Page 236 of The Hallmarked Man
‘You’ve got to believe in a single higher power to be a mason. Doesn’t have to be any particular God.’
‘This, in spite of the fact that most of the symbolism is Christian and weighs towards the Crusades?’
‘Still only symbolism,’ said Hardacre. ‘We aren’t aiming to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem any more. Just to erect it in our own pure hearts.’
Strike snorted, then said,
‘Ever read any A. H. Murdoch?’
‘Not much,’ said Hardacre. ‘The language is pretty flowery and obscure. I preferBridge to Light.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Popular introduction to the Scottish Rite.’
‘Bridges are a thing in Freemasonry, are they?’
‘What d’you mean, “thing”?’
‘Bridges have cropped up a bit,’ said Strike.
‘How?’
‘Semple freaked out about crossing a masonic bridge on a run, and I’ve got some Scottish woman calling the office, who thinks something’s hidden under a bridge.’
Hardacre drank some beer, eyed Strike thoughtfully for a moment or two, then said,
‘There’s a bit inMorals and Dogma, another key text on the Scottish Rite, about a bridge. “The retreating general may cut away a bridge behind him, to delay pursuit and save the main body of his army, though he thereby surrenders a detachment to certain destruction.” It says such action isn’t unjust, but “may infringe some dreamer’s ideal rule of justice”.’
‘Interesting,’ said Strike. ‘That might chime with Semple being angry his mate Liddell had been sacrificed.’
‘Yeah. And when you’re inducted into the fifteenth degree, there’s a bridge, too.’
‘What, literally?’
‘They don’t generally hammer one together out of wood in the middle of the temple, no,’ said Hardacre, ‘but there’s a symbolic representation of one.’
‘What happens – troll jumps out and gets you, if you get the password wrong?’
‘Ha ha,’ said Hardacre. ‘You cross the bridge, over a river in which body parts are floating—’
‘Body parts?’
‘It’s symbolic, Oggy,’ said Hardacre.
Slightly to Strike’s surprise, his old friend seemed half-embarrassed, half-defiant, so he decided to leave off flippant comments about Freemasonry, for the moment.
‘How highly would you say masons prize the medals—’
‘Jewels,’ Hardacre corrected him.
‘—jewels they get for achieving the degrees?’
‘Well, they probably wouldn’t want to lose them. Why?’
‘Because Semple seems to have either taken something valuable, or something he thought was valuable, with him to London – or picked it up here, I suppose. He had a briefcase handcuffed to him, last time he was seen.’
‘If he’d got obsessive about Freemasonry, he might’ve thought it was important to keep his regalia with him,’ said Hardacre.
