"Exactly, except they run into each other. There's no pattern."
"Do you think something was thrown at these skulls?"
"No. Too precise," Ralph said.
"Bullets?"
"Improbable."
"Let's check for lead anyway."
There was no lead, but there was platinum.
A rounded platinum device of some sort had, with incredible precision, nicked the skulls of the victims found in the dump.
They were identified eventually by their teeth, having been provided extensive dental care by the British taxpayer in reward for their having been caught burglarizing British homes and sent safely off to warm jail cells. They were simple criminals, no one got excited about them, and they were buried and forgotten.
But not by those people who made a living breaking into others' homes. They understood the message. One did not enter the simple shop in Paddington with the white chrysanthemum in the window.
Entrance was by invitation only and then only to those who were lucky enough to be considered for a weapon designed by the hands of Mr. Hamuta.
Such as the middle-aged British lord with a friend who turned the handle of the shop door one day and found delightedly that the door actually opened.
"Good luck, what?" he said.
"Perhaps," said his friend, who had already bought one of Hamuta's weapons. "Hope your stomach is up for it."
"Never had problems with my stomach," the lord harrumphed.
When they shut the door behind them, they heard a dead bolt click like steel ramming into steel. The middle-aged lord wanted to turn and test the door to see if they could get out but his friend quickly shook his head.
A square black lacquered table sat in the middle of the floor with three small pads set around it. The two men took off their hats and when the lord saw his friend kneel down on one of the mats, he did the same. The room was quiet and only dim light filtered in from an overhead skylight. After a while, the lord's knees began to hurt. He looked to his friend. He wanted to stand and stretch but the friend again shook his head.
When the lord thought he would never again get feeling back into his numb legs, a squat man with eyes as black as space entered and knelt at the table. He had white hair that showed age and he stared at the lord who wanted the weapon. His eyes felt as if they could undress the lord's soul.
"So you think you are worthy to kill," said Mr. Hamuta.
"Well, I had planned on purchasing a weapon. I must say I was delighted when you considered me. So to speak. You see?"
"So you think you are worthy to kill?" Hamuta repeated.
The friend nodded for the lord to say yes, but all the lord wanted was a gun. He wasn't sure he wanted to kill anything. He had been thinking of something for the mantelpiece. Expensive, yes, but that was part of the beauty. And maybe in a few years he would take it down for a hunt. Major game, perhaps. But he had not thought of the gun in exactly those terms. More as an ornament.
The friend nodded toward him again, this time with anger and tension on his face.
"Yes, yes," said the lord.
Hamuta clapped his hands. A woman shuffled forward in a black kimono, carrying a tea tray.
When she had finished serving them, Hamuta said, "Would you kill her?"
"I don't know her," the lord said. "There is no reason for me to kill her."
"What if I told you she had served you poison?"
"Did she?"
"Come," said Hamuta with ill-disguised contempt. "I do not have my own wife killed and I do not serve poison. I make weapons, however, that are made to kill, not to hang upon walls. Are you worthy of a Hamuta?"
"I was thinking of a large-caliber--"
"He's worthy to kill," said the friend.
Hamuta smiled and rose. The friend nudged the lord to rise too. The lord could barely stand and he swayed, waiting for the blood to get back to his stinging tingly legs. Both of them hobbled after Hamuta, who led them down three flights of steps, deep beneath the streets of Paddington, deep into British soil.
A large room, almost the length of the main ballroom at Buckingham Palace, was dimly lit by flickering candles. The lord watched smoke rise from the candles. He saw a gentle curve to the right. The air ducts were there.
"So you think you are worthy to kill?" Hamuta said and laughed.
"I think so. Yes, I am," said the lord. Of course he was. Hadn't he dropped an elk in Manitoba three years ago and a rhino in Uganda the year before that? Good shot, too. Right in the neck. Of course if you shot a rhino anywhere else there was a spot of trouble because you couldn't drop him. So, yes. He was absolutely worthy to kill.
"Good," said Hamuta. He clapped his hands again and the woman was there with a small-bore single-shot rifle.
He's not going to ask me to kill the woman, thought the lord. I'm not going to.
"Whom would you kill?" asked Hamuta.
"Well, of course not the woman. Right?"
"Of course not. A woman is unworthy of death by a Hamuta." He put the weapon into the lord's hands. The nobleman had never felt a balance like that, nor such an obvious elegance of precision.
"It's beautiful," he said.
Hamuta nodded. "You are worthy in taste," he said.
He clapped his hands again and the woman returned with four bullets on a bed of fresh green azalea leaves. Hamuta took the bullets and cleaned off any moisture. The shells were polished brass and the slugs a shiny substance.
"That's not silver is it?" asked the lord. "Not silver-tipped bullets?"
"Silver is too soft. Lead is even softer. Copper is barely adequate. But for a perfect gun, only platinum is worthy. Are you worthy of it?"
"Yes, by Jove. Yes, I am worthy."
Hamuta nodded.
The lord looked again at the gun in his hands. "It's a very simple gun," he said. "There's no silver. No engraving."