rather than with the eye. When he moved his left hand something small appeared: not a weapon, as I had feared, but a dark wooden board bound in leather—a careful man's wallet; yet on its edge, where the fingers gripped, was a smear no larger than a thumbprint of dust mixed with minute particles, nearer to plaster crumbs but threaded with a faint glimmer, as if powdered gold had blended with the soil. The smear frayed at one end and its granules were pressed in a direction that showed the motion of the hand that had borne it. A tiny detail. But it was everything.
"Small details, great certainties," he intoned like a spell; the phrase came cut and spare, belonging to his method. He bent slightly and touched the grass with his gloved finger, leaving no mark—a statement in itself. Then he straightened and whispered, sharpening his opening to a blade: "Listen, then."
There was about his bearing toward the group the proud restraint of one who serves among inspectors and sages; yet he did not ostentatiously display rank. He addressed Ancaues with polite gravity: "Neither a road-sergeant nor an inspector from Scotland Yard will find what is required by routine methods alone." He inclined his head and added—tapping his hat twice again—"and yet, we shall begin where they ought to begin."
I remember, with the precision of a physician's memory, the bend of his coat at the elbow, the frayed stitch above his left sleeve where perhaps he had drawn a pocket watch more than once, and the way the shadow of his hat fell as a perfect ellipse on the grass. That ellipse held no face, only intent. It settled over us like a question, and the whole hill readied itself to answer.
The detective passed the three shadows without sparing them a look and drew closer to the site of the former palace. He paused a moment as if sensing something, and looked—with that faceless gaze—at the green grass bending in the wind.
"Small details, great certainties," he muttered again; brief words, but they promised a patient unveiling