by Aaron Elkins
Julie made a resigned but reasonably cheerful sound. "Okay, I’ve been wanting to see some of the Hardy things we never got around to, anyway—the cottage at Bockhampton, things like that. Maybe I’ll do a little touring on my own while you two do your Sherlock Holmes thing up there." Her hand found Gideon’s knee under the table. "But you’re going to have to promise to be careful."
He covered her hand with his. "Of course we’ll be careful, but Abe’s right. There’s nothing to be careful about."
"And remember, you’re not a detective."
"She’s right," Abe put in.
Gideon shook his head despairingly. "Why does everyone find it so necessary to keep reminding me of that? When did I ever claim to be a detective?"
The barmaid cleared away the dishes, and Gideon refilled the flowered teapot from the metal pitcher of hot water that had been served along with it, pouring the water directly onto the two gigantic, soggy teabags—each one big enough for three pots of American tea. "There is one thing, Abe," he said. "I hope it’s okay with you if I don’t start until Saturday. Tomorrow Julie and I are going over to Lyme Regis. I want to see if I can hunt down the omniscient editor of the West Dorset Times."
Abe spread his hands and appealed to Julie. "You see the way it is? One minute you give them a job, and the next minute they’re asking for time off."
FOURTEEN
STONEBARROW FELL AGAIN
MYSTERY SKULL A HOAX
The "Mycenean Man of Stonebarrow Fell" was revealed yesterday to be a hoax that has left the anthropological establishment reeling with embarrassment. The much-heralded Bronze Age relic had in fact been stolen from the Greater Dorchester Museum of History and Archaeology and secretly implanted at Stonebarrow Fell, where it was subsequently "discovered" by expedition director Nathan G. Marcus.
In a tense scene at the dramatically isolated site high above Charmouth Beach, American physical antropologist Gideon P. Oliver denounced his countryman’s find as a fraud, and was immediately supported by representatives of the Wessex Antiquarian Society and the Horizon Foundation, the expedition’s joint sponsors. The abducted skull, actually some 27,000 years older than the British Bronze Age, has since been restored to its place of honor in Dorchester.
Professor Marcus has refused comment, but the Times has learned that he has been suspended and recommended for censure by the two sponsoring organizations. In his stead, Dr. Abraham I. Goldstein, Professor Emeritus, Columbia University, assisted by Professor Oliver …
With a sigh, Gideon put the word-processed draft on the desk. "This will be in today’s edition?"
"Yes," Ralph Chantry said, elbows on the desk, chubby fingers steepled in front of his lips. "I trust you have no objections?" Despite the overheating in his office, he was burrowed into a thick woolen sweater-vest.
Gideon shook his head. "No, I have no objections." What difference did it make? It would soon enough be front-page news in the small world of anthropology anyway, and that was the only world that would matter for Nate. "Well, maybe one. I don’t know that I exactly ‘denounced’ the thing."
Chantry took the paper, turned it toward himself, looked down his short, wide nose at it, and sniffed. "What would you say to ‘condemned’?"
"How about ‘indicated’?"
Chantry made a face. "Not enough drama. ‘Revealed’?"
They settled on "demonstrated." Chantry changed the word with a heavy blue pencil, made the required grammatical adjustments, and placed the sheet in a smudged, dog-eared folder, which he flung lightly into a wooden box labeled Egress in Gothic lettering.
"Now exactly what is it I can do for you?"
He peered sharply at Gideon over the tops of a pair of crescent-shaped reading glasses that sat precariously low on his nose, and out from under raised, meager eyebrows. The effect was at once shrewd and humorously sleepy, benign and obliquely malicious; W. C. Fields playing Benjamin Franklin. His head, bald except for a few strands lovingly combed from left to right across the top, was tilted alertly forward. Ralph Chantry looked as froglike as any man Gideon had ever seen. It would have been only faintly surprising to see him part his wide, dry lips, uncoil a ribbon of tongue, and haul in a fly.
"What I’d like to know, Mr. Chantry, is where you get your information on the Stonebarrow dig."
"I’m afraid that’s privileged. It’s accurate, is it not?"
"Yes, it’s accurate, but I’d still like to know."
"Afraid not, dear man. Isn’t done. The press in America has the same convention, I understand." He smiled amiably. "Would you care for some tea? Takes the chill out of one."
"No, thanks. Look, Mr. Chantry, a hardworking and dedicated"—Gideon couldn’t quite bring himself to say "brilliant"—"anthropologist has just had his reputation ruined up there—"
"As well it should have been!" Chantry cried with vigor. He lifted a dripping tea bag from his cup with a spoon and dashed it into an ashtray. "The man was given a scientific responsibility of no mean proportions, and he violated his trust. He perpetrated theft and fraud and God knows what else, all to aggrandize himself and support his vile theory. Mycenaeans indeed!" He pushed his Egress box crossly forward and back to show his indignation.
"I’m not so sure about all that," Gideon said. "I’m starting to wonder if he wasn’t victimized himself."
"Really? How very unpleasant. But see here; if you’re implying….Just what is it you’re implying?"
"I’m not really sure," Gideon said truthfully. "But something’s wrong." He leaned forward, his elbow on Chantry’s desk. "For one thing, you knew I was going to be at the site—and printed it—almost before I did. I hadn’t thought anyone knew."
Chantry waggled his eyebrows and smiled again. His teeth were tiny, pearly little nubbins like two neat and gleaming rows of pygmy corn. "Superior journalism, dear boy."
Gideon laughed in spite of himself. "Maybe so, but there’s more than journalism involved, I think. Let me ask you this: When you sent your reporter up there yesterday, did you tell him exactly what time to go, or was that just an accident?"
Chantry considered, tapping his teacup gently against his upper teeth. "My informant told me that ten o’clock Thursday morning would be a propitious time to call."
"Propitious," Gideon said. "Yes, if what you’re trying to do is ruin Nate Marcus." He wasn’t sure just when he’d swung over wholeheartedly to Julie’s theory that Nate had been set up, but he had.
"Really!" Chantry said pleasantly. "Do let’s be reasonable, shall we? I’m sure I don’t know what you’re going on about. Whyever should I wish to ruin Professor Marcus?"
"I don’t think you do, but I think someone could be using you." That had a foolishly theatrical ring to it, but he plowed on. "Don’t you think it’s awfully coincidental that your informant told you to send a reporter at the precise moment when everything was happening at once? If he’d gotten through the gate, he would have been right at the critical point, the…"
"Denouement?" Chantry offered.
"Exactly. Amazingly propitious, wouldn’t you say?"
"No, I wouldn’t." Chantry was firm. "I’d go as far as ‘serendipitous’—in the sense of turning up unanticipated consequences—but certainly not as far as ‘amazingly’ propitious. This sort of thing happens all the time in journalism. You fish for pilchard and you catch a sole."
"Mr. Chantry," Gideon said, "I suppose you know about Randy Alexander by now?"
"You mean that he was murdered? Yes. I was terribly, terribly sorry to learn that." He sounded as if he meant it. "And I assure you that if there is any way I can help in that matter, I certainly shall."
"Well, I think the skull and the murder may be related."
Chantry sat very still. "You think? Is there some reason for so thinking?"
"No, not really; not yet. But they have to be. It’s too wild a combination of events for them to be unrelated."
The editor studied him for a long time. "I’m afraid I don’t agree with you. I�
��ve seen stranger combinations of events, quite unrelated." He put his cup on his desk and leaned over. "Really, I am sorry," he said civilly, "but unless you come up with more convincing evidence, I simply cannot at this point reveal my informant, and that must be my final world. I’m sure you understand. Now, do let’s have a drink. I have some excellent sherry. And are you free for lunch?"
The interview was over. "No, sorry," Gideon said, standing up. "I’m meeting my wife. Thanks for your time." Then he added, a little grudgingly, "And I do understand your position."
"I’m so glad," Chantry said with a serene and froggy smile.
"EVEN if you didn’t learn anything from Mr. Chantry, it was worth coming to Lyme Regis for this!" Julie said between mouthfuls. "Yum!"
Gideon laughed. "I always liked a girl with a healthy appetite."
"Well, you’ve got one." She eyed the little jam pot, empty for a second time. "Do we dare ask for another refill?"
They were in the Goose House, a tiny, white, storybook cottage near the bottom of the crooked, climbing main street. They sat at a window looking down on the quiet beach, where fossil hunters took advantage of the mild weather to wander desultorily along the sand, turning over rocks with their toes. On the table between them was what was left of a hearty Dorset cream tea: Dorset dumplings filled with a rum-and-apple mixture and flavored with ginger, a pile of butter-drenched scones, jam, tea, and of course a bowl of heaped, clotted cream, as sweet and thick as ice cream. They had not breakfasted that morning, and they had done extremely well by the rich meal.
"Do you really want some more jam?" Gideon asked.
"You don’t have to sound so incredulous." She pushed away her plate and smiled contentedly. "No, I’ve had more than enough. I feel as if I’m made of clotted cream."
Gideon refilled the teapot with hot water and settled comfortably back. "Clotted cream looks terrific on you."
"I’m just lucky you like your women Rubenesque."
"Rubenesque? You’ve got a long way to go to Rubenesque. On the other hand, it’s a good thing I don’t like Modigliani."
Julie raised a single eyebrow at him but didn’t reply. As she poured the tea she said, "So you’re still down to four possible informants, right? Frawley or one of the three students."
"Five. Nate, too."
"Nate? Do you really think it could be Nate?"
"No, but you said ‘possible.’ He’d certainly be in a position to forward most of the information Chantry got." He put down his cup. "And what about Robyn? Or Arbuckle?"
"Robyn," Julie said, "or Arbuckle. Now there’s an interesting thought."
"Well, I’m just covering all the bases. I’m not really serious." Or was he? He considered. "You know, when you come down to it, Frederick Robyn is no friend of Nate’s, what with the way Nate’s been lambasting the Society. I suppose it’s possible—barely possible—that he’d want to get even."
"And Arbuckle?"
"No, I don’t think Paul has anything against Nate. He didn’t even want to be here. The poor guy just wants to get
back to Pleistocene man in France. But Robyn, now—"
"You don’t actually think he had anything to do with the murder, do you?"
"Well…" He shook his head sharply. "No, we’re being ridiculous. Unfair, too. Just because Nate, in his inimitable fashion, has been a little ungracious to him is hardly a reason to suspect him of fraud and murder."
"Still, it’s a possible motive."
"For the hoax, maybe, not for the murder. And anyway, there weren’t any visitors to the site the day Randy was killed, remember? That lets off both Robyn and Arbuckle. So we’re back to the original Suspects Four: Jack Frawley, Barry Fusco, Leon Something, and Sandra Something."
"And Nathan Something. As an outside possibility."
"Okay, right. Come on, let’s go see the town and walk off some clotted cream."
Lyme Regis had everything the guidebooks said it did: steep, narrow, winding streets; charming old pubs and inns bedecked with their original open-beam woodwork; quaint, clean shops; ancient cottages painted in soft pastels; a pretty harbor. Postcards, posters, and booklets celebrated the filming of The French Lieutenant’s Woman there, as if the village dated its true genesis from Meryl Streep’s arrival, but there were also signs—harder to find—of Jane Austen’s visits, of Louisa Musgrove’s dramatic fall in Persuasison, of the Duke of Monmouth’s ill-fated landing in 1685.
Yet, with it all, the village was vaguely unsatisfying; perhaps it was the insistent Olde Englande atmosphere, cloying after Charmouth’s simple, homespun ambience. They walked down Marine Parade to take the obligatory tourist’s hike along the tilting top of the Cobb, the serpentine breakwater of gray stone blocks, but even this seemed tame. There were no waves or wind, and the tide was out, so that the boats moored within the crook of the Cobb lay sprawled clumsily on their sides in the gray mud.
But standing at the very end of the Cobb, facing east, they looked across smooth, open water at the fresh, green, billowing coast of Dorset. The rounded dome of Stonebarrow Fell was easily identifiable and looked, from here, peaceful and lovely. They gazed out, Gideon’s arm about Julie’s shoulder, her arm around his waist under his jacket, her hand resting in his far hip pocket.
She straightened suddenly. "I just had a thought. What Barry told you was that there weren’t any visitors, right?"
"Right," Gideon said dreamily, continuing to stare over the water.
"Well, would Frederick Robyn be a visitor? Or Paul? They must have their own keys. Barry wouldn’t have had to let them in. When Barry said there weren’t any visitors—"
"He wouldn’t necessarily have meant them," Gideon said, snapping alert. "Damn, that’s right. Robyn lent me his key yesterday. He might have been there! Now that’s something I want to look into."
"No, it isn’t," Julie said firmly.
"It isn’t?"
"No. It’s something for you to tell Inspector Bagshawe, and for him to look into."
He smiled. "I keep forgetting; I’m not a detective." He glanced at is watch. "What I am is an anthropologist, and inasmuch as it’s only two o’clock, maybe I ought to go up to the dig this afternoon, after all, and see if I can help Abe out."
"Absolutely not. You told him tomorrow. Anyway, by the time you got back to Charmouth, changed into working clothes, and climbed the hill, it’d practically be dark. How about a drive in the country instead? To Cricket St. Thomas."
"Because you like the name?"
"Of course."
"Fine. I had such a good time not finding Wootton Fitzpaine, I bet not finding Cricket St. Thomas would be just as much fun."
"If we can’t, there’s always Burton Bradstock or Whitechurch Canonicorum. Or, in a pinch, Sleech Wood."
"IT’S only a little thing," Abe muttered, "but still I don’t like it." He was staring at a three-by-five-inch index card in his hand. With his other hand he tugged gently at his lower lip. "Something funny, something funny."
Gideon had arrived at Stonebarrow Fell at 8:30 a.m., expecting to be the first one there, but Barry, Leon, and Sandra were already at the trench, working under Frawley’s direction, and observed by a yawning police constable. Abe had been in the shed, poring over the expedition records spread on the table in front of him. The heater had thoroughly warmed the building, indicating he’d been there for some time, and the coffeepot was already halfway down.
Gideon poured himself a cup. "What’s funny?"
"There’s no milk for the coffee," Abe said, still looking at the card, "only powdered stuff. Tomorrow I’ll bring some real milk, from cows. Partially hydrogenated coconut oil who needs?"
"I’ll bring it," Gideon said. "What’s funny?" he asked again.
Abe handed him the card. "Have a look at this."
It was a "find card," a device that is commonly used on archaeological digs. Its purpose is to make an immediate, on-the-spot record of every object discovered the moment it was found. The dirt smudges on this o
ne suggested that it had been used as intended.
The card was made up as a printed form with blank spaces for written entries. Gideon scanned it quickly. Site: CHA 2-2; Date: 11-1; Loc: Q1-5; Depth: 21" (12" had been written in before it, but had been crossed out); Descr: Human femur, left, partial. Proximal 100 mm.
There was illegible information scribbled after Matrix, Orientation, and Remarks; and finally, at the bottom, after Recorded by, Leon Hillyer’s name had been scrawled.
It was strange, Gideon thought, that he hadn’t heard anyone mention the earlier finding of a human bone. The femur, of course, was the thigh bone, and the "Proximal 100 mm." would consist of not the shaft itself but of the ball that inserts into the hip socket, along with an inch or two of femoral "neck"—the small, diagonal column of bone that joins the all to the shaft.
When he looked up, Abe said, "So? What do you see?"
Gideon shrugged. "Well, I hadn’t known they’d found any human remains—that is, before Pummy came up— and yet this was discovered a month ago. Aside from that, I don’t see anything strange."
"Okay, now look at this." He slid an open bound notebook across the table. "This is the field catalog. Look at November first."
Gideon looked and blinked with surprise. "There’s only one entry: ‘Number one-forty-nine: Four faience beads.’ There’s no bone listed."
"That’s right, and that’s what’s funny. Nathan is a little fartootst, but he knows how to run a dig, and when a dig is run right, every night you take the find cards and you enter the information in the permanent field catalog. You don’t miss a night. Otherwise, numbers get mixed up, things get lost….You know this; what am I telling you?"
